Regional Update

Asia Pacific

The human rights situation in much of Asia and the Pacific region deteriorated in the first quarter of 2009. In South Asia, conflicts in Sri Lanka and Pakistan led to serious harm to civilians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. In China, the impact of the global financial downturn aggravated problems of migrant labour and rural unrest, prompting heavier repressive measures by governments. A coup in Fiji brought an authoritarian military government to power, while in Cambodia, the much anticipated trial of one of the country’s most notorious human rights violators was accompanied by widespread allegations of corruption and a government threat to terminate the process prematurely.

Deprivation and Exculsion

International tensions grew as the government of North Korea gave notice that it would re-initiate its nuclear programme. With signs of a new famine on the horizon, North Korea refused food aid from the USA and told five US humanitarian organizations to leave by end of March.

In January, security forces and demolition workers forcibly evicted around 400 families from Dey Kraham community in central Phnom Penh, leaving the vast majority of them homeless. The designated resettlement site, far from where the community earn their living, lacks clean water, electricity, sewage and basic services.  Some 150,000 Cambodians are at risk of forced evictions in the wake of land disputes and agro-industrial and urban development projects.

In January, Thai security forces forced at least 1,000 Rohingyas, a Muslim minority from northwestern Rakhine State, Myanmar, to leave southwest Thailand by boat. Of the thousands of Rohingyas who fled to Thailand and Malaysia by sea, hundreds are missing feared drowned. The Rohingyas are denied citizenship in Myanmar and are effectively stateless. Those who are returned to Myanmar continue to be at serious risk of human rights violations, including forced labour, forced eviction, land confiscation and severe restrictions on freedom of movement.

National parliamentary elections took place in April in India and the outcome is still uncertain. In Orissa, over 7,000 members of the minority Christian community continued to languish in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Kandamal district, after Hindu nationalist organizations targeted them in August-October 2008.

Insecurity

The Pakistani Taleban expanded their area of control, taking over administrative responsibility for some 3-4 million people in the Malakand district of the North West Frontier Province pursuant to a ”peace deal” with the Pakistan government. The Taleban’s encroachment and heavy-handed government military responses have led to the displacement of around one million people. In the Swat valley, the heart of Malakand district, heavy fighting erupted between government forces and the Taleban in late April and May, prompting a fresh wave of displacement.

At the start of the year, up to quarter of a million people were trapped between government security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the Wanni, northeast Sri Lanka. The UN estimated at the end of April that more than 6,500 civilians have died and 13,000 were injured in the fighting. The LTTE forcibly displaced civilians and pushed them into areas under their control in the Wanni, where they are effectively held hostage and used as human shield against the Sri Lankan armed forces. As the Sri Lankan government limited humanitarian access to areas under LTTE control, medical supplies ran critically low, with an increase in preventable deaths. In April as fighting intensified and international pressure grew for a temporary humanitarian ceasefire, tens of thousands of civilians moved to government-held areas. There are now over 150,000 displaced persons in 20 transit camps across Vavuniya District. Reports show that the “welfare villages” established by the authorities are overcrowded and have inadequate facilities. Credible reports indicate that dozens of people have been arrested and taken to unknown locations or to places where all access to outsiders is denied. No international human rights monitors are allowed in the conflict zone.

According to the Afghanistan NGO Security Office (ANSO), 342 civilians were killed as a result of insurgent attacks and international military forces’ operations in the first quarter of 2009. Taleban and other insurgents stepped up attacks in early 2009. On 1 April, suicide bombers raided a provincial council building in the southern city of Kandahar and killed 11 people, including Kandahar's education chief and the province's deputy head of the health department. According to ANSO, attacks by insurgents jumped from 381 in February 2009 to 527 in March 2009. Insurgent activity also increased in the northern and western regions. According to the Afghan Ministry of Health, about nine million of the country's estimated 27 million people face food insecurity, making them prone to seasonal and contagious diseases. More than 230,000 internally displaced people are living in wretched conditions in tents, mud huts and dilapidated buildings, and generally lack access to heating, clothing and health services.

The first quarter of 2009 saw a sharp spike in the number and severity of insurgent attacks against civilians in the southern Muslim-majority provinces of Thailand. After a decrease during 2008, the insurgents reasserted themselves in particularly brutal attacks, including at least five beheadings. On the fifth anniversary of the Krue Se Mosque siege in late April, 10 people were killed in a 24-hour period.

As of March, officials have reported 209,000 displaced persons due to the continuing low-level hostilities between the Philippine military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Many of them have been displaced since the August 2008 fighting, with no means of earning a living. Displaced people interviewed by Amnesty International in April say that their rations are not enough so they are forced to go back to their villages to salvage what is left of their crops, risking their lives. The peace talks remain stalled.

Voice

As China issued its first ever National Human Rights Action Plan in April, at the same time the authorities intensified a crackdown in the run-up to the 20th  anniversary of the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in June and the first anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake in May. At least 100 human rights activists were arbitrarily arrested or faced violence, although most have since been released. Reports of protests in Tibetan populated areas were matched by tightened security measures in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising in 1959 which led to the Dalai Lama fleeing to India. This was matched with ongoing heavy security in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Two ethnic Uighurs, Abdurahman Azat and Kurbanjan Hemit, were executed on 9 April for their alleged roles in an attack in August 2008, four days before the start of the Beijing Olympics, during which 17 border police were killed and 15 injured. Two Tibetan men, Losang Gyaltse and Loyar, were sentenced to death on 8 April in Lhasa for their alleged involvement in two separate cases of arson resulting in death during the unrest in Tibetan-populated areas in March 2008.

One year after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar, as relief efforts moved forward, the government has penalized people for helping their fellow Burmese to survive. The 21, arrested after delivering aid, reporting on the cyclone, or even burying the dead, are among more than 2,100 political prisoners. Arrests continue on a regular basis. Many prisoners are held in prisons far away from their families and are in poor health, including the popular comedian and veteran activist Zargana, arrested for organizing relief efforts and criticizing the government’s response to the cyclone.

Elections in December 2008 marking the end of a military-dominated caretaker government in Bangladesh ushered in the Awami League on a platform of promises to improve the country’s human rights situation. The government initiated efforts to launch a tribunal to provide accountability for the events of the 1971 conflict that led to Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, but by early May the government had not provided answers about the modality of this accountability process. An apparent mutiny by members of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) in late February resulted in the deaths of more than 50 army personnel. Reports of severe abuse of BDR detainees surfaced but could not be confirmed. As of early May, the government had not publicized the results of three separate investigations into the mutiny, nor had it clarified whether the events would be tried under a court martial or in civilian courts.

In Fiji, after the Court of Appeal declared illegal the non-elected military government in April, the President abrogated the 1997 constitution, sacked the judiciary, postponed elections until 2014 and imposed martial law for 30 days. New “public emergency” regulations were passed to protect police and military personnel from being held responsible for their actions even when their conduct results in death or injury. These regulations have led to censorship of media and the detention of journalists, severe limitations on freedom of association, threats to human rights defenders and critics of the regime.

In Sri Lanka away from the frontlines, freedom of expression is under severe threat in the country. There have been increasing instances of attacks on the media, including the January murder of the editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickramatunge.

As the new government of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak took power in Malaysia in April, he faced major human rights challenges, particularly with regard to free speech and the reform of the justice system.  In January, Kugan Ananthan died in police custody; his body bore marks of extensive physical abuse.  In a nationwide swoop on bloggers in March, eight people were charged with criticizing the Sultan of Perak. Dozens were still detained under the administrative detention provisions of the Internal Security Act, which provides for indefinite detention without charge or trial.

Impunity

In a historic development in March, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia, established to address Khmer Rouge atrocities over 30 years ago, held an initial substantive hearing in its first trial. Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, is charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes committed while he was head of the S-21 Security Office, known as Tuol Sleng. However, the Cambodian co-prosecutor refused to hear more than five cases and serious allegations of corruption in the court were unresolved.