Crime and law enforcement

A prominent local rights group has been forced to abandon its annual International Human Rights Day (IHRD) events in Cambodia’s prisons for the first time in 20 years because of “prohibitive” conditions imposed by the government, it said on 6 December. In a statement, Licadho said ...

Bangladesh and Myanmar remain at odds over 28 people who were among more than 900 rescued at sea in May, after being abandoned by human traffickers. Following the repatriation of 48 Bangladeshi nationals on 2 December, the Bangladesh embassy in Yangon said in a statement that ...

A Polish citizen of Lao heritage jailed in Laos for criticizing the government online will not be among hundreds of prisoners granted pardons by the end of the year because he “does not meet the proper criteria,” according to a public security official. Lao authorities arrested ...

Over 1,000 prisoners were released nationwide this year, according to Laos’ Ministry of Public Security on 2 December. Officials from the Prison and Rehabilitation Police Department of the Ministry of Public Security reported to Vientiane Times that across the country they released about 1,029 prisoners, including 232 ...

The Vietnamese military has begun training Cambodia police in cryptography and encryption techniques as part of a national plan to protect “state secrets”. Em Sam An, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior, signed a new agreement between the ministry’s cryptography department and the ...

A three-year investigation into slavery on Thailand’s fishing boats has uncovered a well-oiled system of trafficking, abuse and exploitation in the southern port of Kantang, leading to eight arrests this month, a campaign group said on 30 November. The owner of a fishing company, three enforcers ...

Countless rape victims, many of them children, have been failed by widespread flaws in Cambodia’s justice system, which have led to a “disturbingly low” number of convictions, a new study by the rights group Licadho has found. In its report, Getting Away With It: The Treatment ...

A Kachin  civil society group is urging relatives of those killed in a landslide near a Hpakant jade mine on 21 November to reject an offer of K600,000 compensation for each victim, and has reiterated threats to press charges against those involved in the mining ...

Vietnam has seen a sharp decrease in the number and the severity of traffic accidents in recent years. Compared to 2011, the number of traffic accidents in 2015 has gone down by 51 per cent, the number of fatalities and injured down by 24 per ...

Yangon Region police say 95 cases have been opened due to complaints filed in relation to the 8 November election. The majority involve alleged infractions of electoral laws, but 18 are being considered under other laws, such as the criminal code, the Electronic Transactions Law and ...