Tag: Arbitrary Arrest and Detention
Japan’s PM Urged to Raise Case of Missing Lao NGO Leader
Rights groups have asked Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to raise concerns about disappeared Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone at an upcoming regional summit, saying Tokyo and other international donors should push for an independent probe if Laos continues to drag its feet on the case.
Abe should urge...
Thailand: New Cover-Up in Lawyer’s ‘Disappearance’
(New York) – The Thai government needs to account for missing documents in the case of the enforced disappearance and presumed murder of a prominent Muslim human rights lawyer nearly a decade ago, Human Rights Watch said today. On March 12, 2004, Somchai Neelapaijit was pulled from his car...
The Philippines: Political Detainees freed on Human Rights Day
PRESS RELEASE
December 13, 2013
Three (3) Muslim victims of arbitrary arrest and detention were released last December 10, 2013, Human Rights Day after the Taguig Regional Trial Court’s decision that they were victims of mistaken identity.
Mujeener Dagam Cabalo and his two other co-accused were released from the Special Intensive Care...
Thailand: Somchai Neelaphaijit – One man, four disappearances
The case of human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, whom police officers abducted and forcibly disappeared over nine years ago, took a new twist when the Department of Special Investigation claimed that its file on his case had itself disappeared during anti-government protests last week.
According to Niran Adulayasak, Director of...
UN Tribunal Condemns the Vietnamese Government for Its Arbitrary Detention of Journalist and Lawyer Le Quoc Quan
Last week, a United Nations Rights Tribunal condemned the Vietnamese government for the arbitrary detention of Le Quoc Quan, a prominent lawyer, blogger, and human rights activist who has been imprisoned since December 27, 2012. EFF submitted a petition in March of this year with 11 other advocacy groups calling on...
Bloggers celebrated in Paris, arrested and beaten in Vietnam
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The political police have been arresting and mistreating bloggers in Vietnam in recent days, both before and after an 8 December ceremony in Paris at which the Vietnam Human Rights Network and the...
Lao PDR: The Sombath crisis has implications for ASEAN
Editorial Opinion
It reads like fiction straight from a Colin Cotterill novel. The setting is Vientiane, capital city of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos.
Sombath Somphone is a gentle and unassuming man aged 63. Married to a Singaporean, Dr Ng Shui Meng, a former senior Unicef official, Mr Sombath was...
Burma: It is time to free all human rights defenders and stop ongoing arbitrary arrests and imprisonment
Paris-Geneva, December 17, 2013. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of FIDH and OMCT, welcomes the latest release of prisoners of opinion in Burma/Myanmar but deplores the re-arrests of human rights defenders Ko Htin Kyaw and Aye Thein within hours of their “release”.
On...
Lao PDR: Government Must Account for Fate of Sombath Somphone
The ICJ today urged the Lao PDR government to reverse its inaction in determining the fate of community activist Sombath Somphone, who was allegedly subjected to enforced disappearance a year ago.
In a legal memorandum on the one-year anniversary of Sombath’s enforced disappearance, the ICJ called on the Lao authorities...
Laos: Anniversary of ‘Disappearance’ Demands Action
For Immediate Release
Laos: Anniversary of ‘Disappearance’ Demands Action
Government Should Disclose Whereabouts, Account for Sombath Somphone
(Bangkok, December 15, 2013) – The Lao government should immediately disclose the fate of prominent social activist Sombath Somphone, who was apprehended at a police checkpoint in Vientiane one year ago, Human Rights Watch...
