Financial Freedom Report #97

By HRF in bitcoin — Nov 13, 2025

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has raised alarm over an escalating crisis for press freedom in Pakistan, where local journalists and media workers are being financially targeted.

Meanwhile, in North Korea, police are arresting street currency exchangers and sending them to labor camps, further consolidating the totalitarian regime’s control over currency flows.

In freedom tech news, HRF supported the first Casa21 retreat in São Paulo, Brazil, bringing together developers from leading open-source and customizable hardware wallet projects to strengthen the global DIY hardware signer ecosystem and ensure human rights defenders and users everywhere can access secure self-custody tools.

We conclude with an article underscoring Bitcoin’s neutrality and its role as a universal human rights technology.

Now, let’s explore the full picture.

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GLOBAL NEWS

Pakistan | Financial Targeting of Journalists

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has raised alarm over an escalating crisis for press freedom in Pakistan. IFJ leaders cited widespread non-payment of salaries, harassment, forced layoffs, and the misuse of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) against journalists. The IFJ also criticized undeclared censorship imposed by government institutions and condemned the mass layoffs and delayed or unpaid wages as an “economic massacre” of media workers. The Pakistani regime has notoriously financially targeted dissenting voices in the past.

North Korea | Police Detain Informal Currency Changers

North Korean police in the border city of Hyesan are arresting street-level money changers for unlicensed foreign currency trading and sending them to labor camps. Enforcement has disproportionately targeted informal currency traders, leaving larger operations of the politically connected untouched. The effort consolidates the totalitarian regime’s control over currency flows. With the North Korean won rapidly losing purchasing power, restricting access to alternative currencies deepens ordinary citizens’ vulnerability to inflation and economic instability.

Kuwait | Bank Accounts of Stateless Residents Frozen

Banks in Kuwait began freezing the accounts of individuals whose citizenship was revoked or never recognized under the country’s nationality law. Individuals who did not update their residency or accept an “assigned nationality” from state security services by a recent deadline are now barred from using bank cards, receiving wages, or accessing savings, leaving many unable to feed their families or pay rent. These actions disproportionately affect minority populations, including women, members of Kuwait’s political opposition, and the country’s Bedoun communities, who have struggled for decades to gain full recognition and citizenship rights. The deliberate use of banking and identification systems as tools of exclusion and control raises broad human rights concerns.

Tunisia | Bank Staff Strike Halts Financial Transactions

In Tunisia, bank employees launched a two-day strike demanding wage increases that halted financial transactions nationwide as the country faces deepening debt obligations and rapidly rising prices. Long lines formed at ATMs, many reportedly out of service, leaving citizens unable to access cash for basic needs. Union leaders said a rapidly rising cost of living has sharply eroded workers’ purchasing power.

In Context: The strike comes amid President Kais Saied’s continued consolidation of power since 2021, marked by a widening crackdown on civil society and political opponents. With three more NGOs suspended just last week, the strike underscores Tunisia’s worsening economic crisis and the shrinking space for dissent in a country where labor movements have played a key role in realizing democratic aspirations.

Thailand | New Anti-Scam Measures Implemented

The Bank of Thailand announced new measures to enhance monitoring of payments, financial institutions, and money transfer services to combat online scams and financial fraud. Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said the central bank will step up due diligence, prioritize investigations into suspicious transactions, and require immediate reporting of irregular activity from banks, currency exchanges, and gold traders. While the policy aims to disrupt transnational criminal networks engaged in online scams and human trafficking, experts fear such a development may lead to broader surveillance of digital transactions and payments, which could threaten the privacy of many Southeast Asian dissidents based in Thailand.

BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS

Fedi | Anyone Can Start a Federation

Fedi, a company leveraging Bitcoin and ecash technology to support global communities, released the G-Bot Federation Setup Service. This tool simplifies the process of using the Fedi app to create a Bitcoin federation, a community-based custody network that lets groups or families securely hold and transact bitcoin together. G-Bot automates the technical steps of configuring guardians, setting up hosting, and connecting to Lightning and ecash infrastructure, allowing communities to launch federations without coding experience.

Why this matters: G-Bot meaningfully lowers the entry barrier for activists, journalists, and educators in authoritarian regimes to create and participate in private, community-based Bitcoin custody.

Machankura | Fully Self-Custodial Wallet in Test Phase

Machankura, a popular Lightning wallet in Africa known for enabling offline Bitcoin transactions via the USSD protocol, announced that it is testing a fully self-custodial version of its wallet. Machankura enables people to send and receive bitcoin without an internet connection by dialing a short code on a feature phone. Offline Bitcoin access is a critical tool for users in countries with low internet penetration rates.

Why this matters: A self-custodial model means Machankura users can hold their own keys, eliminating third-party access and strengthening financial sovereignty for individuals and dissidents using it for Bitcoin access in authoritarian regimes.

Lightspark | Introduces Lightspark Grid

Lightspark, a company building the Bitcoin payments protocol Spark, introduced Lightspark Grid, a developer-focused payments application programming interface (API) that allows businesses to send, receive, and settle value globally in real time. The API abstracts Spark’s layer-two infrastructure into programmable commands, such as creating wallets, sending payouts, or issuing cards.

Why this matters: Opening Spark to developers creates a foundation others can build upon, enabling new services for remittances, payroll, rewards, and cross-border settlement across fiat currency, stablecoins, and bitcoin worldwide.

Freedom Tech | HRF Supports Casa21 DIY Hardware Retreat

HRF supported the first Casa21 retreat in São Paulo, bringing together developers from Krux, SeedSigner, and SpecterDIY, three leading open-source and customizable hardware wallet projects using the Bitcoin Micropython library, Embit. The gathering, organized by Vinteum, marked the first in-person meeting of these teams and led to a plan for collaboratively maintaining and improving Embit.

Why this matters: It’s often hard to obtain a name-brand hardware wallet in authoritarian societies. This collaboration strengthens the global DIY hardware signer ecosystem, ensuring activists and users everywhere can access unbranded, open-source, and secure self-custody tools.

OpenSats | 13th Wave of Nostr Grants Announced

OpenSats, a public nonprofit that funds free and open-source projects, announced its 13th round of grants supporting the decentralized Nostr protocol. Among the new recipients are Keydex, a secure backup and recovery tool that uses Shamir’s Secret Sharing to protect private keys and sensitive data, and Grasp, a Nostr-native alternative to GitHub that enables open, censorship-resistant code collaboration through decentralized relays.

Why this matters: Keydex helps human rights defenders and journalists back up and recover critical data without relying on centralized storage providers vulnerable to surveillance or seizure. Grasp offers a more resilient development platform for global developers building and maintaining freedom tech in adversarial environments.