People forget, as they rarely do with Vietnam or China, that Laos is still a communist state with complete control over the press and civil society. Helen Clark reports
The American star cancels scheduled performance at the International Roots Festival. She is not the only musician who has faced criticism over plans to perform for leaders with questionable human rights records, writes Buya Jammeh
The Arab Spring has not stopped Britain from helping crush free expression by selling crowd control ammunition to authoritarian states including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Alex Stevenson reports
Last Tuesday “hacktivist journo” Barrett Brown pled guilty in a US court after a long-running battle with the FBI. He had reported on a high-profile Anonymous hack as well as posting provocative videos on YouTube baiting FBI officials. Alastair Sloan reports
Early last month when human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman, from Multan, in Punjab province, was threatened that he would not be present at the next hearing as he would not be alive, it was no idle threat. Zofeen Ebrahim reports on the latest assassination to rock Pakistan
The India media is the subject of the news yet again. This time though, the private news channels — the usual suspects – are only reporting the news. Instead, the latest war of words among politicians has thrown the public service broadcaster, Doordarshan, into the limelight. Mahima Kaul reports
Autocrats try to use international competitions to control the world’s view of them. We should beat them at their own games, writes Padraig Reidy
The authorities in Belarus are trying to ensure that no one spoils the upcoming World ice hockey championship the country hosts — not even human rights activists. Andrei Aliaksandrau reports
The sentencing of eight youth activists this week is just the latest addition to a long list of human rights abuses by Azerbaijani authorities
The June 4 Memorial Museum confronts China’s recent past in an honest, open way