Index Number: ASA 04/8167/2024
Amnesty International welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the report of the Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, on the theme of stigmatizing narratives and implications on the exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. In recent years, authorities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have framed and sustained harmful and stigmatizing narratives against peaceful protesters, with the intention of silencing critical voices and movements, justifying repression, and evading accountability. The submission below highlights some of Amnesty International’s concerns on stigmatizing and harmful narratives against peaceful protesters in South Asia.
INTRODUCTION
Amnesty International welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the report of the Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, on the theme of stigmatizing narratives and implications on the exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.1
In recent years, authorities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have framed and sustained harmful and stigmatizing narratives against peaceful protesters, with the intention of silencing critical voices and movements, justifying repression, and evading accountability. Governments have framed protesters, including women protesters and protesters from marginalized communities, as threats to the security of a country, and this narrative impedes the effective exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association of all.2 The submission below focuses on questions A1-3 and highlights some of Amnesty International’s concerns on harmful narratives against peaceful protesters in South Asia.
PAKISTAN- REPRISALS AGAINST BALOCH PROTESTERS AND CRACKDOWN ON WOMEN AND TRANSGENDER ACTIVISTS
Targets of stigmatizing narratives
Amnesty International is concerned by harmful narratives, including the spread of disinformation, against Baloch protesters. Baloch protesters, consisting largely of families of victims of enforced disappearances, including hundreds of women and several children, continue to demand accountability and an end to the practice of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances in the southwestern province of Balochistan in Pakistan.322 Harmful and stigmatizing narratives are part of the constant repression of protesters who are the families of the forcibly disappeared.
Baloch protesters conducting a sit in and long march as part of their peaceful protest in December 2023 and January 2024 were subjected to continuous harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrests and detentions by Pakistani authorities.423 Authorities perpetuated misinformation and disinformation against the protesters by referring to their relatives who have been forcibly disappeared as ‘terrorists’ and the protesters as being linked to ‘terrorists’ and conspiring against the country.5 As part of this narrative, protesters have been charged with a wide range of offences, including terrorism, sedition, and hate speech.
The weaponisation of harmful narratives, online and offline, against peaceful protesters is also seen in the state narratives around the annual Aurat March (Women’s March) in Pakistan.
Aurat March has, as in previous years, consistently highlighted multiple issues that prevent women from enjoying their rights to health, education, housing and security and their freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. One of the key slogans of the Aurat March is “Mera jism, meri marzi” (my body, my choice), which calls for women and men to have autonomy over what happens to their bodies. This includes sexual and reproductive rights, and freedom from physical abuse, domestic violence, and rape, or being subjected to any medical procedure without informed consent.6
This peaceful assembly and its participants have faced intimidation and harassment including the stigmatizing and harmful narrative of the protest being ‘vulgar’. The transgender participants of the march, along with the separate Sindh Morat March, have particularly been targeted with online misinformation narratives. Organizers regularly receive threats, including graphic sexual violence, with little protection from the state.7
Transgender activists reported being targeted by social media campaigns, fueling anti-transgender rhetoric and inciting violence and hatred against them. They reported receiving threats, having to go into hiding and amending their day-to-day routines to avoid being targeted. Between October 2021 and September 2022, 18 transgender people were reported by the Trans Murder Monitoring Project to have been killed in Pakistan, the highest figure in Asia.8
1 Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Call for inputs – Stigmatizing narratives and implications on the exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association: counter stigmatization to protect rights and advance global commitments, https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2024/call-inputs-stigmatizing-narratives-and-implications-exercise-rights-freedom
2 Reprisals and dangerous narratives against women protesters in Afghanistan, harmful narratives against garment workers in Bangladesh, stigmatizing narratives against Muslim protesters in India and negative narratives against university students and families of the disappeared in Sri Lanka.
3 Amnesty International, Pakistan: Braving the Storm: Enforced disappearances and the right to protest in Pakistan, 11 August 2022, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa33/5872/2022/en/
4 Amnesty International, ’Amnesty International condemns harassment faced by Baloch protestors in Islamabad’, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/01/pakistan-amnesty-international-condemns-harassment-faced-by-baloch-protestors-in-islamabad/
5 Dawn, ’Jan Achakzai links ‘terrorists’ with protesters Pakistan’, https://www.dawn.com/news/1807231/jan-achakzai-links-terrorists-with-protesters
6 Amnesty International, Pakistan: Amnesty International stands with Aurat March, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/03/pakistan-amnesty-international-stands-with-aurat-march/
7 Amnesty International, Pakistan: Amnesty International stands with Aurat March, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/03/pakistan-amnesty-international-stands-with-aurat-march/
8 Amnesty International Report 2022/23: The state of the world’s human rights, 27 March 2023, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/5670/2023/en/ ,p.288.