Category: Southeast Asia

When new Royal Thai Army chief General Narongpan Jittkaewtae took his post on Oct. 1, he and military commander-in-chief General Chalermpol Srisawat made a point to discourage the press and the public to assume that…

Thailand’s military rulers have long had difficulties sharing uncomfortable stories. The painful anniversary of the massacre at Thammasat University on October 6, 1976 has never been reconciled, buried in a kind of “organised forgetting.” As…

During a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council on October 2, Luon Sovath, a Buddhist monk and human rights activist was repeatedly interrupted by Cambodia’s Permanent Representative in Geneva, An Sokkhoeurn, who questioned…

After several major protests in Bangkok, authorities have practiced a degree of restraint, despite the dismantling of a long-held social taboo of voicing public criticism of Thailand’s once-revered monarchy.…

More than 100,000 people demonstrated on the open field at Sanam Luang, in front of Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace in Bangkok over the weekend, defying the military-backed government of Prayuth Chan-o-cha and…

On September 21, the United Nations will celebrate its 75th birthday. Founded in 1945 after 50 countries met in San Francisco to draw up the UN Charter, it was conceived as an international institution that…

A string of recent arrests of activists by Cambodian authorities has human rights groups and the United Nations calling for restraint and the right to free expression. The conviction of a former official in the…

After a long silence, Thailand’s pro-democracy opposition has returned. Although not clad in red nor do they share allegiances to ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, they have taken aim at Thailand’s ruling power structures.…

Angry student protesters marching in the streets of Bangkok and whispers of discontent among Thailand’s ruling elite, have rattled Prayuth Chan-o-cha, Thai Prime Minister and leader of the May 2014 putsch that elevated him into…

A series of events have unsettled both Thailand’s youth and its ruling class. First, Thai Prime Minister and 2014 coup d’état leader Prayuth Chan-o-cha employed an array of authoritarian interventions to ensure his 2019 re-election.…