Asia: Business Enterprises And Attacks On Rights Defenders
date: June 21, 2012
document id:
ALRC-COS-20-12-2012
HRC section: Item 3: Interactive
Dialogue with the Working Group on the Issue of Human Rights
and Transnational Corporations and Other Business
Enterprises
Speaker: Ms. Juliette
Thibaud
A Joint Oral Statement to the
20th Session of the UN Human Rights Council from Lawyers’
Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), a non-governmental organization
in special consultative status, and Asian Legal Resource
Centre (ALRC), a non-governmental organization in general
consultative
status
Asia: Business
Enterprises And Attacks On Human Rights Defenders And
Protestors
President, Members of the Working Group:
LRWC and ALRC welcome your report,
including your comment that ASEAN’s Intergovernmental
Commission on Human Rights plans a thematic study towards an
ASEAN guideline compliant with UN frameworks, particularly
the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Such a
guideline is vital in light of attacks on those protesting
rights violations related to business enterprises.
During
the Council’s 18th Session, ALRC detailed attacks by
Myanmar authorities on those resisting seizure of lands for
commercial activities.
In Thailand, the shooting death of environmental activist, Mr. Thongnak Sawekchinda, on 28 July 2011 is one of a series of murders of human rights defenders who challenge corporate interests. A trial in the case of his murder began on 11 May 2012; however, it remains imperative to identify and bring to justice the individuals and broader interests believed to be behind his death.
We
are alarmed by an escalation of violent attacks on human
rights defenders in Cambodia:
• On 18 January, military
personnel working as security guards for TTY Co Ltd. opened
fire on protestors in Kratie province, injuring four.
•
On 20 February, a government official opened fire on garment
workers protesting labour conditions in a Kaoway Sports Ltd
factory in Svay Rieng province, injuring three.
• On 26
April, Mr. Chut Wutty, an environmental activist
investigating illegal logging by the Timbergreen Company
Ltd. in Koh Kong province, was shot dead reportedly by a
military police officer.
• On 16 May, hundreds of
soldiers and police converged on a village in Kratie
province to clear land around the Casotim Company Ltd.
rubber plantation, firing on protesting residents, fatally
shooting a 14-year-old girl, and forcing men and women to
stand naked and handcuffed in the sun for hours.
None of these incidents have been satisfactorily investigated.
On 22 May, 13 women protestors from the Boeung Kak Lake community in Phnom Penh, displaced by a Shukaku Inc. company development, were arrested. Two days later they were charged, convicted and imprisoned after being denied time to obtain defence witnesses.
The increased number and severity of attacks with apparent involvement of government and corporate agents are of serious concern, and LRWC and the ALRC, therefore, request the intervention of the Working Group, as well as the Council, with the governments of Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand to ensure that they immediately take effective measures to properly investigate attacks and bring all perpetrators to justice, and to protect lands rights activists from further attacks and harassment.
Thank you, President.
Webcast: http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2012/06/lrwc-clustered-id-on-corporations-and-debt-9th-meeting-20th-session.html
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About
the ALRC: The Asian Legal Resource Centre is an independent
regional non-governmental organisation holding general
consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of
the United Nations. It is the sister organisation of the
Asian Human Rights Commission. The Hong Kong-based group
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and human rights issues at the local and national levels
throughout Asia.
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