Overview

Across the region, repression, inequality and impunity converged, driven by authoritarian practices, systemic discrimination and an entrenched lack of accountability. Authorities increasingly imposed excessive restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, embedding control through legislation, policing and digital surveillance. These measures were mutually reinforcing, shrinking civic space and eroding fundamental freedoms. States normalized suppression of dissent through deadly crackdowns in Nepal and Indonesia, the use of counterterrorism laws in India, a wave of arbitrary detentions ahead of Myanmar’s military-imposed vote in December, and arrests of activists in Hong Kong.

Internationally, there were victories for accountability efforts, including the arrest and transfer to the ICC of Rodrigo Duterte, former president of the Philippines, and ICC warrants for two Taliban leaders for crimes against humanity of gender persecution. Otherwise, impunity remained entrenched, with no additional progress on ICC arrest warrants for officials responsible for international crimes against Rohingya people and no meaningful state action to address crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China. Domestic accountability mechanisms were further dismantled in Afghanistan and remained largely ineffective to address war-time abuses in Sri Lanka.

States expanded cross-border repression. Thailand deported Uyghurs to China and extradited Montagnard defenders to Viet Nam despite risks of rights violations. Malaysia worked with Thai authorities to target a journalist, while Hong Kong and China used laws to pursue activists abroad, harassing families and friends still in Hong Kong.

Discrimination amplified harm for marginalized and vulnerable groups. Rohingya people faced forced labour in Myanmar and were disproportionately affected by humanitarian aid cuts for refugee camps in Bangladesh. Religious minorities were targeted systemically in Afghanistan, mainland China and Pakistan, while Indigenous Peoples in Australia and Indonesia continued to endure land dispossession. Dalits throughout South Asia were confined to hazardous work.

Gender-based violence persisted across the region, and technology-facilitated abuse made headlines in South Korea, Thailand and Viet Nam.

Human trafficking and forced labour surged in Southeast Asia, with scamming compounds in hotspots like Cambodia and Myanmar enslaving and torturing people.

The climate crisis, vulnerability to other disasters and economic fragility intensified rights deprivation. In Afghanistan, millions were reliant on aid amid deportations from Iran and Pakistan and earthquakes, while floods in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam caused deaths and widespread displacement, devastated crops and deepened poverty. Climate change and disasters in Bangladesh, Kiribati, Pakistan and Tuvalu continued to displace communities, reinforcing structural inequalities. North Korea’s chronic shortages of basic necessities and Sri Lanka’s austerity-driven welfare cuts highlighted how economic policies compounded vulnerability.

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