MANDALAY (UCAN): Rights groups have called out ASEAN leaders, who gathered in Bangkok, Thailand for the 34th ASEAN Summit from June 20 to 23, over a leaked report on the repatriation of Rohingya refugees which downplays the crackdown by Myanmar’s military on the Muslim minority group.  
 
Nearly two dozen Rohingya organisations and civil societies from around the world voiced concern over the leaked report from ASEAN’s Emergency Response and Action Team (ERAT).
 

Simon Rughneen
 
Efforts by Southeast Asian lawmakers to tackle religious discrimination could help in future prevent the sort of atrocities that drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, according to Marzuki Darusman, who is the chairperson of the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar.
 

MANILA (SE): The old boys’ club was on hand to welcome the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, to his first Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) Summit in Vientiane, Laos, on September 5.

No doubt eager to make an impression, he pushed his big domestic barrow of the elimination of all drug-related creatures from the face of this earth among his newfound peers, encouraging them to adopt his methods and make a big push for a drug-free ASEAN region.

VIENTIANE (AsiaNews): The 10 member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) rotates the host nation for its annual meetings of the Civil Society Organisations and next year’s gathering was set to be held in Laos.

However, citing security risks and inadequate resources as reasons, Vientiane has decided it will not take its turn.

NEW YORK (UCAN) : A group working for the passage of a human rights charter for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) warned that flaws in the process are an embarrassment, as foreign ministers from the various countries that make up the block sat down to study the draft on September 27 during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.