🇹🇼 On October 7, 2025, Fortify Rights Senior Director Benedict Rogers joined Taiwan’s National Day reception in London, celebrating one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies.

As authoritarian influence grows across the region, standing with Taiwan is essential to defending democracy and human rights.

“Pope Leo should live up to his namesake and champion social justice.”

For UCANews, Fortify Rights Benedict Rogers urges Pope Leo to call for the release of political prisoners, including Jimmy Lai, and take a bold stand for religious freedom in China.
#FreeJimmyLai

www.ucanews.com/news/pope-le...

📢 52 rights groups, including Fortify Rights, denounce systemic abuse in Hong Kong prisons in a new Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation report on solitary confinement, torture, medical neglect, and indoctrination of 700+ political prisoners.

www.fortifyrights.org/eas-inv-let-...

🇭🇰 “In five years, Hong Kong went from an open society to one of Asia’s most repressive police states,” says Benedict Rogers in The Dispatch.

Jimmy Lai, 77, has spent 1,700+ days in solitary—his case epitomizes Hong Kong’s collapse of freedoms. The world must act.

thedispatch.com/newsletter/m...

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🇹🇭🇪🇺 Open Letter: Ahead of the resumed Free Trade Agreement talks, 20 civil society groups urge Thailand and the EU to ensure economic deals include protection of civil and political rights, human rights defenders, labor & migrant workers’ rights, and public health and biodiversity.

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Bangladesh 🇧🇩

Fortify Rights CEO Matthew Smith, along with other human rights defenders, met with Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh, on the sidelines of the U.N. in New York City to speak about human rights in the country.

Civic space is shrinking fast in Mekong region, as governments are silencing activists, & journalists through laws, surveillance & repression.

Fortify Rights's Patrick Phongsathorn and Ioannis Vlassis calls on the int'l community to support activists exposing human rights abuses.

shorturl.at/dj6pG

U.N. member states should impose a global arms and jet fuel embargo on the junta, and refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court.

Read the full news release: www.fortifyrights.org/mya-inv-2025...

🇲🇲 Fortify Rights’s new report identifies 22 Myanmar junta officials, including military leaders, units, and airbases, responsible for deadly airstrikes on civilians in Kachin and Karenni states—attacks that amount to war crimes.

Read the full news release: www.fortifyrights.org/mya-inv-2025...

🇰🇵 In a new op-ed for UCA News, Benedict Rogers highlights the UN’s latest report on North Korea — a damning indictment showing that, a decade after the landmark UN inquiry, repression has only deepened with public executions, trafficking, and totalitarian control.

www.ucanews.com/news/kim-jon...

🇮🇩 “We cannot afford to let Indonesia… slide into authoritarianism, intolerance, instability, conflict, and further human rights violations.” — Benedict Rogers, Fortify Rights.

For UCANews, he warns Indonesia faces democratic backsliding under President Subianto.

www.ucanews.com/news/asia-an...

🇲🇲🇭🇰 “Keir Starmer must take up these issues… and demand the release of Jimmy Lai and Aung San Suu Kyi.” — Benedict Rogers, Fortify Rights

Both elderly, frail, and unjustly imprisoned, they risk dying behind bars without urgent international action.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09...

A survivor from Kachin State recalls the traumatic event from Myanmar junta’s airstrike on the Alen Bum cultural center in October 2023.

Fortify Rights’s new report identifies junta officials responsible for the attacks.

Read more on Fortify Rights’s new report: bit.ly/AirstrikeReportEN

The Myanmar junta bombed two boarding schools in Kyauktaw, Rakhine State, killing at least 18 students. This indiscriminate assault on schools and civilians is a clear war crime.

International governments must act now and ban jet fuel sales to the Myanmar junta.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/...

🇲🇲🇺🇦 Human rights defenders from Myanmar and Ukraine are calling out Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, for its complicity in war crimes from occupying Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to backing the Myanmar junta’s atrocities with a nuclear deal.

thediplomat.com/2025/09/russ...

🇲🇲 “It won’t be a general election, but a selection of generals.”

In an op-ed for UCA News, Benedict Rogers highlights the UN rights chief’s report on Myanmar and urges the international community to cut the junta’s lifelines and reject sham polls.

www.ucanews.com/news/un-righ...

🇲🇲 A mother recounts the day her son was killed in an airstrike on a school in Daw Si Ei village, Karenni State, in Feb 2024.

Governments should urgently impose a coordinated aviation fuel & arms embargo on the junta to end these war crimes.

More on Fortify Rights report: bit.ly/AirstrikeReportEN

သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် - Fortify Rights ၏ အစီရင်ခံစာအသစ်တွင် ကချင်နှင့် ကရင်နီပြည်နယ်များရှိ အရပ်သားများအပေါ် ပစ်မှတ်ထားတိုက်ခိုက်သည့် စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုမြောက်စေသော ပြစ်မှုများကို ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သည့် မြန်မာအာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်စု၏ ထိပ်တန်းအရာရှိများ၊ စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၊ တပ်ရင်း တပ်ဖွဲ့များနှင့် လေတပ်စခန်းများကို စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးဖော်ထုတ်ထားသည်။

သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် အပြည့်အစုံ - shorturl.at/UKVts

🇲🇲 NEW: Fortify Rights report names 22 junta officials, units & airbases behind deadly airstrikes on civilians in Kachin & Karenni — attacks that may amount to war crimes.

U.N. states should impose a global arms & jet fuel embargo and refer Myanmar to the ICC.

www.fortifyrights.org/mya-inv-2025...

🇲🇲 “Now is not the time to lift sanctions or cut aid — and it is certainly not the time to give credence to fake elections.” — Benedict Rogers, Fortify Rights

In Nikkei Asia, Senior Director Benedict Rogers cautions against aid cuts and sanctions relief in Myanmar.

asia.nikkei.com/opinion/myan...

Speakers include:
▪️Chit Seng, Human Rights Associate, Fortify Rights
▪️Sai Arkar, Human Rights Associate, Fortify Rights
▪️Nang Pu, Kachin Women Activist
▪️Ya Mone, Security and Conflict Analyst

Moderated by:
▪️Patrick Phongsathorn, Senior Advocacy Specialist, Fortify Rights

📢 Report Launch & Panel Discussion

Fortify Rights’s new report “𝗖𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝗨𝘀” exposes Myanmar junta airstrikes on civilians in Kachin & Karenni States, naming 22 military officials and commands responsible for war crimes.

🗓 Sep 4 | 10 a.m.
📍FCCT, Bangkok
RSVP: bit.ly/AirstrikeReportLaunch

“[T]he AA would come, take the men, and force them into hard labour,” Ejaz Min Khant, Human Rights Specialist at Fortify Rights, told The New Humanitarian.

The Arakan Army’s forced labour of Rohingya in Rakhine State is a serious human rights violation.

www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature...

Bangladesh 🇧🇩

"True accountability requires fair justice procedures, reparations, and unwavering transparency," says John Quinley, director at Fortify Rights.
www.thedailystar.net/news/banglad...