Headlines
Hong Kong’s national security police used a fake social media account to troll pro-democracy activists for years, according to information revealed during a “subversion” trial of 47 pro-democracy activists who took part in a 2020 democratic primary and further investigated by Radio Free Asia.
The Malaysian government has decided to withdraw its appeal against a High Court ruling that allowed non-Muslims to use the word “Allah” to refer to God, the Attorney General’s office confirmed Monday, about a highly divisive issue in the Muslim-majority country.
In a bid to evict prominent rights lawyer Li Heping from his Beijing home, the landlord smashed a window of his apartment and issued a death threat, Li’s wife told Radio Free Asia on Monday.
Chinese authorities have handed down an eight-year jail term to a veteran rights activist after he set up a website calling for constitutional democracy, his sister said on Thursday.
A few years ago, Chonticha “Lookkate” Jangrew braved tear gas and rubber bullets on the front lines of protests calling for reform of Thailand’s monarchy and its military-scripted constitution.
Lazy persons, drunkards, and “other persons with insufficient inner motivation” must be subjected to “repeated … thought education” to ensure they take part in state-sponsored “poverty alleviation” campaigns to pick cotton in China’s Xinjiang region, a previously unpublished internal government document ordered local cadres.
Civilian deaths are growing in Myanmar’s civil war amid a jump in airstrikes by the military junta, whose ground forces have faced stiff resistance from rebels and ordinary citizens who have taken up arms.
In the past six months, in addition to their increased targeting of civilians as part of its “four-cuts” strategy–denying the opposition access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits–the Myanmar military has made a concerted effort to target the shadow National Unity Government’s nascent civil administration and the provision of health and education.
Bangladesh-based Rohingya who were taken to Myanmar’s Rakhine state Friday to see preparations for refugee repatriation said they wouldn’t return without citizenship rights, recognition of their Rohingya identity, and a guarantee that they could resettle in their home villages.
Bangladesh is moving full steam ahead with a China-backed project to begin repatriating Rohingya to Myanmar, a plan that Human Rights Watch warned would put the lives of the persecuted refugees at “grave risk.”