Civil and political rights
Freedom of expression
Re-elected TJA president warns of less media freedom
The challenge to press freedom is still of concern this year, said the re-elected president of the Thai Journalists Association on 4 March. Keep reading ...
Environmental campaigner convicted of forestry crime

A prominent anti-dam activist in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province who has been jailed since October was convicted on 3 March of illegal logging and given a suspended prison sentence, allowing him to walk free but leaving the shadow of a criminal conviction hanging over him. The decision ...
Reporter detained for allegedly inciting villagers facing eviction
A reporter for local television station MSJ TV was briefly detained and questioned by police on 20 February for allegedly inciting residents who are facing eviction from their riverside homes in Kompong Chhnang City, a journalist and officials said on 21 February. Ngunly Theara, a news reader ...
Lao people fighting for change 'deserve better than silence'

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, ...
Media restrictions remain in place in Magwe
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 ...
Political prisoners hope for NLD help
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 ...
Thai police websites hacked

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

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 ...
US demands answers over missing Lao activist Sombath

The United States called for Laos to immediately resolve the case of prominent activist whose abduction three years ago sent a “chilling message” to civil society. The State Department statement came as the top US envoy for East Asia prepares to travel to communist-governed Laos, which ...
Local printer pulls another NYT article

The local printer of the International New York Times Thailand edition left a blank space on an inside page on 15 December, the fourth time content has been removed from the internationally respected newspaper in three months. The 618-word article, written by its Bangkok correspondent Thomas Fuller, talked ...