Myanmar: Prisoner Amnesty Highlights the Need for Penal Code Reform

May 6, 2016

This article was originally published at The Diplomat on 5 May 2016. Available here. A week after having released 199 political prisoners, on April 17 the Government of Myanmar released 83 additional prisoners. Among those released were student activists involved in peaceful protests against the National Education Law and Naw Ohn Hla, a land rights activist … More Myanmar: Prisoner Amnesty Highlights the Need for Penal Code Reform

Taiwan: Can Tsai Ing-Wen Change the Politics of Death?

April 23, 2016

This article was originally published at the Diplomat on February 10, 2016. Following Tsai Ing-wen’s electoral victory last month, KMT lawmakers have been challenging Ms. Ing-wen, who will be inaugurated as Taiwan’s first female president on 20 May, and her Democratic Peoples Party on several issues. Among them, Ms. Ing-wen has been demanded to reveal … More Taiwan: Can Tsai Ing-Wen Change the Politics of Death?

Nonviolent activism around the Olympic Games: History and lessons learned

November 25, 2015

This article was originally published at openDemocracy.net on 24 November 2015 and is available here. Whereas countless public figures have insisted that the Olympics be kept “apolitical” for decades, nonviolent action and civil society together have succeeded in revealing the hollowness of such a notion. A Tiananmen Square-themed Olympic logo. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.Bringing … More Nonviolent activism around the Olympic Games: History and lessons learned

The Truth About Myanmar’s New Discriminatory Laws

November 8, 2015

This article was originally published 26 August 2015 at The Diplomat. Available here. Last Thursday, Myanmar’s parliament approved the remaining two of four “Protection of Race and Religion” bills. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights Chairperson Charles Santiago prefers to call them the “Race and Religion Discrimination bills.” Their passage—which would allow local governments to impose … More The Truth About Myanmar’s New Discriminatory Laws

Against Letpadaung: copper mining in Myanmar and the struggle for human rights

November 8, 2015

 This article was originally published at OpenDemocracy on 3 August 2015. Available here. The Letpadaung copper mine in the Sagaing Region of central Myanmar has become a major fault line in the struggle for human rights in that country. It is also emblematic of a global problem: the damage caused by exploitative resource extraction coupled … More Against Letpadaung: copper mining in Myanmar and the struggle for human rights

In Myanmar, students test the sincerity of democratic transition

June 15, 2015

Originally published at openDemocracy on 10 June 2015. Also available here. Students demand change in Myanmar. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved. In Myanmar, as university students around the world begin to exalt their summer freedom, a national student movement continues to demand greater political freedom. At the end of May 2015 Myanmar’s parliament was still … More In Myanmar, students test the sincerity of democratic transition

Matching resistance to repression in China

June 15, 2015

First Published at openDemocracy on April 8, 2015. Also available here. Prominent human rights activist Pu Zhiqiang has languished in pre-trial detention since his arrest last May – in the lead-up to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre – on charges for several crimes including “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. His case remains … More Matching resistance to repression in China

Violence and Nonviolence in the Uyghur Struggle

October 23, 2014

First published at opendemocracy.net on 10 October 2014 as Resistance, repression, and the cycle of violence in the Uyghur Struggle. On Tuesday, September 26, 2014 a Chinese court convicted Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur economics professor, to a life sentence on charges of separatism in a disgracefully political trial. Amnesty International’s China researcher William Nee wrote, … More Violence and Nonviolence in the Uyghur Struggle

Xinjiang or East Turkestan: Contending Historical Narratives and the Politics of Representation in China

July 8, 2014

July 5th marked the fifth anniversary of a series of bloody events in Xinjiang collectively labeled as the 7/5 Urumqi riots. Immediately afterward, state and international media set to reporting and analyzing the conflict, scholars and international human rights organizations soon joined. Meanwhile the government in Beijing launched damage control, exerting its monopoly of symbolic … More Xinjiang or East Turkestan: Contending Historical Narratives and the Politics of Representation in China