What are the worst Asian countries for human rights violation?
Imprisonment under vague charges, torture in jails, executions for acts such as adultery, organized state’s violence against minorities, deadly attacks on civilians, denial of women’s rights, restricted freedom of expression… in one word, life under constant terror, that is everyday reality for many people in these worst Asian countries for human rights violation that are listed below.
While our previous list 11 worst countries for LGBT travelers presented places where LGBT community faces serious discrimination and abuses, the focus of today’s ranking is on a broad spectrum of human rights violations.
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In creating this list, we relied on CIRI Human Rights Data Project. Although latest available CIRI data are from 2011, we nevertheless decided to use them as a source since they give standards-based quantitative information about government respect of 15 internationally recognized human rights in 202 countries. Also, CIRI scores prove to be relevant today since almost nothing has changed in listed countries in the last couple of years. Still, it should be said that some countries, such as Syria, would have ranked higher if the list had been made for 2015. In addition, Iraq, the country which besides Syria bears the greatest burden of war against ISIS, is not on this list because it ranked as 14th according to CIRI scores for 2011.
Each of 11 worst Asian countries for human rights violation received a certain number of points depending on the extent of violation of a human right. For instance, if torture is widespread in penal institutions, CIRI gave the country score of 0. Countries in which there was occasional torture received a score of 1 while a score of 2 was reserved for places where torture was not present. Thus, lower number of overall points indicates a worse state of human rights. States that have the same number of points are ordered alphabetically. Besides country’s score, we also present main areas of human rights violation as identified by Human Rights Watch (HRW) report 2016.
11. Vietnam
Points: 11
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW 2016: government critics and activists; freedom of religion; criminal justice system.
Imprisonment and torture
In communist-led Vietnam, where independent political parties, labor unions, and human rights organizations are banned, there is little space for exercising rights to free speech and assembly. Human rights defenders and bloggers are imprisoned, prosecuted and physically assaulted on a regular basis. HRW reports that during the first nine months of 2015, at least 40 bloggers and rights activists were beaten by plainclothes agents.
Laws are formulated in vague terms to encompasses almost any offense, and thus serve as a mean to eliminate political opponents. Imprisoned activists often stay in prison for months, even years waiting for a trial. Human Rights Watch reports that physical abuse is regularly employed as a mean to extract confessions from people who did not commit any crime. Deaths in prisons are covered up by police and assigned to suicide.
Torture in drug detention centers
Besides prisons, abuse is commonplace in drug detention center where addicts spend years subjected to forced labor under the pretext of “therapy”. Thousands of people, including children, are held in these state-run centers, a majority of them against their will, with no chance to complain or leave the institutions. Although in 2015 the government reduced the overall number of detainees, it announced that some 15,000 people will remain in the centers until 2020. Physical punishments are part of “therapy” in cases when prisoners disobey center’s rules or fail to meet the daily quota. “If the quota was not met, you would be beaten. If you made small mistakes, 4 or 5 staff would join forces to beat you until you bled. There was no way to complain”, one of the former detainees said for International Labor Rights Forum.
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10. Uzbekistan
Points: 11
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: freedom of expression; imprisonment and harassment of critics; torture; Andijan massacre; forced labor; freedom of religion; sexual orientation and gender identity.
Political imprisonment and torture
Thousands of so-called state enemies have been imprisoned since the 1990s under dim allegations such as “threatening the constitutional order”. Many of them received arbitrary extensions of the sentence under absurd charges that they did not comply with prison order, or more specifically, that they failed “to lift a heavy object” or “to properly place one’s shoes in the corner”. Abuse of judicial system for intimidation and elimination of opponents is one side of human rights violation. The other is widespread torture in prisons. Human Rights’ report “Until the Very End”, which presents cases of 34 political prisoners, reveals that beatings, mock suffocation, electric shocks, and similar abuses are an integral part of prisoners’ treatment.
Forced labor
Besides political imprisonment and torture, forced labor is another issue in the country which is the fourth biggest exporter of cotton in the world. Every year the government mobilizes over million citizens, including doctors, teachers, public sector workers, to grow and harvest cotton. Citizens are made to contribute under the threat of losing wok, pensions, social benefits. They work long hours, without compensation, in hazardous conditions. According to different sources, at least six people died as a result of the unsafe working conditions during the 2015 cotton harvest.
In 2015, the government, for the first time in many years, spared children from forced work, but at the same time increased the number of adult laborers.
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9. Pakistan
Points: 9
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: counterterrorism and law enforcement abuses; attacks on minorities and sectarian violence; religious minorities; freedom of expression; Balochistan; afghans in Pakistan; attacks on health workers; women’s and children rights; death penalty.
Sectarian violence, extremist attacks and death penalty
While the number of sectarian incidents almost halved in 2015, the death toll of 276 exceeds the number of victims in 2014. Sectarianism in Pakistan has a long history, and since 1989, 5,227 people lost lives mainly in clashes between Sunni and Shia. HRW reports that religious minorities face significant threats from extremist groups and that the government fails to apprehend or prosecute perpetrators. Besides sectarian violence, attacks carried by Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and their affiliates additionally destabilized the country.
In 2015, there were 8,300 prisoners on death row, which represents one of the world’s largest population facing execution. In addition, 295 people were put to death, including a young man who was 15 years old at the time of his alleged crime. HRW reports that his confession was allegedly obtained through torture.
Blasphemy laws
Pakistan criminalizes any act that might be perceived as religiously offensive. Under blasphemy laws a person can receive a sentence ranging from one year in prison to death penalty. Although no one has yet been executed because of blasphemy, international organizations warn that these laws are often used as a pretext for abuse of religious minorities. In 2015, at least 19 people remained on death row because of “blasphemous” acts while hundreds awaited trial.
Women’s rights
Pakistan is notorious for its treatment of female population. Every year honor killings take lives of almost 1,000 women. In many cases the only wrong they did was engaging in a love relationship that family had not previously approved. Two years ago, a 25-year old pregnant woman was stoned to death by her family in front of the courthouse where she went to sign marriage papers. Sometimes, even a mere possibility of dishonoring family is enough of a reason for murdering a woman. In one incident, parents killed their 15-year old daughter with acid because she looked at a boy. The list of atrocious honor killings is endless and it includes rape victims accused of adultery, which is punishable by stoning to death in Pakistan.
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8. Bahrain
Points: 9
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: torture; freedom of expression and fair trial; revocation of nationality; women’s rights; sexual orientation and gender identity.
Torture
For years, HRW has warned about widespread torture in Bahrain prisons. In latest report Blood of People Who Don’t Cooperate, the organization retells accounts of detainees who experienced electric shocks, suspension in painful positions, forced standing, extreme cold, and sexual abuse. In addition, HRW report 2016 says that former detainees and families of inmates held at Jaw Prison claimed that police officers used tear gas and bird shot to suppress riots in prison in 2015. They also claimed that inmates were tortured and humiliated after the unrest. Excessive use of force by police inside and outside prison bars often goes unpunished. Even in few cases when police officers were brought to trial, punishments they received did not match the seriousness of the crime. Two officers who beat to death an inmate received sentence reduction from 10 to two years in prison under an explanation that they had been “preserving the life of detainees, among them the victim.”
Judicial system
Arbitrary imprisonment of civil activists, journalist and political opposition under allegations such as terrorism planning represents the second area of concern. Nabeel Rajab, the rights activist, was arrested in April last year because of comments he made on social networks. Rajab was not the only one who ended up in prison because of public criticism of authorities. The list of detained individual includes opposition political representatives and human rights activists.
7. Yemen
Points: 5
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: air strikes, cluster munitions, landmines, indiscriminate attacks, children and arm conflicts, attacks on health and humanitarian workers, terrorism and counterterrorism; harassment of critics; women’s rights; sexual orientation and gender identity.
Humanitarian crisis and media freedom
The war which broke between Houthi rebels and state’s military in 2015 created a large-scale humanitarian crisis. According to UN, out of total 26.7 million population, 21 million needs humanitarian aid, 20 million do not have access to drinking water and 12.9 million lack food. In September last year, the death toll was 4,855, while the number of displaced reached 1.3 million. At the same time, according to Reporters Without Borders, 33 journalists were kidnapped by Houthi militias and Al-Qaeda in Yemen last year, compared to two in 2014.
Children’s rights
Since the escalation of conflicts, women and children rights have worsened. According to Unicef, eight children are being killed or maimed every day in Yemen as a direct result of the conflict. The recruitment of child soldiers has also dramatically increased. Children who escaped death and direct involvement in battles face food and drinking water scarcity.
Women’s rights
In courtrooms, a woman is regarded as half a person, which means that her testimony does not carry the same weight as a testimony of a man. Furthermore, women are not allowed to testify in cases of adultery, libel, theft or sodomy. They can not marry without approval of male relative. Once a woman enters a marriage, she literally becomes a property of a husband who decides when his wife can leave the house. Even in cases when women need medical care, consent of male relative is often prerequisite for hospital admission. If Yemen woman wants a divorce, she has to justify her reasons for wanting to end the marriage in a court. Needless to say, the same rules do not apply to men.
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6. Syria
Points: 5
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: government attacks on civilians; indiscriminate use of weapons; arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, deaths in custody by government forces; Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS abuses; abuses by other non-state armed groups; areas under Kurdish rule; displacement crisis.
War
As said before, this ranking is based on latest available data for 2011. Since then Syria faced one of deadliest conflicts whose death toll reached 250,000 people by October 2015, including more than 100,000 civilians. Additionally, 7.6 million people are internally displaced, while 4.2 million Syrians fled the country.
During last few weeks world was left in shock after pictures from Madaya, a town besieged by pro-Asad forces, reached medias. Pictures of emaciated children and human skeletons were posted on the Internet by town residents who have been feeding on cats and grass to survive. Doctors Without Borders claim that 23 people died of hunger since December. Those who tried to leave Madaya were killed by Asad soldiers or mines.
Although United Nation’s convoys with aid reached the town, UN warns that there are more areas where people need immediate help. Last year Syrian government allowed UN to distribute aid only to a small number of towns – of all requests for aid distribution made by UN, only 10 percent were granted.
Torture
The government used crises to imprison thousands of people, including women and children, and locked them in notorious detention centers run by state’s secret agency. Inconceivable dimensions of torture in jails became known after a former military photographer who worked for the government, known as Caesar, smuggled flash drives with pictures of death bodies.
Prosecutors who examined photographs claim that they provide evidence for systematic killings of 11,000 detainees. In the interview for Guardian, Caesar revealed what he had been seeing daily from 2011 to 2013. “Before the uprising, the regime tortured prisoners to get information; now they were torturing to kill. I saw marks left by burning candles, and once the round mark of a stove – the sort you use to heat tea – that had burned someone’s face and hair. Some people had deep cuts, some had their eyes gouged out, their teeth broken, you could see traces of lashes with those cables you use to start cars.”
Government and ISIS attacks on civilians
Civilians in Syria are under constant threat from all sides involved in the conflict. Although Syrian government obliged not to use chemical weapons in 2014, HRW 2016 reports that toxic chemicals were present in several barrel bomb attacks during 2015. In addition, airstrikes targeted markets, schools, and hospitals, places with a large number of civilians. In August last year, at least 122 people were killed in the bombing of Douma’s popular markets and residential areas. HRW 2016 reports that one local group estimated that by February 22, 2015, aerial barrel bomb attacks had killed 6,163 civilians in Syria, including 1,892 children.
Extremist forces, ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, show equal cruelty. Use of cluster munitions, mass executions, including killings of children, abduction, sexual slavery, rape are only some of atrocities that extremists committed. Residents of areas seized by ISIS live in a constant terror, as extremists impose severe punishment for what they perceive as religiously offensive. Lack of money, jobs, medical care and constant bombing make things worse.
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5. North Korea
Points:5
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: freedom of movement; freedom of information; labor rights; political prisoner camps; forced labor.
Endless list of human rights violations
All countries on the list 11 worst Asian countries for human rights violation are ruled by the authoritarian regimes, but the dictatorship of Kim Jong-Un seems unprecedented.
UN report on human rights in North Korea from 2014 said that violations “reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world”. The list of human rights abuses is endless and goes from complete restriction on freedom of thought, information, association and religion across state surveillance to “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation”.
Torture
Torture is an integral part of interrogation process in country’s prisons. Many arrested people are held behind bars without trial for an arbitrary period of time. Starvation and forced labor are commonplace. However, abuses in ordinary jails do not amount to cruelty in political prison camps. It is estimated that there are between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners, which is the decrease compared to previous years. However, the drop down is mainly due to prisoners’ deaths as the government carries out systematic elimination “through deliberate starvation, forced labor, executions, torture, rape and the denial of reproductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and infanticide”. Deliberate starvation is not only present in penal institutions. According to UN report the government has used food as a mean to control population, thus causing deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of people.
Media freedom
North Korea is a second-worst state in the world in regards to press freedom. The country, in which all media operate under strict state’s control, and where citizens have limited access to Internet and phone cells, resembles George Orwell’s visions in Big Brother. Media workers are often targets of arbitrary prosecutions and imprisonment.
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4. Burma
Points: 4
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: election; constitution; religious minorities; freedom of association and assembly; refugees; ethnic conflict and forced displacement; child soldiers.
Internal conflicts
Burma is another state on the list which has been torn apart by internal conflicts. Sectarian clashes between Muslims and Buddhists, which escalated in Rakhine State in 2012, on one side, and arm conflicts between the government and rebel groups on the other have destabilized the country in previous years. In Kachin war between Kachin Independent Army and the government thousands of people died and some 130,000 Kachin civilians remained internally displaced in camps.
Abuses against Rohingya
Different international organizations, including HRW, characterized wide scale violence against Rohingya minority as ethnic cleansing. According to HRW, the government and local officials indirectly and directly supported deadly attacks on the community in 2012 by organizing and encouraging ethnic Arakanese to attack Muslim neighborhoods and villages. The abuse against Muslim minority did not stop with the incidence in 2012. Every year, mob burns Rohingya’ houses, leaving more and more people displaced. Around 1.3 million fled to neighboring countries while 150.000 are living in refugee camps in Burma where they do not have freedom of movement and access to basic services.
Refugees
Between January 2014 and May 2015, some 94,000 people tried to flee Burma, and many of them were trying to reach Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. In desperate attempt to leave the country, refugees relied on the help of smugglers. In May 2015, human traffickers left some 5,000 people on boats with nowhere to go after Malaysia and Thailand refused to take them. Pressure from media and human rights organization made Malaysia and Indonesia accept refugees after days of uncertainty.
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3. Saudi Arabia
Points: 3
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: freedom of expression, association, and belief; criminal justice; women’s rights, migrant worker’s rights, Yemen airstrikes and blockade.
Executions
At the beginning of the year, Saudi Arabia executed prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Sheikh Nimr was among 47 people who were sentenced to capital punishment on the charges of terrorism. While Saudi Arabia insists that Shia cleric’s actions were a threat to national security, his supporters and international organization believe that he was put to death only because of his criticism of the royal family. Execution of 47 persons in a single day, including two boys who committed alleged crime while they were teenagers, indicates that this year will be bloodier than 2015, when 150 people were sent to death.
Women’s rights
Saudi Arabia is one of the worst countries for women’s rights. Saudi Arabian women need a permission of a male guardian to marry, obtain a passport, travel, or go to college. In some cases, they cannot receive medical care without an approval of male relative, and they are not allowed to expose parts of the body unless in cases of emergency. The story about a 19-year old gang rape victim who was punished with 90 lashes because she was alone in a car with a man who wasn’t her husband at the time of the crime pictures a society in which women are not only stripped of basic rights but also left to the mercy of men.
Migrant worker’s rights
Foreign workers have experienced regular abuses for years in Saudi Arabia. Female domestic workers are especially vulnerable group as they are often left to the mercy of their employers without access to legal protection. These women, who mainly come from poor countries in search of employment that could bring them enough money to support their family back at home, often get caught in a vicious cycle of sexual and physical abuse. At the same time, the rise of unemployment rate among nationals has led authorities to implement measures to decrease the number of foreign workers in the country. Last year Saudi authorities announced that they had deported 300,000 migrants during five months, an average of nearly 2,000 a day.
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2. China
Points: 3
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: human rights defenders; freedom of expression; freedom of religion; women’s rights; disability rights; sexual orientation and gender identity.
Imprisonment and torture
Latest available data show that in 2009, 650,000 were held in prison while waiting for a trial. While there are no records on the number of pre-trial detainees in China today, HRW points that numerous activists, lawyers, journalists are arrested across Chine under broadly defined charges only because they criticized state’s actions. China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group reports that by the end of December last year “at least 316 lawyers, law firm staff, human right activists and family members have been questioned, summoned, forbidden to leave the country, held under house arrest, residential surveillance, criminally detained, arrested or have disappeared.” Eleven detainees who are arrested under charges “subversion of state power,” and “inciting subversion of state power” will very likely face prosecution and conviction.
Torture
Former Chinese police officer describes the treatment of inmates in the following way: “Torture to extract confession has become an unspoken rule, it is very common.” Stories of those who went through penal institutions confirm his words. People die in prisons as a result of regular abuses or denial of medical care.
Freedom of expression
Besides media, China is trying to subject its citizens’ online communication to harsh censorship. Last year, the government drafted the law under which domestic and foreign Internet companies will have to practice censorship, register users’ real names, localize data, and aid government surveillance. Additionally, the government planned to put police officers in major Internet companies in order to prevent “spreading rumors” online.
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1. Iran
Points: 1
Areas of human rights violation as identified by HRW: Death penalty and torture, freedom of expression and information; freedom of association and assembly, political prisoners and human rights defenders; women’s rights, treatment of minorities; sexual orientation and gender identity.
Executions
First among 11 worst Asian countries for human rights violation, Iran, executed 694 people only in the first half of 2015, while unofficial estimates claimed that the number of prisoners put to death reached 1.000 by the end of the year. The greatest number of death convicts were drug offenders who were prosecuted under one of the world’s toughest anti-narcotics laws. In Iran, a person caught with more than 5 kg of narcotics derived from opium or more than 30 grams of heroin, morphine, cocaine or their chemical derivatives automatically receives the death penalty. Moreover, 160 children were on death row last year.
Besides drug trafficking, nonviolent offenses such as “insulting the Prophet,” apostasy, same-sex relations, adultery are also punishable by death. In 2013, a Facebook user was arrested and sentenced to death under the charge of anti-government propaganda and “insulting what is sacred”. The sentence was changed to seven and half years in prison, during which he will have to read religious books, write summaries on them and maintain correspondence with the Imam Khomeini Centre for Religious Research.
Media freedom
In 2015, dozens of journalists ended up behind bars in Iran under vague charges such as “propaganda against the state”. Beginning of 2016 and approaching elections brought a new wave of harassment for media workers. Four journalists were arrested; several were interrogated while one daily newspaper was banned. According to Reporters without Borders, 37 journalists and citizen-journalists are currently detained in Iran.
Women’s rights
Women are often targets of severe violence. Female population faces daily discrimination in regards to marital status, child custody and inheritance. In addition, forced and child marriage remains one of the main issues. Around 17 percent of girls are married before 18, since the law sets legal age for marriage at 13 years for girls, and 15 years for boys. Although child brides are often victims of violence and sexual abuse, they do not enjoy any legal protection. Instead, they end up being prosecuted and sentenced in courts for trying to defend themselves. In 2010, the 17-year old girl was sentenced to death because she killed her abusive husband whom she was forced to marry when she was only 14 years old.
