Crackdowns on freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly intensified ahead of Cambodia’s elections planned for 2017/2018, and the authorities increasingly abused the criminal justice system. The security forces harassed and punished civil society in attempts to silence critics; human rights defenders were threatened, arrested and detained for their peaceful work; and the political opposition was targeted, with activists and officials imprisoned after unfair trials. The authorities continued to hinder peaceful protest. In Malaysia, attempts to choke peaceful dissent and freedom of speech included the widespread use of national security legislation and other restrictive laws. Rafizi Ramli – a whistle-blowing parliamentarian who exposed information about major corruption – was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Journalists at news site Malaysiakini faced intimidation and threats from vigilantes. In Viet Nam, human rights defenders faced threats and attacks. Prisoners of conscience were held in prisons and detention centres, and subjected to enforced disappearance, torture and other illtreatment, including torture with electricity, severe beatings, prolonged solitary confinement sometimes in total darkness and silence, and denial of medical treatment. The Vietnamese authorities also oversaw suppression of peaceful protesters. As the country hosted a visit by US President Barack Obama in May, the authorities arrested, intimidated and harassed peaceful activists. Myanmar’s new National League for Democracy-led government took steps to amend long-standing repressive laws targeting activists and media workers. Yet cases like the detention of two media workers in November, on suspicion of “online defamation” over an article on allegations of government corruption, showed that much more needed to be done. Security forces in Timor-Leste were accused of unlawful killings, torture and other ill-treatment, arbitrary arrests, and the arbitrary restriction of freedom of expression 38 and peaceful assembly. Fiji’s media was affected by arbitrary restrictions curtailing freedom of expression. Bloggers and dissidents in Singapore were harassed and prosecuted. Human rights defenders and journalists in the Philippines were targeted and killed by unidentified gunmen and armed militia. PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Australia maintained its abusive offshore immigration processing regime on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Australia’s transfer agreement with Nauru contravened international law and effectively trapped refugees and asylum-seekers in an open-air prison. Although not technically detained, these people could not leave and were isolated on the remote Pacific island of Nauru, even when officially recognized as refugees. The Australian government’s policy of “processing” refugees and asylum-seekers on Nauru involved a deliberate and systematic regime of neglect and cruelty, designed to inflict suffering: the system amounted to torture under international law. It minimized protection and maximized harm and was constructed to prevent some of the world’s most vulnerable people from seeking safety in Australia. Mental illness and self-harm among refugees and asylum-seekers in Nauru were commonplace. Omid Masoumali, an Iranian refugee, died after setting himself on fire. Others, including children, suffered inadequate health care, persistent verbal and physical attacks, pervasive hostility, and arbitrary arrests and detentions, with systematic impunity for these types of abuses. Australia refused to close its centres on Nauru and Manus Island and even planned to introduce a law permanently banning those trapped there from getting an Australian visa, piling injustice onto injustice in violation of international law. New Zealand publicly reiterated an agreement made with Australia in 2013 to annually resettle 150 refugees from Nauru Amnesty International Report 2016/17