Category: RFA

Death row prisoner Le Van Manh was executed on Friday morning, lawyer Le Van Luan posted on Facebook, in a case with evidence which lawyers said was not clear enough to convict. “News and official documents said that defendant Le Van Manh was executed on the morning of September 22, 2023,” said Luan. A death notice dated September 22, 2023 from the People’s Committee of Thu Phong commune, Cao Phong district, Hoa Binh province, posted widely on social media said that death row prisoner Le Van Manh, born in 1982,…

A month after he succeeded his father as Cambodia’s prime minister in the wake of the country’s latest election without an opposition, Hun Manet falsely told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that the July 23 ballot was “free and fair” and “credible and just.”  Hun Sen handed power to his son after claiming victory in an election in which he banned the last remaining opposition party, the Candlelight Party, and threatened prison time and disenfranchisement for any Cambodians who joined the party’s efforts to boycott the vote. His ruling…

The European delegation to Vietnam and the Canadian and U.K. Embassies have urged Vietnamese authorities to halt the execution of death row inmate Le Van Manh, whose family was told this week to make preparations to receive his body after his sentence is carried out. In a joint statement, posted to the E.U. delegation’s Facebook page on Thursday, the diplomatic missions noted that Le Van Minh, 42, has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence since he was sentenced for rape and murder in 2005 and dismissed the death penalty as an acceptable…

About 1,400 migrant workers are entering China from Myanmar every day from the northern Shan state trading hub of Muse after a seven-day permit was recently authorized by Beijing, local residents told Radio Free Asia. Most of the migrants are from villages in Sagaing, Magway, Mandalay and Shan that have been recently devastated by the civil war, and are in desperate need to earn money, aid workers said. They do menial jobs like gardening or factory work for seven days, and then return home, they said. “People are rushing for…

Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone has pledged to increase agricultural trade and investment with southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which borders Vietnam, state media reported. The move is part of a broader goal to expand overall trade ties, investment and tourism, which occurred during a trip last week to the China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning, Guangxi’s capital, Lao media reports said. Laos is struggling to shore up its flailing economy, which has been battered by soaring inflation and a steady depreciation of the kip against the U.S. dollar and other…

Vietnamese humanitarian and non-governmental organizations are increasingly less inclined to work with the United Nations due to fear of reprisal from their government, according to a new report by the global body’s human rights agency. NGO activities are restricted in Vietnam, where criticism of the one-party state is not tolerated. Groups must register with the government and are strictly monitored by authorities. In its 2022 U.N. in Vietnam Annual Results Report submitted to the 54th U.N. General Assembly that’s going on in New York currently, the U.N. Office of the…

Nearly two-thirds of Rohingya respondents have reported that moving around in Bangladesh refugee camps is more difficult than what they encountered in Myanmar, the country they were forced to flee, a youth advocacy group said in a study released Friday. The Youth Congress Rohingya (YCR), a refugee-led advocacy organization, placed some of the blame on the Armed Police Battalion, the force primarily responsible for security at the Cox’s Bazar-area camps, for poor conditions faced by about 1 million refugees in the camps. “The government movement restrictions are violently enforced by…