Time running out to form effective rights body

Human-rights defenders in Southeast Asia have only a few months until July to influence formation of an Asean Human Rights Body (HRB) in order to ensure there is a functioning regional rights body, says Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Forum Asia, a regional human-rights NGO based in Bangkok.

"We cannot allow governments to appoint diplomats or people who have no expertise to be members of HRB," said Seng, speaking during the second day of the three-day Asean Peoples' Forum in anticipation of the 14th Asean Summit in Hua Hin later this month.

He offered six criteria for the setting up of an effective Asean HRB, including genuine independence, an open, transparent and participatory selection process, guarantees of adequate funding and participation by civil society.

"This body that is going to be created by Asean can be a tool to raise issues about Burma," said Seng, who admitted, however, that the new regional body would be in charge of drafting an Asean Human Rights Convention that might include anti-human-rights notions such as the so-called Asian Values propagated by Singapore and Malaysia.

Seng, a Malaysian national, added that human-rights groups should not put all their eggs in one basket and the development and fostering of a civil-society network within the region was also essential.

Some participants in the forum were more sceptical, saying the new regional human-rights body could end up acting as a shield against criticism about human-rights from the West and the United Nations.

The human-rights situation in Asean is not very promising. Said Filipino Emerlyn Gil, also from Forum Asia, noting a backlash against freedom of expression in Asia and particularly in Southeast Asia.

In Singapore, a private screening of the film "One Nation Under Lee" was broken up, with the government citing the Film Act of Singapore while 20 human-rights defenders have been imprisoned for staging a peaceful assembly, said Gil.

Malaysia continues to use its Internal Security Act to arrest people, and three were arrested under the law without a court warrant last year, including a well-known political blogger. In Thailand, "the increasing use of lese-majeste law" to "silence dissenting views" is taking place, Gil said.

In Indonesia, human-rights defenders are threatened by the military. In the Philippines a lawyer has been arrested on false murder charges, and likewise in Cambodia a lawyer working on land-rights issues has been threatened.

Gil said we were seeing a "gradual collapse of democracy in the region" as draconian laws and a culture of impunity created an climate of "permanent fear".