Category: Asia

‘Sorrow is a defeatist movement’: An interview with Sombath Somphone’s wife Ng Shui-Meng 

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, Laos

On the evening of 15 December 2012, Sombath Somphone, a leading democracy activist from Laos, was stopped at a police checkpoint on a busy street in the country’s capital Vientiane. Footage from a traffic CCTV camera shows that within minutes of him being stopped, unknown individuals forced him into another vehicle and drove him away in the presence of police officers. The footage also showed an unknown individual arriving and driving Somphone’s vehicle away from the city centre.  

Three years later, Somphone’s family obtained new CCTV footage from the same area and made it public. The video shows his car being driven back towards the city by another unknown individual. 

Somphone specialised in advocating for education of all Laotians, particularly in poor rural areas. He was perhaps the most prominent member of Laos’ small civil society: his work aimed at setting up a community-based development by incorporating the knowledge and opinion of rural people in the planning and management of development projects and programmes throughout the country.

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For religious minorities in India, even tragedies turn into trials

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, India

Once again a terror attack has left Muslims across India not just shaken like all other Indians, but also defending their very existence. Someone, somewhere, with a gun and an agenda, committed a horrific act — but it was their name, their identity and their faith that suddenly became suspect.

Twenty-six people were killed when terrorists attacked tourists in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir on 22 April. The attackers reportedly singled out non-Muslims, even asking some to recite the Islamic Kalima (Islamic prayers derived from hadiths that are often used to aid South Asia Muslim children to memorise key beliefs) to prove their faith.

It was horrifying. And yet, in the midst of the horror, ordinary Kashmiris—Muslim men and women—risked their lives to save strangers. People like Nazakat Ahmad Shah, a tour guide, and Rayees Ahmad Bhatt, President of the Pony Owners’ Association, pulled survivors from danger. A local pony guide Syed Adil Hussain Shah gave his life while trying to protect a little girl. But instead of being praised for their efforts, the Muslim community, especially the Kashmiri Muslim community, was vilified. Their bravery was quickly forgotten, the national mood shifted from mourning to suspicion—and the blame – as it so often does in India – landed on an entire community.

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Pakistan must be made to end its decades-long tolerance and encouragement of the violent persecution of the Ahmadiyya community 

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, Pakistan

At 2.30pm on 16 May, Dr Sheikh Mahmood arrived at Fatima Hospital in Sargodha, Punjab Province, Pakistan and proceeded to attend to his patients as per his routine. A highly respected gastroenterologist and hepatologist, Dr Mahmood was widely known for his dedication, professional excellence and compassionate nature.  

But on this day – as he walked through the corridor of the hospital that he had worked in for the past seven years – an unidentified gunman opened fire on him from behind before fleeing the scene while openly brandishing a pistol. He sustained two gunshot wounds and was immediately transferred to Civil Hospital Sargodha, where he succumbed to his injuries. He leaves behind a mother, wife, two daughters and two sons. 

Dr Mahmood, 58, had no known personal enmities and Sargodha police have yet to confirm the motive behind the killing, however recent developments in Pakistan give much and highly-concerning reason to believe that he was likely targeted because of his faith – that is, because he was an Ahmadi Muslim.

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Thirty years since it disappeared Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Chinese government must be made to provide the truth about his whereabouts

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, China

On 14 May 1995 the Dalai Lama publicly announced the six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama.

Tasked with recognising the next Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama, or ‘Great Scholar’, is one of the most important figures in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, with a spiritual authority second only to that of the Dalai Lama. For centuries, successive Panchem Lamas have lived in and led the influential Tashilhunpo Monastery in Tibet’s second largest city Shigatse, playing a key role in the development of Tibetan Buddhist scholarship.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima

But Nyima has been denied this. Three days after he was recognised as the Panchen Lama, he and his family were abducted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Nyima became the world’s youngest political prisoner, and he has not been seen in public since.

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Truth matters: How misinformation and sensationalism undermines support for victims of human rights violations

Posted on by cswpress in India, International Arenas, Syria

In early March, alarming reports surfaced of the killing of Christians in Syria. As a shocking outbreak of violence claimed the lives of over 1,000 people within just two days, including 745 civilians, many outlets were quick to claim that the country’s Christian community had been the target. 

GB News led with ‘Christians massacred as Syrian jihadist launches killing spree just weeks after toppling Assad’; a writer for the Times of Israel lamented what he identified as the media’s ‘predictable’ disdain for Syrian Christians; the Christian outlet Relevant Magazine claimed that ‘hundreds of Christians’ were among those killed, and countless posts on social media amplified claims of Christians being deliberately targeted and murdered in large numbers. 

Such reporting appeared to confirm the worst fears that many have harboured since December 2024, when President Bashir al-Assad was ousted by a coalition of rebel groups led by the Islamist military organisation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an organisation sanctioned by the US government. In the immediate aftermath of the takeover, many predominantly – though not exclusively – Christian outlets expressed understandable concern over impending threats to the country’s Christian community, with some warning of potential ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘persecution’ and ‘genocide’. 

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