January 15-21, 2024

NORTHEAST ASIA

Languishing in prison

A prominent Tibetan environmental and community leader who has served six years of his seven-year prison sentence has had “little progress” on his appeal for a second trial since his conviction in December 2019. This brings to mind longstanding calls for his immediate release. 

Lawyer Lin Qilei announced last week that his client A-nya Sengdra’s appeal was still “under review and that he (Lin) should wait patiently,” reported Tibet Watch. 

Sengdra was convicted more than three years ago of “gathering people to disturb public order” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” 

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other rights groups said these charges were part of a broader crackdown against Tibetan activists who pose a challenge to China, which claims jurisdiction over the autonomous region. One such activist is Tashi Wangchuk, an advocate for Tibetan language education, who was sentenced to five years in prison in China in 2018 for “inciting separatism.” 

For his part, Sengdra has consistently rejected the verdict and has since appealed to the Chinese Supreme Court, which in turn has repeatedly blocked lawyer Lin’s attempts to gather more information about the case. A similar visit by Lin to the court in July 2023 also proved futile as hostile staff gave him little to no information, and refused to give a phone number, he said. 

Earlier that year, when the court indefinitely postponed Sengdra’s appeal trial, saying the judge assigned to the case suffered a “sudden illness,” the Students for a Free Tibet urged the public to sign a petition calling on the U.S. Consulate General in the Sichuan capital Chengdu to request access to his trial; and to lobby for his immediate release.

Later in August 2023, three U.N. human rights experts also demanded that Beijing release information about Sengdra and eight other Tibetan activists, as well as on the extent of access to legal representation accorded to these activists. They also urged  “adequate medical care” for the activists as well as visitation and access rights for their families. 

This “systematic repression,” noted Amnesty International in a 2022 report, as experienced by Tibetans is no different from the cultural and religious erasure of the Muslim Uyghurs in the northwestern Xinjiang region. 

Even so, Beijing continues to deny the abuses and human rights violations against these groups, most recently on Jan. 23 during its fourth Universal Periodic Review by the U.N. Human Rights Council. 

SOUTHEAST ASIA

A shadow over Malaysia’s filmmakers 

The recent indictment of two Malaysian filmmakers over blasphemy charges spotlighted the Southeast Asian country’s continued criminalization of religious offenses to curtail freedom of expression and artistic freedom. 

In a joint statement dated Jan. 17, nine local and international organizations urged the Malaysian government to “immediately and unconditionally” drop the charges against producer Tan Meng Khen and director Khairi Anwar Jailani, who were accused of violating Section 298 of the Penal Code for “hurting religious feelings” over their film “Mentega Terbang.” 

The groups also called on the government to “repeal or amend all laws” that restrict freedom of expression in Malaysia, including Section 298 and 298a (blasphemy provisions), the Sedition Act,  the Film Censorship Act of 2002, Communication and Multimedia Act (CMA), and Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).

Section 298, which criminalizes religious insult, has been consistently flagged by human rights organizations for being antiquated, threatening freedom of expression, and for seemingly being used to protect only Islam. 

Malaysia is one of seven Southeast Asian countries – including Brunei, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand – to have such a law. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said such legislation is often used as a political tool by authorities and partisan groups.

“Blasphemy provisions are arbitrary and open to abuse. They inappropriately empower government authorities to decide the parameters of religious discourse,” the groups said. “[These provisions] promote intolerance by restricting the rights to freedom of expression, thought, and religion.”

Tan and Khairi’s film, which was released in 2021, follows a Muslim teenager who interrogates her faith after her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Religious conservatives led by writer Zabidi Mohamed likened the film to “seeing the Quran being stepped on.” It was banned in September 2023 under Section 26 of the Film Censorship Act for being “contrary to public interest.” 

Their case could set a worrisome precedent for Malaysia’s filmmakers who argued that film censorship and even criminalizing filmmakers “was an archaic form of content control…. Shutting down any conversations around this movie does not allow us to grow (critical thinking) skills.”

Their sentiment echoes a 2017 report by the U.N. Special Rapporteur for cultural rights, who urged the Malaysian government to “review and clarify the criteria for censorship of books and films and to make the decision-making process more transparent so as to guarantee freedom of artistic expression.”

SOUTH ASIA

Contradictions at play

As Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina swept into a fifth (fourth in a row) term in power, the United States urged her to “credibly and transparently” investigate reports of violence leading up to its Jan. 9 national elections.

The U.S. echoes observers’ conclusion that the elections which saw Hasina and most of the ruling Awami League win virtually unopposed have not been “free or fair” based on reports of mass arrests of leaders of the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and irregularities on polling day, and instances of pre-election violence and other human rights violations. 

At least nine BNP leaders and supporters have died in jail in the past three months, while tens of thousands more were either detained or facing charges for participating in last year’s protests calling for a caretaker government. 

This is not the first time that Hasina or her party has been linked to election violence. Hundreds of activists and supporters of the opposition BNP have either been harassed, displaced, or killed before, during, and after the 2008, 2014, and 2018 elections, which Awami League had won. Especially vulnerable are Bangladesh’s religious minorities – Buddhists, Hindus and Christians – who are often the targets of election-driven communal violence. 

Apart from the U.S., arguably Bangladesh’s most vocal critic, the United Kingdom as well as the United Nations also shared the view that the recent elections were far from democratic. Last Jan. 9, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk (OHCHR) urged Hasina to “to take the necessary steps to ensure that the human rights of all Bangladeshis are fully taken into account, and to strengthen the underpinnings of a truly inclusive democracy.”

Hasina has shrugged off concerns about the recent polls, saying that the “absence of one party in an election does not mean democracy is absent.” Notwithstanding this pronouncement, experts are interested to see how she will handle the next five years especially as she won without a commanding voter mandate.

Armed with a new mandate fraught with controversy, Hasina faces bigger challenges, observers note, including a cost-of-living crisis fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and labor unrest among garment workers. 

“She didn’t face this level of dissent, this level of concerted opposition to her rule before the pandemic, because the economic conditions were different,” Canberra-based economist Jyoti Rahman told Reuters.

GLOBAL/REGIONAL

A looming class war

The global community may soon see its very first trillionaire if the fortunes of the world’s five richest men continue to hold. It would have been an astonishing feat, were it not for the fact that it comes at the expense of 5 billion people who have become poorer since 2020.

International nonprofit Oxfam has warned that it will likely “take 230 years to end poverty, but we could have our first trillionaire in 10 years.”

To curb further inequality, the anti-poverty group urged the world’s governments to rein in its ultrawealthy class by breaking up private monopolies, instituting a wealth tax and excess profit tax, and exploring other options other than corporate control, such as a state-run monopoly in sectors that are prone to private monopoly like energy and transport.

“Political leaders must call time on the economic model that puts rich shareholders above all else, and instead listen to their citizens who are demanding a fairer, more prosperous economy for all. Trying to wrench back control of the global economy from elites might seem like an impossible task but there is hope,” the group said. 

Oxfam’s report, titled, “Inequality Inc.,” was released in time for the annual World Economic Forum meeting of world leaders and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 15.

For Asia – seen as a major driver of the global economy – the report’s conclusions were foregone. In 2022, the U.N. Development Programme said the region was still hounded by “high levels of income inequality” made worse by the fact that most Asians still earn low incomes in an absolute sense: at less than US$10 a day compared to the United States’ US$20 a day.

COVID-19 fueled this gap further. Far from being the “great equalizer,” the pandemic allowed the world’s richest to further wring out more profit through layoffs and pay cuts, dodging taxes and hiking prices on basic goods and services.