Human rights

One of Vietnam’s best-known climate activists has been sentenced to three years in prison over tax evasion. Hoang Thi Minh Hong is the fifth Vietnamese activist to be jailed over the charge. Campaigners say it is part of a state-authorised move to silence criticism of the country’s ...

Hoang Thi Minh Hong, the prominent Vietnamese environmentalist, was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of tax evasion at the end of a brief trial in Ho Chi Minh City on Sept. 28. Members of the diplomatic community who attempted to attend the trial were denied ...

Geneva (VNA) – Ambassador Le Thi Tuyet Mai has highlighted Vietnam’s policy on promoting and protecting all people’s enjoyment of human rights while addressing a general debate on UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk’s updated report on the global human rights situation. The debate on September 13 was ...

(Bangkok) – The Cambodian government has issued an order to internet service providers to block access to online websites and social media accounts of three major independent media outlets, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should lift its orders to block access to the three outlets ...

Bangladesh is not doing enough to protect Rohingya from increasing violence by armed groups and criminal gangs operating in the refugee camps near the country’s border with Myanmar, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. Some of these stateless refugees who fled from persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine ...

The former publisher of independent news outlet The Irrawaddy has been sentenced to five years in prison for sedition, marking the latest in a barrage of attacks on the press in Myanmar following the 2021 military coup. Thaung Win was sentenced by the military-controlled Western Yangon District Court ...

Cambodia’s leader Hun Sen has quit Facebook and threatened to block it in his country after the platform’s oversight board recommended he be suspended for six months. Hun Sen had called for violence against his political opponents in a video in January which was viewed 600,000 ...

Land legally designated or owned by Indigenous, Afro-descendant and local communities increased by 102.9 million hectares (254 million acres), larger than the size of Egypt, between 2015 and 2020, according to a new report released by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). These groups now own more ...

BANGKOK – An isolated murder, a brutal attempted killing and a murky disappearance: Laotian activists have been caught up in a series of alarming incidents recently that have spooked the reclusive communist state’s embattled dissident community. Landlocked, poor and deeply tied to China, Laos is one of ...

The United States and United Nations has criticised Vietnam’s detention of a prominent climate activist, saying such actions were part of a broader trend towards curbing free speech. Hoang Thi Minh Hong, the founder of now-defunct NGO CHANGE, which aimed to tackle some of the country’s most ...