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Asia's 'people power' alive and kicking amid disturbing global currents

Human rights and rule of law are a foundation for growth and stability – not a diversion from it

Published in: Nikkei Asia
Students protest demanding a trial of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, Bangladesh, August 13, 2024. © 2024 Rajib Dhar/AP Photo

At a time when some are questioning the relevance of human rights and the rules-based order, Asia witnessed some extraordinary demonstrations of "people power" in 2024.

Civil society leaders and pro-democracy activists across Asia continued to risk their lives and liberties to fight for justice and human rights in the face of fierce attacks on rule of law and democracy.

In December, thousands of South Koreans came in the dead of night to protest President Yoon Suk Yeol's declaration of martial law. Within hours the National Assembly had voted to force Yoon – now arrested – to rescind the order.

Months before, in Bangladesh, student-led protests against politicized government quotas, corruption, and years of abusive rule quickly morphed into a nationwide movement that ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Now, an interim government is trying to chart a rights-respecting future.

And in November, Sri Lankans voted in large numbers against political parties that had engaged in corruption or presided over war crimes, electing the National People's Power (NPP) party, whose leaders have pledged accountability and economic justice.

In non-democratic countries throughout the region, people are putting their lives on the line. In Myanmar, since the February 2021 military takeover, huge numbers of ordinary people have joined efforts to resist the abusive military junta, even in the face of mass arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

In Afghanistan, Taliban rulers seek to systematically erase women from public life and severely curtail rights to work and education. But Afghan women and girls are at the forefront of protesting these restrictions, drawing the world's attention to this injustice.

From Indonesia to India, governments are attacking civil society and weakening civil institutions. Cambodia and Pakistan have hounded political opponents into exile or jailed them. Civil society is under siege nearly everywhere – Hong Kong's mass trial and harsh prison sentences in late 2024 for 45 people under its national security law is perhaps the starkest example.

Some governments – China, India, Cambodia, and Vietnam – have even taken drastic extraterritorial measures to silence their citizens outside their own borders – hunting down government critics and dissidents in exile – to be forcibly returned, denied visas, or even disappeared or killed. Just last week, on a crowded street in Bangkok, an unmasked gunman calmly walked across the street and shot dead a Cambodian former opposition politician Lim Kimya in an apparent assassination. Many other Cambodian dissidents who fled to Thailand have been targets of transnational repression.

This has not stopped determined citizens from continuing to fight for human rights. Yet some world leaders are now questioning the relevance of the global human rights architecture and rules-based order erected after World War II.

In Asia, U.S. power has significantly diminished and will most likely erode further if President-elect Donald Trump pursues his insular policies. European influence is declining amid stagnant economies, a backlash against immigration, and Russia's war in Ukraine. Regional powers such as China and India are ascendant. Their domination is unashamedly about economic clout, development, and the lure of trade and investment opportunities, without paying even cursory lip service to human rights.

Many governments now prefer to talk of the need for peace, prosperity, and security. Some governments, such as in Australia and Japan, avoid saying "human rights" out loud, fearing that they will miss out on important security or economic deals, and be accused of lecturing or hypocrisy, or be chided about their colonial past.

Meanwhile, governments hostile to human rights continue to try to expunge the discussion altogether. In Lima, Peru, this November, in an extraordinary move, Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S, President Joe Biden that "human rights and democracy" are one of four "red lines" not to be crossed in the U.S.-China relationship. The meeting was with Biden, but the message was clearly intended for the incoming Trump administration, which sees human rights as transactional, something to be traded away for economic or other gain.

But to a large part of the world, ignoring atrocities is unacceptable. The Myanmar military regime, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Chinese Communist Party and the North Korean governments are all committing crimes against humanity – grave abuses committed as part of attacks on the civilian population – including killings and enforced disappearances, gender persecution, or mass arbitrary detention. A key problem is a growing sense of impunity that feeds abuse of power and further violations.

Asian governments have been notoriously weak on justice for serious crimes, but this past year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has offered some victims in the region a glimmer of hope. In November, the ICC prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for Myanmar's commander-in-chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, for his role in overseeing crimes against humanity against ethnic Rohingya in 2017 that killed thousands and drove out more than 700,000 to neighboring Bangladesh. This is the first time that the ICC is requesting a warrant for an Asian leader. The prosecutor announced that more arrest warrant requests will follow.

In December, the prosecutor also said that he would soon request arrest warrants in the context of his ongoing investigation in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the court's investigation in the Philippines into alleged crimes against humanity committed in the context of former President Duterte's "war on drugs" is ongoing.

While some Asian governments are going into reverse on rights, it is ordinary people who recognize the relevance and primacy of human rights in their lives.

Leaders across Asia need to heed the voices of their people and recognize that human rights and rule of law are a foundation for long-term growth and stability – not a diversion from it.

Rather than seeking to discredit "people power," protest movements, governments should address underlying concerns. But they need to muster the courage to bring abusive rulers to justice through domestic and international mechanisms and better support and protect refugees and asylum seekers, victims of rights violations, and human rights defenders.

As the recent protests and resistance movements across Asia have demonstrated, every political system has people who want to see change and make it happen. In the year ahead, individuals who care about human rights should play their part, whether large or small, to seek more from their leaders. Everyone can be a human rights defender.

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