Asia Pacific

Human rights defenders in Afghanistan working on women’s rights and transitional justice and independent journalists faced particular risks as a result of their work. International aid workers have also faced threats, attacks and, in some cases, killing.

In Cambodia, HRDs working within movements addressing land rights and labour rights continued to pay a heavy price for their activities in favour of the disadvantaged and their opposition to powerful interest groups. Labour rights activists in particular continued to face anti-union measures and were at risk of threats, intimidation, physical assault, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, unfair dismissal, and killing.

2009 was an especially bad year for HRDs in China. Using as a pretext a number of politically sensitive anniversaries, the government initiated successive waves of crackdowns on Chinese human rights defenders. Those targeted included petitioner leaders2, cyber dissidents, Tibetan and Uighur HRDs and human rights lawyers. The assault on the legal profession was particularly noticeable given that human rights lawyers work within the freedoms guaranteed to them under Chinese law and the Constitution.

At least 21 Beijing human rights lawyers were disbarred because of their work last year, and many more were placed under surveillance or suffered harassment. This new trend can be explained by the leadership’s confidence in China’s new role as a global economic power and President Hu Jintao’s desire to further curtail any potential domestic dissent before he hands over to his successor in 2012. It can therefore be expected to continue in 2010.

In India, human rights defenders addressing issues of environment, gender, caste, communalism, or other matters affecting the masses of marginalised people living in poverty, continue to pay a heavy price. HRDs challenging political power and authority run the risk of being labelled as terrorists, which allows the government to take harsh “anti-terrorism” measures against them.

In May 2009, Dr Binayak Sen, General Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) regional office in the state of Chhattisgarh and national Vice-President of the PUCL, was released on bail following 22 months in prison on charges of “aiding and abetting Naxal activity”.

In Indonesia much of the intimidation of HRDs has moved along a spectrum from overt violence or arbitrary arrest to baseless prosecution on questionable charges such as criminal defamation, while HRDs also risk being labeled as communists or separatists. Impunity levels remain high and currently there are no sufficient mechanisms in place to protect human rights defenders at risk. In Papua and West Papua, HRDs continued to report surveillance, threats and intimidation by security forces, especially in connection to the publication of reports or visits by foreign diplomats and groups.

HRDs continued to pay with their lives in the Philippines, where two human rights lawyers were killed in Mindanao in November. Human rights lawyers Concepcion Brizuela and Cynthia Oquendo were amongst a group of approximately 57 killed by a group of up to 100 armed men, as a result of their fight against impunity and lawlessness in Mindanao province.

2009 also saw the leaking of a 67-page presentation, reportedly by the 10th Infantry Division of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which listed 105 HRDs and several organisations and identified them as military targets due to their alleged involvement in the communist movement. The list raised well-founded alarm as in previous years individuals and organisations listed in military presentations did become victims of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Human rights defenders in Sri Lanka, particularly those overtly critical of the Government’s policy, of the war with Tamil Tiger rebels and its brutal effects on the Tamil population, have continued to experience great risk as they carry out their work and exercise their right to freedom of expression. In January 2009, Mr Lasantha Wickramatunga, editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, was killed in Colombo. Following his death, the newspaper carried a posthumous editorial he had written in the event of his murder, which he thought was inevitable as a result of his writing

Front Line issued 42 urgent appeals on behalf of human rights defenders at risk from 10 Asian countries, namely Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.