Civil society and NGOs 'under assault' in Asia

At the end of January, a contentious draft bill that could affect NGO operations in Kyrgyzstan and reduce the country’s civil society space edged closer to implementation as it passed a parliamentary committee review. This proposed law is the latest in a string of moves by Asian governments that onlookers say is suffocating NGOs and civil society organizations. A series of registration laws imposed in countries around the region are erecting new hurdles for mission-driven organizations to undertake their work and are mandating them to disclose information that could make them and their staff vulnerable to closure and harassment. At the same time, rates of harassment and intimidation of those working as activists or human rights defenders is increasing. “Civil society is really under assault right now,” Elaine Pearson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said at a recent press conference. “For this region, 2023 was a year of increasing and intensifying repression from China and North Korea to India and Afghanistan.” Kyrgyzstan’s draft law on foreign representatives would force organizations receiving foreign funding and working to change “state policy and shaping public opinion” to register with the Ministry of Justice. Certain organizations would then be mandated to share information on its staff and financial assets while decadelong prison sentences could be imposed on activists who work with an NGO the government deems as “inciting citizens to refuse to perform civic duties or to commit other unlawful deeds.” “This offence is ill-defined, broad, and open to subjective interpretation. It may result in the selective prosecution of legitimate human rights advocacy,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said of the bill last October. “We call upon the Kyrgyz Parliament to reject the draft law.” Since then, the bill has only advanced and in response, nine international human rights groups in January called it a violation of human rights commitments with the potential “to have far-reaching implications for Kyrgyzstan’s vibrant civil society.” Similar laws in Myanmar and Uzbekistan have meant many organizations, especially those working on human rights, have faced difficulties in registering, either forcing them to shutter or else operate illegally, exposing staff to criminal repercussions while limiting support to the communities they serve. Research from 2023 on Southeast Asia notes a significant decline in civil society activities as a result of “authoritarian pressures, diminishing political space, and increased repression.” Despite having one of the most active civil society sectors in Central Asia as a result of protective legislation, Kyrgyzstan, like other countries in the region, is being swept up in a trend of repression, said Tara Petrović, who leads research on Europe and Central Asia’s civic space for the CIVICUS Monitor. With the downgrading of Bangladesh to a “closed” civic space status, the CIVICUS Monitor’s data for 2023 shows the Asia Pacific region as having the highest number of “closed” countries, its lowest rating, tied with the Middle East and North Africa region. In Europe and Central Asia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kyrgyzstan were also downgraded to “obstructed” and "repressed," respectively. Many of the countries HRW used to have a presence in the region are also becoming harder to access, Pearson said. “We don’t have access anymore to Myanmar. We never had access to North Korea. [Then there’s] China, Hong Kong, Afghanistan; the list of countries is growing,” she said. And across the region, over 500 more violations, including judicial harassment, intimidation tactics, and violence, were committed against human rights defenders between 2021 and 2022 than in the 2019-2020 period. This uptick could, according to the Asia Centre, be in part down to emergency measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Philippines, for example, saw the introduction of the Anti-Terrorism Act in 2020, but its “worryingly broad definition of terrorism” allows for potential persecution of activists and human rights defenders, Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso, executive director of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, said in an email. She also attributed the crackdown against fundamental freedoms with a rise in authoritarian governments in the region. India, for example, had a much more vibrant CSO landscape prior to the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party coming to power in 2014, Diez-Bacalso added. This is in line with what Andreas Ufen, a senior research fellow focused on civil society and democratization in Southeast Asia at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, described as a global rise in populism, autocratization, and democratic backsliding. In Venezuela, similar legislation that would limit CSOs’ work has been proposed. In Mozambique, a draft bill would grant lawmakers the power to close NGOs. And even the European Union included a directive in its proposed “Defence of Democracy” package that would mandate CSOs receiving funding from outside the region to follow a registration and reporting process, Petrović said. What makes Asia more exposed, however, could be the lack of what Pearson called “a regional human rights convention or institution to safeguard rights.” Other regions have the European Convention on Human Rights or the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and while Asia has the mechanisms of Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Pearson said they have proven “woefully inadequate in addressing regional human rights crises.” She called for stronger leadership from established democracies, such as India, Japan, and South Korea, to protect and promote human rights in the region. “[They] need to realize that repression outside their borders affects human rights at home,” she said. Update, Feb. 15, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect that the CIVICUS Monitor’s tracker groups Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kyrgyzstan under Europe and Central Asia.