Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC)

Thailand is home to over 6 million indigenous people. Yet many are outlawed, denied basic rights, and subject to many forms of oppression. This must change.  According to the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, about 10% of the population belongs to 60 indigenous and ethnic ...

Telecom firms under focus for ultimatum to phone users on submission of photos; isoc denies sending registration message Rights defenders raised concerns yesterday over the move to force all |cellphone users in the restive South to submit their pictures for facial-recognition identification. Those who fail to do ...

Nearly 100 residents living along a stretch of land running from a railway in Boeung Kak to National Road 5 have gathered again outside City Hall to demand information about the development of a new road threatening to destroy their homes. Their protest came as ...

Media associations on Tuesday called for the broadcast regulator to review its order to suspend Voice TV for seven days. The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission on Monday suspended the digital channel’s licence over what was labelled repeated misconduct. In a joint statement signed by ...

Exclusion of women, people living in remote areas and ethnic groups creates chronic barriers for human development progress and leads to significant disparities within the Asia-Pacific region, leaving many behind, according to UNDP. This is one of the key findings of the Human Development Report ...

A leaked statement from King Norodom Sihamoni circulated on social media since Sunday, nearly a month after he signed it, calls on citizens to vote for their preferred party in the upcoming elections without “worry of suppression, threats or intimidation”. The statement, signed by the ...

High court lawyer U Robert San Aung who is representing Ko Nyan Myo Aung, a student who staged a one-man protest earlier this month, has applied to the court to take action against the authorities for allegedly violating the privacy rights of his client. Ko Nyan ...

While Cambodia in theory offers full citizenship to members of its Khmer Krom minority, in practise, many members of the community remain in a legal shadowland, unable to access a wide range of rights, a new report released yesterday shows. Despite a professed open-door policy ...

The flotilla spat appears to have come to an agreeable end. Myanmar has permitted a group of Malaysian organisations to send aid earmarked for Rakhine State after an official permission request was forwarded to the president, and a delegation smoothed over the arrangements on January ...

Sitting on the edge of the dock, 68-year-old Vichay angrily pointed to three crumpled sheets of paper as he shuffled them around in his right hand. These wrinkled pages, he said, were the last remnants of evidence proving he owned the 15 hectares of land ...