What are the standards of transparency and integrity for political elites in your country? Investigations into South Korea’s then President Park Geun-hye, her aide Choi Soon-sil, and several senior staff members began in October 2016, after it was alleged they used their influence to extort money from several prominent businesses, including Samsung. It was reported that Samsung paid $18 million to a consulting firm controlled by Choi Soon-sil, spent another $8 million supporting the Korean equestrian team where Choi’s daughter Chung Yoo-ra is a rider, and purchased an $830,000 horse for Chung. The political scandal was widely publicized and culminated in Park’s impeachment in December of that year. In March of 2017 South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment in an 8-0 decision marking the first time a sitting democratically-elected president has been removed from office in South Korea. This photograph captures the indignation of South Koreans over that scandal with a sign that translates to, “Let’s go to jail big sister.” The scandal sparked several weeks of protests in South Korea.

Alfonso De Gregorio is an Italian documentary photographer based in the United Arab Emirates. He believes that photography can spotlight social, cultural, and environmental realities and, in doing so, provide a powerful and political commentary about the world we live in.

A protester is led away by police officers during an anti-corruption protest on June 12, 2017 in Moscow.

Russia is claimed to be one of the most unequal of the world’s major economies, with the richest 10% of Russians owning an estimated 87% of all the country’s wealth. This inequality is in part attributed to corruption, but charges are rarely brought against the political elite despite evidence of their corrupt behaviour. Led by the popular opposition figure Alexey Navalny, anti-corruption activists staged nationwide protests on June 12, 2017 as the country celebrated Russia Day. Over 1,000 protestors were detained.

Navalny has alleged corruption at the highest levels of the Russian government. After campaigning in 2017 for the presidency, he was barred from running in the 2018 election. This ban was due to an embezzlement-related conviction following a trial later called “arbitrary and unfair” by the European Court of Human Rights. The 2018 election resulted in Vladimir Putin securing a fourth presidential term. Putin has been in power in Russia, as either president or prime minister, since 2000.

Alexander Anufriev was born in Ukhta, Russia, and worked at an advertising agency after buying his first camera in 2012. Since completing a documentary program at the Rodchenko Art School, he works on projects describing and analysing the social landscape of contemporary Russia.

This photograph shows people surrounding the remains of a car previously engulfed in flames in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In the last ten years, over 16,000 fire incidents have occurred in Bangladesh, killing an estimated 1,590 people. The fires are frequently attributed to illegal storage of chemicals in unregulated warehouses in Old Dhaka. This highly congested part of the city – with a population density of approximately 1,100 people per acre – is home to nearly 15,000 chemical warehouses. The volume and type of these chemicals combined with lax and unenforced safety standards contribute to the devastating nature and frequency of these fires and the tragic, preventable loss of human life they cause.

While safety rules became tougher in the wake of the 2013 Rana Plaza garment factory disaster, safety lapses causing deaths continue due to “…greed…corruption and mismanagement,” as the chief executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association observed. The government has ordered the owners of some of these chemical warehouses to move their businesses out of the area, but, to date, the orders have not been enforced. Underscoring the lack of accountability, no action has been taken against the owners of one warehouse that caused a 2010 fire, which killed 124 people.