"JOINT SOLIDARITY STATEMENT: Defending Digital Freedom: ASEAN Coalition Confronts Laos’ Social Media Clampdown", 23 August 2023

We, Manushya Foundation, ALTSEAN-Burma, Cambodian Center for Human Rights, ELSAM, Foundation for Media Alternatives, Free Expression Myanmar, ILGA Asia, SAFEnet, The 88 Project, and Women’s Peace Network, as the ASEAN Regional Coalition to #StopDigitalDictatorship, stands in solidarity with Lao people whose right to information is, once again, being deprived by censorship. In early August 2023, the Lao government through the Ministry of Technology and Communications revealed its intention to regulate social media usage both within and outside the country. [...]

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We strongly call upon the Lao government to uphold international human rights standards, ensuring the fundamental rights of the Lao people to freedom of expression and access to information [...].

[...] [T]he ASEAN Regional Coalition to #StopDigitalDictatorship calls on the Lao government to: 

• Strengthen protection of independent investigative journalists or media professionals who expose rights violations;
• Repeal the above-mentioned orders and refrain from forcing online media outlets to register with the authorities;
• Guarantee transparency and access for all persons in Lao PDR to information, particularly where such information relates to the public interest and impacts upon the individual’s rights to expression, information and public participation, by adopting a law to enable the provision of such access;
• Repeal or amend laws and regulations that restrict freedom of expression, independent media, and access to information, including but not limited to the Law on Prevention and Combating Cyber Crime and the Media Law, to bring them in line with Article 19 of  UDHR and of the ICCPR;
• Refrain from using the allegations of "fake news" as a justification for limiting online information and suppressing free media;
• End the weaponization of constitutional provisions such as Article 23 of the Constitution, to limit media activities contrary to vague and overbroad provisions of “national interests”. 

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