Civil and political rights

By the time COVID-19 was announced as a Public Health Emergency at the end of January 2020, the need for more data to understand both the virus and its impacts was clear. Now, more than ever before, data are needed to support decision-making on developing effective solutions that ...

Earlier this month, Maria Ressa, a prominent journalist and outspoken critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, was found guilty of cyber libel in another concerning development for media freedom in the country. While the incident was notable on its own terms, it also spotlighted the wider troubles ...

A wave of arrests and a one-month publishing ban on a news site over its investigations into environmental damage signal that Vietnam is suppressing criticism ahead of the country’s Party Congress, press freedom groups said.     On June 12, authorities charged Le Huu Minh Tuan, from ...

‘This cannot be serious” was my initial reaction to news reports saying the Transport Company is imposing a ban on foreign travellers as a measure to curb the spread of Covid-19. Or it might be fake news? In fact, such news reports are strange enough to ...

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in a report published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed her concern over human rights violations, particularly on the freedom of speech, in Cambodia and some other countries in the ...

A 70-year-old Australian democracy activist has “disappeared” inside Vietnam’s prison system: no one from his family or the Australian government has been allowed to see or speak with him for nearly four months.  Human rights advocates, lawyers and Chau Van Kham’s family said the charges against him are baseless ...

The Cambodian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it had received a diplomatic note from Thailand asking the former to verify news reports documenting the disappearance of a Thai pro-democracy activist. It was unclear if this was a request for a criminal investigation. VOA Khmer reported on Friday ...

Some 100 supporters of a Thai political activist who was snatched from the streets of Cambodia’s capital in broad daylight protested Monday in front of the country’s embassy in Bangkok, demanding that Phnom Penh investigate his case, while Cambodian officials continued to disavow knowledge of ...

Authorities in Vietnam and Laos have arrested several Facebook users on charges related to the coronavirus, with Hanoi punishing posts that challenge official reporting on the pandemic and Vientiane acting against a lockdown violation streamed live. The two arrests in Vietnam come as the Communist Party ...

Writing in Asia Times last year about the state of Cambodia’s media (“A bad day all around for Cambodian media,” published July 2019), I opined: “If the relationship of a journalist to politicians is supposed to be that of a dog to lampposts, as one ...