A Cambodian court’s closed-door conviction and sentencing of the opposition leader Sam Rainsy and two others takes Prime Minister Hun Sen’s campaign of persecution of critics to a new extreme and highlights government control over the judiciary.

The Chinese government should disclose the status and whereabouts of ethnic Uighurs repatriated against their will from Cambodia and allow the United Nations, lawyers, and family members to meet with them.

They had been beaten, whipped, shocked with electric batons and even raped. Food was scarce and forced labor common. Cambodians who have spent time in the country's drug detention centers described these outrageous abuses and horrible conditions, and more.

Detention centers in Cambodia, mandated to treat and ‘rehabilitate' drug users, instead subject them to electric shocks, beatings with electrical wire, forced labor, and harsh military drills.

So-called rehabilitation centres in Cambodia and elsewhere in Asia are in reality prisons where harsh and ineffective measures are used to break the hold of drugs

Cambodia's respect for basic rights dramatically deteriorated in 2009 as the government misused the judiciary to silence government critics, attacked human rights defenders, tightened restrictions on press freedom, and abandoned its international obligations to protect refugees.

Australia has a good track record of principled diplomacy and implementing targeted sanctions against abusive military governments in Burma and Fiji. Yet it's relatively easy for Australia to speak out about countries where it has few economic interests. It takes more courage and principle to turn up the heat on countries where it has significant economic and strategic interests.

Human Rights Watch joins with others to write to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva regarding the safety and security of over two million migrants from Burma, Cambodia and Laos currently working in Thailand.