Democracy Digest
Democracy Digest
A bite-sized weekly wrap-up of developments
across the region through a human rights and democratic lens
Democracy Digest

May 2, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: the latest setback for a fallen democracy icon in Myanmar; hard-won progress for worker safety in Bangladesh; another nail in the coffin of press freedom in Hong Kong; and the human and environmental costs of sand mining.

Myanmar
In the throes of the junta’s injustice
[dropcap font="" size="50px" background="" color="" circle="0" transparent="0"]O[/dropcap]n April 27, a court in military-ruled Myanmar sentenced former State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in prison. Her supposed crime: accepting a US$600,000 bribe in cash and gold bars from the former head of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, reports the BBC. The New York Times pegs the bribe at about US$1.3 million.

According to the publication, the conviction was based largely on the testimony of the former chief minister of Yangon. The prosecution had presented no evidence during the hearings in the capital Nay Pyi Taw, which were closed to the public and the news media.

The news sparked widespread condemnation among the international community and human rights groups. The European Union described the conviction as “yet another major setback for democracy in Myanmar since the military coup,” reports Frontier Myanmar. The United Nations has denounced the legal proceedings as a farce.

Tom Andrews, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, said the sentencing of Suu Kyi is “as outrageous as the continued detention of over 13,000 political prisoners,” reports UCA News. Andrews said on Twitter that “The junta passes these ‘verdicts’ in the theater of the absurd it calls ‘courts’ because it wants what brutality and weapons cannot deliver — legitimacy.”

Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the conviction shows the regime’s determination to silence the 76-year-old Nobel laureate who has been under house arrest since February 2021 when a military coup ousted her elected government. He said on Twitter: “Destroying popular democracy in Myanmar also means getting rid of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the junta is leaving nothing to chance.”

Suu Kyi has been charged with at least 17 criminal offenses, including voter fraud. The latest conviction takes her total prison sentence to 11 years, reports the BBC, as she was previously found guilty of other offenses.
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Bangladesh
Remembering the tragedy of Rana Plaza
[dropcap font="" size="50px" background="" color="" circle="0" transparent="0"]O[/dropcap]n April 24, 2013, garment workers at Rana Plaza, a damaged building outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, pleaded with their managers not to be sent inside. Just the day before they had complained about sounds coming from obvious cracks in the building. In less than 90 seconds from the moment they stepped inside, the eight-story building collapsed, killing at least 1,132 people and leaving more than 2,500 injured.

Unions called the disaster a “mass industrial homicide.” The avoidable disaster led the United States to cancel generalized system of preference privileges for Bangladesh in 2013, citing serious shortcomings in workplace safety.

Nine years on, what has changed? Shaikh Abdur Rahman, a research assistant at the Central Foundation for International and Strategic Studies based in Dhaka, writes: “Workers in Bangladesh’s garment industry are safer than they were a decade ago” while admitting that “more remains to be done.”

Rahman cited data that showed how two organizations, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety (the Alliance) and the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (the Accord), formed in 2013 actually made garment factories in the country safer for workers.

Both organizations ended their terms in 2018. By then, about 84 percent of safety hazards at the Accord factories have been corrected, and 90 percent of the issues at the Alliance factories have been addressed. By 2018, the Accord fired 96 of its roughly 800 dealers and the Alliance 168 of its approximately 2,000 suppliers.

Experts say the Accord breaks away from the voluntary “corporate social responsibility” model — which has mostly failed to address labor rights problems — and provides “a new paradigm stressing enforceability and inclusivity,” according to researcher Jaakko Salminen in The American Journal of Comparative Law. He writes, “the Accord takes the form of an enforceable contract that directly connects first-world buyers with representatives of the third-world laborers of their supply chains.”

More remains to be done, though, for the garment workers. They still struggle to make a living on their measly wages. In 2018, a wage board fixed the minimum wage of the garment workers at 8,000 Bangladeshi taka — about US$92 — per month, reports The Diplomat. It has not increased since then.

Over 200 injured workers, victim families and trade union leaders recently staged a protest to demand proper rehabilitation of injured workers and compensation. They vented their frustration at the snail-paced progress in the murder case filed over the Rana Plaza collapse: Only one out of 594 prosecution witnesses has testified.

In March, new evidence of violations of workers’ rights in Bangladesh in the garments industry came to light. These violations include violence and harassment, wages and benefits discrimination, unpaid overtime, and denial of freedom of association.
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Hong Kong
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Another nail in the coffin of press freedom
[dropcap font="" size="50px" background="" color="" circle="0" transparent="0"]F[/dropcap]reedom of the press is alive in Hong Kong — or so the next chief executive, John Lee, would like to believe. On April 24, the former chief secretary — and sole leadership candidate — was asked by a reporter if he would protect press freedom.

The next day, Hong Kong Free Press reported that Lee said that the city’s press freedom did not need defending because it “exists”. Benedict Rogers, co-founder and chief executive of Hong Kong Watch, retorted: “You could say the same about a corpse lying in a mortuary before burial or cremation.”

Hong Kong Watch recently launched its report, In the Firing Line: The Crackdown on Media Freedom in Hong Kong, in a packed room in the British parliament. In the report, the UK-based advocacy group says that press freedom in Hong Kong is “being dismantled“ and calls for international action to protect journalists.

On April 25, yet another nail was hammered in the coffin of press freedom in Hong Kong. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) canceled the 26th edition of its Human Rights Press Awards less than two weeks before the event.

The FCC’s core mission is “to defend press freedom in Hong Kong and across the region.” However, the club cited concerns that it would violate the “new ‘red lines’ on what is and is not permissible in the city” since the wide-ranging national security law imposed in 2020 by Beijing. The announcement prompted a board member to step down and eight members of the club’s press freedom committee to resign.

Defunct pro-democracy outlet Stand News was slated to win a number of prizes. HKFP published the list of prizes that were set to be awarded to the online news site. The publication also revealed the other winners, which included outstanding reporting from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Thailand, as well as Hong Kong and China.
Global
Human, environmental costs of sand mining
[dropcap font="" size="50px" background="" color="" circle="0" transparent="0"]M[/dropcap]any people think sand is an infinite resource. On the contrary, we human beings are using sand faster than it can be replaced by geological processes that take hundreds of thousands of years, states a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report.

Global sand consumption has reached 50 billion tons a year, or about 17 kilograms per person per day, reports ABC News. The UNEP report, Sand and Sustainability: 10 Strategic Recommendations to Avert a Crisis, states that the world cannot keep extracting vast amounts of sand out of the ground and sea every year without serious consequences.

According to the UNEP, “Sand plays a strategic role in delivering ecosystem services, vital infrastructure for economic development, providing livelihoods within communities, and maintaining biodiversity. It is linked to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) either directly or indirectly.”

Pascal Peduzzi, director of GRID-Geneva at UNEP and report program coordinator, says that “Given our dependency on sand, it should be recognized as a strategic resource and its extraction and use needs to be reassessed.”

However, The Guardian notes, there is no international standard on sand extraction, which is crucial for “the material is to be regulated effectively and governed equitably.” The lack of such a standard increases “the human cost of sand mining in parts of the world where governance and oversight [are] weak and the material is in high demand.”

In India, for example, more than 400 people have died in violence and incidents related to sand mining since 2020, according to South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, a Delhi-based NGO. Women and children have been buried alive in sand mine cave-ins. People have been killed in road crashes involving sand transporting trucks and tractors.
May 2, 2022
May 2, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: the latest setback for a fallen democracy icon in Myanmar; hard-won progress for worker safety in Bangladesh; another nail in the coffin of press freedom in Hong Kong; and the human and environmental costs of sand mining.

April 25, 2022
April 25, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a landmark legal victory for gay soldiers in South Korea; an assault on education and an ethnic community in Afghanistan; the return of an independence leader in Timor-Leste; and ASEAN’s failed five-point consensus on the Myanmar crisis.

April 18, 2022
April 18, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a landmark victory for Indonesian women; Hong Kong’s forgotten elderly; a proposed law that raises fears of a surveillance state in India; and the freedom that is at risk worldwide.

April 11, 2022
April 11, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: the Filipina politician who is in the crosshairs of trolls and haters; Sri Lanka’s heavy-handed tactics; a horrifying new discovery about forced organ harvesting in China; and the major global problem of toxic air.

April 4, 2022
April 4, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: “delayed” justice for street sleepers in Hong Kong; a problematic draft law that could shut down Thailand’s vibrant civil society; India’s appalling apathy toward Rohingya refugees; and the “crucial weakness” in the governance of global health organizations.

March 28, 2022
March 28, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a watershed moment for lesbian and bisexual women everywhere; the other devastating pandemic; a victory for young voters in Taiwan; and Vietnam’s repressive Article 88.

March 21, 2022
March 21, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a baby step forward for women’s rights in Bangladesh; Singapore’s addiction to the death penalty; China’s unsafe food and how it threatens the ruling party; and the Qatari dream that has become the migrant workers’ nightmare.

March 14, 2022
March 14, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: South Korea’s “anti-feminist” president-elect; the tiny Southeast Asian country that is standing up to Russia; a call to end the Taliban’s crackdown on Afghan women’s rights; and the prescription for a full pandemic recovery.

March 7, 2022
March 7, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: ASEAN’s fence-sitting on the Ukraine crisis; the “shocking abuses” against indigenous Papuans; scant support for the backbone of Hong Kong’s economy; and lessons from an adaptation role model.

February 28, 2022
February 28, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: the misleading marketing of formula milk to women worldwide; the guilty verdict that should be a watershed moment for Pakistan’s women; North Korea’s Supreme Leader’s focus on launching missiles over administering COVID-19 vaccines; and “a historic win” for grassroots activists.

February 21, 2022
February 21, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: the pernicious practice of “red-tagging” in the Philippines; firewall fears in Hong Kong; a crackdown against journalists in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir; and a harmful and unnecessary rite of passage for girls.

February 14, 2022
February 14, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a horrifying hijab ban in India; an alarming spate of custodial deaths in Malaysia; the bullies hiding behind keyboards in South Korea; and the high toll of Japan’s strict entry ban.

February 7, 2022
February 7, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: the “burner phone Olympics” in Beijing; Myanmar’s annus horribilis; the steep price Sri Lankans are paying for botched schemes; and the mountain of pandemic-induced medical waste that threatens health and the environment.

January 31, 2022
January 31, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a report that shows how, across the globe, corruption and human rights violations go hand in hand; a “shamelessly scandalous” scheme that threatens media freedom in the Philippines; the living hell of the Afghan LGBT community under Taliban rule; and the “positive endings” Chinese censors impose on Hollywood movies and even a local show.

January 24, 2022
January 24, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: an anti-poor “no vaccination, no ride” policy in the Philippines; a “sportswashing opportunity” for China; the bogus charges against a Cambodian opposition leader; and two rays of hope for Pakistan’s women.

January 17, 2022
January 17, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a cautiously positive report from Human Rights Watch; the math of misogyny in Indonesia; India’s draconian anti-terror law; how Cambodia keeps a lid on dissent; and the fight for the rights of migrant workers in Taiwan.

January 10, 2022
January 10, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: Cambodia’s strongman playing “rogue diplomat”; a welcome ban on child marriage in the Philippines; North Korea’s “boomerang defector”; and the weaponization of technology against Muslim women.

January 3, 2022
January 3, 2022

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a wave of hate speech and violence against India’s religious minorities; press freedom in tatters in Hong Kong; a horrifying Christmas massacre in Myanmar; and how the Taliban have revoked Afghan women’s hard-won rights.

December 27, 2021
December 27, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: Myanmar’s blood gemstones; Hong Kong’s “selection”; the failed talks on killer bots; and the need for safe, legal migration options for workers.

December 20, 2021
December 20, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: the seamy side of a Chinese ultra-fast fashion leader; the “silencing of a Laotian son”; Kim Jong Un’s decade of abusive rule; and calls for change in a country where sexual violence regularly goes unpunished

December 13, 2021
December 13, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: the widespread condemnation following Aung San Suu Kyi’s conviction; the Nagaland killings that have revived debate about a controversial decades-old law; the other global infection; and Pakistan’s deadly blasphemy laws.

December 6, 2021
December 6, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: a high point for China’s struggling #MeToo movement; confusion over a perplexing court ruling in Indonesia; growing awareness of the rights of the hijra in Bangladesh; and the price Pakistan’s children pay for dirty needles.

November 29, 2021
November 29, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: three women journalists who have held those in power to account and have paid a high price; why Thailand is no Land of Smiles for refugees; the plight of the “marriage migrants” in Taiwan; and another victory for Mother Nature Cambodia.

November 22, 2021
November 22, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: Modi’s volte-face on India’s contentious farm laws; the wealthy country where hunger hides behind closed doors; Pakistan’s “living ghosts”; and the life-saving importance of the porcelain throne.

November 15, 2021
November 15, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the following: how China’s “gray zone” strategy seems to be backfiring in Taiwan; the Asian countries clinging to capital punishment; the lethal weapons still claiming thousands of victims, often long after hostilities have ceased; and the “unconstitutional” calls for royal reform in Thailand.

November 8, 2021
November 8, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the possible end of China’s relentless 996 work hours, the killing and chilling of journalists, the urgent need to stamp out child labor in Asian farms, and the Burmese military’s history of arson attacks.

November 1, 2021
November 1, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about a lifeline for Afghan female students, the end of an unconstitutional ban in the Philippines, the plight of North Korean defectors in the South, and India’s cool roofs.

October 25, 2021
October 25, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about China’s continuing crackdown on peaceful religious practice, a small step for LGBTI people in India, the closure of a human rights watchdog’s operations in Hong Kong, and how the Greater Mekong Subregion and India offer a glimmer of hope for malaria elimination.

October 18, 2021
October 18, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about a simple yet powerful tool that is beyond the reach of many, Asia’s starving millions, the urgent need to revise Japan’s regressive transgender law, and a low-cost, low-input, and climate-resilient type of farming in India.

October 11, 2021
October 11, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the early impact of an offshore data tsunami, why girl children deserve a better normal, the Asian gig workers fighting for their rights, and the rain harvesters in a Nepalese town.

October 4, 2021
October 4, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the right to information laws across the region, Malaysia’s youth power, Filipino advocates pushing back against a proposed road to ruin, and the Indian lawyer who won the “alternative Nobel Prize.”

September 27, 2021
September 27, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the resiliency of LQBTQ activists in South Korea and Taiwan, the gatecrashing Cambodian prime minister, the Malaysian mothers fighting for their children’s citizenship rights, and China’s shadowy solar industry.

September 20, 2021
September 20, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the urgent need for safe childbirth, the dangers of “kinetic impact projectiles,” the never-ending battle for democracy and human rights, and a game-changing procurement system.

September 13, 2021
September 13, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about “the anaconda in the chandelier,” a spyware scandal, a dangerous place to stand up for the environment, and how people power scored a win for a Malaysian forest.

September 6, 2021
September 6, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the other global health threat that cuts life expectancies in the Asian region, the forgotten Afghan refugees in Indonesia, period poverty, and a study that shows how better pay for truck drivers in South Korea made the drivers — and the general public — safer.

August 30, 2021
August 30, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the pursuit of justice for the forcibly disappeared in Asia, the Rohingya’s quest for safe havens, lawbreaking law enforcers, and a doctor-entrepreneur who is retelling the story of health in Pakistan.

August 23, 2021
August 23, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the South Asian countries where children face extreme risk from climate change, how arbitrary detentions have fueled COVID-19 surges in Myanmar and Thai jails, China’s problematic family planning policies, and the Afghan women fighting the return to the dark days of harsh limits on their freedoms.

August 16, 2021
August 16, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the trail of rights violations that follows China’s Belt and Road projects, the two South Asian countries that are failing their daughters, how the Rohingya risk being left behind in the global COVID-19 vaccination race, and the raft of repressive measures that are keeping journalists in the region from their doing their jobs.

August 10, 2021
August 10, 2021

As the Delta variant spreads like wildfire in parts of Asia, we highlight news about Afghanistan’s swift descent into catastrophe, ASEAN Special Envoy Erywan Yusof’s tough assignment in defusing the Myanmar crisis, the severe challenges faced by indigenous peoples, a rare legal victory for online freedom in Thailand, the refusal of Taiwanese Olympians to use a name that exists on no map, and the Asian women athletes who are changing the game.

August 3, 2021
August 3, 2021

In this edition, we highlight news about the slogan that landed a Hong Kong protester in jail, the attacks and arrests Myanmar’s doctors face amid the pandemic, the factory fire that spotlights child labor and safety lapses in Bangladesh, and the marginalized Indian girls who are fighting child marriage.

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