Human rights

An American journalist has been detained in Myanmar as he tried to board a flight at Yangon International Airport, the latest of dozens of reporters and editors to be arrested since the coup. Danny Fenster, managing editor of the independent outlet Frontier Myanmar, had been due to board ...

The prominent democracy activist Ko Mya Aye, who has spent more than three months behind bars since the February coup, faces hate speech charges under Article 505(c) of the Penal Code for incitement, which carries up to two years in prison. According to his family, the ...

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released their annual ranking of the global state of press freedom earlier this month and Countries in Southeast Asia did poorly—none of the 11 countries in the ASEAN bloc scored above RSF’s “difficult situation” designation. RSF ranks countries based on a questionnaire given to ...

As dawn breaks over a crowded market in Yangon, a student strolls in, browsing casually through the stalls of vegetables, fruit, spices and fish. Picking up an onion to inspect the quality of the produce, he doesn’t stand out in the crowds of people. “One person ...

The Working Group for Press Freedom has co-organised a two-week campaign with the theme “Information as a Public Good” on social media to promote and highlight the importance of the freedom of the press and urge the public’s participation. In a press release, the working group ...

An international human rights law NGO Thursday criticized the governments of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam for using the COVID-19 pandemic to enact new laws that would allow them to more tightly control the media. The Switzerland-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) submitted a report to The Office ...

Over 700 people are reported to have been killed in the brutal response by the security forces since the military overthrew the democratically elected Government on 1 February. Thousands more have been injured – many of them seriously, and over 3,000 people are in detention.   That includes at least ...

The Swedish government and UNESCO yesterday signed an agreement on “Strengthening Media Development and Freedom of Expression” in Cambodia, with Sweden contributing around $2.5 million to UNESCO for the project. According to a joint statement released yesterday, the project is to be implemented in partnership with ...

Lao, Cambodia, and Vietnam imposed serious restrictions on freedom of expression and the press over the last year, with all three countries also holding political prisoners and interfering with the rights of citizens to peacefully protest, according to an annual State Department report released on ...

More than 30,000 people have joined Collaborative Fact Checking (Cofact) Thailand to combat fake news during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth), Cofact Thailand, the International Fact Checking Network and other anti-fake news organisations yesterday held a seminar to mark International Fact-Checking Day ...