Social development
Human rights
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 ...
Mandalay tent dwellers hope to get public housing
Tent-dwellers on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River in Mandalay may soon be exchanging their canvas walls for bricks and mortar, as the regional government seeks tenants for newly completed low-cost housing. The Mandalay Region government has decided not to charge would-be tenants a deposit amounting ...
UN pressures Thai Government on 82 disappeared
The government has been active in dealing with enforced disappearances, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said on 7 January. Mr Sek’s comments came after the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on 6 January urged the government to step up efforts to investigate the whereabouts of 82 ...
Thai police websites hacked
Hacktivists took over four police websites, including the metropolitan police, on 4 January night, with messages demanding justice. Keep reading ...
Myanmar politician objects Koh Tao verdict
A Myanmar political group, 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, today showed its objection against the death sentence handed down to two Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand. Keep reading ...
Rubber firm excavated land, Kratie families say
More than 160 families in Kratie province’s Snuol district have alleged that the Memot Rubber Plantation company has been using excavators to clear their land. The families from Pi Thnou commune filed a complaint to the provincial office of local rights group Adhoc on 23 December, ...
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 ...
Villagers in land dispute say IDs were denied
More than 100 family representatives on 21 December filed complaints at Ratanakkiri Provincial Hall and the Interior Ministry, claiming that requests to be issued with identity cards so they could vote in upcoming elections were denied by local police officials. The villagers who signed the letter, representing ...
Armed group embroiled in illegal housing scam
People duped into buying government-owned land beside the Yangon-Mandalay Highway on 17 December urged police to take action against those responsible, shortly after the authorities moved in and evicted thousands from the Hlegu site. More than 1600 acres had been subdivided and sold in 2400-square-foot plots since ...
US should withhold trade, aid from Laos barring rights improvements: Advocacy leader
Washington must withhold trade agreements and assistance from Laos until its government can demonstrate concrete progress on human rights and democratic reform in the one party communist country, the head of an advocacy group has recommended to U.S. lawmakers.Mutually beneficial trade arrangements and political exchanges ...
