Amnesty International Report 2017/18

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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

Despite the Sri Lankan government’s 2015 pledge to deliver truth, justice and reparation to 

victims of the armed conflict in the country, and to deliver reforms to prevent violations, 

progress was slow. Impunity for enforced disappearances remained. The government stalled 

on its commitment to repeal the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act that enabled 

incommunicado and secret detention. However, the parliament passed an amended Office on 

Missing Persons Act, intended to assist families of the disappeared seek missing relatives.

Enforced disappearances were committed in Bangladesh; the victims often belonged to 

opposition political parties.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

In different parts of South Asia, refugees and migrants were denied their rights.

Bangladesh had opened its borders to more than 655,000 members of the Rohingya 

community fleeing a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. However, if the Rohingya 

refugees were forced to return to Myanmar, they would be at the mercy of the same military 

that drove them out and would continue to face the entrenched system of discrimination and 

segregation amounting to apartheid that made them so vulnerable in the first place.

The number of internally displaced people in Afghanistan rose to more than 2 million, while 

about 2.6 million Afghan refugees lived outside the country.

DISCRIMINATION

Across South Asia, dissenting voices and members of religious minorities were increasingly 

vulnerable to attacks from mobs. In India, several cases of lynching of Muslims were reported, 

sparking outrage against the wave of rising Islamophobia under the Hindu nationalist 

government. Demonstrations against attacks on Muslims were held in several cities, but the 

government did little to show that it disapproved of the violence. Indigenous Adivasi 

communities in India continued to be displaced by industrial projects.

In Bangladesh, attacks against religious minorities were met with near-indifference by the 

government. Those who sought help from the authorities after they received threats were often 

turned away.

Sri Lanka saw a rise in Buddhist nationalist sentiment, including attacks against Christians 

and Muslims. The Maldives government used religion to cloak its repressive practices, 

including attacks against members of the opposition and plans to reintroduce the death 

penalty.

Marginalized communities in Pakistan faced discrimination in law, policy and practice 

because of their gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or gender identity. Pakistan's 

blasphemy laws, which carry a mandatory death penalty for “blasphemy against the Prophet 

Muhammad”, remained incompatible with a range of rights. The frequently misused laws were 

disproportionately applied to religious minorities and others targeted with accusations that 

were often false and violated international human rights law. A man was sentenced to death for 

allegedly posting content on Facebook deemed “blasphemous” – the harshest sentence 

handed down to date in Pakistan for a cyber crime-related offence.

GENDER-BASED DISCRIMINATION

Although India’s Supreme Court banned the practice of triple talaq (Islamic instant divorce), 

other court rulings undermined women’s autonomy. The Supreme Court weakened a law 

enacted to protect women from violence in marriage. Several rape survivors, including girls, 

approached the courts for permission to terminate pregnancies over 20 weeks, as required 

under Indian law; although courts approved some abortions, they refused others. The central 

government instructed states to set up permanent medical boards to decide such cases 

promptly.

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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

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In Pakistan, the rape of a teenage girl ordered by a so-called village council in “revenge” for a 

rape allegedly committed by her brother was one in a long series of horrific cases. Although 

people from the council were arrested for ordering the rape, the authorities failed to end 

impunity for sexual violence and abolish so-called village councils that prescribed crimes of 

sexual violence as revenge. Pakistan also continued to criminalize same-sex consensual 

relationships.

Violence against women and girls persisted in Afghanistan, where an increase was reported 

in the number of women publicly punished in the name of Shari’a law by armed groups.

DEATH PENALTY

Against the backdrop of a worsening political crisis, the authorities in Maldives announced that 

executions would resume after more than 60 years. None had been carried out by the end of 

the year.

Pakistan had executed hundreds of people since it lifted an informal moratorium on 

executions in 2014, often with serious additional concerns that those executed were denied 

the right to a fair trial. In violation of international law, courts imposed the death penalty on 

people with mental disabilities, individuals aged below 18 when the crime was committed, and 

those whose convictions were based on “confessions” extracted through torture or other ill-

treatment.

ARMED CONFLICT

The situation in Afghanistan continued to deteriorate, with the number of civilian 

casualties remaining high, a growing internal displacement crisis, and the Taliban controlling 

more territory than at any point since 2001. Since 2014, tens of thousands of Afghan refugees 

have been returned against their will from Pakistan, Iran and EU countries.

The Afghanistan government and the international community showed too little concern for 

the plight of civilians. When crowds protested against violence and insecurity following one of 

the deadliest attacks – a bombing in Kabul on 31 May that claimed the lives of more than 150 

people and injured hundreds – the security forces opened fire on the crowds, killing several 

protesters.

In a welcome development, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested that 

a preliminary investigation be opened into crimes alleged to have been committed by all 

parties to the ongoing armed conflict in Afghanistan. The decision was an important step 

towards ensuring accountability for crimes under international law committed since 2003, and 

providing truth, justice and reparation for the victims.

SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Many of those taking action to demand respect for human rights and accountability for 

violations were demonized and criminalized, leading to shrinking civic space. Police and 

security forces persecuted human rights defenders. Extrajudicial killings, torture and other ill-

treatment, and enforced disappearances persisted with impunity.

The Myanmar security forces’ campaign of violence against the Rohingya people in northern 

Rakhine State, which amounted to crimes against humanity, created a human rights and 

humanitarian crisis in the country and in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Lawlessness and violence increased further in the Philippines. The President’s contempt for 

human rights in the “war on drugs” was characterized by mass killings, mostly of people from 

poor and marginalized groups, including children. The scope of the killings and rampant 

impunity led to growing calls for an investigation at the international level. The extension of 

martial law in the island of Mindanao in December led to concerns that military rule could be 

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