“REGARDLESS OF FRONTIER.”
The omission of this international human rights standard for the protection of freedom of opinion and expression in the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) that leaders of the 10 member-states unveiled on Sunday has drawn flak from journalists in the region.
In a statement on Monday, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), a regional press freedom watchdog and network of independent media organizations in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, averred that the AHRD falls below the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Ironically, the ASEAN heads of government had pledged to uphold the UDHR in the ADHRD they launched at a meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, over the weekend.
SEAPA’s founding and full members include the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility-Philippines, the Alliance of Independent Journalists of Indonesia, the Institute for the Study of Free Flow of Information of Indonesia, the Thai Journalists Association, and the Center for Independent Journalism of Malaysia.
Apart from working with journalists in these countries, SEAPA has also conducted training seminars and fellowship programs for journalists in the other ASEAN member-states of Cambodia, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, Vietnam, and Laos.
The AHRD enrolled a guarantee of freedom of opinion and expression in its Article 23, which was copied nearly verbatim from the UDHR’s Article 19, except for the said phrase.
“The omission of the phrase is a sign of the low commitment of ASEAN member-countries to freedom of expression,” said SEAPA executive director Gayathry Venkiteswaran.
She stressed that the phrase is a very important component of the freedom of opinion and of expression, especially in a regional organization like ASEAN where communication across national borders is key to development and accountability of its members.
“It is particularly alarming that the framers of the document opted to delete the phrase in the light of borderless communications through the Internet and with increasing integration and exchange among the regional media,” Gayathry said.
‘This can legitimize censorship of messages from overseas,’ she warned, noting that criticisms of ASEAN member-states include those coming from international bodies, nongovernment organizations, and opposition groups that had been forced into exile because of political repression at home.
SEAPA also echoed criticisms of the AHRD raised by other human rights organizations, which have earlier called for an extension of deliberations of the draft because of the low standards it set, and the lack of adequate public consultations.
Human rights groups have expressed particular concern that the AHRD contained three caveats to human rights in General Principles 6, 7 and 8 that can be used to get around the guarantees provided by the document.
“This is really appalling especially considering the practice in many ASEAN states of legally curtailing many civil liberties-including free expression-against international human rights principles,” said Gayathry.
“These caveats mean that human rights in ASEAN including free speech may or will continue to be curtailed,” she added citing national security, press control and criminalized speech laws currently in place in many ASEAN countries.
Human rights bodies of the United Nations have called out many of these national laws to be in violation of international norms, Gayathry explained.
For instance, she cited, in nearly all the ASEAN member-nations, criminal libel remains in force.
“National security and public order should be very strict exceptions to curtail human rights and free speech,” according to Gayathry but enshrining these concepts among the General Principles of the AHRD “can mean they come before human rights.”
“By placing caveats in the AHRD principles, ASEAN has prioritized escape clauses in the states’ responsibility to uphold human rights,” she said,
Yet despite these limitations, Gayathry said SEAPA will still hold the member-states accountable for the rights that the AHRD has sworn to promote and protect.
“We don’t accept what the ASEAN leaders have insisted on – that this is a non-binding document,” Gayathry said.
“If they have adopted it, they are committed to honoring it. We will hold the member-states to the standards they agreed to, but we will be guided by the international standards on human rights.”