International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

by Alana Meier and Amita Dhiman

 

This week’s stories in focus:

The Continued Plight of Rohingya Refugees

On July 27 Malaysian authorities found twenty-six Rohingya refugees, including women and children, hiding on the northern islet off of Langkawi, Malaysia. The people were feared drowned and believed to have been transported by local fishermen from a larger vessel out at sea in order to sneak in undetected. The Rohingya have been detained for further investigation and will be handed over to the immigration department.

This year thousands of Rohingya have risked the dangers of similar boat trips in order to avoid persecution in Myanmar – formerly called Burma – and the widespread poverty within refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.

For decades the Rohingya people of Myanmar have experienced gross violations of their human rights, being subjected to systematic discrimination, statelessness, and targeted violence. This has led mass numbers of Rohingya to flee. The largest and fastest exodus of refugees took place following the violent military crackdown against Rohingya Muslims that began in August of 2017 which the United Nations has declared as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’,

Hundred of thousands fled to places like Cox Bazar, the world’s largest refugee camp, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees are now stuck living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, conditions which have only worsened amidst monsoon season and with the spread of COVID-19.

International obligations ignored by Southeast Asian governments

Muslim-dominated Malaysia has become a common destination for boats arranged by traffickers promising refugees a better life abroad.  For instance, 269 Rohingya were detained on arrival in Langkawi last month having transferred from a larger ‘mother-boat’ on which dozens of others were believed to have died and thrown into the sea. The suspected smuggling boat had been intentionally damaged so it couldn’t be turned back to sea.

Hundreds of Rohingya refugees have been stranded at sea for weeks and months, many dying in the process, during attempts to reach Southeast Asia. Against international law and regional commitments, governments have blocked them from safely landing and seeking asylum and failed to launch search and rescue operations. Malaysia does not recognise refugee status, and Prime Minister Muhiddin Yassin recently stated the country could not take in any more Rohingya due to their struggling economy brought about by the coronavirus.

Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch states, “The reality is if they want to deal with both movements, they have to work with the source country. They have to deal with Burma to agree to allow these people back and with safety and dignity in the form of repatriation that the international community can approve of.” Amnesty International has urged Malaysia to stop the ‘cruel and inhumane’ practice of sentencing refugees to jail terms and caning under alleged immigration offences. While Malaysia has been content blaming and criminalising the Rohingya, what is truly needed is pressure on Myanmar to change its policies.

 

Turkish Internet Law- A threat to Freedom of Expression

The Turkish ruling government has passed new legislation that would tighten its grip on social media and censor freedom of expression online.  The law which is an amendment to existing regulations of publications on the internet, known as the Internet Law, was adopted without any changes by Parliament’s Justice Commission on 23 July and passed through Parliament on 29 July.

The new law will compel social media companies with over one million users a day to have representatives based in Turkey who are Turkish nationals,  and non-compliance would be fined up to 40 million Turkish Lira ( approx. 5 million Euros).  Other amendments force social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to comply with demands by the government to block or remove content within 48 hours and provide reasons for any refusal to comply with requests within that same period.  One of the other provisions requires social media platforms to restore the data of customers, so as to aid Turkish government to track down dissenters, which could lead to their prosecution for what they have said or shared online.

States, under various International Human Rights standards are under an obligation to provide for the Right to freedom of expression to all people alike and hence, such acts of proactively monitoring online content or imposing intermediary liability regimes contravenes the spirit on which this right is founded upon i.e. free expression.

The current proposal is a revised version of the April draft, adding provisions to order the full removal of content and increasing the level of fines that social media companies could face for non-compliance. In January 2019, after a Constitutional Court ruling, Wikipedia was unblocked by the government after 3 years.

“The government claims this law is needed to protect personal rights, national security and public order.’’  However, these amendments are a threat to the fabric of free speech and expression and would significantly increase the power of the government to censor online content thereby violating International Human Rights Law. Amnesty International suggests that tolerance, education and dialogue should be promoted to counter stereotypes, eradicate discrimination and foster greater equality.

 

Other stories making the headlines around the world

 

International

• New ECOSOC President outlines focus on pandemic, SDGs and climate action (UN News)
• Candidates for Next ICC Prosecutor Face Public Hearings (Human Rights Watch)
• Coronavirus: Reshape the urban world to aid ‘ground zero’ pandemic cities (UN News)
• Climate emergency ‘a danger to peace’, UN Security Council hears (UN News)

 

Asia

• Maldives: Migrants Arrested for Protesting Abuses (Human Rights Watch)
• Malaysia/Thailand: Launch urgent search and rescue missions for remaining Rohingya at sea (Amnesty International)
• Myanmar: End Unlawful Internet Restrictions (Human Rights Watch)

 

Europe

• Unaccompanied Migrant Children Sleeping Outside in Paris (Human Rights Watch)
• Protect people ‘fleeing war, violence’, UN refugee agency urges Poland (UN News)
• Poland Abandoning Commitment to Women (Human Rights Watch)

 

Africa

• Kenya: A Mau Forest Evictees’ Plight Intensifies (Human Rights Watch)
• Zimbabwe: COVID-19 must not be used to stifle freedoms, says UN rights office (UN News)
• Cameroon: Civilians Killed in Anglophone Regions as Peace Talks Take Place (Human Rights Watch)
• Libyan authorities shot dead three Sudanese migrants: UN (Al Jazeera)
• Uganda Criminalizes Comedians Over Satirical Video (Human Rights Watch)

 

North America

• US Immigration Policies Foreshadowed Violence Against Protesters (Human Rights Watch)
•  Mexico: Overhaul Police Forces (Human Rights Watch)

 

Latin America

• Sustained Pressure Against Nicaragua’s Ortega Government (Human Rights Watch)
• Peru: Women unite against toxic metals pollution (Amnesty International)
• Argentina lockdown: Reports of abuse by security forces (AlJazeera)

 

Middle East

• Lebanon: Abolish Kafala (Sponsorship) System: Adopt Rights-Respecting Contract for Migrant Domestic Workers (Human Rights Watch)
• Security Council stalemate frustrates families of Syria’s missing detainees (UN News)
• UN: Yemeni activist demands people with disabilities ‘have a seat at the table’ in crisis response (Amnesty International)

 

Australasia and Oceania

• Kangaroo Point detainees remain in limbo as advocates mark seven years of offshore detention (ABC News)

 

 

Human Rights in Asia Conference 2020

by Alana Meier

Last week the 12^th annual Human Rights in Asia Conference took place in the form of two virtual panel discussions. Originally scheduled to happen in person at the University of Essex 21 March, the event was postponed due to the sudden COVID-19 outbreak. However, the students pushed through to find a new way to bring this important event to light.

 

The Origins of the Essex Human Rights in Asia Conference

Despite ongoing violations and the need for a stronger focus on human rights, Asia is a region often overlooked in western human rights education. The absence of a regional human rights mechanism for Asia is one of the reasons often attributed for this. Yet, this absence actually compounds the existing challenges faced by human rights defenders and practitioners in the region.

To compensate for this gap, postgraduate students from the University of Essex launched the Human Rights in Asia Conference in 2009. This now annual conference is predominantly student run, with the support of Dr. Sanae Fujita and the Essex HRC Events and Communication team. Each year a specific country situation or thematic area is chosen. Past years’ themes included development and human rights in Asia, natural disasters and human rights, human rights in Myanmar and human rights in South Asia.

A Focus on Human Trafficking

The inspiration for this year’s theme – Human Trafficking – came following the heartbreaking and horrific incident that occurred on 23 October 2019 whereby 39 people were found dead in a lorry container in Essex. The victims included ten teenagers, the youngest of whom were two 15-year-old boys, are believed to have come from Vietnam. The driver of the lorry has since been charged with 39 counts of manslaughter as well as human trafficking and immigration offences, and five other have been charged in connection with the investigation on ground of conspiring to assist unlawful immigration.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2018 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons indicated that the overall number of identified and reported trafficking victims has increased. Their research found these numbers are most pronounced in the Americas and across Asia; a reality which is illustrated in the Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC) global map on victims of trafficking data. This could mean more people are being trafficked, but it could also be because countries have increased their capacities to detect this crime and identify victims in addition to the international community’s focus on in developing standards for data collection.

Most of the victims detected across the world are female – the majority of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and 35 per cent of those for forced labour are female. These are also the two most common forms of exploitation associated with human trafficking taking place across Asia.

The Human Rights in Asia conference offered attendees an opportunity to learn more about the different patterns of trafficking that have emerged in the respective countries in which each of the panelists live and/or work. As well, different areas of research interest and approaches to combating human trafficking – from policy implementation to grassroots prevention- were explored.

 

An event in 2 virtual parts…

The first event of the two-part series took place Tuesday 7 July and focused on broader international and legal perspectives on human trafficking in Asia. The panel was moderated by Dr Marija Jovanovic and featured presentations by:

• Professor Parosha Chandran – Human Rights Barrister and Professor of Practice in Modern Slavery Law at King’s College London
• Sarah Mount – Senior Program Officer for Freedom Fund’s Thailand and Ethiopia hotspots.

The second panel occurred Thursday 9 July and offered approaches at a more national level with a focus on Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal and India. It was moderated by post-graduate LLM and MA students, Anila Baskar and Alana Meier. The conference organisers aimed to have representation from working in difference regions and disciplines such as non-governmental organisations, journalism, and academia. The speakers included:

• Hannah Bondi – Community Human Rights London’s SDG 8.7 Programme Officer
• Veerawit Tianchainan is Executive Director of The Freedom Story, Thailand
• Dr Shovita Dhakal Adhikari – Lecturer in Criminology and Joint Programme Lead for BA Sociology and Criminology Programme at Bournemouth University
• Giang Nguyen – News Editor at BBC Vietnamese World Service

 

Overall, the conference had another successful year providing the platform for over 200 attendees to deepen their understanding of human rights in Asia. Recordings of both events will soon be made available by the Human Rights Center. Additionally, the report for this year which will be published in coming weeks, as well as access to past year’s reports, can be found here.

Human Rights in Asia Conference 2018

By the Human Rights in Asia conference Team

Postgraduate students from the University of Essex Human Rights Centre are proud to announce that the tenth edition of the annual Human Rights in Asia Conference will take place on 24th March, from 10:00AM to 5:00PM in the Essex Business School (Auditorium 2.2) at the Colchester campus, University of Essex.