Asia

Response measures have forced coastal communities in South Asia to choose between a super cyclonic storm or shelters with no physical distancing. South Asia, one of the world’s poorest and populous regions of the world, is struggling with control measures as Covid…

The author’s identity has been kept anonymous for safety reasons. Starting in 2017, the Uyghur community living in China has been subject to increased targeting and indiscriminate imprisonment by the Chinese authorities. This policy of racial and religious profiling has…

By Vijay Prashad On June 11, Laos (Lao People’s Democratic Republic)—a country of 7 million in Southeast Asia—said it had temporarily prevailed over COVID-19. Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith said that his country had “gained an important victory in the first…

“There is, however, a very long way to go” On September 6, 2018, India’s Supreme Court ruled that consensual homosexual acts would no longer constitute a crime. The historic move reversed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which was a legacy…

As the Turkish President signed a decree on Friday converting the ancient Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into a mosque, the UN cultural agency (UNESCO) said that it “deeply regrets the decision” made “without prior discussion”, having earlier in the day called…

On the same day that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country breached the 40,000-mark, President Rodrigo Duterte signed the controversial Anti-Terror Bill into law without much regard to the clamor of people for a dialogue and to…

Emojis representing Uyghur characters and culture are now available on the encrypted messenger platform Telegram in an effort by the Uyghur diaspora in Russian-speaking countries to raise visibility. While Uyghurs living in China are experiencing unprecedented attacks on their most…

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has expressed alarm at the arrest of demonstrators in Hong Kong, following China’s adoption of a national security law for the Special Administrative Region (SAR). Spokesperson Rupert Colville told journalists in Geneva on Friday that the Office…

Government Should End Spurious Charges, Pre-Trial Detention to Silence Dissent Bangladesh authorities are using the abusive Digital Security Act to harass and indefinitely detain activists, journalists, and others critical of the government and its political leadership, Human Rights Watch said today. The administration…

People don’t want to merely survive but would wish to resist the indignity of such a life. The way the pandemic has been handled across the globe, especially by authoritarian populist regimes, gives us very valuable clues into what politics…