Lao Human Rights News
BANGKOK — A strong earthquake shook a border area between northern Thailand and Laos early Thursday, swaying high-rises in Bangkok and Vietnam’s capital. Residents of Chiang Mai, northern Thailand’s biggest city, felt prolonged shaking but saw no major damage. Chiang Mai resident Petchnoi Osathaphan said the long shaking left her feeling dizzy. “There are three […]
Free All Wrongfully Detained; Permit Peaceful Rally (New York) – The Lao government should immediately release political activists arrested for planning a peaceful pro-democracy rally in Vientiane, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 12, 2019, Lao authorities arrested at least seven activists in the loose network of the unregistered pro-democracy group Lao National Unity […]
Gunmen opened fire on security forces and civilian volunteers at a checkpoint in Thailand’s restive south on Tuesday night, killing at least 15 people in what is believed to be the deadliest single attack in the region in years. More than 7,000 people have been killed since a separatist rebellion started in southern Thailand in […]
China has been the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom for the fourth consecutive year, while Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia were not far behind, according to a Freedom House report published Tuesday. In Freedom on the Net 2019: The Crisis of Social Media, the Washington-based independent watchdog organization evaluated 65 countries between June 2018 and […]
A coalition of NGOs called for the cancellation of a project to build what would be Laos’ fifth large Mekong river dam Tuesday, citing the disastrous effects that existing dams have had on the region’s ability to cope with environmental crises. The planned Luang Prabang Dam would drastically worsen the impacts of climate change, which […]
Lao villagers displaced by flooding from a dam breach last year are facing hardships in temporary resettlement areas, with clean water hard to find and toilets unusable, and some are moving back to their former land to make a living, Lao sources say. On July 23, 2018 water poured over a saddle dam at the […]
Authorities in Laos’ southwestern Champassak province have rescued four young Lao women and girls who were trafficked to China, while another group of four females from another part of the country remain missing, sources told RFA’s Lao Service recently. The teenagers and young women, now aged 16 to 21, were rescued in August. Several years […]
Asking for release ຮຽກຮ້ອງເພື່ອປ່ອຍໂຕ Miss Xayabouly HouayheuangArrested: Pakse, Champasak, LAOS on September 12, 2019Case: Freedom of Expression ນາງ ຮ່ວາຍເຮືອງ ໄຊຍະບູລີ (ນາງ ຫມວຍ ຫມູນ້ອຍ) ຖືກຈັບທີ່: ປາເຊ, ຈຳປາສັກ ວັນທີ 12 ເດືອນ 9, 2019 Lao Authorities Arrest Woman for Criticizing Flood Relief Efforts on Facebook A woman in Laos was arrested last week on charges of defaming the […]
Is Laos on the edge of an economic boom, or a bust? Six of the 11 countries in Southeast Asia have an external debt higher than the developing world average of 26 percent of gross national income, according to a report last year by FT Confidential Research, an independent research service from the Financial Times. […]
President Trump has tapped a Tufts University alum to serve as the next ambassador to Laos. In a statement Tuesday, the White House said Trump will nominate Peter M. Haymond as ambassador to the southeast Asian nation, officially named the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Haymond’s a Foreign Service lifer. The statement described him as “a […]