Amnesty International Report 2017/18

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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL OVERVIEW

The human rights landscape of the Asia-Pacific region was mostly characterized by 

government failures. However, these frequently contrasted with an inspiring and growing 

movement of human rights defenders and activists.

Many countries saw a shrinking space for civil society. Human rights defenders, lawyers, 

journalists and others found themselves the target of state repression – from an 

unprecedented crackdown on freedom of expression in China to sweeping intolerance of 

dissent in Cambodia and Thailand and enforced disappearances in Bangladesh and 

Pakistan.

Impunity was widespread – breeding and sustaining violations including unlawful killings 

and torture, denying justice and reparation to millions, and fuelling crimes against 

humanity or war crimes in countries such as Myanmar and Afghanistan.

The global refugee crisis worsened. Hundreds of thousands in the region were forced to 

flee their homes and faced uncertain, often violent, futures. Their numbers were swelled by 

the Myanmar military’s crimes against humanity in northern Rakhine State where the army 

burned entire Rohingya villages, killed adults and children, and raped women and girls. 

The mass violations forced more than 655,000 Rohingya to escape persecution by fleeing 

to Bangladesh. Those who remained continued to live under a systematically discriminatory 

system amounting to apartheid which severely restricted virtually every aspect of their lives 

and segregated them from the rest of society.

ASEAN, chaired by the Philippines during 2017, marked its 50th anniversary. ASEAN 

governments and institutions remained silent over the massive violations in the Philippines, 

Myanmar and elsewhere in the region.

Against this backdrop, growing calls to respect and protect human rights in Asia-Pacific, 

increasingly by young people, delivered some progress and hope. There were advances in 

policing in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), and positive court rulings on corporate 

accountability in South Korea; on marriage equality in Australia and Taiwan; and on the 

right to privacy in India.

EAST ASIA

The authorities in Japan, Mongolia and South Korea all failed to adequately protect human 

rights defenders. Human rights defenders were specifically targeted and persecuted in China. 

A notable shrinking of space for civil society was especially apparent in China, and was of 

increasing concern in Hong Kong and Japan.

Human rights protection was diluted in Japan where parliament adopted an overly broad law 

targeting “terrorism” and other serious crimes, despite harsh criticism from civil society and 

academics. This law gave the authorities broad surveillance powers that could be misused to 

curtail human rights.

Following a change of government in South Korea, the national police accepted 

recommendations for a change in the overall approach of policing in order to allow the full and 

free exercise of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. Also in South Korea, while hundreds 

of conscientious objectors were imprisoned, an increasing number of lower courts handed 

down decisions recognizing the right to conscientious objection, and court rulings 

acknowledged the responsibility of multinational corporations for work-related death or illness 

of employees.

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The consecration of President Xi Jinping as China’s most powerful leader for many years took 

place against the backdrop of a stifling of freedom of expression and information. Authorities 

increasingly used “national security” as justification for restriction of human rights and 

detention of activists; the tactic escalated significantly in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous 

Region (XUAR) where, under the leadership of new regional Communist Party Secretary Chen 

Quanguo, authorities put new emphasis on “social stability” and increased technological 

surveillance, armed street patrols and security checkpoints and implemented an array of 

intrusive policies violating human rights. Authorities set up detention facilities within the XUAR, 

variously called “counter extremism centres”, “political study centres” or “education and 

transformation centres”, in which people were arbitrarily detained for unspecified periods and 

forced to study Chinese laws and policies.

Citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) continued to face a 

series of grave human rights violations, some of which amounted to crimes against humanity. 

The rights to freedom of expression and movement were severely restricted, and up to 

120,000 people continued to be arbitrarily detained in political prison camps, where they were 

subjected to forced labour, torture and other ill-treatment.

HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

The Chinese authorities continued their unprecedented crackdown on dissent with a ruthless 

campaign of arbitrary arrests, detention, imprisonment and torture and other ill-treatment of 

human rights lawyers and activists. The authorities persisted in the use of “residential 

surveillance in a designated location”, a form of secret incommunicado detention that allowed 

the police to hold individuals for up to six months outside the formal detention system, without 

access to legal counsel of their choice, their families or others, and placed suspects at risk of 

torture and other ill-treatment. This form of detention was used to curb the activities of human 

rights defenders, including lawyers, activists and religious practitioners.

The government also continued to imprison those trying to commemorate peacefully the 

Tiananmen Square crackdown of 3-4 June 1989 in the capital, Beijing, in which hundreds, if 

not thousands, of protesters were killed or injured after the People’s Liberation Army opened 

fire on unarmed civilians. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiabo died in custody in July.

In Hong Kong, the repeated use of vague charges against prominent pro-democracy 

movement figures appeared to be an orchestrated and retaliatory campaign by the authorities 

to punish and intimidate those advocating democracy or challenging the authorities.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

In Japan, while asylum applications continued to increase, the government reported in 

February that it had approved 28 out of 10,901 claims in 2016, which was a 44% increase in 

claims from the previous year. Meanwhile, to address the country’s labour shortage, Japan 

began to accept the first of 10,000 Vietnamese nationals to be admitted over three years under 

a labour migration programme harshly criticized by human rights advocates for facilitating a 

wide range of abuses.

In South Korea, deaths of migrant workers raised concerns about safety in the workplace. 

North Korean authorities continued to dispatch workers to other countries, including China 

and Russia, although some countries stopped renewing or issuing additional work visas to 

North Koreans in order to comply with the new UN sanctions on North Korea’s economic 

activities abroad in response to the country’s missile tests.

DISCRIMINATION

In China, religious repression remained particularly severe in the XUAR and in Tibetan-

populated areas.

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