Jailing dissidents is not only a Burmese tradition

Ever heard of Tun Aung? I hadn’t until researching my recent Reuters special report on Myanmar’s year of reforms. Human rights activists claim his plight is proof that the country’s reformist government, like the military junta it replaced, still relies on repressive laws and secretive trials to silence perceived enemies. Tun Aung, a practicing medical [...]

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Meet Colonel Fish Sauce

Aljazeera.net June 2011 "The global war on drugs has failed." That was the stark conclusion of a recent study by former world leaders. Their words resonate in Asia, which is awash with a highly addictive drug called methamphetamine, better known by its street-names yaba, shabu, ice, speed.

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Two Tropical Gulags

Today, as Al Jazeera continues its daily broadcasts of “Thailand’s Tropical Gulag,” a documentary I co-produced with filmmaker Orlando de Guzman, I read two pieces of torture news. Please compare and contrast: In Indonesia, a military tribunal found three soldiers guilty of torturing Papuans. Horrific footage of this abuse was filmed and posted on YouTube [...]

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Is the Thai Military Torturing Detainees?

TIME.com 1 December 2010 War logs published via WikiLeaks suggest that the U.S. military ignored torture by its Iraqi allies. Those allegations still resonate in Thailand, and not just because this staunch U.S. ally is fighting an insurgency of its own. America and Thailand share a history of torture.

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