s disappearance represents start of a crackdown on dissenting voices Sombath Somphone was snatched on a busy street in Laos' capital Vientiane last December, while police officers looked on. The 60-year-old was stopped by police in his 4x4, but two people in plain clothes bundled him into another vehicle and he has not been seen or heard of since. The police and other government authorities state they...
s wry smile belied his macabre circumstances. "I haven't been able to sleep for two days. I have been thinking too much. I miss my mum. I don't want my children to be like me," the 44-year-old Burmese druglord, chained to a chair, told a Chinese TV interviewer. On Friday – two days after the interview – the Burmese freshwater pirate was executed for allegedly murdering a crew of Chinese sailors on...
trials with displays of Chinese judicial force – armed patrol boats on the Mekong, rows of Swat officers and border guards, and interviews with Chinese analysts on the country's rule of law. "I think [the broadcast] is compatible with what the government wants – to show the Chinese people that the government is serious about protecting them within the country and outside," said Shi Yinhong, a professor...
s family and friends say he had no such conflicts and that no ransom has been demanded. As founder and former director of Laos's Participatory Development Training Centre, an NGO working with civil society and government in community development and poverty reduction, Sombath has campaigned for land rights for subsistence farmers at a time when land grabbing is becoming increasingly common. According...