Fact-Finding Mission: Assessing The State of Internet Freedom to Ensure More Inclusive Democracy

Fact-Finding Mission: Assessing The State of Internet Freedom to Ensure More Inclusive Democracy

In September 2023, APHR organized a fact-finding mission in Timor-Leste focused on the country’s efforts in expanding internet access and protecting digital rights. 

This was the third in a series of three missions that are part of the APHR’s commitment to the Internet Freedom Initiative together with Article-19 and its partners.

IFI aims to promote online freedom of expression and access to information, support civil society, influence government policies, and build collaborative networks among diverse stakeholders.

Three parliamentarians from the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand formed the Mission’s delegation and visited Dili for four days to meet with the president, government officials, parliamentarians, civil society organizations, journalists, and experts. The delegates of the mission were Hon. Raoul Daniel Mannuel, Member of Parliament, the Philippines; Hon. Kunthida Rungruengkiat, Former Member of Parliament, Thailand; and Hon. Gooi Hsiao Leung, Member of Penang State Legislative Assembly, Malaysia.

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Fact-Finding Mission: Assessing Online Fundamental Freedoms during the 2024 General Elections in Indonesia

Fact-Finding Mission: Assessing Online Fundamental Freedoms during the 2024 General Elections in Indonesia

In May 2023, APHR organized a fact-finding mission in Indonesia to assess the threats to fundamental freedoms during the lead-up to the 2024 general elections.

This was the second in a series of three missions that are part of the APHR’s commitment to the Internet Freedom Initiative together with Article-19 and its partners.

IFI aims to promote online freedom of expression and access to information, support civil society, influence government policies, and build collaborative networks among diverse stakeholders.

Three parliamentarians from Southeast Asia formed the Mission’s delegation and visited Jakarta for three days to meet with government officials, parliamentarians, civil society organizations, journalists, academes, and election experts. The delegates of the mission were Hon. Yuneswaran Ramaraj, Malaysia Member of Parliament; Hon. Sarah Jane Elago, the Philippines Former Member of Parliament; and Hon. Elvina Sousa, Timor-Leste Former Member of Parliament.

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Fact-Finding Mission: Impact of Online Disinformation in Elections and Democracy in the Philippines

Fact-Finding Mission: Impact of Online Disinformation in Elections and Democracy in the Philippines

In August 2022, APHR organized a fact-finding mission in the Philippines to assess the proliferation of online disinformation during the 2022  election and its impact on electoral integrity and democracy. This was the first in a series of three missions that are part of the APHR’s commitment to the Internet Freedom Initiative together with Article-19 and its partners.

IFI aims to promote online freedom of expression and access to information, support civil society, influence government policies, and build collaborative networks among diverse stakeholders.

Three parliamentarians from Southeast Asia formed the Mission’s delegation and visited Metro Manila for three days to meet with government officials, parliamentarians, civil society organizations, journalists, academes, and election experts. The delegates of the mission were Hon. Maria Chin Abdullah, Member of Parliament from Malaysia; Hon. Kelvin Yii, Member of Parliament from Malaysia; and Hon. Pannika Wanich, former member of Parliament from Thailand.

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ASEAN’s continued engagement with Myanmar junta risks legitimizing illegal regime, Southeast Asian MPs say

ASEAN’s continued engagement with Myanmar junta risks legitimizing illegal regime, Southeast Asian MPs say

JAKARTA – ASEAN’s continued and increasing engagement with the Myanmar military junta risks legitimizing the illegal regime and betraying the efforts of pro-democracy forces, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) said today.

Despite the abundant and irrefutable evidence that the junta has perpetrated grave human rights violations against its own citizens, ASEAN continues to collaborate and engage with them,” APHR Co-Chair and former Malaysian member of parliament Charles Santiago said today.  “This is a slap in the face for the Myanmar people and their valiant resistance in the face of the junta’s brutal oppression.”

The ASEAN chairmanship, currently held by Laos, has evidently sought to bring Myanmar back to meetings despite an agreement that barred top-level generals from participating. An official from Myanmar most recently attended the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat held in Luang Prabang, Laos, where representatives called for a “Myanmar-owned and led solution.” 

APHR is also concerned by recent remarks from Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin about Thailand’s involvement in the Myanmar crisis. In an interview with Time Magazine, he said that “ASEAN has agreed that Thailand will take the lead” on peace talks with Myanmar. Thailand has a history of trying to bring Myanmar back into the ASEAN fold, despite the junta showing no interest in adhering to the Five Point Consensus or ending its ongoing hostilities against the civilian population.

“There is no clear mandate within ASEAN that makes it acceptable for Thailand to lead on Myanmar, given that it is neither the current Chair nor part of the ASEAN troika. The Thai Prime Minister’s comments undermine the credibility of the bloc and ASEAN centrality,” said Santiago. 

Most recently, a junta-affiliated media outlet has praised ASEAN for “seeing the light”. The Myanmar military junta has led a brutal campaign of violence against civilians with impunity since its attempted coup, with the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) estimating that at least 8,000 civilians have been killed since February 2021. According to the local organization Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), the junta has also arbitrarily arrested 26,244 people, with 20,112 of them still currently in detention. As such, any praise from the junta should be seen as a dire warning sign that ASEAN is going in the wrong direction.

As countries that claim to uphold democracy and human rights, Indonesia and Malaysia must use their position within the ASEAN troika to end any and all engagement with the junta and take action to hold them accountable for their crimes,” said Santiago. “Anything less will only diminish their credibility and relevance – as well as ASEAN’s – on the global stage.”

FACT-FINDING MISSION: Humanitarian Aid to the Thai-Myanmar Border

FACT-FINDING MISSION: Humanitarian Aid to the Thai-Myanmar Border

Report, March 2024

Between November 13-16, 2023, APHR and PEF organized a fact-finding mission with a delegation led by Members of Parliament to the border towns of Northern Thailand – Mae Hong Son and Mae Sariang – to assess how the current human rights situation is impacting ethnic communities from the Karen and Karenni States. The mission sought to engage with internally displaced people and refugees about their challenges and hear their calls for policy and protection reforms.

During the four-day fact-finding mission, parliamentarians from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand spoke with local organizations, displaced communities and first responders to hear about their situation and challenges as well as to consult with community-based organizations to listen to what solutions must be immediately advocated for.

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Open Letter: Security Council must act now as Myanmar military junta’s forced conscription endangers peace, stability, and human security in Myanmar and the region   

Open Letter: Security Council must act now as Myanmar military junta’s forced conscription endangers peace, stability, and human security in Myanmar and the region   

To Members of the United Nations Security Council 

CC:       

UN Human Rights Council Members 

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 

UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar 

1 March 2024 

Re: Security Council must act now as Myanmar military junta’s forced conscription endangers peace, stability, and human security in Myanmar and the region   

Your Excellencies, 

We, 397 civil society organizations, call on the UN Security Council (UNSC) to take immediate action to ensure peace and stability in the region following the Myanmar military junta’s illegal enforcement of the conscription law. In particular, we call on Japan, as the President of the UNSC in March 2024, to convene an emergency meeting to put forward a binding resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to impose targeted economic sanctions and a comprehensive arms embargo against the junta, and refer the crisis in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court or create an ad hoc tribunal. In addition, the UNSC must provide substantial support to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as declared in Resolution 2669, and assist Myanmar’s neighboring countries to promptly guarantee legal protection for people fleeing the junta’s forced conscription and mass atrocity crimes. 

On 10 February 2024, the military junta announced the enforcement of the People’s Military Service Law, which the past military regime passed in 2010. Men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 will be at risk of forced conscription, and the age further extends to 45 and 35, respectively, for those with expert professions. Up to 14 million people across Myanmar are deemed eligible for this forced conscription, which requires serving up to five years during a state of emergency as is currently in place by the junta’s illegal declaration. Individuals face prison sentences of up to five years, hefty fines, or both, for failing to report for duty. The junta also reserves its arbitrary power to recall those who have already finished their military service. 

The junta’s forced conscription efforts exacerbate the already unprecedented violence caused by its countrywide terror campaign. As it rapidly loses ground to democratic resistance forces, the junta has resorted to forced conscription as psychological warfare to terrorize the population into submission, force people to kill each other against their conscience, and inflame inter-ethnic and inter-religious tension. This ruthless measure underlines the junta’s calculated move to escalate atrocities, exploiting new conscripts as expendable human shields, porters, and frontline fighters—evident in the Myanmar military’s sordid history, particularly its forced recruitment of children in violation of international law. The forced conscription thus explicitly goes against the UNSC’s demand for an immediate end to all forms of violence in Resolution 2669.  

This scheme to forcibly recruit 60,000 men in the first round will compound the severe instability and human insecurity that the junta has already unleashed on Southeast Asia. Young men have been kidnapped or otherwise compelled to join military service, according to the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. Hundreds of Rohingya in internment camps in Rakhine State are being arrested and recruited into service, or persuaded to enlist in exchange for freedom of movement. Other reports indicate people in Bago Region and Yangon City are being forced to serve, leaving them no other choice but to bribe junta personnel or face outright extortion to evade conscription. Individuals in disenfranchised and impoverished sectors, such as garment workers, lack such options as the junta’s workforce data collection is underway.  

Meanwhile, the junta’s Labor Ministry curtails a route to flee the country by suspending recruitment drives of the Myanmar Overseas Employment Agencies Association. These realities will only lead to a massive influx of refugees and trafficking survivors into neighboring countries with track records of non-compliance with their international obligations, ensuring insufficient aid, no legal protection, and risk of refoulement. 

For over three years since the military’s illegal coup attempt, the people of Myanmar nationwide have categorically and unequivocally rejected the Myanmar military’s futile attempts to seize power. The military junta has absolutely no legal authority to enforce any law in Myanmar. In fact, this forced conscription law is nothing more than modern slavery or forced labor under both domestic and international law.  

We are alarmed by the sequence of events which led to the junta’s forced conscription: shortly after the ASEAN Special Envoy to Myanmar’s visit to Naypyitaw in January, and the Thailand-initiated and ASEAN-endorsed humanitarian assistance center in early February. Rather than restoring regional peace and stability and ensuring human security in Southeast Asia, these actions taken by the ASEAN Special Envoy and Thailand have only served to lend false legitimacy to the junta, emboldening it to intensify its terror campaign through forced conscription.  

ASEAN’s ineffective actions have enabled the junta to commit more atrocity crimes with total impunity, while only deepening the bloc’s complicity in these crimes. In addition, we are gravely concerned by Thailand’s approach to humanitarian assistance, as it involves the Myanmar Red Cross which is part of the Myanmar military’s security apparatus and cannot be trusted as a partner to provide humanitarian assistance to those subject to the junta’s heinous crimes.  

Excellencies, the UNSC can no longer continue to recklessly defer to ASEAN and its harmful approach which have to date jeopardized peace and stability in Myanmar and the region. With human security and civilian protection as its guiding principles, the UNSC must coordinate countries in the region to provide legal protection for Myanmar people fleeing from the junta’s terror campaign, including forced conscription and atrocities. 

As a criminal entity, the Myanmar military has also facilitated the expansion of criminally run zones in Myanmar—now hubs for transnational crimes, breeding illegal online scam centers and human trafficking from which it has profited. These organized crimes severely endanger peace and security in the region and beyond. In the face of these nefarious activities, Myanmar’s democratic resistance forces have pledged to join forces with China and Thailand to dismantle the criminal hubs. In this regard, the UNSC must provide political and practical support to these resistance forces to topple the criminal Myanmar military and combat this problem effectively. 

As the military junta weaponizes its forced conscription law, it is of utmost urgency that the UNSC act decisively: fulfill its mandate and implement its own resolutions to protect the people of Myanmar and establish peace and stability in Myanmar and the region. Once again, we urgently call on the UNSC to adopt a binding resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter that enforces targeted economic sanctions and a comprehensive arms embargo against the junta, and refers the crisis in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court or establishes an ad hoc international criminal tribunal. Regional peace and stability will remain elusive unless and until peace and stability is secured in Myanmar, and the Myanmar military, as an illegal and international criminal entity, is held accountable for its decades of mass atrocity crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. 

Signed by 397civil society organizations, including 94 organizations that have chosen not to disclose their names because of the junta’s continued violence in Myanmar.

See the full list of signatories here.