By Coconuts Yangon Mar. 9, 2017
To mark International Women’s Day, Amnesty
International has recognized the work of six women who have faced harassment,
threats, imprisonment and violence for standing up for human rights in the Southeast
Asia.
“In Southeast Asia, there are few governments who can be
proud of their human rights records, but there are countless women across the
region who have braved great dangers to take a stand against injustice,” said
Champa Patel, Amnesty International’s director for Southeast Asia and the
Pacific.
“On International Women’s Day this year, we want to
recognize six women, from six different countries, whose heroism inspires many
in the region and whose contributions to society should commend, not
condemned.”
Among these brave women is Rohingya lawyer Wai Wai Nu,
30, who spent seven years of her youth in Insein Prison before earning her law
degree, founding several NGOs and becoming one of the most prominent human
rights advocates in Myanmar.
In 2005, when she was an 18-year-old law school student,
Wai Wai Nu and most of her relatives were sentenced to 17 years prison; her
father got 47 years. They were among thousands of Myanmar citizens who were
locked away for huge chunks of their lives just because they or someone close
to them opposed the country’s military dictatorship, according to a recent TIME
profile.
Wai Wai Nu describes her years in Insein as educational;
she calls the period her “University of Life” because she would have spent that
time in school had she not been imprisoned.
When she was released in 2012 at the age of 25, she got
her law degree and founded two organizations: Women’s Peace Network-Arakan and
Justice For Women. The former promotes peace in her home state of Rakhine,
while the latter empowers women through legal counsel and rights education to
combat sexual harassment and domestic violence.
She also launched the heartwarming and effective
#MyFriend campaign, which urges social media users share selfies with friends of
diverse racial and religious backgrounds.
Wai Wai Nu is joined on the Amnesty International list by
the following five women who are fighting to promote justice and human rights
elsewhere in Southeast Asia:
Thailand: Sirikan Charoensiri
Lawyer Sirikan Charoensiri regularly defends clients who
are being investigated and prosecuted for peacefully defending human rights
guaranteed by international law. She is also a leading member of Thailand’s
civil society. She faces fifteen years’ imprisonment under charges of treason
and violating a ban on “political” assembly of five or more persons. The
charges were filed in connection with her defence of her clients, penalised for
acts of peaceful protest.
Other women human rights defenders working for justice in
Thailand have faced targeted criminal charges and harassment, including Pornpen
Khonkachonkiet and Anchana Heemina.
Malaysia: Maria Chin Abdullah
Last November, Maria Chin Abdullah was detained without
trial and held in solitary confinement for 11 days. A soft-spoken 60-year-old
mother of three, she was arrested under Section 124C of the Penal Code for
activities “detrimental to parliamentary democracy” and held under the Security
Offenses (Special Measures) Act (SOSMA).
This draconian law allows detention for prolonged periods
without judicial oversight in secret locations.
Her only crime was to have led the Bersih (“clean” in Malay) protest,
where thousands took to the streets to peacefully call for electoral reform and
good governance.
Abdullah was the most prominent of 15 civil society
activists who were arrested under various penal code offences for their
connection with the Bersih rally. She
has also been repeatedly investigated and charged under the Peaceful Assembly
Act 2012 for the organization and participation in the other peaceful rallies.
Cambodia: Tep Vanny
Since August 2016, Tep Vanny, a housing rights activist,
has been detained in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar CC2 Prison. Her incarceration is
meant to silence her and send a chilling message to other activists.
Vanny and her community have been peacefully protesting
the forced evictions of thousands of people from the Boeung Kak Lake area in
Cambodia’s capital city for almost 10 years, attracting the hostile attentions
of the authorities.
She and the other women activists from Boeung Kak have
been subjected to arbitrary arrest, violence from security guards, unfair
trials and imprisonment for their peaceful protests. Yet they are still
determined to stand up for their rights and justice.
Philippines: Leila de Lima
Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte expanded his “war
on drugs” to silence his most prominent critic. Senator Leila de Lima, a former
justice secretary and former chair of the Philippine Commission on Human
Rights, was arrested on politically-motivated charges. Currently held at the
Philippine National Police headquarters in Manila, she could face 12 years
imprisonment if convicted.
Duterte made de Lima the target of his divisive rhetoric
when she convened Senate hearings last August, when the wave of extrajudicial
executions of alleged drug offenders had already claimed the lives of more than
2,000 people. Since then, de Lima has been the target of vilification. Last
month, Duterte told a crowd of his supporters: “If I were De Lima, ladies and
gentlemen, I’ll hang myself.”
De Lima has remained resolute. “My arrest,” she said,
before being taken away by the police, “is an appalling sign of the return of a
power-hungry, morally bankrupt and abusive government.”
Viet Nam: Trần Thị Nga
Trần Thị Nga is a land rights activist and pro-democracy
advocate from Hà Nam province, Viet Nam. In January, Nga was arrested under
Article 88 of the Vietnamese Penal Code for “spreading propaganda against the
state”, a provision that is regularly used to jail dissidents for lengthy
periods. Nga joins 93 other prisoners of conscience behind bars in Viet Nam.
While recovering from a serious traffic accident she was
involved in while working in Taiwan, where she suffered abuse as a migrant
worker, Nga taught herself about human rights.
She returned to Viet Nam where she has relentlessly
advocated for human rights, joining the independent Vietnamese Women for Human
Rights network. Nga has been targeted
and physically assaulted on a few occasions by men in plain clothes, as well as
police. These attacks have happened in front of her four children.