Civil and political rights

With a Nobel Peace Laureate poised to lead the next government, human rights activists are concerned they are in line for a major disappointment. Andrew MacGregor, from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said he feared “we are in a honeymoon period”. Keep reading ...

Anne-Sophie Gindroz, a former Swiss humanitarian worker in Laos, observed forced displacement and evictions of rural populations to make way for dams and other controversial infrastructure and plantation projects in the impoverished Southeast Asian country.  Gindroz, who was the country director for Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, ...

Journalists in Magwe blocked from parliament for the past five years have had their hopes of entering the chamber dashed. The previous hluttaw, dominated by Union Solidarity and Development Party representatives, refused to grant them access. But at the opening of the Magwe Region Hluttaw on ...

In what has become a yearly tradition, Human Rights Watch levelled a broadside of criticisms at the Cambodian government on 27 January, accusing it in its annual report of enacting “draconian” legislation and granting itself broad “arbitrary powers” to suppress dissent. The global report’s Cambodia section ...

With so many supporters soon to be in high places, the Former Political Prisoner Society has high expectations of the incoming National League for Democracy government. About 100 of the MPs preparing to take their seats on 1 February, including NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu ...

The government has been active in dealing with enforced disappearances, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said on 7 January. Mr Sek’s comments came after the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on 6 January urged the government to step up efforts to investigate the whereabouts of 82 ...

Hacktivists took over four police websites, including the metropolitan police, on 4 January night, with messages demanding justice. Keep reading ...

Still defiant, three of the four Yadanabon University students jailed in October on riot charges were released from Mandalay’s Ohbo Prison on 22 December. A fourth, Ko Naing Ye Wai, remains behind bars. Their conviction followed a demonstration in front of the university last June in ...

More than 100 family representatives on 21 December filed complaints at Ratanakkiri Provincial Hall and the Interior Ministry, claiming that requests to be issued with identity cards so they could vote in upcoming elections were denied by local police officials. The villagers who signed the letter, representing ...

Washington must withhold trade agreements and assistance from Laos until its government can demonstrate concrete progress on human rights and democratic reform in the one party communist country, the head of an advocacy group has recommended to U.S. lawmakers.Mutually beneficial trade arrangements and political exchanges ...