The CIVICUS Monitor announced in its new report this week that the main civic freedom violation across Asia is the crackdown on protests and the criminalization of human rights defenders. It doesn’t surprise me, as my family and I faced systematic harassment and intimidation in Pakistan before finding safety and welcome in the United States.
The case brought against me and my family was in retaliation for the work of my daughter, Gulalai. Gulalai has faced harassment and persecution from the authorities for her peaceful advocacy for women’s rights, peacebuilding, and her efforts to end violations against the ethnic Pashtun people of Pakistan. She was forced to flee Pakistan due to concerns for her safety. I, too, have been driven into exile for standing by her and my belief in human rights.
We are among the lucky few to find safety, but the overall picture across Asia looks grim. Countries in Asia continue to crush dissent and seriously restrict the ability of people like me and my daughter to be heard and to live in community.
The CIVICUS Monitor rates each country’s civic space conditions based on data collected throughout the year from country-focused civil society activists, regionally-based research teams, international human rights indices, and the Monitor’s own in-house experts. The data from these four separate sources are then combined to assign each country a rating as either Open, Narrowed, Obstructed, Repressed, or Closed.
Repressed countries are those where civic freedoms are significantly constrained. Active individuals and civil society members who criticize power holders risk surveillance, harassment, intimidation, imprisonment, injury, and death. Closed countries are those where there is complete shuttering – in law and in practice – of civic space. An atmosphere of fear and violence prevails, where state and powerful non-state actors are routinely allowed to imprison, seriously injure, and kill people with impunity for attempting to exercise their rights to associate, peacefully assemble, and express themselves.
Seven countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific – Afghanistan, China, Hong Kong, Laos, Myanmar, North Korea, and Vietnam – are today rated as Closed. Nine countries are rated Repressed while six countries are now in the Obstructed category. Most people in the region are living in countries with closed or repressed civic space where their freedoms to speak up, organize, or mobilize are under attack on a daily basis. Authoritarian states are seeking to entrench their rule, and there is a critical need to support activists and civil society from these countries who are pushing back against these repressive regimes.
Censorship is a key concern in the region, most noticeably in Pakistan. Our repression in Pakistan escalated when my daughter Gulalai was charged with defamation and sedition and charged under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act for a speech she made condemning authorities’ inaction in the case of a horrific rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl. Ours is not an isolated case. It exemplifies the weaponization of anti-terrorism legislation and direct censorship to create a chilling effect on greater civil society in Pakistan as people are too afraid to speak out.
Institutionalizing censorship, authorities use their power to restrict access to information critical of the state by blocking television broadcasts and news portals, restricting access to social media apps, suspending mobile internet services, and targeting journalists and news outlets. I too was charged with hate speech and spreading “fake information” against the government’s institutions under the draconian Pakistan’s Electronic Crimes Act for posts I shared on my personal social media pages. The aim is to silence dissent and control narratives at the cost of suspending civil rights.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found my arrest and detention arbitrary and called on the Pakistani authorities to unconditionally put an end to all acts of harassment against me and my family. The U.N. Working Group concluded that I was targeted for my human rights work and that my detention was in contravention of international human rights standards, particularly the Universal Human Rights Declaration (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
After a four-year ordeal, marked by my abduction, repeated detentions, a tedious trial, and a rigorous campaign for justice, I was freed and all the charges against me dropped. But many activists in Pakistan are not as lucky.
This tale is retold in countries across the region as governments detain and prosecute human rights defenders on trumped-up charges using a range of repressive laws. Censorship is pervasive as countries stifle critical voices and block the free flow of information, especially so ahead of elections, as in Pakistan. These actions flagrantly violate the rights to peaceful assembly guaranteed under international human rights law and standards. In addition, transnational repression, where countries collaborate to target human rights defenders beyond their borders, is on the rise.
The international community must do more to protect fundamental freedoms and support activists in detention and facing prosecution. Citizens and NGOs should coordinate campaigns and mobilize action on behalf of human rights defenders behind bars. Diplomats must speak up about the violations against human rights defenders, attend their trials, and stand in solidarity with them and their families. States can use international platforms like the U.N. Human Rights Council to highlight the cases of human rights defenders detained and support the crucial work of U.N. experts. These actions, no matter how small, are critical to ensure that activists like myself will not fear speaking up and working for positive civic space change across the region.