|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
NORTHEAST ASIA
Freedom for Hong Kong activists remembering Tiananmen
Once one of the few safe havens for memorializing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, Hong Kong has further tightened its grip on activists seeking to commemorate the bloody pro-democracy protests – this time by wielding its recently enacted, homegrown national security law.
Last week, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International separately demanded the immediate release of seven people, including prominent Hong Kong activist Chow Hang-tung (who was arrested while detained over previous NSL charges), who were arrested on charges of publishing seditious social media posts referencing the Tiananmen Square massacre.
They were charged with seditious intention under Section 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, otherwise known as Article 23. The succeeding arrests were the first since the law was enacted in March.
The arrests coincide with the 35th anniversary of the massacre, in which hundreds, if not thousands, of pro-democracy protesters were killed in June 1989.
Since 2020, when China imposed its national security law on Hong Kong, all public commemorations of the June 4 Tiananmen Square anniversary have been banned completely in the special administrative region. Victoria Park – the usual site for such events – has been sealed off and heavily guarded.
“Chow Hang-tung and others in Hong Kong arrested simply for exercising the right to freedom of expression should be immediately and unconditionally released, and the Hong Kong police must refrain from suppressing other peaceful commemorations of the 1989 tragedy. Remembering the Tiananmen crackdown is not and never shall be a crime,” said Amnesty International.
Chow is the former leader of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China that used to organize the annual Tiananmen vigil since 1990. The vigils used to be among the largest commemorations of its kind before they were officially banned by state and city authorities.
Just last April, a former student leader was sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after demanding that the Chinese government acknowledge the massacre.
Activists connected to the 1989 democracy movement like Tiananmen Mother founding leader Zhang Xianling, lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, and student leader Ji Feng, are similarly under tightened police surveillance and told not to talk to the media.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
A young nation stands up for Myanmar
Timor-Leste, a Southeast Asian nation with its own hard-won history of freedom, is now urging the international community – particularly its Southeast Asian neighbors – to take stronger action to address the raging conflict and human rights abuses in Myanmar.
On May 27, the country’s human rights commission Provedor for Human Rights and Justice (PDHJ) held a public hearing for Myanmar activists to detail atrocities committed by the military junta, including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and forced conscription.
The country is currently the head of the Southeast Asian National Human Rights Institution Forum (SEANHF) composed of the region’s human rights commissions.
The goal of the hearing is to consolidate the activists’ grievances into a report “with the expectation that SEANF members will also raise theirs,” said the country’s human rights chief, Virgilio da Silva Guterres.
“It is Timor-Leste’s historical responsibility to defend human rights. We share solidarity with the people of Myanmar,” he said. “When we talk about human rights, we must recognize the Timor-Leste people’s right to know about the situation in Myanmar.”
While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has broadly called for an end to the violence wracking Myanmar, it seems only Thailand and Timor-Leste (which was granted official observer status and in-principle approval to become a member in 2022) have taken on a more active role in resolving the political crisis gripping Myanmar, in stark contrast to the widely perceived weak stance of ASEAN on Myanmar.
In July 2023, President Jose Ramos-Horta met with the foreign minister of Myanmar’s National Unity Government to discuss the two countries’ shared struggles for freedom. Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has threatened to reconsider Timor-Leste’s bid to join ASEAN if the bloc fails to address the Myanmar crisis effectively.
Concerns have been raised on the potential cost of Timor-Leste’s vocal support for Myanmar to its pending full membership in ASEAN, which itself is facing allegations of inaction over the three-year junta rule.
As support for Myanmar’s democratic struggle gains ground, the junta, on the other hand, is increasingly losing control of more townships to the ethnic armed movement, according to a new report by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M).
The report said that the junta had “lost complete authority” over townships covering 86 percent of the country’s territory and that are home to 67 percent of Myanmar’s 55 million people.
SOUTH ASIA
Overhauling colonial-era land-grabbing policies
Pakistan’s reliance on outdated colonial-era laws to forcibly evict low-income residents for development projects is causing a devastating housing crisis, warns a new Human Rights (HRW) report calling for an overhaul of its land laws and fair eviction practices.
In a report published on May 28, “I Escaped with Only My Life,” HRW detailed how the abusive evictions have disproportionately impacted Pakistan’s poorest and most vulnerable communities, who are often displaced without proper notice, compensation, or resettlement options.
“The Pakistani government urgently needs to reform its colonial-era land laws so that they are equitable, transparent, and in line with Pakistan’s international obligations,” said Saroop Ijaz, HRW senior Asia counsel. “The authorities should ensure that no one is made homeless due to eviction, compensate (for) the loss of land, and provide for the resettlement of those displaced.”
International law defines “forced eviction” as any situation where individuals, families, or communities are removed from their homes, businesses, or land against their will, without proper legal protections or access to remedies.
The HRW report, which is based on interviews with 36 victims in Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi, along with lawyers, urban planners, and reviewed relevant legal documents, proves these allegations. In most cases, authorities failed to properly inform residents, denied opportunities to challenge evictions, and offered no recourse. Evictions were often brutal, with police using excessive force, including beatings, arbitrary arrests, and destruction of property.
At the cornerstone of these evictions is the 1894 Land Acquisition Act (LAA), which essentially grants the government near-exclusive authority to decide who gets evicted to achieve its goals.
Among others, the law gives authorities broad power to seize land for vaguely defined “public purposes,” which may apply even to public-private partnerships and private companies.
In 2013, local rights groups sounded the alarm against LAA and called on the government to provide market value-cased compensation to those who stood to be displaced or evicted from their land.
Even Pakistan’s Supreme Court recognized the LAA’s flaws in a 2018 decision, calling the legislation “a remnant of colonial times that should have been … amended to cater to our evolving socio-economic circumstances.”
Last year, HRW released a similar report detailing how the LAA was used to forcibly evict thousands of farmers in Lahore for a massive infrastructure project to create the “world’s largest riverfront city.”
GLOBAL / REGIONAL
A treaty to protect the rights of the elderly
With population aging becoming an increasing concern for governments, especially in Asia, the U.N. has taken a long-overdue yet historic step of calling for the creation of a new human rights treaty that pays more attention to the rights of older people.
Last week, the U.N. Open-ended Working Group on Ageing adopted an intergovernmental document that seeks to identify possible gaps in the protection of older people’s human rights and how to address them.
This includes establishing new mechanisms that consider areas most relevant to them: protection from violence and neglect; right to long-term and palliative care; and social protection and social security, among others.
One in every six people 60 years and older have experienced some form of abuse in settings like nursing homes and long-term care facilities, according to a 2022 World Health Organization report.
“We have the right to age with rights,” the panel said. “For this, the dignity of older persons should be respected, protecting them from abuse, violence, age discrimination, enjoying the full enjoyment and exercise for their human rights.”
Such a treaty has been the long-standing call of groups like Age International, which argued that such a treaty would transform perspective on older people as mere “(as) beneficial to national resources rather than a drain from active citizens.”
The U.N. decision comes as Asia expects to see a rapidly aging population. A report by the Asia Development Bank estimates that one in four people in the region would be over 60 years old by 2050, and that this demographic will triple between 2010 and 2050 to reach 1.3 billion people.
The panel was established in 2010 to address protection gaps for older people in international human rights law. One such gap, Human Rights Watch says, is that no international human rights treaty “explicitly prohibits violence, abuse, torture and ill-treatment, and neglect toward older people.
“Actions or treatment deemed unacceptable or even unlawful for younger people might be treated as acceptable for older people. In the absence of international standards providing clear guidance, states’ domestic laws often fail to adequately protect older people from mistreatment.”
