Amnesty International says Southeast Asia faces ongoing human rights challenges with activists and civil society targeted by governments amid ongoing failures of accountability by security forces.

In its latest annual report, covering 159 countries, Amnesty warns of a “shrinking civic space” across Asia and the Pacific, as authorities invoke a range of repressive laws to criminalize peaceful expression.

Champa Patel, Amnesty International’s director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said governments in targeting activists are “choking dissent.”

“Across Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, people have been relentlessly threatened, arrested and prosecuted for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly,” Patel said.

The report said globally divisive politics has also been marked by governments turning on refugees and migrants.

Backing the Amnesty report, Sam Zafiri, a representative from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), said for Southeast Asia there has been “an erosion of respect for rights especially in areas of civil society and political rights.”

Zafiri pointed to a global trend toward “authoritarianism and fear mongering,” and growing concerns over government responses to terrorism threats. He also pointed to the decline in U.S. influence over the past decade.

Myanmar

Amnesty International said Myanmar faced reversals in human rights despite the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi coming to power in early 2016.

Patel said the reversals include the harassment of rights activists and military operations in western Rakhine State against Muslim Rohingya.

Myanmar security forces mounted a major sweep through the region after an attack in October on guards at a checkpoint by suspected Rohingya attackers.

“In Myanmar, tens of thousands from the systematically discriminated against Rohingya community were yet again forced to flee their homes after enduring human rights violations that may amount to crimes against humanity,” Patel said.

Former Myanmar political prisoner Bo Kyi said the Myanmar government, while facing several challenges, believes the rights picture is more mixed.

“Some areas are improving but many areas are still not improving because of [conflict] in the country — in Kachin State and Shan State and [illegal] land grabbing cases are still happening,” Bo Kyi told VOA.

The Suu Kyi led government released dozens of political prisoners early last year. But Bo Kyi, a member of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), said 86 prisoners of conscience remain in jail, with 200 others facing charges.

Cambodia

In Cambodia, Amnesty warned of a crackdown on the rights of freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly had “intensified” in the lead up to elections in 2017 and 2018.

These have included tighter laws governing elections and harassment of those in civil society.

Amnesty accused Cambodian authorities of misusing the justice system and the punishing of civil society and the silencing of critics. In July Kem Ley, a political analyst, was shot in broad daylight amid charges of government links to the murder.

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) secretary general Debbie Stothard said respect for human rights in South East Asia has been under challenge over the past year. The outlook, she said, is “very grim”.

“Not only are people being prosecuted and persecuted through very, very unjustified charges, there are also people being threatened with death and being beaten up and being tortured for speaking out,” Stothard said.

“These repressive governments are doing this so that civil society and people standing up for human rights and freedom of expression will be intimidated into silence,” she told VOA.

ICJ’s Zafiri agreed. “Several countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, — we’ve seen a really disappointing decline in respect for rights,” he said.

Malaysia and Thailand

In Malaysia, rights activists raised concerns after a court this week convicted an activist, Lena Hendry, for her role in a private screening of a documentary on the conflict in Sri Lanka a decade ago, “without Malaysian censorship board approval.” Hendry faces a possible fine and jail term.

The Amnesty report said Malaysia had also witnessed an ongoing crackdown on rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.

The report said the military authorities in Thailand had further restricted human rights, marked by the banning of peaceful political dissent, whether through speech or protests.

Amy Smith, a director with rights organization, Fortify Rights, said rights defenders themselves have been targeted by authorities.

“In Thailand we’re seeing human rights defenders and community based activists that continue to be targeted by the government just for their involvement in legitimate activities,” Smith said.

“So anyone who speaks out, they’re being summoned by the military for attitude adjustment by the military. This is the climate of impunity in the region that is pervasive,” she said.

Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia

In Vietnam, the Amnesty report pointed to ongoing restrictions on rights to freedom of expression of association and of peaceful assembly. “Prisoners of conscience were tortured and otherwise ill-treated, and subjected to unfair trails.”

Public demonstrations were also repressed with participants and organizers arrested and allegedly tortured.

The report said the Philippines has been marked by the “war on drugs” under the government of President Rodrigo Duterte that has left 7,000 people killed by authorities and vigilantes.

In Indonesia, Amnesty said despite a commitment to resolve past cases of human rights violations, there continued to be “reports of rights violations by security forces, including unlawful killings and the use of excessive or unnecessary force.”

ICJ’s Zafiri says while he remains “optimistic” of long term improvements, the region’s immediate outlook remained challenging.

“What worries me now is that we’re actually seeing governments just even challenging the relevance of human rights to improving their societies,” he said. “And that’s certainly something that suggests a weakening of this global legal framework that we worked so hard to create and establish.”

 
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Bao Bao, an American-born panda cub, arrived in China on Wednesday evening after leaving the National Zoo in Washington.

The 3-year-old panda landed in Chengdu in southwest China after a 16-hour flight that was described by pilots and a keeper as having gone smoothly.

Bao Bao left the zoo in a special crate and began her journey from Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia with a keeper and a veterinarian. In preparation for the trip, keepers packed Bao Bao’s favorite foods, including bamboo, apples and sweet potatoes.

The panda’s keeper, Marty Dearie, said in an interview with China’s official Xinhua News Agency at the airport in Chengdu that the flight went well.

“She ate and slept the whole flight and we have no concerns, none at all,” he said.

Bao Bao, whose name means “precious” or “treasure,” will first go through a month-long quarantine at the Dujiangyan base of the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas in Chengdu, Xinhua reported.

A 100-square meter (1,100-square foot) enclosure has been prepared for the panda cub at the base. The enclosure includes a lounge and a playground, the report said.

Keepers will work on helping Bao Bao adapt to local bamboo and Chinese bread, Xinhua said.

Bao Bao will eventually join a panda breeding program.

 
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Many Rohingya Muslims who fled alleged killings and other rights abuses during a Myanmar military crackdown in northern Rakhine state say they are not willing to return to their homes, despite last week’s announcement that the military operation in the region has ended.

A statement from de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s office last week said the situation in northern Rakhine had stabilized and the clearance operation by the military had been halted.

But many Rohingya say the situation in Myanmar, also known as Burma, continues to remain hostile for them. 

 Too scared

“That military operation might have ended, but the oppression of the Rohingyas in Burma has not ended,” said Dil Mohammad, a 30-year-old Rohingya refugee living in a shanty-colony in Cox’s Bazar district. “Rohingyas still cannot freely go for livelihood-related activities like fishing, farming and collecting firewood in Burma. If some Rohingyas are found in such work, they are being arrested by police.”

Mohammad says life continues to be full of hardships for Rohingyas in Myanmar.

“In such a situation I shall not return to Burma,” he said. “I think as many as 96 or 97 percent of the new refugees in Bangladesh will not return to Burma.”

Mohammad isn’t alone in his thinking. Most of the Rohingya who fled Myanmar during the recent military crackdown were so petrified by the killings and torture they witnessed that they are too scared to go back to their homes in Rakhine, according to Rohingya community leader Nurul Islam, the Britain-based chairman of the Arakan Rohingya National Organization.

“Since violence subsided in Rakhine in the past weeks, some Rohingya from Bangladesh began returning to their homes,” said Islam during a visit to Cox’s Bazar. “They are mostly those who had left part of their families in Rakhine while suddenly fleeing violence. They are going to Burma mostly to wind up their livelihood-related activities there and to bring the rest of their families back to Bangladesh.”

Islam tells VOA that crackdowns against the Rohingya are ongoing “in many other ways.”

“All Rohingya refugees are aware of the risks and hardships they will face in Burma,” he said. “So Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh are largely not willing to return to Burma.”

Abuse allegations

After nine policemen were killed in Rakhine on October 9 in an armed attack blamed on Rohingya insurgents, the Myanmar military launched a “clearance operation” in the area to ferret out the insurgents.

Soon after the operation started, Rohingya began fleeing the area, accusing soldiers, police and local Buddhist groups, who accompanied the forces during the raids, of abuses, including rapes, killings and arson.

Community leaders estimate that up to 100,000 Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh.

Earlier this month, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the action of the security forces in northern Rakhine were very likely “crimes against humanity.” 

A week later, two senior U.N. officials working among the Rohingya refugees said more than 1,000  Rohingya may have been killed during the four-month security operation in northern Rakhine.

However, Myanmar presidential spokesman Zaw Htay said last week that less than 100 people had been killed during the operation. The Myanmar government has also consistently denied allegations of widespread abuses against the Rohingya people during the military operation.

A question of status

A controversial 1982 law renders members of the Rohingya community ineligible for citizenship.

The community was excluded from the 2014 census because the government refused to identify them as “Rohingya” and the Rohingya refused to be listed as “Bengalis.”

In recent weeks, Myanmar authorities have resumed issuing National Verification Cards (NVCs) to Rohingya community members in Rakhine. Those who hold NVCs are identified as residents of Myanmar, but their citizenship status is under scrutiny.

Rohingya are being coerced by authorities to accept NVCs and those who refuse are arrested, according to Rakhine-based Rohingya rights activist Aung Aung.

“For a Rohingya holding an NVC, [that] virtually means he is not a citizen of Myanmar, but a declared Bengali immigrant,” Aung said. “So, most Rohingyas are not willing to accept NVCs.”

Aung says security forces are not allowing the Rohingyas to leave their villages if they cannot produce their NVCs.

“With this new restriction on movement, the Rohingyas are unable to perform many livelihood-related activities in Rakhine,” Aung said, “which has brought new miseries to them.”
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged the United States to have a “balanced and farsighted” perspective on visas that enable thousands of skilled Indian professionals to work in the United States and sustain India’s booming $150 billion software industry.

The Indian leader made his call for an open mind on work visas at a meeting with a 26-member bipartisan delegation of the U.S. Congress, which is on a weeklong visit to India.

There have been growing fears in New Delhi that the Trump administration will revamp the H1-B visa program to protect jobs for American workers. Indian technology workers are the largest recipients of these visas, which allow foreign professionals to work in the United States.

After meeting the U.S. delegation on Tuesday, Modi’s office said in a statement that the prime minister wanted the two countries to work together on facilitating people-to-people linkages and “referred to the role of skilled Indian talent in enriching the American economy and society.”

Deal maker

Before meeting the prime minister, Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte declined to answer a question on visa restrictions, saying it was up to President Trump to reassess his policies on immigration.

Goodlatte also said the U.S. president had been a businessman, “And he likes to do deals and he also wants to do deals with India and other countries around the world.”

While New Delhi is optimistic that its growing partnership with the United States will continue under the Trump administration, there are concerns about how protectionism and restrictions on immigration will impact trade – particularly India’s software exports, two thirds of which go to the United States.

Tech sector

Indian technology companies have been thrown into uncertainty amid signals that there will be stricter curbs on H1-B visas to make immigration tougher. Three bills seeking to prioritize American workers have been introduced in the U.S. Congress — one of them proposes to more than double the minimum salary for a foreign hire on an H1-B from $60,000 to $130,000.

That could hit Indian companies hard, whose business model is based on the lower cost of hiring Indian engineers both at home and in the United States compared to those in Western countries.

The industry body National Association for Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has delayed its growth forecast for the present year as it waits to gauge policy announcements in the United States. A NASSCOM delegation is in Washington to lobby the U.S. administration on the need to have a level playing field for Indian companies.

Looking forward

However, many analysts say Indian firms will have to face the reality that rules on hiring foreign professionals in the United States will get tougher.

“Indian firms will have to act like global firms and hire where ever there is a match in demand and availability of talent. It will be long term sustainable but will also increase their cost structure,” said Pareekh Jain who heads research operations in India at the research firm Horses for Sources.
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A U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia dismissed charges against a former cadre of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime on Wednesday, saying the Buddhist nun had not played a senior enough role during a period when some 1.8 million people died.

The decision in the case of Im Chaem, who was suspected of running a forced labor camp, was a boon for veteran Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who opposes further trials.

Critics said the decision undermined the credibility of the court, which has found just three people guilty after a decade of work at a cost of over $260 million.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia said in a statement that Chaem, in her 60s, did not fall under their jurisdiction because she was not a senior leader of the Khmer Rouge or one of the most responsible officials.

Most of the victims of the Khmer Rouge died of starvation, torture, exhaustion or disease in labor camps or were bludgeoned to death during mass executions. Pol Pot, “Brother Number One,” died in 1998.

Chaem, a former Khmer Rouge district commander, was charged with murder and crimes against humanity.

She did not appear in court because Cambodian police would not arrest her or other senior Khmer Rouge cadres charged. Hun Sen, in power for 30 years, has warned that more trials could see Cambodia spiral into civil war.

“As long as the judges followed the rules and the evidence, we must accept the decision, but it can be difficult sometimes to swallow,” said Youk Chhang, who said he suffered at Im Chaem’s camp at the age of 15.

His team has spent more than 20 years documenting the horrors of the regime and provided half a million documents to the tribunal.

The court faced a test of its credibility and would need to explain its decision to survivors, said Panhavuth Long of the Cambodian Justice Initiative, which monitors the trials.

“We’ve seen concerns by people in general about interference,” he told Reuters.

The court has been plagued by infighting, political interference, resignations and funding shortages since it was set up to bring to justice “those most responsible” for the deaths of a fifth of the population from 1975-1979.
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