Civil Society Condemns AICHR for Refusing to Meet, Calls for Draft Rules of Procedure to be Made Public and Hold Wider Consultation

Reference no: 2

Press release: 29 March 2010

The Solidarity for Asian Peoples Advocacy Taskforce on ASEAN Human Rights (SAPA TFAHR) is disappointed that only two country representatives of the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission for Human Rights (AICHR) responded to our request for a meeting in Jakarta today. The purpose of the requested meeting was to present the civil society proposal for the AICHR’s Rules of Procedures (RoP) as the AICHR meets for the first time to draft the RoP. Representatives of civil society organizations from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand went to the ASEAN Secretariat to present the civil society proposal but were disappointed to be informed that not all the country representatives of the AICHR would be meeting them.

The SAPA TFAHR sent a letter on 9 March 2010 to the Chair of AICHR, Mr. Do Ngoc Son from Vietnam, requesting for an official meeting with the AICHR during its first official meeting. However, until yesterday, the Task Force had yet to receive any reply from the AICHR.

SAPA TFAHR commends the Indonesian representative, Rafendi Djamin, and the Thai representative, Sriprapha Petcharamesree, for meeting with the civil society organizations to receive the civil society proposal. We urge the remaining eight representatives to adopt a similar willingness to engage with civil society and acting not in contradiction with the vision of ASEAN being a “People Oriented ASEAN” in which all sectors of society are encouraged to participate in, and benefit from, the process of ASEAN integration and community building, as stipulated in Article 1.13 of the ASEAN Charter.

We wish to remind the AICHR that one of its purposes as set out in its own Terms of Reference as stipulated in Article 1.3 is to contribute to the realisation of the purposes of ASEAN as set out in the ASEAN Charter, which include the promotion of the participation of ASEAN peoples in community building.

“As representative of a human rights institution, the refusal to meet with civil society is in itself a contradiction of the spirit and principles of human rights. How can we expect this institution to promote and protect human rights in future? The AICHR must take an inclusive and participatory approach especially at these early stages that would determine how the body will operate,” said Yap Swee Seng, the co-convenor of SAPA TFAHR and the Executive Director of Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development.

In light of the developments today, the SAPA TFAHR calls on AICHR to postpone the adoption of the RoP to the next meeting in June. The SAPA TFAHR demands for the draft RoP to be made public. Following which, AICHR must hold consultations with civil society on national and regional level. The final draft of the RoP must incorporate the feedback made by civil society during the consultations.

“We stand in solidarity with the victims of human rights violations from Indonesia and the Philippines who attempted to submit their cases to the AICHR today. This is an indication of the people’s need for the AICHR to establish mechanisms that will address human rights violations where domestic legal redress had failed the victims. This is an example of one of the aspects of the civil society proposal for the RoP,” said Haris Azhar from KontraS, the other co-convenor of the SAPA TFAHR.

SAPA TFAHR emphasises yet again the willingness of civil society organisations to assist AICHR in the development of its RoP. We hope that our concerns and recommendations will be taken into account and that the display of reluctance by the eight representatives to meet with civil society today will not be repeated.

SAPA TF-AHR was established during the first Regional Consultation on ASEAN and Human Rights in Kuala Lumpur on 26-28 August 2007. It is a network of more than 70 civil society organizations from the region which aims to hold ASEAN member states accountable to their international and domestic human rights obligations and to make the ASEAN human rights mechanisms independent, credible, accountable and effective.

For more information, please contact the following person:

1.      Mr Yap Swee Seng, Executive Director, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, handphone no: +66 81 8689178.