That seems pretty dubious to me. Despotic regimes behaving badly is not really new or "interesting" to much of anyone. It's interesting because it's a current event, which means it should not be here.

Maybe not new, but definitely interesting. You're far too cynical.

This kind of thing goes on all the time, all over the world, to varying degrees. It's definitely something I'd read about in The Economist, but it's not at all "intellectually gratifying", and is off topic as a political current event for this site.

It's about as intellectually gratifying as the latest world cup results, but maybe not as much as Andrew Talansky's recent victory at the Critérium du Dauphiné, which was accomplished with daring tactics and great racing.

And yet, it has made its way to the front page.

If I get together enough people, I could probably get the bike racing results on the front page too!

The fact that people voted for it has no bearing on whether it's off topic. If you want a pure popularity contest, the most "intellectually gratifying" thing out there might turn out to be Justin Bieber articles or something like that.

Here is a previous, more complete comment of mine on why politics is bad for sites like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530

You said it wasn't interesting. I disagreed. It appears others have also. My final word on this. Feel free to have the last word, if you like.

Ok, I'll try and explain it in another way: it's an interesting bit of news for people like me who follow current events. It's sad to see it happening after the 'Arab Spring', and I wonder how it will affect other countries, what the US reaction to it will be, and so on.

So it's "interesting" and important from a current events/politics point of view. But not at all in a "deeper understanding of the world" way. The latter is what Hacker News should be about. There are tons of sites for the former.