The Civicus Monitor has announced in a new report that the main civic space violations across the Asia Pacific were the crackdown on protests and the criminalisation of human rights defenders.
The report, titled People Power Under Attack 2024, assesses civic space conditions in 198 countries and territories, looking at people’s ability to exercise their freedoms of assembly, association and expression.
In the Asia Pacific region, Civicus Monitor researchers found the majority of countries seriously restricted civic space.
In Malaysia, where the state of civic space is rated by the Civicus Monitor as “obstructed”, there are ongoing concerns on the array of restrictive laws, especially the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) and the Sedition Act, often used to silence online dissent and to harass human rights defenders.
Activists, politicians and others were questioned or charged under the draconian Sedition Act, an archaic and colonial era law.
In February 2024, politician and former parliamentarian Tony Pua was summoned by the police regarding an alleged comment made on his Facebook account.
In April 2024, political activist Badrul Hisham Shaharin, otherwise known as Chegubard, was charged under Section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act. These charges stemmed from a Facebook post.
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In June 2024, human rights defender Mukmin Nantang was summoned to the Semporna district police headquarters for speaking up on the rights of an indigenous community. He was arrested under Section 4(1) of the draconian Sedition Act.
Those involved in the arts also faced challenges of being criminalised and harassed.
In January 2024, the director and producer of the film Mentega Terbang, which was banned by the authorities, were charged under Section 298 of the Penal Code.
In August 2024, in an act of intimidation, enforcement officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs visited the venue of the Freedom Film Fest, a yearly human rights film festival
Journalists also faced reprisals for their reporting creating a chilling effect in the media sector.
In May 2024, a Bloomberg journalist was hauled in for questioning over a report about purported plans to build a casino. The journalist, Ram Anand, was one of three journalists who contributed to the Bloomberg report. Investigations were carried out under Section 4(1) of the Sedition Act, Section 500 of the Penal Code, and Section 233 of the CMA.
Peaceful protesters were also targeted by the police including being detained and hauled up for questioning after protests – which is a form of harassment and intimidation. Some protesters were also ill-treated.
In January 2024, police hauled up 11 individuals who organised and participated in a six-day Palestine Solidarity rally, near the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur. The protesters were called up under Section 9(5) of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012.
In March 2024, police made it difficult for the organisers of the Women’s March in Kuala Lumpur, when four attempts by the organisers to submit a notice to the police were rejected with no reason given. Following the march, police said they had opened an investigation paper under Section 15 of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012.
In June 2024, eight students – at least three of whom were children – and their teacher were held on remand in detention following a protest and peaceful demonstration, dubbed #KamiMahuAir (#WeWantWater) outside the chief minister’s office in Kota Kinabalu, calling for improved water access for students at the University of Malaysia Sabah.
Police used heavy-handed tactics to block a protest walk in July 2024 organised to highlight the lack of accountability surrounding the death of Teoh Beng Hock 15 years ago at the Selangor Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters.
In Asia, seven countries and territories – Afghanistan, China, Hong Kong, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and North Korea – are rated as “closed”.
Nine countries are rated “repressed” while six countries are now in the “obstructed” category.
Civic space in South Korea and Timor-Leste are rated “narrowed” while Japan and Taiwan are the only two countries rated “open” in the Asia region.
In the Pacific, the civic space situation is more positive, with seven countries rated open.
Five are rated as narrowed while Papua New Guinea and Nauru remain in the obstructed category.
There were changes in ratings to four countries.
Bangladesh was upgraded to repressed due to steps taken by the interim government to address civic space concerns, following the mass protests in Bangladesh that led to the fall of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.
Japan has also been upgraded to open, as civil society groups were able to undertake their work across the country without barriers and the right to peaceful assembly was generally respected and protected.
Fiji was upgraded too due to improvements since the change of government in December 2022, including the repeal of a restrictive media law used to silence the press since 2010.
Mongolia, on the other hand, has been downgraded to obstructed as human rights defenders face reprisals, journalists were targeted on baseless charges for their work while peaceful protesters have been criminalised.
“The overall picture for civic space in the Asia-Pacific region this year remained dismal, despite some improvements in countries like Bangladesh, Japan and Fiji,” said Josef Benedict, Civicus Monitor’s Asia Pacific researcher.
Most people in the region are living in countries with ‘closed’ or ‘repressed’ civic space where their freedoms to speak up, organise or mobilise are under attack daily, he added.
“Authoritarian states are seeking to entrench their rule and there is a critical need to support activists and civil society from these countries who are pushing back against these repressive regimes.”
The Civicus Monitor rates each country’s civic space conditions based on data collected throughout the year from country-focused civil society activists, regionally based research teams, international human rights indices and the monitor’s own in-house experts.
The data from these four separate sources are then combined to assign each country a rating as either open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed or closed.
The most widespread violation to civic freedoms in the Asia Pacific documented over the past year was the detention of protesters.
Activists took to the streets for a wide range of issue, including demands for democratic reforms, labour rights, environmental justice, and an end to the human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In many cases, the security forces resorted to excessive force leading to injuries and even unlawful killings.
Among the countries where this was documented include Pakistan, where the government crackdown on the opposition around the elections.
In Bangladesh, hundreds were detained as part of a brutal crackdown on the mass student-led protests in July 2024, that eventually brought down the Sheikh Hasina regime.
In Sri Lanka, police cracked down on protests by the opposition, students and ethnic Tamils, while in India, farmers mobilising protests faced excessive force.
In Indonesia, the security forces repressed multiple protests in the region of Papua, where there has been a high level of violations.
Protesters across Australia mobilising for environmental issues and an end the war in Gaza were detained.
“These actions are a flagrant violation of the rights to peaceful assembly guaranteed under international human rights law and standards,” Benedict said.
Another top violation that was documented across the region was the detention and prosecution of human rights defenders. The main perpetrators were China, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and India. Many were criminalised for defamation and on fabricated charges linked to national security, anti-terrorism or public order laws.
In addition, transnational repression, where countries collaborate to target human rights defenders beyond their borders, is on the rise.
Censorship is also a key concern in the region, most noticeably in China, where the government employs one of the most sophisticated censorship regimes in the world. Other countries where censorship was documented include North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan and India.
Over the year, the authorities used their power to restrict access to information critical of the state by blocking TV broadcasts and news portals, restricting access to social media apps, suspending mobile internet services and targeting journalists and news outlets.
There was an increase of censorship ahead of elections in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the Pacific, there were censorship concerns in Nauru and the Solomon Islands.
“Governments across the region sought to detain and prosecute human rights defenders across the year on trumped-up charges using a range of repressive laws,” Benedict said. Censorship was also pervasive in a number of countries to stifle critical voices and block the critical flow of information, he added.
“The international community must do more to protect fundamental freedoms and support activists in detention.” – Civicus Monitor
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- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
