Human rights

Over 5,000 official delegates and business leaders, of whom 200 are foreign media personnel, will attend and cover the 28th and 29th ASEAN summits to be held back-to-back in Vientiane early next month. The Ministry of Foreign Affair’s Press Department reported on August 12 that more than ...

Among nearly 46 million people living and working in slave-like conditions worldwide, an estimated 9,200 are in Singapore, according to a global index on 167 countries compiled by a human rights group. The lower the ranking, the less prevalence of “modern slavery” in a country. The ...

Indonesia said on August 10 there was “no room” for the gay community in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, as activists blasted officials for an unprecedented series of LGBT attacks. A wave of angry rhetoric directed at homosexuals earlier this year – including a call to ...

Thailand’s telecommunications regulator has approved in principle a plan to issue special sim cards to foreign tourists so they can be tracked via their mobile phones. Officials at the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission said the plan would apply to tourists only, backtracking on an earlier ...

The government’s Cambodian Human Rights Committee on August 9 sent a request to its counterpart in Thailand to help push the Thai government to implement safety measures to protect Cambodian fishermen working in Thailand in often slave-like conditions, a request advocates said yesterday should have been ...

Laos’ representatives attending a meeting of civil society organizations that is held each year during the ASEAN summit said little about human rights issues inside their own authoritarian country because they were selected by the government in Vientiane, sources tell RFA. “Most Lao representatives are selected ...

The ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples’ Forum which is to take place on 2 August in Dili, Timor-Leste appears to be clouded by uncertainty and fears. Concerns have emerged as there have been no indications that the three-day meeting, as stated during preparatory events in March and ...

Vietnam held a ceremony was held in the northern border province of Lao Cai on July 30, aiming to raise public awareness of the importance of human trafficking prevention and control. Speaking at the event, President of the Vietnamese Women’s Union Nguyen Thi Thu Ha said ...

Parliamentarians criticised the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission on 28 July, while discussing a report, about the commission’s work over the last year. The commission has been working to get human rights curriculums in primary schools and law schools across the country. Amyotha Hluttaw MP U ...

In 2007, the 10 members of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations celebrated the adoption of the Asean Charter that for the first time in the region’s history includes human rights as one of its principles and objectives. The charter seeks to implement a human ...