The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) sends greetings to everyone, wishing them a Happy Christmas and New Year. We wish particularly to extend our greetings to those members of our network from around the world who have patiently and consistently supported human rights victims in Asia on whose behalf the AHRC has sent urgent appeals and other material.
We are happy to inform you that the responses to our calls throughout the year have been encouraging. We know this from our contacts in different countries who have been championing the cause of these people who have suffered grave human rights abuses. From these supporters, we know that in response to our urgent appeals many people have regularly intervened on their behalf, and thereby, bureaucratic lethargy in taking action has been constantly challenged. There are many stories which reveal happy outcomes as a result of these interventions.
In this season of good will, those who have participated in the defence of the human rights of others throughout the year have a special reason to be happy despite the fact that all over the world human rights remains grim. The reason for celebration is that there are so many people who do not accept this situation and who wish to give meaning to their lives by resisting all attempts to violate the sacredness of life and the dignity of human beings.
Here in Hong Kong the WTO ministerial conference recently concluded. It revealed that there is still so much unwillingness by the worlds richest nations to give up their privileged market positions, a stubbornness that obstructs the poorer nations access to their markets. The issue of agricultural subsidies to farmers in the richest nations has emerged as one of the most important moral issues of our time. Protesters from all over the world, and from many Asian countries in particular, carried the torch of protest and tried to tell, in the loudest possible way, how livelihoods are threatened in their countries by the policies of the WTO and the worlds richest countries.
We have also seen throughout Asia ever increasing resistance to the abuse of power by the police and military. In many Asian countries, the manner in which the police force is organised remains one of the major obstacles to the development of human rights. Many conflicts in the region have originated because of the extreme forms of repression unleashed against legitimate expressions of grievances by various sections of society. The growing awareness that the understanding of conflicts requires much more than considerations of group interests or ethnicity and must include the extremely repressive measures of the state agencies themselves may shed light on the future understanding of these conflicts. The source of inspiration in these violent situations remains the victims themselves who, despite the absence of redress and reconciliation, still maintain their struggles to achieve enlightenment within society.
We especially remember those in the most difficult situations, such as the people of Nepal, who have been deprived of all democratic safeguards, and the peoples of Burma and Cambodia, who live without the most basic institutions and mechanisms for upholding the rule of law and protecting human rights, as well as those who must live every day with discrimination, like the Dalits and other low caste people in India and Asias indigenous populations and minorities. We hope that the coming year will bring better prospects for the human rights of all of them.
