-
Harsher crackdown on dissidents prompts act of despair
Reporter Without Borders, July 30,2012 Dang Thi Kim Lieng, the mother of the jailed blogger Ta Phong Tan, died after setting fire to herself today outside the headquarters of the People’s Committee in Bac Lieu, Tan’s home province, in an act of despair about her dissident daughter’s trial next week in Ho Chi Minh City…
-
Statement of ASEAN Civil Society at the 2012 Asia-Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum
Statement of Civil Society Delegates from Southeast Asia to 2012 Asia-Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) 31 July 2012 Southeast Asian Civil Society Groups Highlight Increasing Rights Violations Online, Call for Improvements to Internet Governance Processes in the Region We, the undersigned civil society delegates from Southeast Asia who attended and participated in the…
-
Calming the South China Sea
By Gareth Evans The Straits Times CANBERRA – The South China Sea – long regarded, together with the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula, as one of East Asia’s three major flashpoints – is making waves again. China’s announcement of a troop deployment to the Paracel Islands follows a month in which competing territorial claimants…
-
South China Sea: From Bad to Worse?
By Joshua Kurlantzick, Fellow for Southeast AsiaJuly 24, 2012 Tensions in the South China Sea have risen to their highest level in at least two years in the wake of the disastrous breakup of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers meeting in Phnom Penh. Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, an eternal optimist, admitted that the…
-
Vietnam’s Two-Front War on Religion
By Michael Benge July 22, 2012 The Vietnamese regime’s religion is communism, and the Party views all other organized religions as a direct threat to national security and its authoritarian control of the Vietnamese people. Religious tolerance exists only in theory; Article 70 of Vietnam’s Constitution of 1992 states that citizens “shall enjoy freedom…
-
Ho Thi Bich Khuong — democratic voice from Vietnam
“As long as I breathe, I will keep fighting.” Ho Thi Bich Khuong former victim of labor trafficking, human rights advocate, prisoner of conscience, recipient of the Hellman-Hammett Award Ho Thi Bich Khuong, born in 1967 in Nam Anh, Nam Dan, Nghe An Province, is a human rights advocate victimized by Vietnam’s government. She was…
-
Civil society organisations meet ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, call for universal standards to be upheld
Sunday, 24 June 2012 (Kuala Lumpur, 22 June 2012): Representatives of Civil society organisations (CSOs) have today met the AICHR for the first time for a consultation on the drafting of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. The organisations have welcomed the Consultation as a positive step in the right direction. They also welcome the constructive…
-
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’s Annual Report for 2012 – Vietnam
Amnesty International’s Annual Report for 2012, which was released on the same day (May 24) as the State Department’s Country Reports, reaches similar conclusions. “Harsh repression of dissidents continued” inVietnam, the Amnesty report stated, “with severe restrictions on freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Critics of government policies were targeted, including social and political…
Democratic Voice of Vietnam
Bringing the voice of Vietnam’s civil society to the world