scholarly journals Quarantining activism: COVID-19, frontline defenders and intensifying extractivism in the Philippines

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfram Dressler
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
News Media ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Current Context ◽  
State Actors

How does the intersection of authoritarian populism and a global pandemic reinforce the suppression of human rights, dismantle environmental protections, and accelerate resource extraction? In parts of Southeast Asia, the rise of authoritarian regimes has created conditions of impunity in which state and non-state actors have exploited restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic to restrain activism, contain indigenous livelihoods, and intensify resource exploitation. This article explores how political control and violence against activists (‘defenders') under authoritarian Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte have intersected with and been reinforced throughCOVID-19 health measures to curtail grass-roots efforts to protect social and environmental safeguards. Since March 2020, violence against defenders has gone viral as activism in the country has been quarantined. Under Duterte's authoritarian populist rhetoric, state actors, parastatal and shadowy assassins have allegedly used public health measures to suppress activism further,enabling the harassment, arrests, and deaths of defenders and the intensification of resource extraction. Based on a critical review of news media and conservation policy, I describe the history and current context of defenders being 'quarantined' by authorities using lockdown measures to coercively suppress social and environmental activism across the country. I examine cases from Palawan Island to show how political authorities and elites have used COVID-19 to suppress defender mobility and enforcement practices and how lulls in defending and discourses of 'pandemic recovery' have facilitated mining and deforestation. The conclusion asserts that paying attention to how political conjunctures produce violent governance and local resistance reveals civil society's crucial role and vulnerabilities in protecting human rights and the environment in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

scholarly journals Spatiotemporal patterns and progression of the Delta variant of COVID-19 and their health intervention linkages in Southeast Asia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Luo ◽  
Zhaoyin Liu ◽  
Yuxuan Zhou ◽  
Yumin Zhao ◽  
Yunyue Elita Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Spatiotemporal Analysis ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Epidemic Dynamics ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Public Health Strategies ◽  
Time Scan

The global pandemic of COVID-19 presented an unprecedented challenge to all countries in the world, among which Southeast Asia (SEA) countries managed to maintain and mitigate the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020. However, these countries were caught in the crisis after the Delta variant was introduced to SEA, though many countries had immediately implemented non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) measures along with vaccination in order to contain the disease spread. To investigate the potential linkages between epidemic dynamics and public health interventions, we adopted a prospective space-time scan method to conduct spatiotemporal analysis at the district level in the seven selected countries in SEA from June 2021 to October 2021. Results reveal the spatial and temporal propagation and progression of COVID-19 risks relative to public health measures implemented by different countries. Our research benefits continuous improvements of public health strategies in preventing and containing this pandemic.

scholarly journals Introduction: States, Critical Citizens, and the Challenge of Democratization in Southeast Asia

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-142
Author(s):  
LILY ZUBAIDAH RAHIM ◽  
JULIET PIETSCH
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Political ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Critical Citizens ◽  
Freedom House

The political trajectories in Southeast Asia are much more complex than neat theoretical models would suggest. In particular, the diverse experience of post-authoritarian states are far from linear – often moving forward, backward, and forward again, or stalling for a number of years. Political trajectories can thus be uneven and erratic, as exemplified by Thailand's military coups, graduating from hegemonic to competitive electoral authoritarian rule in Singapore and Malaysia and lingering within the zone of low-quality democracy as characterized by Indonesia's poor governance and neo-patrimonial dynamics. Indeed, since 2014, Freedom House no longer classifies Indonesia as ‘Free’, following the passage of legislation restricting the activity of civil society and the human rights violations against religious minorities. Similarly, Thailand lost its ‘Free’ ranking in 2006 and the Philippines in 2007.

scholarly journals Sex and Gender Diversity in Southeast Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 357
Author(s):  
Douglas Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Gender Diversity ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
Discrimination In Employment ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Legal Sex

The United Nations human rights system has recognized rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual,  transgender and intersex individuals (LGBTI), with key decisions in 2011 and 2016. To what  extent are the rights of these groupings respected in Southeast Asia? The visibility of LGBTI is  low in Southeast Asia and government attitudes vary.  Criminal laws, both secular and Sharia,  in some jurisdictions, have prohibitions, but active enforcement is rare. Discrimination in employment is prohibited by law in Thailand and in local laws in the Philippines. Change of  legal ‘sex’ for transgender individuals is sometimes possible. Legal recognition of same-sex relationships has been proposed in Thailand and the Philippines, but not yet enacted. Marriage has been opened to same-sex couples in neighboring Taiwan. Laws on adoption and surrogacy generally exclude same-sex couples. So-called ‘normalizing surgery’ on intersex babies needs to be deferred to the child’s maturity, to protect their health and rights.

From the Global to the Local: The Development of Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights Internationally and in Southeast Asia

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek INMAN
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Constitutional Amendments ◽  
Legislative Reform ◽  
Implementation Gap ◽  
African Commission

Despite a noticeable shift in recent years, indigenous peoples in Asia continue to experience many forms of human rights violations, with the most serious perhaps being the loss of traditional lands and territories. The purpose of this paper is to examine indigenous peoples’ land rights and its application in Southeast Asia. To that end, the paper will provide an overview of the development of indigenous peoples’ land rights internationally; offer regional perspectives from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights; analyze the concept of indigenous peoples in Asia, juxtaposing it with concurrent difficulties being experienced on the African continent; examine three countries (Cambodia, the Philippines, and Malaysia) that recognize indigenous peoples’ land rights to some extent, whether through constitutional amendments, legislative reform, or domestic jurisprudence; and highlight the implementation gap between the rights of indigenous peoples in law and practice.

scholarly journals Conflicts challenge the Asian news media

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 230-233
Author(s):  
David Robie
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
News Media ◽  
New Caledonia ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Special Edition

During the 1980s, I reported extensively on the indigenous Kanak struggle for political and social justice and independence in New Caledonia. Twice I was arrested by French troops in the course of my conflict reporting—once at gunpoint. (This saga was covered at length in my 1989 book Blood on their Banner.) Also, over this period I reported on social justice, human rights and conflicts in the Philippines, coediting a special edition of the journalists' union magazine Diarista. It is agaisnt this background- and also running a postgraduate course in Asia-Pacific Journalism- that i am reviewing these two books. Both are results of special projects in Asian journalism. Both are packed with case studies (13 in Media and Conflict and eight in Blood in thier Hands). 

scholarly journals Confronting the Past Abuses: Indonesia and Southeast Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
Priyambudi Sulistiyanto
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Universal Model ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Real Power ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Regional Comparison ◽  
The Past

This article examines the politics of reconciliation in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. It focuses in particular on the case of Talangsari killings in Indonesia and makes a regional comparison with Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines and Myanmar. The Indonesian experience illustrates some of the complex issues that arise when attempts are made to dealing with past abuses, especially in the context of the constraints and possibilities faced by new democracies. In a comparative perspective what is being experienced in Indonesia is not new in the sense that, as argued by scholars elsewhere, new democracies also have to face this kind of situation.1 This article argues that dealing with the past human rights abuses brings about real power struggles among the contending actors and power holders and it reflects the power structures within and outside the country. It is suggested that there is no “universal” model for dealing with past human rights abuses but some form of accountability which brings together the elements of prosecution, reconciliation and forgiveness could be considered.

scholarly journals Human Rights Norm Diffusion in Southeast Asia

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 248
Author(s):  
Stanati Netipatalachoochote ◽  
Prof.Dr. Ronald Holzhacker ◽  
Prof.Dr. Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Extrajudicial Killing

Abstract Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have played an increasingly vocal role in their struggle to advance both human rights protection and promotion in Southeast Asian countries. Most notably, CSOs have become a more important actor in dealing with human rights issues in particular by virtue of their role in drawing attention to human rights violations. In the case of massive human rights violations happening in Southeast Asia, CSOs pursue various strategies to address and try to end such abuses. Spreading information of human rights violations occurring in each member state to regional peers, and then finding new allies such as international organizations to put pressure back to human rights-violating states, in what is characterized as a dynamic of the boomerang model, one of the prominent strategies CSOs use to relieve human rights violations. Another strategy recently observed involves CSOs reaching out to powerful judicial institutions whose decisions can be legally binding on a violating state. Spreding This paper applies the boomerang model theory to the efforts of CSOs, specifically with respect to their work in helping to end the extrajudicial killing of drug dealers in the Philippines during President Duterte’s tenure, to display how the dynamics of the boomerang model works and what this strategy has achieved in terms of ending the extrajudicial killings. Beyond the boomerang model, this paper further demonstrates the strategy of CSOs in reaching out directly to powerful judicial institutions, in this case the International Criminal Court (ICC). The paper discusses why CSOs pursued this strategy of reaching out to the ICC, bypassing the region’s human rights institution—the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). Keywords: Civil Society Organizations (CSOs); Extrajudicial Killing in the Philippines; The International Criminal Court (ICC). (A previous version of this paper was presented at the 14th Asian Law Institute (ASLI) Conference hosted by the University of Philippines, College of Law (UP) in 19 May 2017. We would like to thank the commentators and the audience for their questions and comments on the paper.)

New and little-known species of the genus Zhengitettix (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae: Scelimeninae) from Southeast Asia

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-223
Author(s):  
S.Yu. Storozhenko
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Check List ◽  
Key To Species ◽  
The Family

Seven new species of the genus Zhengitettix Liang, 1994 are described: Z. hosticus sp. nov., Z. mucronatus sp. nov. and Z. spinulentus sp. nov. from Vietnam; Z. albitarsus sp. nov. and Z. extraneus sp. nov. from Thailand; Z. palawanensis sp. nov. and Z. taytayensis sp. nov. from the Philippines. Two species, Z. curvispinus Liang, Jiang et Liu, 2007 and Z. obliquespicula Zheng et Jiang, 2005 are firstly recorded from Vietnam. An annotated check-list and key to species of the genus Zhengitettix are given. Position of Zhengitettix within the family Tetrigidae is briefly discussed.

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