Dead or alive, in the case of Nguyen Van Chuong it’s anyone’s guess.

Fifteen years after Nguyen was sentenced to death in the northern Vietnamese port city of Hai Phong, his family still doesn’t know when he’ll be injected with deadly poison – or even if it’s already happened.

“I received a notice of the execution of the death sentence of my son Nguyen Van Chuong, meaning that the Court of Hai Phong City has insisted on killing my son,” wrote Chuong’s father, Nguyen Truong Chinh, to the court in a 4 August letter also posted to Facebook. “Thus, I am writing this letter to respectfully request relevant authorities to review the case and rescue my son from injustice.”

That day, he’d gotten a call that no father ever wants – the court had asked whether he wanted his son’s body and belongings returned after his execution. The family patriarch was told he must apply in writing within three days to recover his son’s corpse or ashes, though he wasn’t told if the execution was scheduled or had already been carried out.

He has been demonstrating holding posters in front of the court’s building ever since.

“Dear friends who love justice and freedom, please share [this crusade] to help prisoner Nguyen Van Chuong,” read one of his banners.

The younger Nguyen, 40, has been on death row since 2008 for the alleged murder of a high-ranking police officer in 2007. His case caught the attention of prominent Vietnamese lawyers who have argued for leniency in the face of alleged use of torture by police to extract a confession as well as other apparent irregularities in Nguyen’s conviction.

When he was first sentenced to death in 2008, Nguyen’s lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court. But the case was quickly rejected, igniting public sentiment over the alleged unfairness of the trial. The pushback on the sentence – and the seemingly imminent execution – has cracked the shield of secrecy that buffers news about such cases in Vietnam, where rights groups say judges have handed out death sentences with increasing regularity in recent years.

Vietnam is one of 55 countries worldwide that continue to sentence citizens to death. According to Amnesty International, many executions go unreported because “secrecy and restrictive state practices” prevent an accurate assessment. The humanitarian agency estimated a 30% increase in capital punishment in Vietnam from 2020 to 2021, with more than 119 death sentences handed out in that latter year.

That would put the country behind only China and Iran in using the death penalty.

From the moment of his arrest, Nguyen and two other men accused of being accomplices in the killing were reportedly handcuffed, beaten and threatened until they confessed to the crime, despite having no apparent link to the officer’s murder.

Nguyen had strong alibi witnesses who swore under oath that they were with him in his hometown, Hai Duong, about 40 kilometres away from the attack. But rather than investigate the alibi, authorities quickly arrested Nguyen’s younger brother, Nguyen Trong Doan, for manipulating evidence and witnesses.

The authorities concluded the three accused had robbed and murdered the officer for money to buy heroin. While Nguyen went to death row, the other two were given lengthy prison sentences.

“According to the latest information we have, he’s still alive and he’s received the notice for his execution,” said Nadia Ivanova, director of People in Need’s centre for human rights and democracy, one of the 13 signatories of an open letter to the Vietnamese president calling for an immediate halt to Nguyen’s execution. “His family managed to pay a visit to his prison a few days after the announcement.”

But even as public interest in the case has stood out, discussions have been strictly limited to informal channels, said Ivanova.

“What struck us as really concerning about this case is that since August 4 — the notification day — there has been almost no national media coverage on the case or about the notification itself. The information mainly came from social media; from the Facebook post by his family,” she said.

In 2013, when the Supreme Court rejected Nguyen’s appeal, several lawyers and human rights defenders identified inconsistencies and procedural violations in the investigation, trial and appeal phases of his case. These include inconsistencies in forensic evidence analysis, disputed attributions of weapons and knives, contradictions in witness statements and a lack of investigation into Nguyen’s alibi, including phone records.

Some rights experts also believe he’s just a scapegoat.

“We believe that the victim had some problems with another officer over a career promotion,” said Le Cong Dinh, a human rights lawyer and former vice president of the Ho Chi Minh Bar Association. “It’s likely that the other police officer is the murderer. But the authorities accused [Nguyen] of concealing this case.”

Vietnam applies capital punishment for 22 offences, including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, child sexual abuse and economic crimes such as corruption. The death penalty is most often used for drug-related crimes, with heroin and opium possession or smuggling punishable by death, but capital punishment is almost as often handed down in major corruption cases and violent crimes.

“We raised lots of voices against death in custody in Vietnam because of torture. But I don’t see any changes in the future, because this is the way Vietnam investigates criminal cases.”

Le Cong Dinh, human rights lawyer

This time, there has been an unfamiliar expression of public concern that Nguyen’s trial was unfair and that he may have been tortured to extract a confession.

“Vietnamese people don’t normally have strong reactions to death-penalty cases. But this is one of those rare times when the public became very proactive on social media, calling for justice and the re-examination of the case,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a Vietnamese political expert and visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS).

Of no familial relation to the convict, Nguyen cited the general belief there may have been a serious breach of due process including potentially even torture in the interrogations leading to “a forced admission of guilt”.

“When you go to court [in Vietnam], it’s nearly 100% sure that judges have already decided the verdict before you actually stand trial,” he said. “Also, there’s a lot unknown about this case, especially the way the authorities and the prosecutors carried out the investigation.”

There’s no going back from a wrongful execution, said Le from the Bar Association, adding that the only way to solve both the torture and unjust execution issues is to remove the practice altogether from Vietnam’s legal system.

“We raised lots of voices against death in custody in Vietnam because of torture. But I don’t see any changes in the future, because this is the way Vietnam investigates criminal cases,” Le said.

“I have no hope for future changes. The only thing we can hope to do is to remove the death sentence. We don’t want any death. If we have other evidence we have time to rescue the person.”

Nguyen of ISEAS is more optimistic. He believes his country has made progress over the years, also noting Vietnam’s adoption of new regulations to adjust to international standards of justice and due process. Among these is a national requirement for interrogation rooms to have voice recorders and multiple witnesses present.

Such measures could bode well for a more transparent court process moving forward. But for now, the family of the condemned Nguyen remains hanging in limbo – the life of their son and brother hanging in the balance.

The post In Vietnam, a controversial planned execution strains death penalty appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

The 19-year-old boatman was three weeks into his new job as part of a pioneering new prison project on the Singaporean island Pulau Senang.

Bin Poh had meant to rouse himself in the morning. Instead, he was rattled awake in the heat of an early afternoon by explosions. He rose to the sight of burning buildings and about 30 detainees running toward his sleeping quarters.

He raced to his boat, alerting police from the portable radio used to maintain communication with the mainland. When he returned to the main campus, the first thing he saw were the bodies of his colleagues – hacked brutally by knives, tools and broken bottles. 

“Some of them were hit by the prisoners, some were smashed [up], some were cut, like people cutting fish,” Bin Poh recalled 60 years later from the sofa of his public housing flat, as a family cat wound silently through his legs. “Three [of my coworkers] died on the island. Another died later in hospital.”

The Pulau Senang prison settlement was a bold social experiment, designed from a vision of an open-air penal colony and reform through hard work. The campus housed 320 detainees at its busiest. Many were former gang members, sent to the island without trial as part of the British colonial government’s vision to clamp down on vice and maintain social order. 

Initially heralded as a success of progressive criminal justice, the vision soon faded into a nightmare – the island became known for a spasm of violence that left 29 injured and four prison employees dead, including the project’s leader, British Superintendent Daniel Stanley Dutton. A subsequent trial, in which the court sentenced 18 of the 59 charged inmates to death, lasted 64 days. It remains Singapore’s longest and largest trial to date. 

After the riots, coverage of the experimental prison faded, eclipsed by Singapore’s full independence two years later. 

But now, 60 years after fires scoured Pulau Senang, the release of a revealing documentary late last year on the country’s “Riot Island” has pulled the story back into public memory. Those linked to the event shared with the Globe their reflections on the rehabilitation settlement gone fatally wrong and shed light on the abuse and bribery that fanned the flames of its inmates’ resentment. 

[There was] concern over organised crime and the idea that there was a sense of lawlessness, or a lack of control with the local authorities.

Donna Maree Brunero, senior lecturer of history at the National University of Singapore

The early 1960’s were a formative era for Singapore, which declared independence from Britain in 1963 – the year of the Pulau Senang riots – to join the Federation of Malaysia, an alliance of Malay Straits settlements including North Borneo and Sarawak.

“[During the 1950’s and 1960’s] Singapore is going through these really profound changes from the colonial to what becomes the post-colonial,” said Donna Maree Brunero, senior lecturer of history at the National University of Singapore. “So there is quite a lot of turmoil.”

The first sparks of the eventual boil-over at Pulau Senang came with the British colonial government’s Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Ordinance of 1955. The law was intended to curb communist insurgencies and crack down on Chinese secret societies, which were linked to organised crime in the city-state, and granted authorities sweeping enforcement powers. These included the ability to detain suspected gang members without trial. 

“[There was] concern over organised crime and the idea that there was a sense of lawlessness, or a lack of control with the local authorities,” explained Brunero. 

Within a few years, the existing prisons were overcrowded. In 1960, British and Singaporean politicians formed an ad-hoc committee to brainstorm a solution to the detainees overflowing from Singapore’s cells. 

They decided on Pulau Senang, an uninhabited 81.7 hectare coral island about 13 kilometres off Singapore’s southern coast. The ill-fated Dutton, a former army major, was chosen as superintendent to lead the project, which started in May 1960. 

To his younger brother, Michael, Dutton was the idolised big brother with the glamorous Malay wife, whose commitment to Pualu Senang was a testament to his determined character and strong sense of moral duty. Michael remembers his brother and sister-in-law’s work in the community, adopting children who didn’t have permanent homes.

“I remember shaking his hand and having a feeling that I was … with not just a relation, but someone out to do something very important in Singapore,” Michael said in the CNA Insiders documentary Riot Island, recalling a visit the elder Dutton and his wife Vicki paid to him on their way to the U.K. city of Southampton to board a plane to Asia.

“That was the last time I saw him.”

For Michael Dutton, participating in the documentary, produced by the Singapore-based Peddling Pictures and released in November, gave him a clearer picture of his brother’s character. The process left him convinced the elder Dutton’s stewardship of the island was driven by integrity. 

“He had leadership qualities in him,” he told the Globe from his Bristol home. “He would have done the job that he had to do with absolute determination to put it right.”

For Daniel Dutton, ‘putting it right’ involved rehabilitation through hard labour. Inmates were allowed to roam free, but were responsible for building the settlement. 

Each new arrival was given a manual task and, if Dutton deemed their behaviour satisfactory after six months, they would be reintegrated into mainland society and a government official would help them find employment. 

The initial success of Pulau Senang drew international attention from a range of sociologists, U.N. representatives and human rights organisations. Within the first seven months, five prisoners of the original 50 were deemed worthy of release. By 1963, more than 200 had reintegrated, with the 300 inmates on the island living amongst a self-built dining hall, sports area, kitchen and bakery. 

But behind the amenities, there was a bleaker atmosphere, rife with allegations of abuse. 

“When I was there, the prisoners [were] all very stressed,” Bin Poh recalled. “Because the prison warders tortured them day and night.”

The teenage Bin Poh grew up on the nearby island of Pulau Semakau as part of a fishing family and community. But in June 1963, just a few weeks before the riots, a British officer arrived at his home and offered an alternative career choice

“They always came to our island to collect banana plants. One day they came to our place, say ‘Want to become a boatman?’” he recounted. “As a fisherman, I thought maybe there is no future for me. So I want to work in a government service.”

Besides knowing it was backed by the British government, the teenager didn’t know much about the Pulau Senang project. 

“I didn’t know about what was going on down there. From far away it looked pretty nice,” he said. “When I arrived, I soon wanted to resign. But it was too late.” 

According to Bin Poh, while staff had rotating shifts, some inmates were forced to work continuously from 3-6 a.m., when the tide was lowest, building a makeshift jetty from heavy stone that he would collect from the mainland. They would then return for breakfast and start their “normal duties” lasting until the evening. 

Anyone who complained was put in what Bin Poh described as a “small, dark house [with] no ventilation”.

He also remarked that those “with wealthy parents” were sometimes released before their six month stint. Others, “three or four years and they [are] still not released”.

“He was burned, like a log. He’d been hacked on the forehead. The whole office was like a warzone.” 

Former warden Jimmy Chew

On 12 July, something snapped. 

After explosions shook Bin Poh from sleep, he opened his window to see “that prison is burning … [and] around 20 or 30 prisoners approaching our barracks to find the warder.”

In his short time on the island, Bin Poh had formed bonds with inmates, playing football and sneaking them cigarettes from his trips to the mainland. He believes this spared his life – the prisoners left him to frantically grab the boat key he slept with and sound the alarm. 

In the meantime, inmates armed with machetes and Molotov cocktails ransacked the settlement. They eventually reached the guardhouse and Dutton and set fire to the surroundings before beating him with weapons after he emerged. 

“I was the first to … witness Mr. Dutton’s body,” said former warden Jimmy Chew, who died in 2012 and whose oral records from the National Archives of Singapore were used in the documentary. “He was burned, like a log. He’d been hacked on the forehead. The whole office was like a warzone.” 

They are so utterly at the mercy of every minor official on that island. … They are beyond the pale of the law.

David Marshall, former chief minister of Singapore, speaking of the Pulau Senang prisoners before the riot

The simmering resentments of the inmates became more clear in the inquiry that followed the riot. But warning signs had emerged long before the fires broke out on the island settlement.

Chew Thiam Huat, also known as “Baby Chye”, was one of Pulau Senang’s detainees. A former national footballer, he was among the 18 men later hanged for murder charges at Changi Prison on 29 October, 1965, the largest number of executions Singapore has ever had in a day. 

His nephew, Brandon Wong, maintains that Dutton’s mistreatment of the inmates pushed them to riot. 

“The prisoners were disturbed by Dutton during family visits,” he told the Globe, recounting memories his surviving uncles shared with him. “Dutton made lewd comments about their family members. They decided to do him in.”

While these claims remain anecdotal, reports of Dutton’s harsh management style emerged in the court trial following the riots. 

Singapore politician and former Chief Minister David Marshall visited the island in April 1963 and was unhappy with the “hot and arduous labour” to which the guards subjected inmates. 

“They are so utterly at the mercy of every minor official on that island,” Marshall said before the riot. “Their release or their continued detention is at the whim of officials and no longer subject to law. They are beyond the pale of the law.”

He described an “aura of fear” on the island and conditions “that bordered on slavery” in a later court statement, reminding those involved in the trial that these were not convicted criminals, but men detained without trial. 

About the same time, reports emerged that Major Peter L. James, director of Singapore sent two directives to Dutton, requesting a scale-down of hours that often saw prisoners working throughout the night. On a Saturday before the riots, 13 men had refused to continue work on the jetty during their rest day after they were denied water. 

But others describe a generally fair and benevolent leader, who was able to converse with his charges in their native Hokkien or Malay and who formed close bonds with some of the inmates – including eventual riot ringleader Tan Kheng Ann, alias “Robert Black”. 

Dutton trusted his charges to the extent that none of the staff had weapons on the island. When a detainee warned him of disgruntled residents planning riots, he reportedly laughed it off. 

“He was hardworking, resourceful, a fair man,” said A.N Jenardaran, former police officer at Pulau Senang. “He really believed you could work the evil out of anyone.”

In the end, both Dutton and the failed historical prison experiment have left a blurred legacy, the contours of which vary widely depending on the source. What is clear is that the programme imagined for Pulau Senang bears a sharp contrast to the Lion City’s current incarceration system. 

Today, Singapore is renowned as one of the safest countries in the world – last year, it ranked number one by global analytics firm Gallup’s Law and Order index.

The city-state also holds one of the lowest rates of criminal recidivism within two years, according to a statement by the Ministry of Home Affairs. 

“Singapore’s prison system is arguably one of the most progressive around the world,” said former charity CEO and rehabilitation advocate Timothy Khoo. 

Khoo’s grandfather, Khoo Siaw Hua, was a reverend to the 18 men sentenced to death after the Pulau Senang riot. During the last days of their lives, he provided guidance and counselling to the men regardless of their faith. 

Today, the younger Khoo says the city-state takes a more “progressive approach to incarceration, which is about rehabilitation, reintegration, restoration back to the community.” 

This would reflect Dutton’s own ambitions. But, unlike Pulau Senang’s focus on hard manual labour, the current rehabilitation is split between in-prison and aftercare programmes focused on developing social and employability skills. 

But not all share Khoo’s views of Singapore’s criminal justice system. The country remains one of the 55 countries that still implements the death penalty and has attracted criticism from rights groups for the often-thin body of evidence required to invoke capital punishment.

“Rather than having a unique deterrent effect on crime, these executions only show the utter disregard the Singaporean authorities have for human rights and the right to life,” said Chiara Sangiorgio, a death penalty expert with Amnesty international. 

Following the riots, Pulau Senang was closed for almost two years. Bin Poh stayed on the empty settlement and when the prison reopened, he worked there for another four years. The commitment earned him a nautical studies certificate sponsored by the prison department and he remained in the service even after the prison closed for good in 1968. 

“That is the good part,” Bin Poh reflected on a recent afternoon. “The bad part, I already told you.”

The island is now owned by the military, which in 1984 converted it into a live-firing zone. It’s still known by its original Malay name: Pulau Senang, or “Isle of Ease”.

The post ‘Riot Island’: The brutal arc of Singapore’s prison experiment appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

Though the podcast originally aired almost two years ago, a pair of Indonesian human rights advocates are now fighting defamation charges in a monthslong court trial that began in April.

In August 2021, Haris Azhar, executive director of the Lokataru Foundation, and Fatia Maulidiyanti, coordinator for KontraS, published an episode about a report claiming military involvement in the conflicted territory of West Papua was designed to protect mining interests there. 

The report was published by a group of 10 nonprofit advocacy groups, including KontraS. Maulidiyanti alleged on the podcast that a government official had a conflict of interest as a shareholder of a mining company in Papua. 

The official – Luhut Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for Maritime and Investment Affairs – disputes this. He filed a defamation complaint in September 2021 under Indonesia’s expansive Electronic Information and Transactions Law (ITE), stating he would “defend my name and that of my children and grandchildren”.

“As far as I know, I have never had a business or started a business in Papua,” Luhut said in court in June, according to the Indonesian newspaper Republika.

Some experts view this case as an example of how the law can help public figures restrict freedom of expression through the legal system. 

Indonesia’s ITE law, passed in 2008, is a broad-ranging piece of legislation that regulates areas such as consumer protection and cybersecurity. But a section of the law covering online defamation uses a broader definition than the country’s criminal code, according to some legal scholars, which has driven an increase in accusations under the ITE law that outnumber offline claims. 

According to one report, state officials such as heads of government departments and ministers have reported about 35% of all violations of the ITE Law. Many of those reports had to do with defamation.

“The authorities can use [the ITE Law] to silence criticism against them,” said Herlambang Wiratraman, a law professor at Gadjah Mada University in the city of Yogyakarta. “In Indonesia, the regime itself right now has no political intention to prevent the misuse of power like that.”

The case and others like it signify “a turn to authoritarianism” in the country, he said.

Luhut did not respond to an emailed request for comment sent to the ministry or to a message sent to his Instagram account. The case continued Monday with questioning of the director of the coal mining firm PT Toba Sejahtera, who stated that Luhut is still the company’s majority shareholder. The podcast at the centre of the accusations claimed a subsidiary of this company was active in Papua, though Luhut has denied the connection.

Asfinawati Ajub, a defence lawyer for Haris and Fatia who works for the Indonesia Jentera School of Law, said the case could chill other inquiries into official matters. 

“I think maybe because he wants [to give] a sign to people, to [the] public: stay away from us,” said Asfinawati. “Even [though] Haris and Fatia will not stop their action, their struggle, but I think maybe some of the activists in the other areas, the remote areas … they will self-censor their thoughts publicly.”

Part of that drive to self-censor could be rooted in the ITE’s broad interpretation. 

Eka Putra, a law professor at Jindal Global Law School in India, explained the law is carried out against vaguely defined statements that  “harm someone’s honour,” which opens the door to prosecuting even petty insults against powerful officials.

The Indonesian government is especially sensitive to criticism related to Papua, one of the poorest regions of the country with an ongoing separatist movement. 

Papuans have reported increased violence and racist attacks in the region. Last year Amnesty International and KontraS called for an independent investigation into the death of a Papuan child allegedly tortured and killed by members of the military. The mining industry in particular has been criticised by human rights groups, calling for an end to the exploitation of the region’s natural resources and alleging widespread corruption. 

“This kind of defamation lawsuit is actually distracting from the main problem itself,” said  Putra. “Right now, the attention from the public and media is focusing [on the lawsuit]. The bigger problem is the environmental harm [in Papua] and the alleged corruption by a public official.”

The post Prosecuted for a podcast, Indonesian rights advocates on trial for ‘online defamation’ appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

It was 25-year-old democracy activist Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom. Jack was shot twice, including once in the face, by a gunman just minutes before the medical staff arrived. Though the young activist’s friends said the shooter was known to them, an official investigation of the attack has, so far, produced no updates in nearly two months.

“I survived the attempted murder, and that day changed my life forever,” Jack wrote to Emilie Palamy Pradichit, founder and executive director of the Bangkok-based rights group Manushya Foundation. “I will never give up my activism. We, Lao people, want democracy and freedom!”

A few weeks after this attack, on 17 May, Lao political activist Bounsuan Kitiyano, 56, took his last breaths near a forest in Ubon Ratchathani, northeastern Thailand.

Bounsuan was apparently shot three times while riding a motorbike. Villagers found his lifeless body and contacted the authorities, who have yet to establish firm leads as to who killed the activist and why.

Since the 1975 end of the Vietnam War – known in Laos as the American War – communist Laos has remained among the most repressive countries in the world, with strictly limited freedom of speech, press and religion.

While political and freedom repression against Lao activists is not new, these two recent cases of murder and attempted murder of political activists made the world gasp. 

Some believe the Lao government is escalating a crackdown to silence dissidents ahead of its upcoming turn as the rotational ASEAN chair. Others simply weren’t surprised to see the continuation of a decades-long campaign of persecution of political criticism.

Lao activists such as Bounsuan have fled to Thailand for decades. But as the kingdom lacks a formal protection system for refugees – and its own people are often themselves fleeing as political dissidents – Lao exiles seeking haven on Thai soil often find an insecure, marginalised status.

“The political activism and the protection of Lao political activists in both Laos and Thailand is a sensitive issue,” said Thanachate Wisaijorn, head of the government department at the Faculty of Political Science at Ubon Ratchathani University. “It’s never brought up to the table in bilateral meetings.”

Today’s activism

While the countries’ authorities keep their grip on political narratives, Lao youths are starting to move the waters.

As the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Laos saw rapidly increasing inflation and a dramatic decrease in employment rates, all of which prompted citizens to share their concerns on the internet. Groups of youths created social media pages to allow their peers to openly share criticism of the Lao government, such as Jack’s popular Facebook page Empowered by a Keyboard. 

These youth-led corners of the internet are a new generation of democracy supporters who are finding new ways to raise their voices. Through social media and the internet, these activists gather online under anonymous profiles to speak about economic, political and social issues.  

Jack is part of this scene. But in his case, even speaking from behind a screen appears to have not been enough to spare him. The shooting has left others to fear not only for themselves but also for their families’ safety.

Pradichit from Manushya Foundation helped Jack’s evacuation of Laos in May after hospital staff left a bullet in his chest, allegedly hesitant to provide treatment once they realised who their patient was.

The foundation is now working with other human rights organisations and a team of lawyers to file a lawsuit against Vientiane’s Mittaphab Hospital for negligence in Jack’s case. According to their allegations, the Lao hospital failed to provide Jack with food since the police visit on 3 May. Pradichit says the chest tube installed the night of the shooting was never changed, causing severe infections and blood clots in Jack’s body. 

“His medical conditions were really bad. The hospital in Laos would have let him die,” she said.  

Jack is now fully conscious but unable to speak due to the permanent damage to his tongue caused by one of the bullets. He now communicates via text messages or written notes. 

Although he wants to continue living in Laos and advocate for democracy, after his near-brush with death, rights groups helped extract him from the country to receive medical treatment. His current location is concealed for security reasons.

“Jack doesn’t want to be relocated,” said Pradichit, who is currently supporting Jack with legal and protection processes to ensure his safety. “He doesn’t understand why he had to start his life from scratch when he had done nothing wrong.”

Unlike Jack, most other outspoken Lao activists, including Bounsuan spent decades in exile. Many of them are recognised UN political refugees in the U.S., Germany, Australia and Canada, but Bounsuan decided to stay in neighbouring Thailand so he could join the former Free Laos group, a dissident organisation active among the 1980s diaspora that advocated for a return to monarchy over communism. 

An unsafe past 

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic is one of only five remaining communist countries in the world along with China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba. The government is ruled by the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) in a closed, single-party system. 

The modern state is the legacy of the Pathet Lao communist insurgency, which had fought through independence from the French protectorate, two decades of civil war and U.S. bombings during the Vietnam War – or American War.

This communist victory was followed by a period of great poverty, along with an exodus of thousands of people escaping retribution for siding with the U.S. and royalists during the war. They were the first generation of state dissidents. That was especially true for the Hmong ethnic group, which fought alongside the U.S. against communism and has since been regularly persecuted by the state and excluded from public employment.

Thai national archives recorded 120,000 registered Hmong people crossing from Laos in the early 1980s, but according to Thanachate, there were many more. The Thai government would support them for five years as political refugees, he explained, but their protection didn’t last long.

“We must be aware that the state relationship between Thailand and Laos was not good at that time,” Thanachate said. “That was until 2009, when Thailand facilitated the Hmong repatriation in Laos.”

For years, the Lao government mostly focused on persecuting Hmong as the state enemies, though that pressure eased with their safe repatriation. Meanwhile, a new generation of Lao political activists had been born – and were beginning a small pro-democracy movement.

Laos was about to see a new wave of political activism, with Jack being one of many young human rights defenders in the country. Attacks against political activists, however, continued incessantly throughout the decades.

Human rights violations continued

This year, Bounsuan’s death could be the latest of these brutal attacks. Human rights organisations have condemned the murder and called for the Lao government to run an independent and impartial investigation. 

The most prominent case of politically motivated assault was the enforced disappearance of human rights defender Sombath Somphone, who was abducted from a police checkpoint in Vientiane in 2012.

More than a decade later, no one knows his whereabouts. 

In the meantime, environmental activist Houayheuang “Muay” Xayabouly remains in prison after pleading guilty to state defamation for criticising the government on Facebook for corruption and its poor response to the 2019 flooding in Champasak and Salavan provinces. The whereabouts of Lao pro-democracy activist Od Sayavong, who disappeared in 2019 after returning to Laos from Thailand on a visa run, also remains unknown. 

Chue Youa Vang was murdered in 2021 allegedly by the Lao authorities for his work on finding one of the four Hmong people who mysteriously disappeared in March 2020. 

As of last year, the Lao government has reported only three political prisoners, who remain in detention for treason, anti-state propaganda and unauthorised protests.  

Many more cases have gone unreported both in Laos and Thailand. Human rights groups within Laos are only allowed to operate under government oversight, which normally restricts their investigative power and has never welcomed international oversight in cases involving Lao activists. 

In the shadow of silence, Lao democracy and human rights advocates continue to walk lightly. 

Jack is now undergoing a series of life-saving surgeries. He is not yet out of danger, but as human rights groups are increasing pressure on the Lao government, his call for democracy continues to be clear.

The post Ongoing attacks on activists bring Laos into the spotlight appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

Accounts of murder, human trafficking, domestic violence and increased militancy from armed Rohingya groups have become routine. A number of major fires, suspected to be the work of arsonists, have caused mass homelessness since the beginning of the year. And straining things even further, in March, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced a nearly 17% cut to the refugees’ monthly food vouchers. 

Legally restricted from getting jobs in Bangladesh, blocked from re-entering Myanmar with citizens’ rights and with little chance of being resettled elsewhere, many of the roughly 1 million Rohingya living in the crowded camps of Cox’s Bazar are making plans to flee by any means necessary. Besides the many who have already cast off into the Andaman Sea on rickety boats, nearly a dozen refugees who spoke with Southeast Asia Globe told of community aspirations such as obtaining false documents to integrate into Bangladesh society or even attempting to cross back into their native Rakhine State of Myanmar, despite the spiraling conflict there following the 2021 military coup.

Camp resident Abdul Hamid* said he was motivated to return to Myanmar because of his four-year-old son. Explaining that he himself has a university education, he saw no prospects for his child to have a good life in the camps and feared the consequences of staying there.

“I have a very talented and intelligent young boy and I know his future would be better if I could just leave camp,” he said, adding that his personal safety was also a concern. “I fear for my life in the camps, as extremists may target educated people.”

Crossing back into Myanmar was a consideration for many who spoke with Globe. But Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition advocacy group, said this is a dangerous move. 

“Repatriation without guarantees of ethnic and citizenship rights, the right to return to original villages, freedom of movement, and equal rights as other ethnic groups is like returning to the killing field,” he said.

In 2017, more than 750,000 Rohingya fled in a mass exodus from Myanmar’s Rakhine State across the border to coastal Cox’s Bazar. Since then, conditions in these densely populated camps have steadily worsened.

This deterioration is paralleled by escalating hardship across Myanmar, where the ruling junta has carried out mass killings, arbitrary arrests and other abuses in a bid to defeat several insurgencies and consolidate its rule.

Plans from the government of Bangladesh to resettle the refugees in their native Rakhine State of Myanmar has been widely condemned due to human rights concerns there, particularly the military junta’s continued repression of Rohingya residents. As the violence continues to escalate, the prospect of a safe repatriation feels more distant by the day, leaving those in Cox’s Bazar with seemingly no good options.

Many Rohingya have tried to gain sponsorship to countries such as the U.S., but have failed. An increase in dangerous, and often fatal, sea journeys to third countries, such as Thailand or Malaysia, has been widely reported.  

“There’s no doubt the situation has become much more desperate in the camps, with the food ration cuts, increased violence, restrictions on livelihoods and increased Bangladesh government repression of refugees’ rights,” said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia division director of Human Rights Watch. “These factors certainly play a major role in pushing more Rohingya to risk the perilous sea voyage to Malaysia, where they hope to find respite from oppression and earn a living to support their families back in the camps.”

‘It is normal to hear gunshots at night’

Along with the fear of forced repatriation, the Rohingya population are also worried about violence allegedly at the hands of armed groups in the camps that are increasingly battling for dominance. 

In early January, a majhi – or camp leader – named Rashid Ahmed was stabbed to death.

The following day, the son of a deputy majhi, Mohammad Selim, was shot dead. Since these murders, at least seven more reported murders of Rohingya community leaders have taken place in the camps or nearby. Several more apparent assassinations may appear on Twitter but not even on the local news. 

Bangladesh authorities allege the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) is behind some of the killings, operating in rivalry with the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO).

“It is normal to hear gunshots at night,” said Mohammad Hassan, another camp resident. “In camp, the violence of armed gangs is increasing day-by-day. The armed groups kill, kidnap, and conduct other illegal activities.”

John Quinley, director of non-governmental organisation Fortify Rights and a Rohingya rights advocate, said fear is “palpable” among camp residents – and directed both at militants and authorities alike. 

“Our team has documented human rights violations by [the Armed Police Battalion] in Cox’s Bazar including arrest, beatings and extortion,” said Quinley, adding that his organisation had uncovered murders and abductions of community leaders. 

Quinley places some responsibility on the government of Bangladesh for the situation. 

“Ongoing Bangladesh government-imposed restrictions on refugees legal status, freedom of movement, and access to livelihoods as well as deteriorating security situation in the camps are some of the reasons Rohingya are leaving for countries in ASEAN,” he said. 

In March, massive flames ripped through the Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar, destroying more than 10,000 shelters.

Besides leaving thousands homeless, the fire also gutted essential services including safe spaces for women. A series of smaller fires have broken out since.

“The fire caused a lot of damage to shelters and infrastructure, which has left thousands of people homeless and without access to clothes, food and water,” said refugee Mohammad Riyas. “The camp is already in such a bad way. The fire has been devastating … now we live in fear of another source of hardship.”

The fires are also likely to have been started intentionally by armed groups within the camp in an act of orchestrated sabotage, adding to fears within the community. This possibility, which some investigators say is highly likely, is currently being researched.

Another strain on the Rohingya, further adding to their distress, was the WFP’s February announcement that it was cutting the food aid of the refugees from $12 per person down to $10. The UN agency cited a large drop in funding internationally as the main reason for this change, as the WFP is facing a $125 million funding shortfall.

“The aid situation [in the camps] is not enough, even though the WFP says it is enough. The price of the materials is higher than before, and all are struggling to survive,” said refugee Hassan. 

Amin, another Rohingya rights activist residing in the camp, said the available rations consist of only rice, lentils and spices.

“We have been facing so many diseases, as we can’t eat healthy food,” he lamented. “We feel like prisoners eating food that is served in jails.” 

Given the deteriorating conditions in the camps, Amin said the refugees saw little choice but to seek other places to live.

“How would you feel in this camp?” he asked. “What would you feel in this situation? I think you would try to move somewhere else, where you felt free and safe.”

Movement with no escape 

Some of the camp residents have opted to move to Bhasan Char, an island about 60  kilometers from the Bangladesh mainland.

Windswept and desolate, the island has been used since 2020 by the Bangladesh government to rehouse some of the refugees to relieve pressure in the camps.

Rohingya activist and community member Salim Islam* feels safer living on Bhasan Char. He moved there with his family in 2021 to avoid ARSA, which had yet to establish a foothold there. Salim said the militants targeted him not only for extortion but also recruitment, due to the high level of education he attained in Myanmar. 

“Most of the members of ARSA are not highly educated, so they wanted me to conduct advocacy for them,” he said. “They also threatened me and my family when we refused to pay a fake ‘tax’.”

At the same time, life on Bhasan Char offers little in terms of long-term stability to its inhabitants. Even if the island offers some respite for now, many in the mainland camps see it as yet another bad option laid out before them.

Whether those in the Cox’s Bazar camps choose to smuggle themselves back into Myanmar or board a ship to Bhasan Char or some other, farther destination, many of those who spoke with Globe were desperate to get away somehow.

“I don’t want to stay here,” said camp resident Aung Myint, an activist and reporter who had tried unsuccessfully to gain permission to go to the U.S. “This life that I am living, it is like a prison for me. It is like a jail. So definitely, I have to leave here. I have to.” 

*Some names have been changed due to personal safety concerns.

Dayna Santana Pérez is a researcher and humanitarian program director.

The post Breaking point: Seeking an exit from the Rohingya refugee camps appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

The price of freedom can be as high as a person’s life in Laos. 

This hit close for young democracy activist Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom, 25, who has spent recent years pushing for stronger rights and freedom of expression in Laos. Last Saturday, an assailant shot him down in a coffee shop, leading to the activist being falsely reported dead a few hours later.

“His activism frightened the government, so they wanted to kill him,” said Nat, a fellow Lao democracy activist. 

The motivation of the shooter is unknown so far, but Jack’s status as one of the most prominent Lao democracy activists immediately caused speculation the attack was politically motivated. The case also went uncovered in the national media, sparking outcry among social media users. Jack is known for creating a private Facebook group in 2020 for members to talk openly about mental health, social issues and politics while advocating for human rights. The group now has more than 7,500 members. He also co-founded a popular Facebook page called Empowered by a Keyboard (ຂັບເຄື່ອນດ້ວຍຄີບອດ) to publicly express criticism against the government.

On the evening of 29 April, in Lao capital Vientiane’s Chanthabouly district, an unidentified man entered the coffee shop where Jack was and shot him twice, once in the face and again in the chest. Jack’s family reported him dead shortly after the attack, but three days later, pictures of him alive and fully awake began appearing on social media. 

By the evening of 3 May, police reportedly visited the hospital where the activist was being treated, to get Jack’s family to share the truth about his condition. Pictures provided to Southeast Asia Globe show that Jack can move his left arm, possibly write, and open his eyes. 

According to Manushya Foundation, a Thai social justice advocacy group that has been in contact with people close to Jack, the activist and his Facebook co-admins were being spied on and stalked by the attacker, who had allegedly befriended them earlier this year. That is possibly part of the reason behind the family’s decision to report Jack deceased almost immediately after the shooting out of fear of reprisals against him, the organisation told the Globe.

“We are very happy he is alive, and we call for an impartial investigation and protection for Jack,” said Emilie Palamy Pradichit, Manushya founder and executive director.

The attempted murder was caught on camera but the Lao authorities have not announced an investigation into the case. This sparked a public outcry among local activists and international human rights groups, which began alleging official connections to the attack.

“Don’t criticise the government unless you want to disappear,” Nat said, describing how Lao people view advocacy.

“It all comes down to the government wanting absolute control over us,” Nat added. “For decades, they controlled us with propaganda and fear tactics, but now they fear us questioning what they do.” 

Human rights groups have condemned what originally was reported as a murder and called on the Lao government to immediately launch an independent investigation. 

Amnesty International’s regional office called the case “emblematic” of the ongoing repression of human rights and freedoms in Laos.

Besides the most prominent unsolved case of the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone in 2012, other human rights activists and vocal government critics have disappeared without a trace. The latest known case before Jack’s murder was that of Od Sayavong who disappeared in Thailand and never was found. 

“This attempted killing is sending a clear and alarming message; that even online expression is not tolerated,” Amnesty International stated to Globe.

This is also the feeling of Pradichit from Manushya, who described a recent increase in online activism across Laos. 

According to her, Lao citizens began speaking up in greater numbers online and anonymously in August, when inflation in the country became unbearably high, especially for local communities. 

“There is now a new generation of young people from different backgrounds who want to change things in Laos,“ Pradichit said. 

The community is starting to share their concerns online, but not yet on the ground, according to her. She also highlighted the essential role of activists such as Jack, who push for greater freedom online where the wider world can see.

“Without people speaking up, the world wouldn’t know their struggles,” she said. “Citizens journalists are extremely important to call out the international community for help.”

Laos is a party of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an international treaty that instructs its signatory parties to ensure political and social freedoms and respect human rights. If Laos doesn’t launch the due investigation into Jack’s attempted murder, the international community could call out the Lao authorities to act on the case, Amnesty International stated.

In the meantime, rights groups routinely identify Laos as one of the world’s most repressed countries in terms of rights and freedoms. Being one of the only five communist countries left across the globe, non-state-controlled information is rarely allowed in or out of the country. Digital communication may be the leading option to share independent information, but Jack’s case shows even this may come with risk.

“Jack is a brave young person who has been fighting tirelessly for his rights,” the activist Nat said. “He is also just a young person who should be able to live and enjoy his freedom.”

The post ‘Don’t criticise the government unless you want to disappear’ Lao activist survives shooting appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

In this small leafy corner of Singapore’s Downtown district, the only place in the city-state where authorities allow legal protests, about 400 people gathered against the execution of inmates on the country’s death row. That included 33-year-old Nagaenthran “Nagen” Dharmalingam, an intellectually disabled Malaysian man who had been in prison for more than a decade. 

Signs mingled with the lights: “Abolish the Death Penalty”; “Don’t Kill in Our Name”; “Protect Tamil Lives”.

Nagen was hanged that week. Now, almost exactly a year later, Singapore has announced its first death sentence of 2023, that of Singaporean Tamil national Tangaraju Suppiah, who was arrested in 2014 and convicted of playing a role in trafficking a kilogram of cannabis. 

He and his family have denied the charge against him. Barring any changes, he will be executed next Wednesday, 26 April.

As other countries in the region move towards abolition of capital punishment, and decriminalisation of marijuana,  the Lion City has remained steadfast in its upholding of the death penalty as a deterrent against crime. Activists see the announcement as a sign that Singapore is falling behind on the global human rights landscape and out of step with international standards.

A case full of holes and questions 

“When I received the news, my body and mind went into a state of shock and disbelief,” said Tangaraju’s sister Leela. “I felt completely helpless because we don’t even have a lawyer who can speak for us.”

Eight years ago, on 23 January, 2014, her brother was apprehended by police who believed he was linked to two men, “Mogan” and “Suresh”, who had been arrested for coordinating a delivery of cannabis a year earlier. Neither man has been sentenced to death. 

Campaigners say the connection appears to depend entirely on two mobile phone numbers, stored in the men’s contact lists under the opaque names “India.jus” and “Apu”, which police found to belong to Suppai. He has maintained that the first number – called by Mogan during the delivery – was one that he’d lost earlier that year. Further, Suppai says the number was for a professional phone, belonging not to him, but the convenience store where he worked. The second was never used by either of the men during the incident. 

Neither of the phones were recovered for analysis.

During his police questioning, which took place without a lawyer present, the Tamil native speaker struggled to explain this sequence of events. He requested an interpreter, which was denied, and he claims he failed to fully understand the English language statement read back to him. Later, when he and his family tried to find a lawyer for their criminal motion, no-one was willing to take on the case, fearing personal cost or censure from the court. With no legal training, Suppai decided to represent himself. 

“Access to justice is a real problem in Singapore. There is no access to legal counsel during interrogation by the police, and the statements don’t have to be taken verbatim,” said Kirsten Han, a Singaporean journalist and anti-death penalty activist. “So it really comes down to how able the individual is in advocating for themselves and being aware of the potential implications of such statements being used against them in court.”

The High Court found Suppai guilty of trafficking and sentenced him to death on 31 December 2018. He launched an appeal, citing a change in law that meant witness statements should be disclosed to the defence, which had not happened during his case. 

The Court of Appeal rejected this attempt on 26 February. 

“In my brother’s case, there are so many holes, so many questions and so many questions unanswered,” said Leela. “How can you sentence someone to death with such little evidence?”

A history of capital punishment  

Singapore is one of the 55 countries in the world which maintain and implement the death penalty. While capital punishment can be handed out for 33 offences, the overwhelming majority of recent deaths were under minor drug sentences. 

Since 1990, anyone caught with more than 500 grams of cannabis or 1,200 grams of opium can be sentenced to hanging under the Misuse of Drugs Act. All of the 11 executions carried out in 2022 in the country were for drug trafficking. 

Globally, 35 countries still retain the death penalty for drug offences. Rights organisations have denounced this as a violation of international standards.

Suppai’s drawn-out case happened against a background of liberal progress elsewhere in the region. In April, Malaysia announced it would abolish the mandatory death penalty for 12 sentences, including drug trafficking. Thailand became the first Southeast Asian country to decriminalise cannabis in 2022. 

But despite increasingly vocal pushback against capital punishment in Singapore – including a spate of protests and vigils in April last year – a 2021 survey by the Ministry of Home Affairs showed wide support amongst Singaporeans for maintaining capital punishment: 80% of respondents saw it as an effective crime deterrent and 66% viewed it as appropriate for drug trafficking. 

However, rights groups contend that there is no proven relationship between capital punishment and deterrence of crime. 

“We know the death penalty is not a deterrent for drug offences, and that capital punishment in Singapore disproportionately targets vulnerable people from marginalised communities,” said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, a human rights non-profit organisation.

“The fact that Singapore has scheduled this execution only weeks after Malaysia’s Parliament voted to abolish the mandatory death penalty underlines how isolated Singapore has become from its neighbours and allies around the world when it comes to the use of the death penalty.”

Singaporean human rights activist and researcher Kokila Annamalai was one of the first people Leela called when she heard the news of her brother’s sentence. For the past year Annamalai has been working with Tangaraju’s family to raise awareness of his case and launch a public campaign for a stay of execution. 

“A lot of the people who get arrested for capital charges … tend to be people from very vulnerable backgrounds,” Annamalai told the Globe. “They overwhelmingly tend to be ethnic minorities and non-native English speakers with lower education levels.”

According to Annamalai, this bias is further enabled by a justice system that grants prosecutors a disproportionate amount of power. She explained that after police choose which cases to charge, the prosecution has discretion over the amount of drugs to charge for, which has a direct impact on the severity of their sentence. 

“[For] people who come into conflict with the law in these ways, all these things are so arbitrary and so difficult to digest,” she said. “[There were a] couple of other people involved in the delivery, who got different sentences, none of them capital sentences, and some were even discharged.”

Annamalai said that Mogan, the man who police said was caught with the drugs in Suppai’s case, was charged with trafficking in 499 grams, below the capital threshold. That happened even though he was allegedly carrying just short of 1018 grams of cannabis, the amount that Suppai was charged with.

Final days of hope

As Suppai’s final day approaches, a swell of coverage has rippled through the international press. But the mainstream Singaporean media has so far kept him out of the headlines. Annamalai believes that this silence in the press is linked to a wider stifling of freedoms that are set from the top in Singapore. 

“There is a very censorious culture here and the death penalty to the [ruling People’s Action Party] government is, I think, a very key component to maintain that relationship of authoritarian control,” she said. “[They] come to depend very heavily on the death penalty as part of their brand of strongman governance.”

This first execution of the year has dashed hopes that Singapore may be following in its neighbour’s footsteps towards an abolition of mandatory capital punishment, Suppai’s family remain steadfast in their own personal battle. 

“They’re just hoping that something miraculous will happen, whether on the legal front or in terms of a public campaign,” said Annamalai.

During his final days, they will juggle buying clothes for his final photoshoot with attempts to petition the government and appeal to President Halimah Yacob for clemency.

“They cannot send a man to death just because of some phone numbers they say belong to him,” said Leela. “I appeal to the people to do everything they can to help – please spare my brother’s life.”

The post Activists scrutinise Singapore’s rights record as first 2023 execution looms appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

“You better dress appropriately, with a skirt, next time you come to court,” a judge told Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, a prominent Thai human rights lawyer, more than once.

“I was admonished several times by judges when I wore pants in court,” said Pornpen, director of the Cross Cultural Foundation. “That never felt right to me.” 

Now, for the first time in history, female lawyers can defend their cases in court wearing either a skirt or trousers. 

The newfound freedom is a major departure from previous dress restrictions for women as mandated through two ethical codes, one of the Thai Bar Association and the other of the Lawyers Council, which had officially limited their attire to a neutral-coloured skirt and white-collared shirt. 

While the Bar Association amended its code on Friday, 24 March, the Lawyers Council is still working on the changes. Both bodies are awaiting the final publication of the new legislation in the Royal Thai Government Gazette, expected before the end of March. 

Thai lawyers are required to wear traditional long black robes in court, regardless of gender. While some women already occasionally wore trousers underneath the court robes, they could never feel truly at ease as they feared the judge would reprimand them – or even revoke or suspend their licences for up to three years.

But less than 24 hours after the Bar Association’s change, the group went against its own ethics revisions and instructed women to wear skirts for the upcoming bar exam. 

The news immediately raised a controversy on the association’s Facebook page, where lawyers began questioning the effectiveness of the dress code update.

Groups that had pushed for the reform – mainly Nitihub, an open forum for public discussion, and the Human Rights Lawyers Association – called for consistent implementation of the new rule at all levels. 

“We were delighted to see that our hard work had paid off, but we are now hoping that this will only be the starting point for other amendments,” said Peeyakorn Leankattava, social media admin at Nitihub.

The groups especially urged the Bar Association to modify the bar exam attire rules to align with the new regulations, and to eliminate gender-based discrimination in the legal field.

But while women can certainly celebrate this victory, Human Rights Lawyers Association Chairwoman Nadthasiri Bergman said that much has yet to change.

“What if I wanted to wear a red pair of pants? And what about the British colonial heritage of wearing court robes? Could men wear skirts?” Nadthasiri mused, thinking about other aspects of the dress code. “This achievement is just one tiny step towards equality, but we are not quite there yet.”

Although women in other professions have ditched such gendered dress codes decades ago, she said lawyers are still bound to outdated fashion rules that go against their freedoms, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights.

Nadthasiri said the ultimate goal is to completely remove any gender-based regulation from the ethical code and address lawyers by their title without differentiating them according to their biological sex.

Similarly, Dutsadee Dutsadeepanich, arbitrator and partner at ABER Law Group, strongly believes the dress code was long overdue for a change. She believes the move could help increase the lawyers’ confidence and performance in court.

“We have the right to choose,” Dutsadee said. “That‘s always been our fundamental human right.“

The interest in fighting for a change in dress code regulations grew over the past three years, when a broader coalition of lawyers and activists joined the cause, Dutsadee explained. Before that, she said only human rights lawyers were engaged on the issue.

In December 2021, the Human Rights Lawyers Association and Nitihub warned the Thai Bar Association they would bring the issue before the Central Administrative Court if the bar did not respond to a petition for a change to the dress code. 

Prior to that, the Human Rights Lawyers had also submitted an open letter to the Supreme Court president’s office and the Thai Lawyers Council bringing the issue to their attention. The president’s office quickly dismissed it, which reiterated the obligation for lawyers to follow the Lawyers Council’s rules of etiquette and dress code.

Six months later, nothing had changed. In fact, things seemed to be worse, as a criminal court judge asked a nonbinary-gendered lawyer to stand up and lift their robe during an online court session. The judge harshly admonished them for wearing trousers underneath.

“It was simply repugnant to see such behaviour from a judge,” Nadthasiri said. 

The lawyer immediately decided to bring the case before the independent committee that oversees the implementation of the 2015 Gender Equality Act across Thailand. The successful result of this case marked a key step towards today’s achievement. The Committee instructed the Bar Association and the Lawyers Council with a legally binding recommendation to amend the dress code for women in the Ethical Code to allow them to wear trousers in court. 

The fight lasted more than two years, but in the end, the Bar Association implemented the recommendation of the committee and set the first wheel of change in motion. 

“Our voice is louder now,” said Dutsadee. “Things will continue to change for [the] better.”

The post Female lawyers allowed to wear trousers in Thai court appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

The delegation of the European Parliament’s human rights subcommittee met with politicians and judges in the Philippines from 22-24 February to assess the country’s human rights situation.

The overall verdict seemed to be that the situation had improved since Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. took the reins as president last June. Delegation member Hannah Neumann told a press briefing in Manila that the human rights situation in the Philippines is “better than it was under President Duterte, I think we can clearly state”. 

“We clearly have the impression that everyone was very willing to discuss human rights issues with us, which has not been the case under the previous administration,” Neumann said.

But while the European Parliament believes the situation has improved under Marcos Jr., this doesn’t necessarily reflect the situation on the ground. 

The administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, in power from 2016-22, was notorious for its poor human rights record.

This includes the infamous “war on drugs”, a key policy that, according to official data, caused the deaths of more than 6,200 people. This is disputed by human rights groups that claim more than 30,000 have been killed. 

During his election campaign, Marcos Jr. promised a different approach to the war on drugs. This policy pivot would focus less on lethal anti-drug operations and more on prevention and rehabilitation, through a new anti-drug campaign, though he refused to outright condemn the extrajudicial killings by his predecessor Duterte. 

However, Human Rights Watch have claimed there is “no evidence” of any change in approach to the war on drugs and that many attempts at drug rehabilitation are involuntary and coercive. Evidence suggests the war on drugs continues, costing the lives of more Filipinos. 

The University of the Philippines’ Third World Studies Center’s Dahas programme, which monitors the war on drugs, estimates that there have been 216 reported drug-related killings since Marcos Jr. began his term on 1 July.

Just as revealing is the fact that more Filipinos were killed in Marcos Jr.’s first six months as president (175) than in Duterte’s final six months (145).

Put simply, the human rights situation in the Philippines cannot be improving while Filipinos continue to be killed in anti-drug operations. 

The former president was infamous for inciting violence during the drug war, claiming there were 3 million drug addicts in need of “slaughter”. He also protected those willing to engage in extrajudicial violence, offering to pay the legal fees of police accused of killing drug suspects.

Duterte’s regime also repressed dissent by opposition politicians and journalists. This includes former senator Leila de Lima, who remains in prison, and Maria Ressa, head of the Rappler news publication who was recently acquitted of tax evasion after Duterte brought charges against her.

In contrast, Marcos Jr. has attempted to reassure the international community that he is committed to respecting human rights. In an address to the UN last year, Marcos Jr. emphasised the need to ensure a “high level of accountability” for human rights violations.

This has won recognition from the EU, which had an at-times tense relationship with Duterte. In 2021, the European Parliament threatened to withdraw the Philippines’ access to trade privileges extended under the European Generalised Scheme of Preference Plus (GSP+) due to non-compliance with human rights obligations under the former president.

Though Marcos Jr. has spoken the language of compliance, he has maintained similar policies as his predecessor. That includes cracking down on any dissent.

De Lima recently marked her sixth year in detention on drug-related charges, with Marcos Jr. so far refusing to dismiss what are widely seen as politically motivated charges. De Lima was one of the staunchest critics of Duterte’s “war on drugs” and was arrested after attempting investigations into violations under the mission.

Journalists and human rights activists continue to be harassed and killed. 

Percival Mabasa, a prominent radio commentator, was gunned down by unidentified gunmen in 2022. He was the second journalist killed since Marcos Jr. took office. 

The government also shut down websites Bulatlat and Pinoy Weekly, two independent news organisations critical of both Duterte and Marcos Jr regimes. 

The UN has similar concerns about the current human rights situation.

In September, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report expressing concerns over continued human rights problems under the Marcos Jr. administration. This included harassment and attacks on journalists and activists, drug-related killings and a lack of access to justice for victims of human rights violations.

At the same time, Marcos Jr. has refused to cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) renewed investigation into drug war deaths under the Duterte regime. 

In a public statement, Marcos Jr. claimed that “there are many questions about their ICC jurisdiction and what we in the Philippines regard as an intrusion into our internal matters and a threat to our sovereignty”.

Marcos Jr. has long claimed that the Philippine government is best placed to investigate extrajudicial killings. The problem is that both Duterte and Marcos Jr. administrations have been accused of protecting members of the police and military from any investigation.

This makes it clear that human rights in the Philippines are still a major concern.

The European Parliament needs to better assess the human rights situation in the Philippines by coordinating with UN agencies and human rights organisations at ground-level. This way, they can form a more accurate view of how Filipinos are treated and whether their rights are protected.

The Marcos Jr. administration should also adhere to its election commitments and respect human rights.

It can start by fully cooperating with the ICC investigation into crimes against humanity committed under Duterte. Only then will those guilty face justice and the families of those killed find peace. 

Marcos Jr. also needs to take a more holistic approach to illicit drug use. Anti-drug operations need to cease immediately, and funding needs to be diverted to prevention and rehabilitation programmes. Only then will the killings stop. 

If the Philippines wants to be a healthy, vibrant democracy, it needs to welcome criticism of government decision making. Attacks on journalists, opposition politicians and human rights advocates are not the actions of a government that respects human rights. 

Marcos Jr. needs to walk the talk when it comes to human rights and the international community should hold his administration to account until he does. 

Otherwise, the rights of Filipinos will continue to be at risk. 

Chris Fitzgerald is a freelance journalist. He writes on political, humanitarian and human rights issues in the Indo-Pacific.

The post Philippines human rights violations persist despite EU optimism appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

For more than three years, the treason trial against Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha has simmered in the background of a government campaign to eliminate a key political rival.

On Friday afternoon, the trial finally reached its end at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. Judge Koy Sao handed down a prison sentence of 27 years “on the charge of collusion with foreigners committed in Cambodia and other places.”

The 69-year-old Sokha was the joint founder of the now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and had previously started the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, a prominent advocacy group. His work regularly placed him at odds with Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has firmly consolidated power over 38 years of rule. 

The prime minister last year announced his son Hun Manet, a military commander, as his chosen successor, and is expected to stand in a general election this summer. 

“This appalling verdict marks yet another low for political rights in Cambodia, which have been deteriorating since the CNRP’s dissolution in 2017,” stated Naly Pilorge, outreach director of Cambodian rights group Licadho. “Today’s decision makes it clear that civic and political space is closed ahead of the July 2023 National Election.”

Licadho and other local and international watchdogs have denounced the coming polls as a sham contest. Besides the long-running proceedings against Sokha, Pilorge pointed to the prior convictions of 158 former CNRP members and other opposition figures since November 2020. These were the product of five mass trials that also invoked charges of treason, as well as incitement and other crimes.

Arrested in 2017 in a midnight raid involving hundreds of security forces, Sokha had lived in a kind of limbo as his trial experienced long delays. 

First held in a provincial prison, he was eventually transferred to house arrest and finally paroled to some semblance of normal life under restrictions. Though he was already barred from political activity, Sokha met with foreign diplomats at his home and travelled the country for personal business. 

After the Friday verdict, Sokha was immediately taken from the courtroom to his home in the Toul Kork district of Phnom Penh, where he is expected to remain for now under house arrest. The court has barred him from meeting anyone apart from family members, either in-person or digitally, and has also stripped him of his right to vote or run for political office. 

By Friday afternoon, special police units had established a heavy presence around his home and along its street. Masked officers with heavy rifles kept watch on the house, with two diverting traffic away from the area.

Police, including Hun Sen’s bodyguard paramilitary unit, also made a show of strength near the Council of Ministers office and along major roadways.

The trial itself had featured weeks of quarrelling between prosecution and defence over basic procedural issues. 

The state’s case against Sokha claimed he had conspired with an unnamed country, heavily implied to be the U.S., to lead a “colour revolution” in Cambodia to topple Hun Sen. This centred on mass protests against the government in 2013-14 amidst allegations of electoral fraud promoted by CNRP leaders.

Prosecutors’ evidence against Sokha consisted mostly of video and audio clips from speeches he’d made during and around the time of the protests, as well as interviews in which the opposition figure discusses Cambodian politics and support from the U.S., most notably a non-governmental organisation known as the International Republican Institute.

On Friday, U.S. Ambassador Patrick Murphy stated the trial and sentence were based on a “fabricated conspiracy” and represented a “miscarriage of justice”.

Sokha has rejected the charges against him as politically motivated, with his defence attorneys pointing out that members of Hun Sen’s government had also participated in U.S.-backed political training.

“U.S. professors did not teach me to have a coup d’etat, did not teach me about colour revolution,” Sokha said at the start of his trial in 2020. “They taught me about human rights and democracy.”

The above updated text supplements the below AFP story:

A Cambodian court on Friday sentenced top opposition leader Kem Sokha to 27 years in jail for treason, in a case rights groups say is politically motivated.

“Kem Sokha… is sentenced to 27 years in prison on the charge of collusion with foreigners committed in Cambodia and other places,” Judge Koy Sao said at the court in Phnom Penh.

The 69-year-old was the joint founder of the now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party and has long been a foe of Hun Sen — Asia’s longest-serving leader.

After the verdict, Kem Sokha was immediately taken from the courtroom to his home, where he will be placed under house arrest and banned from meeting anyone apart from family members.

The court also stripped him of his right to vote and barred him from running for political office.

The trial and sentence were based on a “fabricated conspiracy” and represented a “miscarriage of justice,” United States ambassador to Cambodia W. Patrick Murphy told reporters outside the courthouse in the capital Phnom Penh on Friday.

Arrested in 2017 in a midnight swoop involving hundreds of security forces, Kem Sokha was accused of hatching a “secret plan” in collusion with foreign entities to topple the government of longtime ruler Hun Sen.

He has repeatedly denied the charges against him.

Critics say Hun Sen has wound back democratic freedoms and used the courts to stifle opponents, jailing scores of opposition activists and human rights defenders.

© Agence France-Presse

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