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	Protecting the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association by OHCHR, Amnesty, HRW, agencies   July 2024   Cambodia: Environmental Activists Sentenced to 6 to 8 Years. (agencies)   Ten members of a Cambodian environmental activist group that campaigned against destructive infrastructure projects and alleged corruption have been each sentenced to six years in prison on charges of conspiring against the state.   Three of the members of the group Mother Nature Cambodia were also convicted on Tuesday of insulting Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, for which they were sentenced to an additional two years in prison, giving them a total of eight years behind bars.   Only five of the defendants attended the trial, the others were convicted in absentia. They included four Cambodians whose whereabouts are unknown and Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, a Spanish national who co-founded the group and was deported in 2015 and barred from ever returning to Cambodia.   The five who attended the trial were arrested outside the court after the verdict and sentences were issued. They had marched to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court with supporters, dressed in traditional white clothing worn at funerals, which they said represented the death of justice in Cambodia.   Phun Keoraksmey, a 22-year-old member of the group whose mother was by her side, said she was prepared to go to prison. "But I never want to go back to jail because I never did anything wrong. But I will never run from what I am responsible for. I chose this way, I chose this path," she said.   A number of diplomatic postings in Cambodia including the EU, UK, German, Swedish, US and Australian embassies posted statements on social media expressing their concerns about the judgement.   "Deeply concerned about increasing persecution & arrests of human rights defenders in Cambodia, such as the latest verdict on Mother Nature environmental activists," said the European Union's ambassador to Cambodia, Igor Driesmans, in a statement that was shared by the French embassy.   The Cambodian human rights group Licadho called the verdict "very disappointing".   "Today, the court has ruled that youth activists fighting for environmental protections and democratic principles are, in effect, acting against the state," it said.   "It is astounding that Cambodian authorities are convicting youth activists who are advocating for clean water in Phnom Penh, protecting mangrove forests in Koh Kong and warning against the privatisation of land in protected areas and presenting it as an attack against the state."   The Mother Nature Cambodia group last year was the co-winner of the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes characterised as the "Alternative Nobel," issued by a Stockholm-based foundation to organisations and individuals working to "safeguard the dignity and livelihoods of communities around the world".   Three members of the group, who were serving suspended prison sentences at that time, were denied permission by Cambodian court authorities to travel to Sweden to accept the award.   Mother Nature, founded in 2012, was deregistered as a non-government organisation by the Cambodian government in 2017 but its members vowed to carry on its work, with some serving jail time in recent years.   Human Rights Watch last month accused Cambodian authorities of trying the activists on politically motivated charges "to muzzle criticism of governmental policies".   "For more than a decade, Mother Nature has campaigned against environmentally destructive infrastructure projects, exposed corruption in the management of Cambodia's natural resources, and mobilised young Cambodians to defend the country's dwindling biodiversity," it said in a statement. It noted that Cambodia has one of the world's highest deforestation rates and levels of wildlife trafficking.   Cambodia's government has long been accused of using the judicial system to persecute critics and political opponents.   The government insists the country observes the rule of law under an electoral democracy, but parties seen as challengers to the ruling Cambodian People's Party have been dissolved by the courts or had their leaders harassed.   Under former prime minister Hun Sen, who held power for almost four decades, the government was widely criticised for human rights abuses that included suppression of freedom of speech and association. His son, Hun Manet, succeeded him last year but there have been few signs of political liberalisation.   "Instead of listening to young leaders at the forefront of the environmental movement, the Cambodian government has chosen to jail those that dare to speak out," Amnesty International's deputy regional director for research, Montse Ferrer, said in a statement after the court's ruling.   "The government has shown time and time again that it will not tolerate any dissent. This verdict is yet another sign that Cambodia's government has no intention of protecting the right to freedom of peaceful assembly."   http://rightlivelihood.org/news/cambodia-must-immediately-release-mother-nature-activists/ http://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/mother-nature-cambodia/ http://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/interviews/7226-cambodia-we-face-repression-because-we-disrupt-projects-that-benefit-powerful-people-and-corporations http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/experts-condemn-conviction-environmental-activists-cambodia http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/02/cambodia-environmental-activists-sentenced-6-8-years http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/02/cambodia-smear-campaign-against-labor-group http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/cambodia-conviction-of-youth-activists-a-further-blow-to-cambodias-environmental-movement/   http://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/cambodian-environmental-journalist-ouk-mao-arrested http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/10/03/cambodia-investigative-journalist-arrested-baseless-charge http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/cambodia-charges-against-journalist-highlight-clampdown-on-press-freedom/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/08/hundreds-thousands-trafficked-work-online-scammers-se-asia-says-un-report http://bangkok.ohchr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ONLINE-SCAM-OPERATIONS-2582023.pdf http://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/10/sold-to-gangs-forced-to-run-online-scams-inside-cambodias-cybercrime-crisis http://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-11-01/i-was-a-slave-up-to-100-000-held-captive-by-chinese-cyber-criminals-in-cambodia   July 2024   Freedom of association eradicated in Belarus: Special Rapporteur. (OHCHR)   Over the course of four years since the contested 2020 presidential elections, the Belarusian authorities have eradicated freedom of association in the country, Anaïs Marin, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus, told the Human Rights Council today.   The report demonstrates intentional suppression of all types of independent associations, including civil society organisations and initiatives, political parties, trade unions, bar associations, religious and cultural organisations, and online communities. Authorities have used a range of measures to crackdown on free assembly and association, including mandatory re-registration campaigns; restrictions on access to funding and retaliations for donations; liquidation of associations through or without judicial proceedings; designation of undesirable associations as “extremist formations”; and the persecution of their leaders, members, volunteers and supporters.   “Since 1 January 2021, Belarus has lost over 1,500 registered public associations. All independent trade unions have been dismantled and the number of political parties had fallen from 16 to 4 in the period leading up to the February 2024 parliamentary elections,” the Special Rapporteur noted.   “All those who ever dared speaking up against the government or its policies are either behind bars or in exile”, she said.   Her report, which examines major developments in the human rights situation in Belarus from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, also highlights other concerning trends, such as continuous ill-treatment in detention; restrictive measures targeting Belarusian citizens relocating abroad; harassment of minorities; the prosecution in absentia of alleged “extremists” living in exile; and intimidation of their relatives and violations of the right to privacy.   “Of particular concern is the growing number of allegations of ill-treatment of inmates convicted on what appear to be politically motivated charges, including persons who suffer chronic and acute diseases,” Marin said. “There have been over a dozen reported cases of deaths in custody since 2020, most likely caused by inadequate or untimely medical care.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/belarus-un-experts-call-investigations-deaths-custody http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/freedom-association-eradicated-belarus-special-rapporteur http://news.un.org/en/story/2024/07/1151736   14 June 2024   China: #MeToo activists sentenced to 5 years prison for human rights and social justice advocacy. (Amnesty International)   Responding to the sentencing of Chinese #MeToo activist Sophia Huang Xueqin to five years in prison and labour activist Wang Jianbing to three years and six months in prison, both for “inciting subversion of state power”, Amnesty International’s China Director Sarah Brooks said: “Tomorrow marks exactly one thousand days since Sophia Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing were arrested. These convictions will prolong their deeply unjust detention and have a further chilling effect on human rights and social justice advocacy in a country where activists face increasing state crackdowns.   “In reality, they have committed no actual crime. Instead, the Chinese government has fabricated excuses to deem their work a threat, and to target them for educating themselves and others about social justice issues such as women’s dignity and workers’ rights.   “#MeToo activism has empowered survivors of sexual violence around the world, but in this case the Chinese authorities have sought to do the exact opposite by stamping it out.   “These malicious and totally groundless convictions show just how terrified the Chinese government is of the emerging wave of activists who dare to speak out to protect the rights of others.   “Sophia Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing have been jailed solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and they must be immediately and unconditionally released.”   Background:   Guangzhou Intermediate Court today sentenced Sophia Huang Xueqin to five years in prison and labour activist Wang Jianbing to three years and six months in prison for “inciting subversion of state power”. Sophia Huang Xueqin said in court that she would appeal.   Sophia Huang Xueqin is a journalist who has been involved in several #MeToo campaigns to provide support and assistance to survivors of sexual assault and harassment. Wang Jianbing has provided legal support for people with disabilities and workers with occupational diseases. He is also a prominent supporter of the #MeToo movement in China.   Their conviction is related to their attendance at weekly gatherings with fellow activists, hosted by Wang Jianbing; their participation in online human rights education; and online posts on issues deemed “sensitive” by the Chinese government.   The pair were arrested in Guangzhou on 19 September 2021, the day before Huang was planning to leave China for the UK to study for a master’s degree.   Since their arrest, both activists have been prevented from seeing family members. Meanwhile, dozens of their friends have been summoned by the police and had their homes searched and electronic devices confiscated.   Sophie Huang Xueqin is believed to have been subjected to ill-treatment in detention, leading to the dramatic deterioration of her health.   In January 2023, Sophia Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing were transferred to Guangzhou City No 1 Detention Centre, awaiting trial at the court.   The Chinese authorities systematically use national security charges with extremely vague provisions, such as “subverting state power” and “inciting subversion of state power”, to prosecute lawyers, scholars, journalists, activists, NGO workers, and others.   The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined in 2022 that Wang Jianbing was being arbitrarily detained and has repeatedly called on China to repeal the crime of “inciting subversion” or bring it into line with international standards.   http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/06/china-malicious-conviction-of-metoo-and-labour-activists-shows-beijings-growing-fear-of-dissent/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/08/un-special-rapporteur-china-must-uphold-rights-imprisoned-human-rights   June 2024   Russia: Authorities punishing imprisoned anti-war critics and dissenters by denying family contact. (Amnesty International)   Russia’s authorities are systematically denying arbitrarily imprisoned government critics contact with their families, Amnesty International revealed in a new report.   Using several emblematic cases, the report documents how authorities have exploited legal loopholes and fabricated pretexts to further isolate dissidents, including those imprisoned for speaking out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.   “These are not isolated practices being used by a few rogue officials. This is a deliberate strategy of the Russian government to isolate and silence dissenters and inflict further suffering on them and their families. All forms of contact – visits, phone calls, letters – are being curtailed,” said Natalia Prilutskaya, Amnesty International’s Russia Research   A range of tactics is being used by the authorities to arbitrarily deprive prisoners of contact with their families and friends.   One method is to routinely deny requests for visits and phone calls while the individual is held in pretrial detention, often without citing any reasons. In other instances, family members are being designated as “witnesses” in their loved one’s trial proceedings, thereby precluding them from having any contact. In such cases, families might not see their loved ones for months or even years. Authorities may also delay detainees’ and prisoners’ mail or outright ban correspondence with certain individuals.   Another tactic is the unannounced transfer of prisoners from pretrial detention to penal institutions on the eve of a planned family visit, which is then cancelled. Such transfers require judicial approval by the same court that approves the visit, making this practice even more cynical.   A form of harassment widely used by the penal authorities is arbitrarily placing a prisoner in a disciplinary cell for allegedly committing a minor, often made-up disciplinary violation, just before a scheduled family visit. The prisoner is then deprived of visits and phone calls for the duration of the punishment.   Such practices not only additionally punish the incarcerated dissenters but also inflict severe psychological suffering on their families.   “These tactics are utterly inhumane. The authorities not only devastate the lives of those who dared to express dissenting views by imprisoning them, but they also rob their loved ones of the few possibilities to keep in touch. This cruel ill-treatment must stop immediately, and all those imprisoned solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly must be released,” said Natalia Prilutskaya.   http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/06/russia-authorities-punishing-imprisoned-anti-war-critics-and-dissenters-by-denying-family-contact/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/01/russia-special-rapporteur-appalled-prison-sentences-punish-navalny-lawyers http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/02/no-justice-alexei-navalny-and-more-lives-risk-russia-warns-un-special http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/02/russias-repression-home-and-aggression-against-ukraine-demand-justice-no http://www.hrw.org/news/2025/08/20/human-rights-watch-briefing-paper-on-the-human-rights-situation-in-the-russian http://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/2024/no-way-or-out-authoritarian-controls-freedom-movement
	The plunder by private healthcare in India by Harsh Mander Scroll India, agencies   Profits take priority over the wellbeing of patients, turning the sector into a business for wealth accumulation by any means, even unlawful and unethical.   Paul Farmer in Pathologies of Power speaks evocatively of the crossroads at which humankind today finds itself. Healthcare, he observes, can be considered either a “commodity to be sold” or “a basic social right”. It cannot be both at the same time. Which of these pathways we will choose, he declares, is the highly consequential choice that people of goodwill must make “in these dangerous times”. He terms this as “the great drama” of our times.   As this “great drama” plays out in the world today, what choice are policymakers making?   The majority are opting for a significant, even paramount, role for for-profit private health providers in universal healthcare and the statutory right to health care. Their assumption is that the private sector will bring in efficiency, choice, high-quality healthcare and by bridging the resource gaps in public health systems, it will enhance the access of excluded groups. The result of these policy choices is a retreat of the state from direct healthcare provisioning, the crumbling of even the aspiration of a welfare state and the largescale transfer of scarce public funds to the private medical sector.   In this essay, I interrogate the legitimacy of these assumptions. The question I ask is whether there is not inherent in this choice of largescale public health provisioning by large corporate hospitals the potential for grave conflicts of interest? Is there not an intrinsic clash between, on one side, profit-seeking and, on the other, equitable quality healthcare that is based on need and not the capacity to pay?   A challenge literally of life and death for policymakers is to find ways to best bridge the massive chasms between health needs and health access, especially of the poor.   Thinktank Oxfam, in its briefing paper Sick Development, explains that a “poorly evidenced, but largely unchallenged, narrative has emerged that says extending healthcare to those most denied it can be done by funding for-profit, fee-charging healthcare providers and encouraging more private finance, including private equity firms, to do the same”.   The stark and unconscionable reality of our world remains one in which half the world’s population are still excluded from access to even the most essential healthcare. Sixty people every second suffer catastrophic and impoverishing costs paying for healthcare out-of-pocket.   These approaches of placing the life and health of impoverished people in the hands of profit-driven large corporations would be “deeply unpopular in European nations but are being exported to the Global South, with little democratic oversight and with significant taxpayer-backed budgets”, says the briefing paper.   What advocates of private health provisioning wilfully ignore is extensive evidence that for-profit private hospitals frequently block, bankrupt or even detain patients who cannot pay. Commercial and market-based approaches in healthcare can entrench and exacerbate the gap between rich and poor, and between women and men.   They also skew resources away from already under-funded government services while further excluding those who are excluded because they cannot pay or are socially oppressed. For-profit health providers lack incentives to prevent ill-health. Instead, the system hatches perverse incentives to misdiagnose or over-treat.   Policymakers and scholars do admit to the potential for conflicts of interests between profit and care. But the solution that we repeatedly encounter – as we did in our last chapter – is for robust and reliable regulatory systems for holding private health care providers accountable to high professional, ethical and equity standards. The argument is that if a coherent and legally enforceable robust ecosystem of state regulation, legal mandates, legal accountability, transparency and accountability is in place, these – with the active participation of patients and communities – can ensure that private health care providers are kept aligned with right to health goals.   This may sound convincing on paper. However, the reality is that accountability mechanisms on the ground are frequently found to be ineffective due to many reasons, such as weak implementation, fragmentation, and power asymmetries.   Even where formal mechanisms for transparency and accountability are in place, they often fail in practice due to institutional weakness, regulatory capture, legal ambiguity, and the concentration of power among private healthcare actors. State regulators may be underfunded or politically constrained. Courts may defer to legislative silence or interpret contracts narrowly. Local governments often lack autonomy and resources. Patients and families face barriers such as legal illiteracy, fear of reprisal, and inaccessible complaint systems. This is even more the case in low- and middle- income countries where the juggernaut of private corporate healthcare provisioning is most triumphal.   In a salutary way, Oxfam draws attention to the impacts of enormous inequality in power, status and information between provider and patient inherent in healthcare provision. What makes for-profit healthcare different from public healthcare is the perverse incentive for profit-seekers to exploit this inequality for commercial gain. “All of Oxfam’s interviews with patients and their relatives for this research laid bare the brutal reality that exploitation and extortion of patients and carers by for- profit healthcare providers are frighteningly easy, due to the universal willingness of human beings to make infinite sacrifices to save the life of a loved one”.   Besides this rare sense of empowerment of impoverished patients to hold doctors to account, effective regulation of the private health sector requires both resources and robust state capacity. Studies establish that these are scant in low- and even middle-income countries, therefore it is unsurprising that regulation in these countries is often found to be wanting. But the only reasons for weak regulation of the private health sector may not just be that they lack in budgets and capacity.   The even more fundamental constraints may be that there is little political will to hold powerful big business in check. And this may apply not just to low- and middle-income countries, but equally to rich countries. The reality of governments worldwide is of the formidable and ever-growing power of big business in policy making – of what Oxfam describes aptly as “elite capture” of the contemporary neo-liberal state; and, indeed, growing cronyism.   Such elite capture of policy making is pervasive and increasingly normalised. When Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States in January 2025, prominent among those in attendance were the world’s three wealthiest people – Tesla CEO and the world’s richest person Elon Musk (worth $433.9 billion), Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (worth $239.4 billion) and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg ($211.8 billion). Their combined wealth was greater than the entire wealth of half the American population. The early months of Trump’s presidency – at the time I write this – is tarnished by the massive influence that Musk is visibly exercising on public decision-making in the world’s most powerful executive office.   The estimated value of the healthcare industry, including pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies, insurance and corporate hospital chains is a staggering $7 trillion. Health entrepreneurs are entering in growing numbers and power in billionaire lists of the richest people in many countries.   The president of leading health corporations in Brazil – Proparco and Rede D’or – is Brazil’s 10th richest billionaire. Ranjan Pai, controller of British International Investment-backed Manipal Group, saw his real-terms wealth grow by US$1.48bn in just one year alone. The cumulative impact of decades of neo-liberal policies is the effective transfer of power from public institutions to private enterprises.   Public health analyst Amit Sengupta regards that the state’s active role in facilitating the dominance of the private sector in healthcare not just a techno-managerial choice, but the wilful and wanton abdication by the state of its primary duties, by transferring responsibility for universal health care to the for-profit private health sector. Sengupta identifies what he calls “regulatory capture”, in which designated “experts” are drawn in by the state to assist and advise the state on the regulation of the very industries from which the “experts” are drawn.   Against the sobering reality of this landscape of the political economy of much of our world, I am troubled by the assumption that is still widely purveyed by policymakers globally, that states have the power, the capacity and the will to regulate the private health sector, to ensure that they promote the public good rather than private profits. I wonder how effective can we expect regulations and remedies in law to be to actually prevent the conflict between the duty of equitable health provisioning and the corporate pursuit of profit?   Oxfam, in its briefing paper, documents how in Kenya and India patients are imprisoned by private hospitals for not paying their bills. The statutorily mandated right to emergency care is denied. Treatment is impossibly expensive. Patients entitled to free care are instead pushed deep into poverty, being forced to pay high fees to access health services.   During the Covid-19 pandemic, some hospitals acted appallingly, profiteering even more than in normal times from people’s suffering and their fear of this new disease. Oxfam concludes that global and domestic taxpayers’ money is being ploughed into back expensive, for-profit private hospitals that block, bankrupt or even detain patients who cannot pay.   The report tells macabre stories of how a leading private hospital chain in Nairobi, Kenya, did not even release the corpses of patients who died for up to two years if the families could not pay the bills.   A newborn baby was held for three months for the same reason, and her mother would come each day to the hospital to breast-feed her. A schoolboy was held hostage for 11 months until his parents paid the bills.   In Nigeria, a normal child delivery costs as much as nine months’ income for the poorest 50% of Nigerians. A caesarean birth was even more expensive, costing as much as 24 years’ income for the poorest 10%. The bill for one patient who died from the Covid-19 virus in a private hospital in Nigeria cost an incredible US$116,000.   The bottom line is this: Consider a most powerless, excluded woman or girl child – suffering savage discrimination because of her race, caste, religion, sexuality or her undocumented status – who seeks life-saving healthcare from a highly privatised healthcare system dominated by giant and politically powerful corporate hospitals. Can she realistically rely on state regulation of giant private health providers to ensure stoutly her right to high quality health care so her life is saved?   For clues to this question, I will in this essay focus my microscope on the experience of one of the most privatised health care systems in the world, India. Some observers rate this to be the most privatised healthcare systems in the world, surpassing even the United States.   Why is it instructive to look closely at the functioning of India’s private and corporatised health system? The hospital industry accounts for 80% of India’s total healthcare market. India has one of the highest out-of-pocket spending levels on health in the world. Out-of-pocket spending as a proportion of total health spending is a leading cause of impoverishment in India. Thirty-seven per cent of Indians experience catastrophic health expenditures in private hospitals.   The abdication of the state in provisioning healthcare is spectacular. The Economist in 2017 observed that India’s extreme reliance on private healthcare is not ideological as much as the outcome of the reality that “government has done such a lousy job” of providing healthcare.   Over many years, India’s budgetary investment in public health has hovered from 0.8% to 1.1% of the country’s gross domestic product, among the lowest in the world. India stands fifth from the bottom in its public spending on health globally. And too little of even this paltry resource has gone into strengthening public health delivery and particularly into building primary healthcare. China invests three times this abysmal level.   In India’s mixed healthcare system, out-of-pocket spending and the market provision of services predominate. Only a little over a quarter of total health expenditure in India is borne by the state; the rest is out-of-pocket private spending and capital investments by the private sector. As much as 87% of private health spending is by individuals who lack insurance cover. Official data reveals that anything between 55 to 68 million people are pushed into poverty because of private health spending.   http://scroll.in/article/1083665/harsh-mander-the-plunder-and-loot-by-private-healthcare-in-india http://www.oxfam.org/en/research/sick-development http://www.icij.org/investigations/2025/07/the-world-bank-set-out-to-transform-health-care-for-the-poor-in-africa-it-drove-patients-deeper-into-poverty/ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-01-16/world-bank-funded-hospitals-in-africa-asia-detained-patients-and-denied-care http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/oxfam-reaction-bloomberg-investigation-patients-detained-and-denied-care-hospitals http://www.oxfam.org/en/research/open-statement-stop-spending-development-funds-profit-private-healthcare-providers Visit the related web page
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