Democracy

Where the Philippines sits on the gender equality and LGBT rights spectrum can be very confusing for many who are not familiar with the country’s culture. It can feel like being in a time machine that takes you from the 18th century to the 21st in a matter of hours. Sports like volleyball are an equalizing factor, serving as a safe space for the LGBT community.

On 24 February, Mahathir Mohamad, the 7th prime minister of Malaysia resigned unexpectedly followed by a week-long political fiasco in the form of ‘betrayal’ with lawmakers jumping ship to one another. On 25 February, the prime minister of Timor-Leste, Taur Matan Ruak sent a letter of resignation dated 24 February to the president, Francisco “Lu-Olo” Guterres

Equal power for women, a life with less violence and more justice are the goals that were set 25 years ago at the 4th World Conference on Women and in the Beijing Platform for Action. So far, gender equality has never been achieved.

A virus riding on another virus. That is how the ‘infodemic’ is raging in online spaces around the outbreak of the novel coronavirus called COVID-19, which has been on just about everyone’s radar since late January 2020. As grave as the quest to manage the respiratory disease and cure those ill with it is not only the challenge of using facts versus fear - but how to create and keep avenues of information that withstand the unrelenting drip of skewed, confused, partially true to totally false information, to racist and prejudiced views, or a cocktail of these.

Visibility and acceptance of lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI) in Southeast Asia have grown in recent years even though some countries continue to criminalise same-sex relations or individuals with different gender expressions. From Myanmar to Indonesia to Timor Leste, even the most difficult environments have given birth to stories of love, hope and humanity. In this report, APCOM sums up the conditions and recent progress for LGBTI in each country and highlights the strategies that have helped to advocate for change.

China is waging an unprecedented information campaign in Thailand through traditional and new media platforms, thanks to a sluice of partnerships with Thai media throughout 2019. Similar pattern is seen in the Southeast Asian region, where China is fast expanding its political, economic, and strategic stakes.

Vietnam’s ASEAN chairmanship in 2020 is particularly important in the transition year focusing on strengthening ASEAN's sustainable cohesion, both in political and security issues and in economic and social matters. To guide the year of the chairmanship, Vietnam has studied and proposed long-term initiatives and Hanoi also hopes that even after the chairmanship of Vietnam has ended, its proposed initiatives will be continuously promoted and implemented in the upcoming year.

More than romanticizing the Reformation in 1998, the student protest was incited by numerous controversial bills to be passed by the parliament. One of them being the Revision to the Criminal Code (RKUHP) which is now being framed as the ‘Sex Law’ by many international media. The reason why it’s referred as the ‘Sex Law’ is probably because its parts that would criminalize pre-marital sex and same-sex relations. But this label does not do justice, both to the Criminal Code revision and also to the current student movement in Indonesia.