By Mong Palatino
UPI Asia Online
Column: Peripheries
Daly City, CA, United States, — There is a disturbing trend of legal repression in many Asian countries. Human rights abuses are on the rise, the legal profession is under attack and the independence of courts is compromised.
Human rights lawyer and UPI-Asia columnist Basil Fernando has written several articles about the creeping repression in Sri Lanka. State and non-state elements have been harassing human rights lawyers in Sri Lanka. Death squads are on the rise again. The police have taken a leading role in the administration of justice. The violence in Sri Lanka has prompted six former U.S. ambassadors to write the president of Sri Lanka urging the leader to protect the rule of law in the country.
Fernando mentioned that Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defense has uploaded a report on its website in which a group of lawyers was branded as traitors for representing members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. A few months ago, a letter was published by a group called Mahason Balakaya (Battalion of the Ghosts of Death) which threatened lawyers who defend suspected terrorists. The letter warned that, “In the future, all those (who) represent the interests of the terrorists will be subject to the same fate that these terrorists mete out to our innocent people.”
The media in Sri Lanka is also under attack. The veteran editor of Sri Lanka’s Sunday Leader was killed by four unknown assassins. At least 20 persons raided the premises of Sirasa TV and damaged its communications equipment. Sirasa TV is an important independent media network in Sri Lanka.
Fernando writes that the spate of political killings and harassment in the country is “part of a scheme to physically exterminate parties considered undesirable by the current regime.”
The human rights situation in the Philippines is also worsening. The killings of leftist activists have not stopped. Activist and UPI-Asia columnist Gerry Albert Corpuz has written about the false criminal charges filed by the government against leaders of progressive groups.
Among those who were arrested for multiple murders and attempted murders is a prominent labor lawyer who has handled more than 700 labor cases and other controversial cases involving the president of the republic. More than 20 union and peasant leaders in the Southern Luzon region have been charged with several criminal cases as well.
The aim in filing these absurd cases is to prevent the grassroots leaders from organizing political activities that threaten to further destabilize the corrupt and unpopular incumbent government of the Philippines.
UPI-Asia columnist Awzar Thi has written about the shocking prison sentences given by Myanmar courts to more than 60 people for participating in activities deemed subversive by the government. The detainees were sentenced to long years of imprisonment. The prison terms were unbelievable: two years for reporting about the cyclone aid effort; six years for sending false information abroad; 20 years for keeping defaced images of national leaders in an email inbox; and 65 years for five monks and 14 members of the 88 Generation Students group.
The junta is conveying a message to other dissident groups and individuals that if they continue to join protest actions or write something that embarrasses the junta, they may face a jail term of up to 65 years. A lawyer believes that new criminal laws were invoked so that the junta can tell the international community that Myanmar has no political prisoners in jails, only criminals.
Another writer surmises that the harsh prison terms prove that the junta is “determined to ensure that the elections it plans for 2010 as part of its roadmap to democracy suffer no disruption and that the population will be sufficiently cowed not to repeat what happened in 1990.” The May 1990 general election was won by the opposition party, the National League for Democracy. But the junta has refused to recognize the election results.
Regulating the Internet is also becoming frequent in the region. Thailand has blocked websites that insult the monarchy. Cambodia has threatened to remove a website for showing half-naked Apsaras – female spirits from Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Vietnam has introduced new regulations on blogging. Malaysia has arrested bloggers who defy the government.
News reports of rampant human rights abuses in the aforementioned Asian countries are no longer surprising. Media censorship is also not unusual. But the boldness of these states in using shock tactics to punish their enemies is a further cause for alarm. It seems these governments are getting more desperate and barbaric.
This trend is expected to continue, and may in fact worsen, as more Asian countries grapple with the global economic recession. The financial crisis has exacerbated poverty, joblessness, and hopelessness in the region. This drives more people to express anger against ineffective governments. Aside from traditional methods of repression, governments are now using new legal instruments to prevent social unrest in their countries.
The recent and current waves of state-sponsored violence in many Asian countries are “preemptive strikes” against potential political actions by marginalized forces in society. The legal repression serves as a direct warning to all those who will dare challenge the status quo: the state will be ruthless in defeating all threats to its existence.
Governments are not just preparing stimulus packages to revive the struggling economies of their countries. They are also testing the legal instruments to be used to maintain peace and order once the recession turns into a depression. If economic stability seems an impossible objective at the moment, governments will shift their attention to order and survival, which are more realizable goals.
Political scientist Gerald Heeger wrote that “politics in underdeveloped societies has become preeminently a politics in search of order.” Since “development has proved to be an elusive goal, order, in contrast, is both more tangible and, so it seems, more necessary.”
The political killings, harassment of lawyers, and harsh prison terms for dissidents provide a glimpse of the fascist character of many parties in power. Beware of governments that have stopped believing that economic growth is still possible this year. They will now focus their attention on enhancing political control through coercion, repression, and naked brutality. Poverty and violence will be the main stories of the year 2009.
What will be the response of progressive political forces?
--
(Mong Palatino is an activist and regional editor for Southeast Asia of Global Voices Online. He can be reached at mongpalatino@gmail.com and his website is www.mongpalatino.motime.com. )
Human rights lawyer and UPI-Asia columnist Basil Fernando has written several articles about the creeping repression in Sri Lanka. State and non-state elements have been harassing human rights lawyers in Sri Lanka. Death squads are on the rise again. The police have taken a leading role in the administration of justice. The violence in Sri Lanka has prompted six former U.S. ambassadors to write the president of Sri Lanka urging the leader to protect the rule of law in the country.
Fernando mentioned that Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defense has uploaded a report on its website in which a group of lawyers was branded as traitors for representing members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. A few months ago, a letter was published by a group called Mahason Balakaya (Battalion of the Ghosts of Death) which threatened lawyers who defend suspected terrorists. The letter warned that, “In the future, all those (who) represent the interests of the terrorists will be subject to the same fate that these terrorists mete out to our innocent people.”
The media in Sri Lanka is also under attack. The veteran editor of Sri Lanka’s Sunday Leader was killed by four unknown assassins. At least 20 persons raided the premises of Sirasa TV and damaged its communications equipment. Sirasa TV is an important independent media network in Sri Lanka.
Fernando writes that the spate of political killings and harassment in the country is “part of a scheme to physically exterminate parties considered undesirable by the current regime.”
The human rights situation in the Philippines is also worsening. The killings of leftist activists have not stopped. Activist and UPI-Asia columnist Gerry Albert Corpuz has written about the false criminal charges filed by the government against leaders of progressive groups.
Among those who were arrested for multiple murders and attempted murders is a prominent labor lawyer who has handled more than 700 labor cases and other controversial cases involving the president of the republic. More than 20 union and peasant leaders in the Southern Luzon region have been charged with several criminal cases as well.
The aim in filing these absurd cases is to prevent the grassroots leaders from organizing political activities that threaten to further destabilize the corrupt and unpopular incumbent government of the Philippines.
UPI-Asia columnist Awzar Thi has written about the shocking prison sentences given by Myanmar courts to more than 60 people for participating in activities deemed subversive by the government. The detainees were sentenced to long years of imprisonment. The prison terms were unbelievable: two years for reporting about the cyclone aid effort; six years for sending false information abroad; 20 years for keeping defaced images of national leaders in an email inbox; and 65 years for five monks and 14 members of the 88 Generation Students group.
The junta is conveying a message to other dissident groups and individuals that if they continue to join protest actions or write something that embarrasses the junta, they may face a jail term of up to 65 years. A lawyer believes that new criminal laws were invoked so that the junta can tell the international community that Myanmar has no political prisoners in jails, only criminals.
Another writer surmises that the harsh prison terms prove that the junta is “determined to ensure that the elections it plans for 2010 as part of its roadmap to democracy suffer no disruption and that the population will be sufficiently cowed not to repeat what happened in 1990.” The May 1990 general election was won by the opposition party, the National League for Democracy. But the junta has refused to recognize the election results.
Regulating the Internet is also becoming frequent in the region. Thailand has blocked websites that insult the monarchy. Cambodia has threatened to remove a website for showing half-naked Apsaras – female spirits from Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Vietnam has introduced new regulations on blogging. Malaysia has arrested bloggers who defy the government.
News reports of rampant human rights abuses in the aforementioned Asian countries are no longer surprising. Media censorship is also not unusual. But the boldness of these states in using shock tactics to punish their enemies is a further cause for alarm. It seems these governments are getting more desperate and barbaric.
This trend is expected to continue, and may in fact worsen, as more Asian countries grapple with the global economic recession. The financial crisis has exacerbated poverty, joblessness, and hopelessness in the region. This drives more people to express anger against ineffective governments. Aside from traditional methods of repression, governments are now using new legal instruments to prevent social unrest in their countries.
The recent and current waves of state-sponsored violence in many Asian countries are “preemptive strikes” against potential political actions by marginalized forces in society. The legal repression serves as a direct warning to all those who will dare challenge the status quo: the state will be ruthless in defeating all threats to its existence.
Governments are not just preparing stimulus packages to revive the struggling economies of their countries. They are also testing the legal instruments to be used to maintain peace and order once the recession turns into a depression. If economic stability seems an impossible objective at the moment, governments will shift their attention to order and survival, which are more realizable goals.
Political scientist Gerald Heeger wrote that “politics in underdeveloped societies has become preeminently a politics in search of order.” Since “development has proved to be an elusive goal, order, in contrast, is both more tangible and, so it seems, more necessary.”
The political killings, harassment of lawyers, and harsh prison terms for dissidents provide a glimpse of the fascist character of many parties in power. Beware of governments that have stopped believing that economic growth is still possible this year. They will now focus their attention on enhancing political control through coercion, repression, and naked brutality. Poverty and violence will be the main stories of the year 2009.
What will be the response of progressive political forces?
--
(Mong Palatino is an activist and regional editor for Southeast Asia of Global Voices Online. He can be reached at mongpalatino@gmail.com and his website is www.mongpalatino.motime.com. )
