Taiwan remains the only country in Asia with an “open” civic space for the fifth consecutive year, the Civicus Monitor said in a report released yesterday.
The People Power Under Attack 2023 report named Taiwan as one of only 37 open countries or territories out of 198 globally, and the only one in Asia.
Compiled by Civicus — a global alliance of civil society organizations dedicated to bolstering civil action — the ranking compiled annually since 2017 measures the state of freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression around the world.
Photo courtesy of Civicus Monitor
Researchers assign each country or territory one of five rankings describing the state of its civic space as open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed or closed.
This year, 37 were considered open, 43 were narrowed, 40 were obstructed, 50 were repressed and 28 were closed.
By population, only 2.1 percent of people live in open societies — half the percentage reported six years ago — while 40.3 percent are in repressed societies and 30.6 percent are in closed societies.
Eight of the 26 countries or territories in Asia were rated as closed, up from seven last year, as Bangladesh joined China, Hong Kong, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Afghanistan in the bottom ranking.
Citing Reporters Without Borders data, Civicus said that Taiwan ranked 35th globally for press freedom and the government generally respects those freedoms.
Taiwan has a rich media environment, and the government respects and upholds its people’s liberties and rights of assembly, allowing the public to protest without undue limitations, the report said.
In contrast, Bangladesh launched a sweeping and violent crackdown on opposition parties ahead of general elections, arresting nearly 10,000 activists, and has been downgraded to the lowest rank.
Sri Lanka has also been downgraded to repressed after it continued to crack down on dissidents and activists.
Josef Benedict, a Civicus researcher covering the Asia-Pacific region, said that with the civic space in the region continuing to shrink, Taiwan maintaining an open civic space is positive, as it shows that human rights and civic space development in the region are not all bad, and that some nations are still serious about their international responsibilities.
Taiwan has become a haven for journalists and dissidents from other nations, allowing them to continue their work safely, he added.
Countries that want to develop their civic spaces should look to Taiwan to learn from it, he said.
However, Taiwan has room for improvement, Benedict said, adding that the defamation laws under Article 310 of the Criminal Code could be used to oppress freedom of speech.
While there is freedom to form unions in Taiwan, the nation also has strict rules against strikes, he said.
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
Taiwan must invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to keep abreast of the next technological leap toward automation, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said at the luanch ceremony of Taiwan AI and Robots Alliance yesterday. The world is on the cusp of a new industrial revolution centered on AI and robotics, which would likely lead to a thorough transformation of human society, she told an event marking the establishment of a national AI and robotics alliance in Taipei. The arrival of the next industrial revolution could be a matter of years, she said. The pace of automation in the global economy can
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,
RSS