Wed, Dec 09, 2020 page2

• Taiwan Asia’s only ‘open’ society

  CIVIC SPACE: A South Africa-based NGO cited Taiwan setting up the National Human Rights Commission and its recognition of foreign journalists forced out of China

  • Staff writer, with CNA, BANGKOK
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  For the third year in a row, Taiwan has been named the only country in Asia with an open civic space, a Civicus report released in Bangkok yesterday said.

  In its People Power Under Attack 2020 report, the South Africa-based non-governmental organization (NGO) placed 196 countries in five categories — “open,” “narrowed,” “obstructed,” “repressed” or “closed” — based on their basic freedoms, such as freedoms of the press and speech.

  Taiwan was one of 42 countries worldwide, and the only one in Asia, in the “open” category.

  Out of 25 Asian countries in the report, four were rated as “closed” — China, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam — while nine were categorized as “repressed” and nine as “obstructed.”

  Civic space in South Korea and Japan was rated as “narrowed,” the report said.

  Taiwan in June hosted one of the few Pride marches worldwide this year, giving the country’s LGBTQI+ community a chance to assert their rights in the public square, the report said.

  Taiwan in August established the National Human Rights Commission and granted press credentials to 22 foreign journalists who had been forced to leave China, it said.

  However, it also expressed concern about the rights of migrant workers, overly broad laws used by the government to combat misinformation and protest laws that restrict people’s right to hold peaceful assemblies near some government facilities.

  The only Asian country to move in this year’s ratings was the Philippines, which was downgraded from “obstructed” to “repressed.”

  The reason was a decline in fundamental freedoms, the report said, citing Manila’s closure of leading broadcaster ABS-CBN, the conviction of a prominent journalist on “cyberlibel” charges, and deteriorating conditions for government critics and human rights defenders.

  Josef Benedict, a Civicus researcher, said that human rights abuses continued to be the norm in much of Asia this year, with more than 90 percent of the region’s population living in countries classified as closed, repressed or obstructed.

  Some of the most common means of curtailing the civic space in Asia were restrictive laws to stifle dissent, censorship of journalists and government critics, harassment of activists and journalists, and crackdowns on protests, the report said.

  Among the few positive developments this year were Afghan authorities’ commitment to set up a protection mechanism for human rights defenders and a court ruling in Indonesia that the government’s decision last year to impose an Internet blackout in West Papua had contravened the law, it said.
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