Fortify Rights

We’ll discuss:
✅ Documented atrocities in Ukraine
✅ Russia–Myanmar junta cooperation
✅ Trafficking and coerced recruitment of Bangladeshi men
✅ What regional governments should do

📢 Tomorrow in Bangkok

Panel Discussion: Impacts in South & Southeast Asia from Russia’s Illegal War in Ukraine

📅 March 6 | 7:00 PM
📍 FCCT, Bangkok
Live on FCCT and Fortify Rights Facebook page

China intent on ‘persecution’ say campaigners, after latest house church arrests - The Tablet The Chinese government’s policy towards religion “is not about indigenisation” but persecution, according to the daughter of an imprisoned church leader.

🇨🇳 New reporting on the latest house church arrests in China highlights deepening concerns over religious freedom.

Senior Director Benedict Rogers describes the detentions as part of a wider crackdown, warning they reflect the Chinese Communist Party’s “absolute intent to control religion.”

𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵 “𝗜 𝗪𝗮𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗮𝗿”

A new joint report by Fortify Rights & Truth Hounds reveals how Bangladeshi men have been deceived, coerced, & trafficked into the Russian Army & deployed to the frontlines of Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine.

bit.ly/FortifyEventRegister

🙌 Meet the people behind Fortify Rights’s new Leadership Council.

From former government ministers and Parliamentarians, diplomats and legal experts, to artists, entrepreneurs and human rights defenders, our Leadership Council members share why they are joining our cause to advance human rights.

The Bhasan Char project was never about protection, it’s about Rohingya confinement Whoever takes office in Bangladesh after the elections next month must prioritise lifting longstanding and deeply embedded restrictions on refugees.

As the new gov't of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party takes office, it must prioritise lifting longstanding restrictions on Rohingya refugees.

John Quinley of Fortify Rights highlights how Bhasan Char has been used to isolate & confine Rohingya refugees.

www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2026...

🇧🇩 Bangladesh’s incoming gov't must ensure freedom of movement for Rohingya refugees in camps and on Bhasan Char.

“Freedom of movement is a fundamental right for a human being and Rohingya should not be deprived just because they are refugees." - Zaw Win

www.fortifyrights.org/bgd-inv-2026...

Bhasan Char is a failure, but it’s not all Bangladesh’s fault Bangladesh and the international community need to end support for Bhasan Char. They must commit to solutions that present a win for refugees and Bangladeshis

Bhasan Char has failed Rohingya refugees, but the blame doesn’t lie with Bangladesh alone. By ignoring the rights and views clearly expressed by Rohingya refugees, the UN and donor governments have enabled the restrictions on movement and detention.

en.prothomalo.com/opinion/op-e...

Britain cannot leave Jimmy Lai to die in jail Beijing has been allowed to make an example of Mr Lai by imposing a cruel sentence. Now it must be pressed to show clemency.

As Jimmy Lai, a 78-year-old British pro-democracy publisher, was unjustly sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong, Benedict Rogers from Fortify Rights urges the British government to make Lai’s release a priority.

spectator.com/article/brit...

In the aftermath of the February 2021 coup, Myanmar military and police forces shot and killed unarmed civilians, tortured detainees, and carried out mass arbitrary arrests across cities and towns nationwide.

Learn more: www.fortifyrights.org/mya-inv-rep-...

The Bhasan Char project was never about protection, it’s about Rohingya confinement Whoever takes office in Bangladesh after the elections next month must prioritise lifting longstanding and deeply embedded restrictions on refugees.

Bangladesh 🇧🇩

Bhasan Char has always been a failed project. It should serve as a lesson for both the UN and governments, illustrating the dangers of trying to “manage” refugees rather than recognising them as individual rights-holders.

Read the op-ed:
www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2026...

🇲🇲 NEW: Australia and Timor-Leste should jointly refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, said Fortify Rights, as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets Timor-Leste’s leaders in Dili today.

Read the full news release: www.fortifyrights.org/mya-inv-2026...

As Bangladesh heads to the polls, human rights must come first Bangladesh has a rare opportunity to choose a path that shuns the abuses of previous administrations, John Quinley and Benedict Rogers say

🇧🇩 “The election in February is not simply about who governs next, but about whether Bangladesh finally breaks its long cycle of authoritarianism and political violence. The revolution that forced Hasina from power was, at its core, a demand for human rights.”

www.independent.co.uk/voices/bangl...

🇲🇲 NEW: The Myanmar military junta is increasingly using commercial paramotors and gyrocopters to carry out targeted attacks on civilians, including schools, hospitals, monasteries, and peaceful gatherings, Fortify Rights said today.

Read the full news release: www.fortifyrights.org/mya-inv-2026...

2/2 🧵

On January 21, 2026, Fortify Rights launched a new report, “Like Prisoners: The Mass Arbitrary Detention and Warehousing of Rohingya Refugees on Bhasan Char in Bangladesh,” at Dhaka Reporters Unity, documenting the systematic confinement of Rohingya refugees.

Full report: bit.ly/BhasanCharRe...

🇧🇩 NEW: Bangladesh should immediately close Bhasan Char and end the mass arbitrary detention of Rohingya refugees, said Fortify Rights in a new report published today.

Read the full news release: www.fortifyrights.org/bgd-inv-2026...

Read the report: www.fortifyrights.org/bgd-inv-rep-...

📢 🇧🇩 TODAY: REPORT LAUNCH

“Like Prisoners: The Mass Arbitrary Detention and Warehousing of Rohingya Refugees on Bhasan Char in Bangladesh”

A new report by Fortify Rights documents the arbitrary confinement of Rohingya refugees on Bhasan Char.

Fortify Rights CEO Matthew Smith, with The Gambia's legal team, the Rohingya delegation of witnesses, and The Gambia’s Attorney General on the final day of the first round of oral hearings in The Gambia v. Myanmar case.

Myanmar’s sham elections As Myanmar marks five years since its military coup, the junta’s staged elections, mass repression and escalating humanitarian catastrophe expose a crisis

In a new op-ed for The Catholic Herald, Senior Director Benedict Rogers warns that Myanmar remains in the grip of a man-made human rights disaster, marked by daily airstrikes on civilians and sham elections designed to legitimize an illegal military regime.

thecatholicherald.com/article/myan...

Jimmy Lai convicted, faces life in prison Benedict Rogers of Hong Kong watch reacts to the conviction of democracy activist Jimmy Lai.

🇭🇰 Democracy activist Jimmy Lai was found guilty of multiple violations of China’s national security laws. He has not been formally sentenced, but is likely facing life in prison.

Senior Director Benedict Rogers reacts to the conviction on Ave Maria Radio.

avemariapm.substack.com/p/jimmy-lai-...

“คำพิพากษาในชั้นอุทธรณ์เป็นช่วงเวลาสำคัญที่จะแก้ไขคดีนี้ให้ถูกต้อง” แมทธิว สมิธ ประธานเจ้าหน้าที่บริหารของฟอร์ตี้ฟายไรต์ กล่าว “ในช่วงที่สภาผู้แทนราษฎรถูกยุบ รัฐบาลไทย ไม่ว่าจะเป็นรัฐบาลชุดใดในอนาคต ควรเร่งดำเนินการสอบสวนเชิงรุกและทบทวนพยานหลักฐานทั้งหมดอย่างรอบด้าน เพื่อให้ผู้กระทำผิดถูกนำตัวมารับผิด และเพื่อไม่ให้ผู้เสียหายถูกปฏิเสธความยุติธรรม”

bit.ly/AungKoKoThai

Thailand: Investigate Military Involvement in Torture, Acquit Wrongly Accused Myanmar National - Fortify Rights Court to issue verdict in fatal torture of Myanmar national, key suspects remain at large

🇹🇭 พรุ่งนี้ วันที่ 17 ธันวาคม ศาลจังหวัดแม่สอดเตรียมอ่านคำพิพากษาศาลอุทธรณ์ คดีนายอ่องโกโกที่ถูกเจ้าหน้าที่ทหารไทยทรมานจนเสียชีวิตที่ชายแดนไทย-เมียนมา เมื่อวันที่ 12 มกราคม 2567

ขณะที่ชาวเมียนมาอีกรายหนึ่งถูกตัดสินว่ามีความผิด แต่ผู้กระทำความผิดที่แท้จริงยังคงลอยนวล ซ้ำด้วยการที่กรมสอบสวนคดีพิเศษ ของไทยได้ปฏิเสธที่จะรับคดีนี้ไปสอบสวน
www.fortifyrights.org/tha-inv-2025...

“With parliament dissolved, the Thai government—regardless of who forms the next administration—should take urgent action to ... ensure that perpetrators are held accountable and that victims are not denied justice.”

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

🇹🇭 NEW: Tomorrow, December 17, the Mae Sot Provincial Court will issue its appeal verdict in the case of Aung Ko Ko, a Myanmar national tortured to death by Thai soldiers at the Thai-Myanmar border on January 12, 2024.

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

🇭🇰 NEW: A Hong Kong court has convicted media entrepreneur and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai under the city’s draconian national security law. He now faces life imprisonment after five years of arbitrary detention for exercising basic freedoms.

🔗 www.fortifyrights.org/eas-inv-2025...

🇹🇭 သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် - ထိုင်းအာဏာပိုင်များသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသား ၃,၅၀၀ ကျော်ကို ရနောင်း–ကော့သောင်း နယ်စပ်ဂိတ်မှတစ်ဆင့် မြန်မာစစ်အုပ်စုထံ အတင်းအကျပ် လွှဲပြောင်းပေးခဲ့ရာ၊ စစ်အုပ်စုကလည်း ပြန်လည်ပို့ဆောင်ခံရသူများကို စစ်မှုထမ်းရန် အတင်းအဓမ္မစေခိုင်းခဲ့သည်။

ဤအတင်းအကျပ် ပြန်ပို့မှုများသည် ထိုင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာဥပဒေများအား ချိုးဖောက်ရာရောက်သလို မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားများအားလည်း ကြီးလေးသော ဘေးအန္တရာယ်ဆီသို့ တိုက်ရိုက်တွန်းပို့လိုက်ခြင်းပင်ဖြစ်သည်။

bit.ly/PushbackMYA

🇹🇭 BREAKING: Thai authorities forcibly returned more than 3,500 Myanmar nationals to the Myanmar military junta, who, in turn, forced returnees into the military. Thailand's actions may amount to torture, refoulement, and human trafficking.

Full news release: www.fortifyrights.org/tha-inv-2025...

Where Hundreds of Undocumented Migrants Have Died in Custody

🇲🇾 Malaysian authorities must end their abusive campaign of immigration crackdowns and investigate deaths in detention centers.

“Detainees face severe torture, both physical and psychological.”, Yap Lay Sheng told the New York Times.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/w...