AK Rockefeller Features

Features

The Complexities of Thai Education System in Patani

Ibrahim Keela, a 25-year-old youth activist and student, shares his thoughts with AK Rockefeller about the institutional challenges on education and livelihood. He hails from Yala, a province in south Thailand. Th ...

Patani Youth Activists Seeking Malaysia's Help as ASEAN Chair

Patani Youth Activists Seeking Malaysia’s Help as ASEAN Chair

PerMAS lodged a formal appeal to the Malaysian embassy in Bangkok yesterday. The Federation of Patani Students and Youth (Persekutuan Mahasiswa Anak Muda dan Siswa Patani) is seeking for the government of Malaysia to ...

Hundreds Rally for the Release of Students Detained in ThaiSouth

Thai army arrested 50 students and young people on June 2, in the conflict-torn southern provinces of Thailand. The students are affiliated with PerMAS (Federation of Patani Students and Youths) along with othe ...

Patani Students, Youths Arrested in Thai Army Crackdown

Martial law. The rule of the military in the south provinces of Thailand (ThaiSouth) has been around for about a decade, due to insurgency between warring Patani factions and the security forces. That said, the junta ...

Crumbling Dreams of Hope Among the Urban Poor

Housing for the squatters. Poverty in the slums. Congested, crowded, as urban communities continue to live in pitiful conditions with no hope of improvement. No worldly plans to own land, or home. Not during these ha ...

The State of Thai Democracy

Follow Zashnain on Twitter @bedlamfury and read his blog at zashnain.com Over the past four years, my outreach activities, with the repertoire of contention, have been shaped and monitored by community leaders and yo ...

Fight for Democracy, We Want Election

“As long as the country’s democracy is not safe. we will be here.” The words of Thailand’s Red Shirt leader, Jatuporn Prompan, who leads thousands of pro-government supporters and the United F ...

Memory loss, political strangulation as a messiah rampages again

She doesn’t know, he doesn’t remember, while another friend seems disinterested with my queries, and my persistence. While it was all passionate intelligent talk almost a month ago, now it’s simply ...

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Interview with a Papuan political prisoner: Filep Karma

On April 2nd, 2014, West Papuan solidarity groups are holding a day of action calling on the Indonesian Government to free all West Papuan political prisoners unconditionally. Rallies are being held in various cities ...

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Interview with a Papuan political prisoner: Forkorus Yaboisembut

On April 2nd, 2014, West Papuan solidarity groups are holding a day of action calling on the Indonesian Government to free all West Papuan political prisoners unconditionally. Rallies are being held in various cities ...

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Interview with a Papuan political prisoner: Edison Waromi

On April 2nd, 2014, West Papuan solidarity groups are holding a day of action calling on the Indonesian Government to free all West Papuan political prisoners unconditionally. Rallies are being held in various cities ...

A Rohingya in Bangkok: Driven, Determined

Mohamed Saibal works with his colleague and friend by the busy roadside, both shy men are from one of the most oppressed community in the region. Saibal is a Rohingya, working in the heart of Thailand, patiently sell ...

ThaiSouth in Suthep’s Bangkok

February the First, marked another violent episode in Bangkok, though this time in Lak Si district where two opposing forces exchanged gunfire. I made my way to Central World, where the so-called People’s Democ ...

Convergence of Thoughts, in Kurang Village

Supplies needed, relief given. Hardship in these parts is deeply ingrained in the farming community, scattered in what appears to be dry barren land to any bubbly urban-born selfie-addicted Thai. Though the farmers s ...

Of rice, farmers and perseverance, in Maha Sarakham

The aircraft’s twin-engine roared as the ATR72-200’s breaks into slow submission to the kiss of earth. Finally, in a small landing field with a runway and surrounded by dark, brown-reddish earth and sh ...

Patterns of impunity and deceit in Myanmar

A UN supervised investigation is needed before more atrocities are committed against the Rohingya Muslims. Yet another deadly attack on Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority made the news recently, this time taking ...

Thailand: Peace Hath her Victories

A group on January 10 wearing white gathered confidently to show support for their right to election and rejecting fascism. They, like many outside of the city, are determined to defend their right to self-determina ...

Political gluttony in a realm torn by greed

I'm back in Bangkok, where traffic conditions, urban pollution and color-based politics have reach a screeching point, where the educated elites are in their constant political brawl against what they call the uneduc ...

Poverty concealed by the passionate facade

Urban poverty is widely accepted by the urban Thai society where the social elites view themselves as 'civilized' and above the squalor. Homelessness is nothing new, yet the monstrosity of ignorance has left most imm ...

Fear of “catastrophic violence” against Myanmar Muslims

The attitudes behind the deadly and systematic violence against Muslims in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar could, if left unchecked, lead to “mass atrocities,” Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said in a ...