HONG KONG – Growing human
rights abuses in Asia are due primarily to the continued absence of the rule
of law there, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has said in its first
annual assessment of the region.
The 169-page report,
entitled The State of Human Rights in Ten Asian Nations: 2005, was released
at a press briefing in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
"We can state unequivocally
that across almost all of
Asia the
situation of human rights worsened in 2005," Basil Fernando, executive
director of the Hong Kong-based regional rights body, said at the briefing.
"The primary reason for this
situation is the deep flaws in the institutions of justice and policing in
these countries," he said.
"Where the rule of law is
broken down, there is no possibility to implement human rights standards,"
Fernando said.
"That is why we use
implementation, not education, as the key measure for the success or failure
of human rights in a given country," he added.
The ten countries covered
extensively in the report are
Thailand,
India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma, the Philippines, Cambodia, South
Korea and Indonesia.
The AHRC pointed to Burma,
Nepal and Cambodia as countries where there is a complete absence of the
rule of law.
"The situation in Nepal is
now worse than the worst-case scenario," Mandira Sharma, director of the
Kathmandu-based Advocacy Forum, told the briefing.
"We have exhausted all
possibilities of getting judicial remedies for victims of torture, arbitrary
detention and killings," she said.
"When the word of the king
alone is law there is no possibility of protecting human rights," Sharma
added.
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines were identified among countries
where the rule of law is seriously flawed and torture endemic.
Speaking on behalf of the
Bangkok-based Thai Working Group for Human Rights Defenders, Pornpen
Khongkachonkiet said that the problems of southern Thailand reflected the
impunity enjoyed by state security officers throughout the country.
"The police in Thailand
continue to commit torture and other grave abuses and we lack ways to deal
with these," she said.
"While we see some small
signs of progress, we are concerned that overall the situation is getting
worse," Pornpen said.
Babloo Loitongbam, director
of the Manipur-based Human Rights Alert, in northeast India, expressed
appreciation for outside interest in the situation of human rights in his
region.
"We are struggling in
silence against very grave forms of repression," he said.
"On top of the usual
problems posed by
India's
entire decrepit bureaucracy and judicial system, we have to contend with
extraordinary security measures and routine state-sponsored violence,"
Loitongbam said.
Other speakers concurred
with the assessment that the human rights problems in their countries are
due primarily to the absence of the rule of law.
Akram Hassain Chowdry,
executive director of the Dhaka-based Bangladesh Rehabilitation Centre for
Trauma Victims, identified the police as the main perpetrators of rights
abuses there.
Alfonso Cinco IV, a legal
consultant of the Franciscan Justice and Peace Office in Cebu, said that the
Philippines is now a "killing field" for human rights defenders and social
activists, with responsible officers being promoted rather than prosecuted.
Syamsul Alam Agus, director
of the Institute of Law Study and Human Rights Advocacy based in Sulawesi,
said that the situation of human rights in
Indonesia
has seen little improvement since the fall of the Suharto regime.
Basil Fernando concluded the
briefing by pointing to an illustration of a judge's wig on a rubbish bin.
"This cartoon depicts the
situation of justice in Sri Lanka today," he said.
"When the entire country
knows that our judicial system is rubbish the idea of enforcement of human
rights standards is ridiculous," Fernando said.
"This is of equal relevance
to most other countries in
Asia," he added.
The AHRC report contains a
series of open letters to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Louise Arbour, calling for specific goals to improve the situation of human
rights in Asia during 2006.
These include for Thailand
to ratify the U.N. Convention against Torture, for Nepal, Bangladesh, South
Korea and the Philippines to introduce laws to prohibit torture, and for
Sri Lanka
to implement the standing recommendations of U.N. human rights committees.
The AHRC has also called on
Arbour to suspend
Burma
from the U.N. Human Rights Commission completely as its government's
presence there "is nothing more than a cruel joke on the global community,
and... its own people".
It has likewise called for a
complete review of the U.N. mandate with reference to Cambodia, as twelve
years after the internationally-sponsored peace process the country is
governed by "fear, tyranny and dictatorship".
Basil Fernando