As one of the themes of the ASEM summit will be international cooperation against terrorism, Human Rights Watch would like to stress the importance of ensuring that the fight against terrorism is conducted with full observance of international human rights standards. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the international community has rightly directed efforts to bringing those responsible for the attacks to justice. However, we are concerned about the opportunistic attacks on civil liberties and repression of political opponents that some governments are conducting in the name of the anti-terror campaign as well as new restrictive or punitive policies against refugees, asylum-seekers and other foreigners.

At their meeting in Madrid in June 2002, ASEM Foreign Ministers endorsed new forms of cooperation among ASEM members against terrorist threats, particularly through increased intelligence exchange. They called for a "comprehensive strategy against terrorism, which includes political, economic, and cultural measures, while respecting the rule of law." An ASEM expert seminar on anti-terrorism will be hosted by China shortly after your summit.

Human Rights Watch agrees that terrorism will not be defeated by solely military or technical means. Success against terrorism over the long term will require a comprehensive approach, as called for by ASEM foreign ministers, which addresses the human rights violations that give rise to violence and extremism by precluding the resolution of grievances through peaceful, democratic processes. It will also mean ensuring that action against terrorism does not compromise fundamental rights and freedoms and fully complies with the international human rights and humanitarian law standards that help define the moral boundaries that terrorism transgresses.

Human Rights Watch is concerned that many governments, including ASEM members, have used the anti-terror campaign as an opportunity to repress political opponents, curb civil liberties unnecessarily, and tighten arbitrarily restrictive and punitive policies against refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants and other foreigners. China, for instance, has used the international anti-terrorist agenda to justify its broad repression of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang, including peaceful activists and Moslem religious groups. Malaysia has adopted the same pretext to justify its use of the draconian Internal Security Act against supporters of jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim and other opposition supporters. In Europe, the U.K. has introduced measures that permit the prolonged arbitrary detention without adequate judicial review of foreigners suspected of terrorist activity. The past year has seen a continued failure by European states, at the national and European Union levels, to protect the fundamental rights of migrants, including adequate conditions of detention, protection from discrimination and from arbitrary decision-making regarding detention and deportation, meaningful access to asylum procedures, and protection from refoulement.

Human Rights Watch urges ASEM leaders to affirm, clearly and strongly, that counter-terrorist measures must comply fully with international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law. This clear statement of principle should guide the work of the upcoming ASEM seminar on anti-terrorism and official working groups developing cooperation on these issues within the ASEM framework. In this respect, ASEM should ensure that any definition of terrorism is restricted to recognizable crimes, and not be so wide as to constrain legitimate political activity; that measures to facilitate the extradition and prosecution of terrorist suspects guarantee full safeguards for fair trial and protection against torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and application of the death penalty; and that any measures undertaken in the areas of immigration and asylum recognize the fundamental human rights of all migrants and refugees, regardless of their status and, in particular, provide adequate protection for victims of trafficking, access to full and fair asylum procedures, and the prohibition of refoulement.

Afghanistan

One related issue in which ASEM members have a critical interest is the future stability and security of Afghanistan. ASEM members have played a leadership role in promoting Afghanistan's reconstruction and development, notably Germany in hosting the Bonn peace conference and Japan the major donors' meeting in Tokyo. It is critical that this significant investment in the future of Afghanistan be safeguarded against continuing threats and insecurity and that assistance pledged at Tokyo is actually delivered as quickly as possible.

Human Rights Watch believes that an expanded international security presence is essential if effective political and economic reconstruction is to take place in Afghanistan. Despite the technical assistance now being provided by some ASEM members, Afghanistan's police force and national army are still a long way from being able to ensure security throughout the country. Authorities across Afghanistan - Chairman Hamid Karzai, provincial governors, civil society leaders, and even some warlords - recognize this pressing problem and have called for a deployment of international forces to provide greater security in key cities and on roads around the nation. Italy is taking the lead in international efforts to assist with building the legal system, but these efforts cannot be fully realized until better security is assured.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the recent shift in U.S. opposition to ISAF expansion. We urge E.U. governments and members of the Permanent Five to consult and quickly agree on a U.N. Security Council resolution to gradually expand ISAF to areas outside Kabul, and to pledge support in the form of troops, funding and logistical backup.

Migration, trafficking and asylum

Another common international challenge on your agenda is the management of migration flows in ways that fully respect the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and both regular and irregular migrants, as well as ensure the proper protection of trafficked persons. We note the conclusions of the recent ASEM ministerial conference on cooperation for the management of migration flows between Europe and Asia, held in Lanzarote in April 2002. We are concerned, however, that this important initiative fails to accord appropriate consideration to the fundamental rights of migrants, regardless of their status.

Specifically, the ministerial declaration commits ASEM members to cooperate on return and readmission of "illegal" immigrants, but downplays the rights of such migrants. With respect to "legal" immigrants, the declaration acknowledges that member states must "protect their rights and ensure them fair treatment." But as for "illegal" immigrants, ASEM states committed only to affect repatriation "in a humane and dignified manner," ignoring migrants' - even "illegal" migrants' - fundamental rights, including the right to life, the right to protection against arbitrary or discriminatory treatment, and rights relating to the length and conditions of detention. These are more than semantic differences, when considered against he backdrop of E.U. member states' increasingly restrictive immigration policies and the regular violation of all of these fundamental migrants' rights. In undertaking joint action in the field of migration, ASEM states should undertake to abide by their binding legal obligations to migrants, regardless of their legal status.

Protection of children

Human Rights Watch welcomes the child welfare initiative ASEM leaders took at their 1999 meeting in London, aimed at promoting international cooperation on child rights, with a special focus on sexual exploitation of children. We congratulate the government of Japan on its successful hosting in Yokohama of the Second World Congress on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Human Rights Watch was also encouraged by the leadership role played by many ASEM governments at this year's U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Children, in particular by ratifying the new Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. We urge those governments that have not yet done so to sign and ratify this important instrument to help lay the foundation for a global ban on the use of children as soldiers.

Human Rights Watch was disappointed that, in the face of U.S. pressure, the outcome document from the Special Session was extremely weak in affirming the Convention on the Rights of the Child as the global standard for children's rights. We urge your governments, which have strongly championed children's rights in the Commission on Human Rights and other international fora, to issue a public statement reaffirming your commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to incorporate implementation of the Convention into future ASEM activities and the national action plans mandated at the Special Session.

As part of its child welfare initiative, we urge ASEM to give special attention to the protection of children from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, which was recognized as one of four priority areas at the recent Special Session on Children. Specifically, we request a commitment from all ASEM countries to provide support for the new in-depth study on violence against children that was requested by the General Assembly in December 2001, and will soon commence under the leadership of an independent expert selected by the Secretary-General.

We appreciate your attention to our concerns and trust that you will raise them in your discussion on September 22. We wish you a fruitful meeting and look forward to a continued dialogue with you.


Sincerely,

Mike Jendrzejczyk
Acting Executive Director
Asia Division
Human Rights Watch