Phil Robertson

Four Chinese dissidents are being held in a Thai detention center in Bangkok, at risk of forced return to #China. #Thailand's PM #Anutin Charnvirakul, is going to Beijing on July 16. I discuss their fate in this latest video. @hrw @sunaibkk @Reaproy youtu.be/yB9ZrSy6Skw

Freedom House is proud to join this global coalition in calling on democratic governments to stand against Beijing’s #transnationalrepression. China's Ethnic Unity Law is not about unity. It is about forced assimilation, cultural erasure, and expanding the CCP's reach beyond China's borders.

Of course, #China trying to shut down any discussion about what their pursuit of conflict "rare earth" minerals in Shan State, #Myanmar means. China & its companies are massively polluting the Kok, Mekong, Salaween & other rivers, destroying nature and local people's livelihoods. Shows the real China model for economic and natural resource exploitation - tear it out of the ground, and pollute everywhere.

Democrats Abroad Thailand's Pints & Politics this evening (7/14) in #Bangkok, starting at 6:30 pm! Don't miss it!

This was a great year. Thanks for the reminder, Darren.

Time for action from @CanadaFP & like-minded governments (and their embassies in #Bangkok) to demand @MFAThai @prd_official & @bhumjaithai_TH allow #China refugee Zhang Xinyan to travel to #Canada where she will receive long-term refugee protection. Under NO circumstances can she be sent back to #Beijing, where she would face persecution, arrest, imprisonment & likely torture in custody. This excellent statement by Canadian MP Jenny Kwan lays out the key details of the case. @UNHCRAsia @UNThailand @USEmbassyBKK @CanadaThailand @JennyKwanBC

@AusAmbBKK Congratulations on your appointment, looking forward to working with you again on matters of concern to civil society in Thailand & the Mekong region.

Sawasdee-krub!🙏 I'm Pablo Kang, 🇦🇺 Ambassador-Designate to 🇹🇭. As 🇦🇺 and 🇹🇭 prepare to celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations next year, I'm excited to be posted to Bangkok and look forward to strengthening our enduring partnership & friendship. 🔗foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny…

Americans in #Thailand, do you have a plan to vote in the critically important mid-term elections in the #USA in Nov. 2026? Democrats Abroad Thailand can help you get registered to vote, request your absentee ballot, & help troubleshoot any problems you might be having! We're ready to help, follow @DemsAbroadThai for upcoming events.

Of course, if PM Anutin really wanted to maintain his popularity, he would have found a way to enable Thais to watch the @FIFAWorldCup for free. Instead he's messing around with 40 baht meal subsidies to restaurants that will last 3 months & then be forgotten. Whoops, ไม่สนุก. Misreading the public sentiment again.

What's happening back in the USA? Will the Blue Wave roll in November? Are you ready to fight for our democracy? Democrats in #Thailand will get fired up on 14 July (Bastille Day! Help storm the castle!) at Kai, starting at 6:30 pm! All are welcome! Voter registration available!

@noansereiboth Good! Arrest the crew too! Unless those on board these vessels are punished, they will keep up the illegal sand dredging.

Cambodian authorities stopped and seized a Vietnamese sand dredger after it illegally entered Cambodian waters.

#Myanmar's Foreign Minister says the junta is treating Aung San Suu Kyi like "a sister." In that case, this is clear case of abuse of a family member because who would imprison a relative for decades on bogus charges & deny her access to family members and legal counsel? @ASEAN should not be fooled. ASSK should be immediately & unconditionally released! #SaveMyanmar #WhatsHappeninginMyanmar #Burma #ASSK reuters.com/world/asia-pac…

Elon Musk’s cuts to U.S.A.I.D. led to some 700,000 deaths, according to Atul Gawande, a former leading administrator at the agency. Gawande, backed by recent academic studies, believes that the death toll will likely reach seven figures. The policy is not only immeasurably cruel, he argues; it is also stupid, badly undermining what remains of American soft power and prestige. Gawande explains the human cost of DOGE’s war on U.S.A.I.D.: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/H5AQWr

What a win. Red Sox hit the All Star Break on a 9-gm winning streak. Just the second time in history they go undefeated on a road trip of 9+ games. They rallied from 2-0 in 9th to win it 3-2 in 10, first extra innings win on the road this season.

Donald Trump is one of the weakest, most thin-skinned individuals the world has ever seen.    Reporters have the right and duty to report the truth. It’s not their fault his foreign-gifted plane is a national security threat.    This subpoena is a gross overreach and a disgusting misuse of federal law enforcement resources that should alarm every American.

@KhaosodEnglish The larger question that is not being asked is why are these Chinese seeking to have their children registered as Thai? Is there something wrong with #China that compels them to do this?

Police have arrested four more suspects as they expand an investigation into a network allegedly using Thai men as “fake fathers” to fraudulently register children born to Chinese parents. Those arrested include the child’s biological Chinese parents, both aged 30, surnamed Li and Zhang, and two Thai men, surnamed Somchai and Prasert, accused of falsely acknowledging paternity in separate cases linked to the same network. Investigators allege the Thai suspects were paid to pose as the biological fathers of children despite having no family relationship to them. The false declarations were then used to obtain civil registration documents showing the children had a Thai parent. In one case, a 43-year-old Thai man, Somchai, allegedly signed documents claiming to be the father of a child whose biological parents were Chinese nationals. Police arrested the couple, Li and Zhang, at their home in Nonthaburi and the alleged fake father in Bangkok’s Saphan Sung district. A second Thai suspect, 54, Prasert, was arrested at his home in Samut Prakan over a similar alleged arrangement. All four suspects were transferred to Bang Yi Ruea Police Station and charged with supporting public officials in the unlawful performance of their duties. Police are now investigating additional registrations and seeking brokers, recruiters, employers and others believed to be involved in the wider network. #ThailandNews #China #ChinaInThailand #ThailandNews #China #ChinainThailand

ASEAN must remain focused on the 5 Point Plan since it is the only agreement that the #Myanmar regime ever signed since the Feb 2021 military coup - though Min Aung Hlaing has been ignoring it since the day he returned to Naypyitaw after signing it.

Part of China's new "ethnic unity" law is an effort to export its censorship to stop speech that the Chinese Communist Party doesn't like anywhere in the world. trib.al/v4DFcEg

Over on Substack I’m writing about the last seven years of my life. It’s the first draft of the whole story. All of it. Below is a short excerpt. I’ll be releasing chapters every few days, along with “Where’s Hunter?” a video series exclusive to Substack. Check it out. Link is in the replies. The Laptop They called it the laptop. I will call it that too, although the name is not accurate, the provenance was never established, and no court or forensic examiner ever certified the chain of custody that would have made it evidence rather than theater. I will call it the laptop because by now the word belongs to something larger than a piece of hardware. It belongs to a story they needed me to confirm, and I am done letting them tell it. Their origin story begins in a Delaware repair shop, but it does not end there, and it did not begin there either. By the time a legally blind computer repairman named handed a hard drive to Rudy Giuliani’s attorney, men had already been traveling to Kyiv and Vienna and Zurich for more than a year trying to assemble exactly this object. The laptop did not surface and create a scandal. A scandal was constructed, and a laptop was produced to anchor it. So. The laptop. Here is what was on it. Twenty years of my life, or a version of it. Messages sent at hours that don't belong to anyone sober. Photographs I would never have taken in daylight. A record of every way a body can fail its owner when the owner has stopped trying to help. None of it is a single dramatic moment. It is accumulation, the slow daily work of an addict doing the thing that is killing him because the alternative feels like dying faster. All of that was on it. I am not denying any of it. That is not a small thing to say. I have spent years in rooms where men and women with far less scrutiny than I have faced tore themselves apart trying to account for what they did in the middle of their disease. The inventory of an addict’s life is never clean. It is not meant to be clean. Recovery does not erase the record. It requires reading it. I have read mine. What I will not do is accept their lies. Because a record of what is on it, or more precisely, what was not, exists. (Read the whole story on Substack)