<p><font size="2"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt"><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">ASEAN human rights organisations are gathering today for a comprehensive and strategic consultation on how to ensure independent and effective regional human rights mechanism will be put up by the High Level Panel established by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).</font> </span></font></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Today 1800 trade unionists marched to German embassy in Bangkok to submit an open letter to the Government of Germany. The letter titled &#39;Unfair Labour Practices of German MNCs in Thailand&#39;.</span></p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Reporters covering the aftermath of Monday&#39;s attack on a border police outpost in Kashgar have been detained, beaten, and harassed, according to international news reports.</font></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Tahoma;">A web-board user has been accused of l&egrave;se majest&eacute; by another user in a popular Thai internet forum, <a href="http://www.pantip.com/">www.pantip.com</a>, after they had a petty argument about the latter&rsquo;s published works that are on sale at Princess Sirindhorn&rsquo;s Phufa shops.</span></p>

<p><font size="2">A reporter for a local Thai-language daily and TV station was shot dead inside his own house on August 1 in Nakorn </font><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Si Thammarat</font><font size="2"><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </font>province.</font></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Tahoma;">On July 31, about 400 Triumph labour union members protested against Body Fashion (Thailand) Ltd at its headquarters on Petchaburi Rd in Bangkok, after the company fired the leader of the union for wearing a campaign t-shirt challenging the l&egrave;se majest&eacute; law.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Tahoma;">Sondhi Limthongkul, leader of the People&rsquo;s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), took to the stage to address the crowd rallying near Government House in Bangkok, and proposed his own way of solving the dispute by force.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Tahoma">On July 30, thousands of workers walked off the job to demand that Body Fashion (Thailand) Ltd reinstate union leader Jitra Kotchadej after the company had dismissed her for wearing a campaign t-shirt challenging l&egrave;se majest&eacute; laws when she appeared on a TV programme in late April.</span></p>

<p><font size="2">Reporters Without Borders learned today that its website (www.rsf.org), which has been blocked in China since 2003, can now be accessed at the Olympic press centre in Beijing and in other parts of the capital, and in Shanghai. </font></p>

<p><a style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; color: #000000" rel="external" href="http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Citation/CitationJivacateThe.htm" onclick="link_popup(this); return false">Therdchai Jivacate</a>, from Thailand, for Public Service. He is being honored for &quot;his dedicated efforts in Thailand to provide inexpensive, practical, and comfortable artificial limbs even to the poorest amputees.&quot; </p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Tahoma;">The leader of one of Thailand&rsquo;s largest textile labour unions has been fired because she wore a campaign T-shirt challenging l&egrave;se majest&eacute; laws when she appeared on a TV programme. </span></p>

<p>The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disappointed by the International Olympic Committee&#39;s (IOC) admission that China would not provide open Internet access at the Main Press Center in Beijing despite earlier assurances to the contrary.</p>