Human rights

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 ...

Human rights groups have welcomed the early release from prison of Nguy Thi Khanh, a prominent Vietnamese climate campaigner. Khanh was incarcerated for allegedly not paying tax on her winnings from the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize in the summer of 2022, a charge human rights and climate groups have condemned. She ...

Two Cambodian opposition figures have been charged under the country’s rarely used lese majeste law with insulting King Norodom Sihamoni for posts made on Facebook about a photograph of the king and Prime Minister Hun Sen. A judge at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday ...

There were tears at Cambodia’s Voice of Democracy on Monday as journalist Khan Leakhena reacted to the sudden order to close the news website. “I worked here not for money, but due to my love,” said Khan Leakhena, as others comforted the reporter. Khan Leakhena is one ...

Myanmar’s junta has been responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity since the military coup in February 2021, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2023. The security forces have been implicated in mass killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, sexual violence, and attacks on civilians in ...

Toru Kubota landed in Japan Friday morning after he was freed from prison and deported by Myanmar’s junta on Thursday.   The 26-year-old filmmaker and video journalist arrived in Tokyo on a scheduled flight from Yangon via Bangkok. Kubota said upon landing that he wanted to express his gratitude ...

Myanmar’s junta has officially banned online news outlet The Irrawaddy and charged the outlet’s registered publisher for violating national security laws, state media reported over the weekend, following months of legal harassment. The ban is the latest on at least 20 media groups – news agencies, ...

From cries of “fake news” in the United States and Brazil to the Marcos family’s return to power in the Philippines, the growing role of misinformation and disinformation in the global political landscape is a very real concern. The spread of deliberately deceitful and unintentionally ...