Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte came under fire Saturday for making a second joke about rape, with Chelsea Clinton leading online outrage and a rights group branding his sense of humour “sickening”. In a speech at a military camp on Friday aimed at lifting troops’ spirits after he imposed martial law across the southern Philippines, Duterte … Read more
Indonesia is facing renewed calls to repeal its controversial blasphemy law after the jailing of Jakarta’s Christian governor, with critics pointing to a sharp increase in its use to target minorities. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama — known by his nickname Ahok — was jailed for two years Tuesday for blasphemy over comments he made about Islam … Read more
The Philippines’ police chief has defended the detention of a dozen people inside a closet-sized secret cell in a case that raised further alarm about abuses under President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs. The government’s human rights commission discovered a dozen men and women packed into the tiny cell behind a wooden cabinet during … Read more
Indonesia’s Aceh looks set to cane two men who admitted having sex in contravention of Islamic laws, an official said Monday, the first such punishment of a gay couple in the conservative province. They face up to 100 strokes if found guilty of breaking Aceh’s sharia regulations after they were caught in late March by … Read more