Town square test is a threshold test for a free society proposed by a former Soviet dissident and human rights activist Natan Sharansky, now a notable politician in Israel.
In his book The Case for Democracy , published in 2004, Sharansky explains the term: "If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a 'fear society' has finally won their freedom." [1]
The test became famous after George W. Bush endorsed the book [2] and Condoleezza Rice referenced it to characterize "a fear society" in her prepared remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 18, 2005:
The world should apply what Natan Sharansky calls the "town square test": if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a "fear society" has finally won their freedom. [3]
Rice went on to identify Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Zimbabwe as examples of outposts of tyranny. [3]
Refusenik was an unofficial term for individuals—typically, but not exclusively, Soviet Jews—who were denied permission to emigrate, primarily to Israel, by the authorities of the Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc. The term refusenik is derived from the "refusal" handed down to a prospective emigrant from the Soviet authorities.
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Natan Sharansky, born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky, is an Israeli politician, human rights activist, and author who, as a refusenik in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, spent nine years in Soviet prisons. He served as Chairman of the Executive for the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018. Sharansky currently serves as chairman for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), an American non-partisan organization.
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Vazif Sirazhutdinovich Meylanov was a Soviet mathematician, social philosopher, writer, Soviet dissident and political prisoner (1980–1989). He became renowned for his critical works on theory of socialism as well as for singular endurance and uncompromising attitude towards authorities during his prison terms. After imprisonment and exile Vazif Meylanov dealt with the problem of personal freedom, examined social and political environment, dispelled stereotypes about Russian democracy and analyzed political consciousness of Russian society. Besides, he was an opponent of nationalism and Islamism, while he proposed that the idea of rule of human rights should be a basis for human relationships and strong state machine should enforce rights.
Avital Sharansky is a former activist and public figure in the Soviet Jewry Movement who fought for the release of her husband, Natan Sharansky, from Soviet imprisonment.
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