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NORTHEAST ASIA
Urgent action for Xinjiang two years since landmark report
Two years after a landmark U.N. report on the serious human rights violations in China’s restive Xinjiang province, rights groups are calling on High Commissioner Volker Turk to provide a public update on efforts to address the dire situation in the region and take stronger action to ensure accountability.
In a joint statement on June 20, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Service for Human Rights, and the World Uyghur Congress said that despite the report’s groundbreaking role in exposing the severity of Xinjiang’s human rights crisis, a lack of public updates from the High Commissioner threatens to erode trust among victims and survivors, leaving the door wide open for continued impunity.
Zumretay Arkin, director of Global Advocacy at the World Uyghur Congress, underscored the need “for the high commissioner to show that atrocity crimes can be addressed meaningfully at the U.N. The international community cannot afford to overlook this impunity.”
The report by the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) concluded that China’s actions in Xinjiang against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims there may constitute crimes against humanity, including mass detention, forced labor, and cultural suppression.
During his rare visit to Xinjiang in August 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping touted the region’s hard-won stability and pledged to better build a beautiful Xinjiang that is united and harmonious, wealthy and prosperous. This came on the back of China’s denunciation of the report.
At the height of its counterinsurgency “Strike Hard” campaign in 2018, the Chinese government was believed to have detained and imprisoned 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and others in “political reeducation camps,” formal detention centers, and prisons.
As of April 2024, the Uyghur Human Rights Project estimated that China had imprisoned 449,000 Uyghurs or about one in 17 Uyghurs. In addition to this, hundreds of thousands more are subjected to forced labor, political indoctrination, forced contraception, and even forced sterilization in what experts say was a form of demographic genocide.
Experts estimate that since 2017, some 16,000 mosques have been razed or damaged, and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools.
China also dismissed nearly 30 recommendations on the Uyghur region during its U.N. review in May, adding to its history of ignoring calls for reform from U.N. human rights bodies.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
A plea against forced repatriation
Already facing immense hardship because of the ongoing conflict in their homeland, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are caught in a new nightmare: forced recruitment from armed groups to fight in Myanmar’s civil war.
According to a recent report by The Diplomat, young men revealed being pressured to enlist in the very same army that persecuted them and uprooted them. They are desperate for help. About 500 have been forced to leave their refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar and transported to Rakhine State since May in a clear violation of international law.
“The feeling of extreme stress and tension within the camp now makes it impossible for us to feel safe or envision a future,” Kolim Ullah (not his real name) from Camp 14 said.
Nearly 1 million refugees – many of whom are Rohingya – currently live in the Cox’s Bazar camps, according to the United Nations. Most escaped to the camps after the Myanmar junta staged a brutal coup in 2021.
But with the military now experiencing heavy losses from ethnic armed groups who have gained control of key areas in the Southeast Asian country, the junta led by General Min Aung Hlaing activated a dormant conscription law requiring all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve in the armed forces for at least two years.
With at least 100,000 men fleeing the country to avoid conscription, the military has since set their eyes on the stateless minority group who live in Rakhine State, even dangling the promise of citizenship for the minority group to meet its quota.
An estimated 630,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine State under a system of apartheid and persecution, including about 150,000 who are held in open-air detention camps.
Contrary to its promise, the junta has not provided citizenship cards to any Rohingya military recruits. In any case, forcing the Rohingya – who have been denied citizenship in the country since the 1982 Citizenship Law was enacted – to comply with the conscription law is a violation of international human rights law.
“It’s appalling to see Myanmar’s military, which has committed atrocities against the Rohingya for decades while denying them citizenship, now forcing them to fight on its behalf,” said Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, last April.
“The junta should immediately end this forced recruitment and permit Rohingya unlawfully conscripted to return home.”
SOUTH ASIA
Stopping massive land grabs
A coalition of civil society groups in Sri Lanka is sounding the alarm against a controversial limestone excavation project which they characterized as a “land grab” that could cause serious environmental damage and the displacement of over 3,100 families.
In a statement on June 20, the People’s Alliance for the Right to Land (PARL) said the recent massive land acquisition by Tokyo Cement in Sri Lanka’s Kilinochchi district, which totals around 3,000 acres and valued at US$500 million, was done without consulting the locals and without securing the necessary environmental permits.
PARL warns that the project threatens the livelihoods of people who rely on agriculture, fisheries, and animal husbandry in the Ponnavali and Kiranchi Gramaniladhari domains. But beyond the human cost, the group argued that the project poses a significant threat to Sri Lanka’s environment as limestone mining destroys forests, lagoons, salt marshes, and croplands.
“The company’s actions not only violate domestic laws but also contravene international human rights principles. By disregarding the rights to livelihood, property, and information, the project undermines local communities’ fundamental freedoms and violates Sri Lanka’s constitutional obligations to protect the environment,” the group said.
The South Asian island country has had a complex history of land disputes stemming from the decades-long civil war that displaced many Tamils in the north and east, leading to disputes over ownership and government control of lands.
According to a 2018 report by PARL, there remains over 22,000 acres of land under military occupation after the war despite a national policy that supposedly governs land restitution for conflict-displaced Sri Lankans.
Land-grabbing for export-oriented agriculture and large development projects also became rampant at the end of the civil war in 2009, with the minority Tamil population who work in the country’s tea plantations left most vulnerable.
Just last March, the Tamils in Jaffna City in the northern tip of Sri Lanka had blocked officials from Sri Lanka’s land survey department from attempting to seize 29 acres of land—which includes a presidential palace built in 2012 by the military when Mahinda Rajapaksa was still president.
GLOBAL / REGIONAL
Shielding schools against violence
A new report by an international education group has sounded the alarm on a surge in attacks on education globally, with over 6,000 attacks documented in just two years and leaving over 10,000 students, teachers, and academics injured or killed.
In a report published on June 20, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) urged the world’s governments to endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration, a critical international commitment to protect education during armed conflict.
This declaration, which is currently endorsed by 119 countries, compels states to uphold international law and implement guidelines that safeguard schools and universities from military use. It also offers a roadmap for protecting education in war zones.
“On average, eight attacks on education were recorded daily over the past two years, meaning a startling number of students were unable to follow their dreams of learning, or develop the skills that an education promises,” said Jerome Marston, GCPEA senior researcher. “Schools should be safe havens, not targets.”
The report, which profiled 28 countries including Asian nations Afghanistan, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, and the Philippines, highlights the devastating consequences of attacks on education, disrupting children’s learning and destroying their futures. It counts as attacks any form of violence against students and staff, including injury, death, or even the repression of student protests; as well as use of schools for military purposes.
Reported attacks on schools, 2022-2023
| Country | Documented cases | |
| Afghanistan | The Taliban used 54 schools for military purposes. | |
| India | More than 2,700 students were arrested or detained for participating in education-related protests. | |
| Myanmar | Recorded over 245 attacks on schools and 190 reports of military use | |
| Pakistan | Reports of 620 students and staff arrested by police during student protests. | |
| Philippines | Recorded 23 attacks in schools particularly in the southern Bangsamoro region and Masbate province when schools were being used as polling stations for the May elections | |
Of these countries, Afghanistan and Myanmar are caught up in open conflict. The Taliban have restricted girls’ rights to education. Myanmar, meanwhile, might soon see a generation of children with learning losses as fighting between the junta and the rebel groups rages.
