The Lao government controls all media channels to prevent critique of its actions. Lao citizens who have criticised the government have been subjected to enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and torture. Polygamy is officially a crime in Laos, though the penalty is minor. The constitution and Family Code bar the legal recognition of polygamous marriages, stipulating that monogamy is the principal form of marriage in the country. Polygamy, however, is still customary among some Hmong people. The martial art of muay Lao, the national sport, is a form of kickboxing similar to Thailand's Muay Thai, Burmese Lethwei and Cambodian Pradal Serey. Football has become the most popular sport in Laos. The Lao League is now the top professional league for association football clubs in the country. Since the start of the League, Lao Army FC has been the most successful club with 8 titles (following the 2007–2008 season), the highest number of championship wins. Unlike its neighbours, Laos has no tradition in other team sports. In 2017, the country sent a team for the first time to the team events at the Southeast Asian Games. The national basketball team competed at the 2017 Southeast Asian Games where it beat Myanmar in the eighth place game. History of Laos  Evidence for modern human presence in the northern and central highlands of Indochina, that constitute the territories of the modern Laotian nation-state dates back to the Lower Paleolithic. These earliest human migrants are Australo-Melanesians — associated with the Hoabinhian culture and have populated the highlands and the interior, less accessible regions of Laos and all of South-east Asia to this day. The subsequent Austroasiatic and Austronesian marine migration waves affected landlocked Laos only marginally and direct Chinese and Indian cultural contact had a greater impact on the country. The modern nation-state Laos emerged from the French Colonial Empire as an independent country in 1953. Laos exists in truncated form from the thirteenth century Lao kingdom of Lan Xang. Lan Xang existed as a unified kingdom from 1357–1707, divided into the three rival kingdoms of Luang Prabang, Vientiane, and Champasak from 1707–1779, fell to Siamese suzerainty from 1779–1893, and was reunified under the French Protectorate of Laos in 1893. The borders of the modern state of Laos were established by the French colonial government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.