Asia Pacific

In Bangladesh hundreds of members of an ngo working for womens rights and electoral reform were arrested for attempting a sit-in near the office of the Prime Minister. In Cambodia demonstrations have been banned since 2003 and a new law will formally restrict the right to freedom of assembly. Defenders acting on behalf of religious minorities are particularly at risk.

In China is is still extremely difficult to organise almost any kind of human rights activities. For the 17th. anniversary of Tiananmen Square those who took part or their friends were put under close surveillance, while community leaders who protested at official corruption were arrested, In China many human rights defenders, including journalists and lawyers continue to face re-education through labour or even prison terms. Defenders acting on behalf of communities forcibly evicted to make way for urban renewal are punished particularly severely as are the lawyers acting on their behalf. Aids activists challenging state policy have been repeatedly targetted.

In Malaysia demonstrations against price increases were violently broken up and the leaders arrested. In Nepal despite an end to the state of emergency the police continued to use excessive force in breaking up demonstrations in which 6 people were killed and thousands injured.

In Pakistan the families of people who disappeared in 2001, after being arrested by the military, were arrested when they organised a peaceful demonstration outside the headquarters of the military authorities.

In the Philippines the government introduced a state of emergency ostensibly to prevent violence by extreme left wing and right wing groups but which also served to prevent any peaceful demonstrations like those planned to coincide with the ASEAN meeting. The number of extrajudicial executions of human rights defenders, journalists and opposition politicians increased dramatically especially in those areas with a strong military presence.

In Indonesia the right to freeom of expression remains severely restricted: in West Papua human rights defenders have been subjected to arbitrary detention for criticising the government and face the risk of torture and ill-treatment. In Aceh human rights monitors have been deployed for the first time and the general situation has improved. Across the country the police have used excessive force to break up demonstrations and have targetted religious and peaceful pro-independance activists while a new trend is the use of defamation suits to target human rights defenders who criticise the government.

In Thailand martial law was imposed after the military coup imposing complete restrictions on any public demonstrations.

In Cambodia a new draft law on the registration of ngo's would severely limit the work of human rights defenders, imposing tough controls on registration and imposing fines and a prison term of up to a year for those ngo's which have been dissolved but continue to operate. Human rights defenders acting for land rights or access to natural resources are especially targetted.

In India new ngo legislation would restrict the acceptance of foreign funds and would in essence allow the government to decide which organisations receive funds and what they could use the money for.

In Sri Lanka the government has introduced new anti-terrorist legislation which will allow the authorities to criminalise the activities of almost any ngo. Foreign aid workers and local human rights defenders have been targeted by both sides in the conflict.

In Afghanistan human rights defenders working in the conflict zones run a very high risk of being killed and human rights defenders have been assassinated by the various parties to the conflict.

In Burma the government has introduced even more restrictive guidelines to govern the activities of international ngo's, including insisting on approval of their programme, monitoring their finance and sending government minders on all trips.

Despite this the struggle for human rights continues across the region and human rights defenders continue to campaign for economic, social and cultural rights, particularly in China, India and the Philippines. The first-ever global gathering of women human rights defenders in Sri Lanka in December 2005 was a landmark event. Women human rights defenders are to the fore in almost every country in the struggle for gender equality in spite of the specific and additional threats that they face.