Tools to silence land and environmental defenders globally are on the rise. In Asia, detentions and criminalisation of defenders are becoming increasingly common. Patterns in the types of laws being used are starting to emerge. Here we analyse these and look at how governments weaponise laws to detain defenders in the region.
Around 4am on 30 December 2020, security forces stormed a cluster of villages near two megadam projects in the central Philippines. Nine leaders of the Indigenous Tumandok people were gunned down in their homes. Sixteen others were arrested and charged with rebellion.
This murderous raid followed a Tumandok protest against the dams two weeks earlier. The day of the protest, the leaders were accused of being communist rebels – a practice known as “red-tagging”.
The protest was the latest instalment in the Tumandok’s lengthy struggle against the megadam projects, which threaten to submerge their ancestral lands and uproot their way of life. Nearly five years later, the community is still fighting for justice.
Criminalised for taking a stand
The Tumandok community’s experience of being treated like criminals for speaking out is far from unique.
Across the world, people making a stand to protect their land and environment are being silenced by criminalisation – a method used by powerful state and corporate interests to shut down opposition to major agribusiness, mining and commercial projects.
This new Global Witness analysis explores the rising tide of criminalisation in Asia. It zooms in on four countries where the tactic is particularly prevalent – the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Vietnam – to illustrate a trend that is truly global in scope.
