Law and judiciary

A fear-cloaked dynamic has increasingly percolated Vietnam’s information environment, in both cyberspace and the mainstream media. A decree guiding the controversial Cybersecurity Law, which took effect in October 2022, looks to further empower Vietnamese authorities to censor online content they disfavour and bolster the state’s digital surveillance ...

A court in Cambodia on Thursday sentenced 36 senior officials of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, most of whom have already fled the country, to between five and seven years in prison. The opposition officials were convicted of supporting party Vice President Mu Sochua in ...

Federal prosecutors have charged eight people with smuggling endangered monkeys, including a Cambodian wildlife official who was arrested in the US while travelling to a conference on protecting endangered species. The official plus a colleague in that country’s wildlife agency and six people connected to a ...

Myanmar’s military-controlled government announced Thursday it was releasing nearly 6,000 prisoners under a broad amnesty. Major General Zaw Min Tun, Myanmar junta’s spokesperson, confirmed to VOA Burmese the release of artists, activists, one minister, a top election commission official and one minister chief from the ousted ...

Myanmar’s junta has passed a law that grants it sweeping powers over aid delivery, prompting warnings of a “catastrophic” effect on services to those in need in the crisis-hit nation. Sources inside aid agencies in Yangon, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Guardian that the ...

In mid September, a 25-year-old trans person, Jatuporn “New” Sae-Ung, was sentenced to three years in prison for wearing a Thai traditional dress and performing a mock fashion walk at a political protest in Bangkok back in October 2020. She was charged with royal defamation, ...

The absence of laws on energy and in particular renewable energy is causing an imbalance between the stages of production, transmission and consumption of coal-fired power, solar power, and wind power in Việt Nam. Experts mentioned this shortcoming at a recent event within the framework of ...

Medical interventions are now non-obligatory for people who want to be recognised as transgender, and trans men are eligible for maternity leave should they be pregnant. These amendments were proposed to the draft Gender Affirmation Law and were discussed during the Policy Dialogue on International Experiences ...

A Vietnamese court has upheld a nine-year prison term for prominent human rights campaigner and writer Pham Doan Trang, who was convicted of anti-state activities, her lawyers and state media said. On Thursday, the Hanoi People’s High Court rejected Trang’s appeal of a sentence handed down in December ...

A top Thai court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit seeking to halt purchases of electricity by the country from a hydropower dam in neighbouring Laos over environmental concerns, bringing an end to a decade-long legal battle. The case brought by 37 villagers from eight provinces along ...