South Korea's G-20 Disaster

South Korea’s HR disaster


THE ASIAN Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) strongly condemns the denial of entry and forced repatriation of seven Filipino human rights defenders who came to South Korea to attend the Seoul G20 International People’s Conference organized by Put People First! Korean People’s G20 Response Action. We note that all of them were granted South Korean visas prior to travel, but they were prohibited from entering the country because their names were on a blacklist.

In addition to this, we also learned that a number of human rights defenders from Pakistan, Nepal and Indonesia who were invited to attend the same conference were refused South Korea visas without reasonable grounds.

The seven Filipinos are well-known activists in the region on issues of human rights and development. It is particularly ironic that Paul L. Quintos, policy and outreach director for IBON International, had been invited by the South Korean government to attend the G20 Civil Dialogue last October. This time, however, no explanation was given to them as to why they were blacklisted. We can only conclude that the denial of entry and deportation is an act of repression to curtail potential criticism of the G20 summit.

We are also highly concerned with the reports that the seven were denied access to Philippine embassy officials, physically harassed while in detention and bodily forced to board a plane back to the Philippines. We deplore this maltreatment by South Korean government officials. They violated the basic rights of the seven Filipinos.

The initiative of the government of South Korea (the first Asian country to host the G20 Summit) to include “development” as a new agenda item should be welcomed, but its actions in barring activists from developing countries, who are working on development and human rights issues, to participate in this important debate stand out in stark contradiction to its good initiatives.
FORUM-ASIA strongly urges the South Korean government to respect and protect human rights as host of the G20 Summit. The participation and the voice of human rights and development activists should be encouraged instead of being curtailed. No real development can be achieved without the participation of peoples and respect for human rights.


—YAP SWEE SENG,
executive director,
Asian Forum for Human Rights
and Development (FORUM-ASIA)