Coming Soon Governing Through Hate: Controlling Minorities in Southeast Asia examines how political and influential actors use ethno-religious hate speech as a tool of governance to define national and religious belonging, reinforce dominant identities and control communities perceived as falling outside majoritarian norms. Drawing on a year-long monitoring process tracking hate speech trends in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand in 2025, the report makes three principal contributions. First, it examines how international, constitutional, legal and administrative frameworks ostensibly designed to protect religious and minority rights, religious harmony, public order and national security instead institutionalise dominant ethno-religious hierarchies and constrain…

Download Full Report Religious Freedom in Cambodia: Unpacking the Rankings examines the state of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in the Kingdom, interrogating the anomaly between its positive global rankings on religious freedom and its poor standing in broader human rights and democracy indices. Drawing on policy analysis and stakeholder insights, the report reveals that positive rankings obscure longstanding structural challenges, including state oversight and political co-optation of Buddhism, systemic discrimination experienced by Muslim and Christian minority communities and the destruction of Indigenous Peoples' ancestral lands and sacred sites for development. These challenges are compounded by a bureaucratic administration…

Download Full Report This report analyses the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within independent and public-interest media across eight countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. It examines how media organisations engage with AI technologies, mapping current use cases, opportunities and structural constraints. The findings reveal that while AI adoption is currently taking place within public-interest media, it is defined by an approach of “principled caution” where adoption is careful, selective and highly varied. While adoption remains cautious to protect journalistic credibility from risks such as hallucinations and biases, newsrooms are increasingly embracing AI as a powerful…

Coming Soon In the Philippines, the enduring influence of Catholic fundamentalism and conservative religious networks has constrained civic space and intensified backlash against women and gender and sexual minority (GSM) advocates. This influence is embedded throughout institutions, local patronage and public morality, allowing anti-rights actors to present equality claims as threats to family, faith and social order rather than as democratic needs. A key target of this backlash has been defenders of reproductive rights, gender equality and broader gender justice. Their advocacy is frequently framed as immoral, anti-family or contrary to traditional Catholic values. Religious Fundamentalism in the Philippines: Women…

Coming Soon The fall of Indonesia’s New Order regime in 1998 and the resulting democratic transition created new opportunities for political participation and civic engagement. At the same time, it facilitated the re-emergence of political Islam as a powerful force within public life. Over time, and especially since the early 2010s, Islamic organisations, movements and religiously oriented political actors have increasingly shaped electoral politics, public policy and state institutions, contributing to the normalisation of Islamic fundamentalist narratives that oppose gender equality and the rights of women, gender and sexual minorities (WGSM). As a result, WGSM rights advocates have become increasingly…

Download Full Report In Myanmar, the 2021 coup d’état led to the collapse of civic space and a rise in authoritarian control. At the same time – and less discussed – the authoritarian environment that followed saw the re-emergence of Buddhist fundamentalism, which uses military violence and a centralised Buddhist-Bamar national identity to suppress alternative voices. A key target of Buddhist fundamentalist groups has been defenders of women, gender and sexual minority (WGSM) rights, whose advocacy is framed as a threat to “traditional” morality. Religious Fundamentalism in Myanmar: Post-Coup Repression of Gender Rights shows the coordinated nature of the repression…