Civil and political rights

The government has granted itself pervasive snooping powers to effectively monitor all electronic communication and punish anything deemed to have caused “national insecurity”, a legal analysis of the recently passed telecommunications law has warned. In a briefing paper released on 31 March, rights group Licadho ...

Police in Hanoi have fined five people up to VND20 million (US$900) each for running Facebook pages that tell people how to avoid police officers. Keep reading ...

Police in Ratanakkiri province on 15 March ordered rights group Adhoc to call off a planned workshop meant to inform local indigenous communities of their rights, claiming the NGO had failed to secure the necessary permission from authorities. Keep reading ...

Two unionists jailed since February 2 have been released on bail by the Kompong Speu Provincial Court in Cambodia, officials said on 10 March, although they remain charged with incitement and intentional violence in connection with a protest outside the Cerie garment factory. Keep reading ...

The challenge to press freedom is still of concern this year, said the re-elected president of the Thai Journalists Association on 4 March. Keep reading ...

A prominent anti-dam activist in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province who has been jailed since October was convicted on 3 March of illegal logging and given a suspended prison sentence, allowing him to walk free but leaving the shadow of a criminal conviction hanging over him. The decision ...

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s (CPP) popularity will continue to wane, and change is on the horizon for Cambodia, although that change could be violent, according to the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) 2016 report. The BTI has been published every two years since 2006, monitoring countries’ progress ...

In what many have hailed as a new dawn in terms of respect for human rights in Myanmar with the coming to power of a National League for Democracy government, some activists are questioning how much, and how soon, anything is going to change. The focus is ...

The Myanmar government has said it will not respond to Amnesty International’s annual report, in which the rights group on 25 February criticised it for failing to address religious discrimination and human rights abuses. The report also alleged there was an ongoing climate of impunity for ...

A reporter for local television station MSJ TV was briefly de­tained and questioned by police on 20 February for allegedly inciting residents who are facing eviction from their riverside homes in Kom­pong Chhnang City, a journalist and officials said on 21 February. Ngunly Theara, a news reader ...