9th International Conference (2024) Shrinking Civic Space in Asia: Stories of Resistance and Pushback

From 21 to 23 August 2024, I participated in an international conference “Shrinking Civic Space in Asia: Stories of Resistance and Pushback”, held in Bangkok, Thailand, and took part in a panel on coping with COVID-19 and civic space.

This international conference is organised by Asia Centre, a non-profit think tank with its main office in Bangkok, and JANIC has been participating since 2022. A Memorandum of Understanding for joint research and cooperation was signed between Asia Centre and JANIC in 2023. Reports on past participation are available in the THINK Lobby journal and on our website.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/thinklobbyjournal/1/0/1_71/_article/-char/ja/
https://thinklobby.org/2023_asia_centre_8th_international_conference/

This year, the panel on which I spoke focused on the question of how good governance can be achieved not restricting civic space such as freedom of movement and the right to information, based on COVID-19 responses in Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand and Japan. Speakers highligted the importance of learning lessons from the past in preparation for the next pandemic, while promoting communication and collaboration between government and civil society.

This panel was organised by ICNL (The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law), an organisation that studies civil society legislation around the world and works to expand civic space. The report, “Pandemic Governance & Civic Freedoms: Best Practices from Japan”, prepared by ICNL in cooperation with the Asia Centre, summarises that, despite the challenges, the Japanese Government has communicated appropriately and has been able to control infections on a ‘request’ basis rather than a hard lockdown with sanctions, as compared to other countries.

In the plenary session, the activities of media artists who moved from Hong Kong to Taiwan to defend freedom and the efforts of Radio Taiwan International (RTI), which provides multilingual broadcasting on the internet for people living outside Taiwan, were introduced, while in the breakout sessions covered a wide range of topics such as Indigenous Peoples’ rights, the suppression of opposition parties by the ruling party (Singapore, Cambodia, Taiwan), improving access to funds for civil society, fake news and democracy, digital security etc. A focused session on the recent student uprising in Bangladesh was also organised by faculty members from the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB).

A summary report on this international conference is also available on the Asia Centre website.

https://asiacentre.org/9th-international-conference-2024-shrinking-civic-space-in-asia-stories-of-resistance-and-pushback/

Next year’s international conference will be held on 20-22 August under the title ‘AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Governance in Asia: Civil Society, Democracy and Media’.
https://asiacentre.org/event/10th-international-conference-ai-and-governance-in-asia-civil-society-democracy-and-media/