August 12-18, 2024

NORTHEAST ASIA

Rectifying laws that violate human rights 

A month after Mongolia’s parliamentary elections last June 28, the newly formed government outlined an ambitious agenda to overhaul the country’s legal framework, with a particular focus on human rights. This after Speaker Dashzegviin Amarbasyagalan announced at the opening of its session that a comprehensive review of the nation’s 318 laws has revealed over 800 articles that violate human rights.

FAST FACTS

• Mongolia’s latest parliamentary elections saw the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) retaining a slim majority in the State Great Khural (parliament). The party has since created a joint cabinet of ministers with the opposition Democratic Party.
• The MPP’s transition plan identified its then party secretary general Dashzegviin Amarbasyagalan, dubbed a social democrat and center-left career politician, as the next new parliament speaker.
• During his speech at the khural (Parliament) opening session, Amarbasyagalan said the 126-member parliament will prioritize rectifying the said articles with a particular emphasis on media freedom, citizen participation in lawmaking, and the protection of children, disabled individuals, witnesses, and victims. 
• Mongolia has been criticized in the past for its use of defamation to arrest journalists doing investigative work, as well as for their reports of torture and other criminal acts by police forces, especially against detainees. 
• Mongolia became the first Asian country (2021) to legislate protection of human rights defenders. This year it was ranked “Free” by Freedom House, with a score of 84/100 on political and civil liberties. 
• In its report last June, “Human Rights Agenda for the 2024-2028 State Great Khural” report, Amnesty International called on Parliament to remove criminal penalties on vague concepts like sharing false news,  “undue and excessive restrictions” on peaceful assemblies; end torture and impunity in detention facilities; and protect against digital surveillance and spyware.

ACTIONS SOUGHT

• Amarbasyagalan stressed the need to “correct” these 318 laws. This, while committing to improving the “participation of citizens in the development of laws and regulations, the protection of the rights of children and citizens with disabilities, as well as witnesses and victims during investigative activities.”

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Taking stronger action against enforced disappearances

Two rights groups have called on Laos to ratify the international covenant against enforced disappearances and to adequately investigate all ongoing such cases. They made the call after the U.N. Human Rights Committee (CCPR) gave the Laotian government low grades concerning its actions to prevent enforced disappearances. 

In a statement on Aug. 15, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) said the CCPR report echoed their April 2024 report in which they called out the government for “failing to adequately investigate ongoing cases of enforced disappearance, with the aim to identify the perpetrators of such serious crimes and provide victims with an effective remedy and full reparations.”

FAST FACTS

• On Aug. 6, the CCPR released its report on the follow-up to its 2018 concluding observations on Laos’ implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It gave the Southeast Asian country a C grade over the lack of prosecutions of cases of disappearances as well as the slow ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), which Laos signed in 2008 but has yet to ratify it.
• The government has been denounced for its alleged lack of transparency and cooperation in investigating enforced disappearances and using these to silence dissent.
• Sombath Somphone, a prominent civil society activist, went missing in the capital Vientiane in 2012. Despite international pressure, there has been little progress in determining his fate or whereabouts. 
• Enforced disappearances are also closely linked with Laos’ dismal record on transnational repression, in which activists are abducted from neighboring countries. Od Sayavong, a Lao human rights defender, disappeared from his home in Bangkok, Thailand in 2019.

ACTIONS SOUGHT

• FIDH and LMHR demand that Laos ratify the ICPPED and to adequately investigate disappearances and ensure justice for victims.

SOUTH ASIA

Stop Baloch abuses 

The Baloch Human Rights Council (BHRC), an international NGO, has appealed to the United Nations to press the Pakistani government to stop its abuses against the Baloch people and to respect their right to their own culture and identity amid a rise in cases of torture and extrajudicial killings in the province. 

In its submission to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Aug. 17, the group accused Pakistan of suppressing the people’s “national aspirations [and] resistance” by targeting their activists and “introduc(ing) religion systematically as a political factor” in the erstwhile secular Baloch community, to erase their culture and to turn them into “perfect Muslims.”   

FAST FACTS

• Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but least populated province, has been mired in abuses due to a long-running insurgency between separatist groups and Pakistani security forces. The conflict stems from a 1948 decision of three of its then four princely states to accede and the forceful annexation of the last, Kalat, into Pakistan. 
• The succeeding multiple uprisings for independence have been met by brutal state crackdowns. At least 7,000 have been forcibly disappeared since 2004, says the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, a non-profit organization.
• A separate February report by the Baloch National Movement noted that in that month alone, the region saw 28 torture victims, five extrajudicial killings, and 33 enforced disappearances, including those that occurred during a clash between separatist groups and Pakistani forces.
• Activists accuse Islamabad of staging a genocide against the Baloch people as there is “no day when we don’t get news of an inhumane incident involving someone we know.” 
• The BHRC alleges that Pakistan is also systematically erasing their culture and revising history by having school curricula “glorify invaders and conquerors who committed atrocities against the Baloch people, while promoting a distorted religious doctrine that fuels hatred against those who do not conform to the state’s version of Islam.”

ACTIONS SOUGHT

• The BHRC has appealed to the United Nations and the international community to take “immediate and decisive action to address these grave violations” and for the international body to urge Pakistan to stop imposing “religious extremism” on the Baloch people.
• The Baloch National Movement has called for an in-depth review of the damage caused by state atrocities in Balochistan.

GLOBAL / REGIONAL

Addressing gnawing youth employment gaps for the youth

The United Nations’ labor agency has called for more investment in youth-employing sectors and better policies to help disadvantaged youth get jobs, following a report that said young people in certain regions of the world were not seeing the benefits of the post-COVID-19 recovery. 

FAST FACTS

• Back in 2020, the Asian Development Bank estimated that Asia-Pacific’s 660 million youth would be “severely challenged” and will be hit harder by the economic and social costs of the pandemic. Even then, it had already called for targeted interventions to mitigate disruptions to their education and training.
• In the newly published Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 report, the International Labor Organization said that while global youth unemployment has been at its lowest level in 15 years, it warned of a concerning rise in NEETs (not in employment, education, or training) among 15- to 24-year-olds. As of 2023, the report said, one in five young people were NEET, and that two in three of them are female. 
• As for those who are employed, more than half of them are in the informal sector, indicating challenges in finding decent jobs.
• The same report said that the 2023 youth unemployment rate – pegged at 13 percent representing 65 million people – was expected to fall even further at 12.8 percent for 2024 and 2025. However, in the Arab States, East Asia and South-East Asia and the Pacific regions, youth unemployment rates were higher in 2023 than in 2019.
• Although expected to fall slightly in the next two years, unemployment rates in these regions are anticipated to remain above their pre-pandemic levels.

Projected youth unemployment rates per region, 2023-2025

• The report cautions that the continuing high NEET rates and insufficient growth of decent jobs are causing growing anxiety among today’s youth, who are also the most educated youth cohort ever.

ACTIONS SOUGHT

• The ILO called for, among others, improving employment and economic policies to boost job creation; education and training to ease school-to-work transition and prevent skills mismatches; and labor market policies to target employment of disadvantaged youth.
• It also recommended fair migration policies so the youth could seek employment especially in countries with an aging population.