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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.