Human rights

Thailand will open its first fake news centre by Nov 1 to combat unverified news circulating on social media platforms, said Minister of Digital Economy and Society Buddhipongse Punnakanta on Wednesday (Sept 25). “These days anyone can be a reporter. Anything can be posted and shared. ...

Lao state media reported Tuesday that a woman who was arrested in Laos last week for criticizing the government on Facebook has confessed to her crime. In a Facebook Live video last week, Houayheuang Xayabouly, known by her nickname Mouay, had slammed the Lao government’s slow ...

Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has awarded its 2019 Press Freedom Prize to three female journalists, including prominent Vietnamese blogger Pham Doan Trang, who authored a book on political engagement that angered authorities in Hanoi. Trang, who has vowed to remain in Vietnam until ...

An RFA blogger held in Vietnam on charges of corruption has been allowed to meet with a lawyer for the first time since he was abducted in Thailand earlier this year and forced back to Vietnam, his attorney told RFA on Thursday. Truong Duy Nhat, a ...

More than 250 people faced criminal charges for expressing their opinions on social media in the first half of the year, according to a report by local free speech group Athan.  The report said 70 cases with 250 respondents were filed over opinions expressed on social media ...

Vietnamese democracy advocate Huyn Dac Tuy was sentenced on Wednesday by a court in southern Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province to a six-year prison term, followed by three years’ probation, for criticizing the country’s communist government in a series of online posts, according to state media ...

The Ministry of Information on Tuesday concluded the final revision by key ministries of the draft Law on Access to Information, without making any major amendments. It will be submitted to the Council of Ministers to be rubber-stamped by the end of September or beginning ...

The Myanmar government on Friday strongly condemned attacks by three ethnic rebel armies that left 15 security officers and civilians dead in the Mandalay region and neighboring northern Shan state, calling them “acts of terrorism” that could thwart the country’s teetering peace process. An alliance comprising ...

The Information Ministry yesterday warned that it would revoke the licences of print and online media outlets which distribute fake news that endanger national security. Phos Sovann, director-general of General Department of Information and Broadcasting, said in a Facebook video post that the ministry will strictly ...

The fate of two Cambodian journalists accused of espionage — Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin — hangs in the balance as their trial resumes in Phnom Penh today, although the charges against them are based on absurd grounds and flimsy evidence. The bogus case against the ...