Both our government and mainstream media have not done much to educate Singaporeans about the issue, yet over the long term, this project should prove very important to our maturity as a nation and as a regional association. This hope, however, will not be realised if Singaporeans remain apathetic to it.

There have been a few news articles about how the Asean foreign ministers have recently agreed to include a human rights body as an objective within the proposed Asean Charter, though we should not kid ourselves. The primary focus of the Charter [1] is still to put in mechanisms that will institutionalise the much-needed economic integration.

However since the EU and the US have sometimes cold-shouldered Asean because of the grouping's ineffectiveness in moderating the Burmese junta's behaviour, the remaining 9 members of Asean have felt compelled to at least pay lip service to human rights.

I am 99% certain that as far as the Singapore government is concerned -- though other Asean governments could be more genuine -- the proposed Asean human rights body is to serve as nothing more than a showpiece, to fend off criticism from the West.

Just read what Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim told Parliament recently (box on the right). "I do not see the human rights body affecting Singapore's domestic laws," he said. "I think we need to take into account quite critically what is the history, the realities and culture of all the 10 Asean members states."

He's already saying having a human rights body will change nothing domestically.

But before cynicism gets the better of us, consider this: Indonesian dictator President Suharto set up the country's Human Rights Commission in 1993 by presidential decree. At the time, almost everybody thought it would amount to nothing more than a rubber stamp to paper over the government's well-documented human rights violations. The commission was widely thought to be a response to the intense international pressure mounted on the Indonesian government in the wake of the 1991 massacre in then-Indonesian-occupied East Timor, where security forces shot and killed over 200 demonstrators.

But Suharto's regime collapsed in 1998 and since then, the Human Rights Commission has gradually gained independence in tandem with the country's democratisation.

So even if the Singapore government sets up a toothless human rights commission locally, the people can still make something out of it through lobbying over a period of time. But to do that, ordinary citizens must organise, by forming a Working Group.

At about this point, I have introduced enough terms to confuse readers. So before I go on, here are some explanations.

Human rights mechanism
A defined set of processes and institutions with the aim of protecting human rights. There can be a mechanism at each national level and one at the Asean level.

Human rights commission
A formal panel set up by law charged with the responsibility to investigate human rights abuses, with some means to correct these abuses, usually by getting the relevant government agencies to act. A commission would therefore be part of a formal mechanism [2]. Again, there can be a human rights commission at each national level and one at the Asean level.

Human rights body
A vague term used by Asean ministers. It can mean anything. As you can see from Raymond Lim's remarks, he sometimes speaks of a commission, and sometimes speaks of a body, but either way, it will "more likely be consultative than prescriptive."

Human rights mechanism working group (or just "Working group")
A bottom-up grouping of citizens concerned about human rights, who get together to press or shame the government into setting up a human rights mechanism. If a mechanism/commission already exists, to press them to do their jobs more effectively.

 
To illustrate the relationships of all these things, here are 2 diagrams. The first shows the expected set-up within a single country (indicated by a rectangle).

The second shows the situation as exists today in the ten Asean countries.

As you can see, out of the 5 founding members of Asean, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand have set up by law their national human rights commissions. Singapore is the only country that does not have one. What a disgrace.

Furthermore, citizens and civil society in these four neighbours and even Cambodia have also set up national working groups to act as watchdogs over their human rights commissions. Laos too is working towards this.

The Working Group for an Asean Human Rights Mechanism publishes a newsletter.

In addition, the existing working groups among the neigbouring countries have got together to form a joint Working Group for an Asean Human Rights Mechanism based in Manila. For short, we call it the "Asean Working Group". I am told that the Asean secretariat recognises and liases with it, even though it was formed without any official blessing.

Locally, there is not a squeak from our government about setting up a national human rights mechanism in Singapore. But it shouldn't stop citizens from setting up a working group just like the Cambodians have, to network with the Asean and other working groups.

In the coming month or two, readers will hear from civil society actors, including Yawning Bread, a call to come forward and take part in a proposed Singapore working group. Initial discussions have been held among a few people (see box too) and the intent is that the working group should be as broadly-based and inclusive as possible, and thence the call is likely to go out widely.

What the working group's aims will be will naturally be decided by the people who participate, but advice from neighbouring countries' working groups, which have much more experience, have been that the aims should be narrow and non-confrontational. According to them, a working group should be very focussed on educating the citizenry about the importance of human rights, getting the government to set up a human rights mechanism and to help that mechanism work effectively. It should not be campaigning for any specific human right -- that is for aggrieved persons or specific NGOs to do so.

The working group's contribution is to create awareness and the avenues for resolution of human rights disputes. If the avenues have already been created (e.g. human rights commissions established) then the working group is there to watch over and make sure the avenues are not closed off by special interests. It can do this by networking with the Asean working group and the proposed Asean Human Rights Commission, if the national government is unwilling to act.

Moreover, Singaporeans ought to know that our government has agreed to host the 7th workshop on Asean human rights mechanism in June or July 2008 -- this I learned from the Asean Working Group -- and it would be shocking and embarrassing if Singapore's civil society had no interest in such a conference.

If we can get our act together now, we can use that opportunity to network with others in Asean.

At this not-even-foetal stage, it is impossible to say what the Asean human rights mechanism will eventually look like. But perhaps I should mention the example of Europe for inspiration.

In 1949, a small group of West European countries signed the European Convention on Human Rights, which contained articles covering such things as freedom of expression, the right to life and liberty, non-discrimination, fair trials, etc. The Convention also set up, in 1950, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

In other words, they signed a charter and set up a mechanism.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
  

By 2007, just about all countries in Europe, including Russia and Turkey, have acceded to the Convention and are therefore included within the jurisdictional scope of the ECHR.

Any European citizen can sue his government if he believes that his government has violated one or more articles of the Convention.

Let me cite some notable cases:

In October 1981, the ECHR ruled in favour of Jeffrey Dudgeon who had been interrogated by the Northern Ireland police over his sexual activities. The court found that the territory's criminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults was a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private life) of the European Convention on Human Rights. As a consequence, homosexual sex was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 1982.

In August 1994, the ECHR ruled that the Danish government interfered with freedom of expression by prosecuting and convicting a journalist for disseminating the racist expressions of others in a television documentary. While recognising that this interference pursued a legitimate aim (i.e. the protection of the reputation or rights of others), the Court found that criminal prosecution was not "necessary in a democratic society" to achieve that aim, and thus constituted a violation of Article 10 of the Convention.

What were the details of this case? Jens Olaf Jersild, a television reporter, had done an interview with a group of young people who called themselves the Greenjackets. During that interview, they made many abusive and derogatory remarks about immigrants in the country, edited down to just a few minutes before the program was aired. Although he was only the interviewer, Jersild was later convicted of aiding and abetting threats, insults and degrading speech on account of race, ethnic origin or belief, etc. This was overturned by the ECHR. 

In July 1998, the ECHR held that the Greek government violated the right to freedom of association when it refused to register a Macedonian cultural group.

In March 2007, the ECHR awarded Alicja Tysiac 25,000 Euros as compensation from the Polish government because Poland did not have clear laws allowing her to obtain an abortion. Tysiac, who was already severely myopic, suffered retinal haemorrhage and three doctors said it would get worse if she continued with her pregnancy. However, due to legal uncertainty, no doctor would authorise an abortion, thereby endangering her eyesight and health.

When will we see such robust justice in Asean? Not anytime soon, of course, but as the old Chinese saying goes, a journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single step. Let's take that step together.

© Yawning Bread