Recent years have seen important achievements for democracy in Asia, including the first direct presidential and legislative elections in Indonesia and commendable efforts toward constitutional reform in Taiwan.
Yet, according to Freedom in the World 2007, Freedom House's annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties, Asia suffered more setbacks last year than any other region, with one-third of Asia Pacific countries ranking as less free early this year than they were a year ago. Moreover, in nearly every case, the catalyst for decline has been precisely the same issue that has challenged each country historically -- and in many cases, since its very founding.
The year's setbacks have taken a more overt, even startling, form in some countries while a more gradual backsliding appears to be underway in others.
The late?September coup in Thailand clearly marked the region's most abrupt reversal. While the ousting of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra removed an increasingly authoritarian leader with no significant violence or shortage of popular support, the coup has thrown Thailand -- born from a military coup in 1932 -- back to an era of military rule, an era it took the country its first six decades to overcome.
The fact that the military junta has established a civilian interim government (led by a former army commander) and shied away from Myanmar-esque repression is hardly reason for confidence in the country's trajectory. No date has been set for elections, the plan for drafting a new constitution is firmly controlled by the military's Council for National Security and judicial independence has been indefinitely erased with an appointed tribunal standing in the place of an abrogated Constitutional Court. Meanwhile, the recent bombings in Bangkok signal coming unrest and hopes for progress toward resolving the country's Muslim insurgency in the south fade with each day the fighting persists.
A failure to effectively address historically sensitive issues is simultaneously inhibiting reform elsewhere. Malaysia's recurrent challenges of race and religion returned to the fore following a series of court cases that have raised the concerns of non-Muslim minorities regarding their legal and religious rights. Rather than embrace productive debate about the same issues that divided the country in the 1960s, the Badawi government suppressed related civil society activism and press coverage and denied a call for the review of constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms.
As the prime minister continued to advocate the concept of Islam Hadari -- an inclusive and progressive form of Islam at the center of his Ninth Malaysia Plan for economic development -- religious intolerance reached new heights with the rise of anti-apostasy movements and heated debate over the issue of religious conversion.
Indonesia revisited the same question that challenged president Sukarno in 1945 of whether to be an Islamic state. While promoting the national, pluralistic ideology of Pancasila Indonesia amid a spate of religiously motivated attacks and forced church closures, the government failed to revoke shariah by-laws in a number of districts that curb the rights of women and religious minorities.
In the Philippines, where leaders have been removed from office through popular overthrow just as many times as through elections, fears of a coup attempt led President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to call a state of emergency that involved security raids on anti-government press offices, the unwarranted arrests of opposition officials and the brutal suppression of public protests.
East Timor's fledgling democracy was devastated by riots that necessitated the establishment of the fourth UN presence in the country's four-year history.
This trend of old problems re-emerging has by no means been limited to southeast Asia. Civil conflict reignited in Sri Lanka, while political violence and polarization escalated in Bangladesh. The military maintained a firm grip on power in Pakistan, as General Musharraf continued to use undemocratic means to foster his own support and cripple the opposition.
For all its vitality in the economic sphere, China has made disappointing progress toward the protection of political and civil rights. Alarmed by growing unrest among farmers and the working class, last year the government further restricted the media and cracked down on a new generation of human rights activists.
Indonesia has undoubtedly made great advances since the fall of Suharto, including most recently a successful peace and impressive elections in Aceh. The ceasefire and popular overthrow of an authoritarian monarch in Nepal marked another shining achievement. Moreover, in many of those countries where freedom does exist, it can be considered strong (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and India).
However, the number of core Asian countries counted as "Free" grew by only one last year versus 1972, the first year of the Freedom in the World survey. Last year's developments reflect the extent to which many of the same issues that have repeatedly plagued these countries continue to inhibit fundamental freedoms of expression, association, media, gender equality and equality under the law.
While complex and enduring, none of these problems is irreparable. The fact that, in nearly every case, public discussion of these volatile issues has been extraordinarily vibrant may be the surest sign that recent setbacks can be reversed.
Camille Eiss is southeast Asia analyst for Freedom in the World, Freedom House's annual index of political rights and civil liberties.
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