The author of this blog is Mohamed Farid F, a law student at Tamil Nadu National Law University.
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| Depicts how news is being censored; Source |
"There is no such thing as voiceless; it's either people are unheard or deliberately silenced." -Arundhati Roy
Imagine you were posting a dissenting message against the government and ended up being sentenced to 18 years in prison for expressing dissent. Likewise, Ren Zhiqiang, a Veteran member of the Chinese Communist Party, faced consequences for expressing dissent against the Chinese president for the response to COVID-19. he has been imprisoned for 18 years for a corruption case just one month after his expressing criticism about the Chinese president. So it is evident how dissenters are silenced by the various. Not only in dictatorship-ruled states but even in democratic states, we can witness such cases of curtailing freedom of expression, where it is a considered foundational right and also dubbed as the bloodline of democracy.
In addition, freedom of expression including dissent is a human right. It is preserved under Article 19 [1] of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. Even though it is a non-binding declaration, It still paved the way for many countries to incorporate those principles in their constitution. from the world's largest democracy India to North Korea in Article 67 [2] of the North Korean constitution), Their Constitution has enshrined the freedom of speech and expression and sworn to save the same.
So in this piece of writing, we will try to understand why dissent is essential, and why it is curtailed in Asia. we will try to unbind the voices of dissent in Asia, which are widely ignored in the international arena.
Dissent is one of the tools to exercise freedom of expression. Although it has a long footprint in history, such as Abraham Lincoln's dissent that helped abolish slavery through The Emancipation Proclamation[3]. Likewise, India got freedom through dissent. they showed their disobedience to British laws and created many movements promoting dissent to achieve freedom from Britain; the Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement are two such examples.
Dissent is critically questioning an existing notion, which is crucial for societal progress. rather than merely expressing the opposite of it. Let's study an example of women's rights. Earlier we lived in a patriarchal society, we often denied rights for women as equal to men when it came to empowerment and women's rights. So far, this concept has left a lasting impression on people all across the world. However, as a result of the dissension, women and leftists began questioning the widely held notion of society and attacking patriarchal conventions. Recognition of women's rights has grown exponentially over this time, and even governments across the globe have begun to address sexism and advance gender equality. Evidently, other instances that include these types of prejudiced notions can be tackled through dissent.
Let’s quickly explore another very interesting case, Plessy v. Ferguson [4], which happened in the US Supreme Court in 1896. In questioning the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act of 1890, by which they segregated the compartment of railroad cars by racial means, the Supreme Court upheld the Separate Car Act of 1890 in a 7:1 majority ratio, where only Justice Marshall Harlan showed the dissent by saying that “our constitution is color blind”, though his dissent opinion didn't have any impact at first. Later, after half a decade, his dissent opinion was the guiding light for Brown v. Board of Education, 1956[5], where the court overruled the judgment of Plessy v. Ferguson.
Legal challenges for dissenters in Asia
It is evident from previous precedents that dissent played a major role in social progress. It acted as an effective tool. Frequently, when people express dissent, it can lead to instability, changes in government, or even a revolution. Even though we know the importance of dissent, it is still widely ignored or suppressed by legislation such as sedition, anti-terrorism laws, lèse-majesté laws, journalist regulations laws, and laws on national security. Not only these laws but many others were formulated to silence dissent instead of achieving its purpose.
To maintain stability, hide the truth, deflect blame, and maintain discriminatory and outdated practices, dissenters are often silenced. This hinders efforts to eliminate discrimination and dangerous activities. In many Asian countries, these laws are used to control and silence people who express different opinions, criticize their government, etc.
The Tale of Kazakhstan: A Democratic country in central Asia
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| Picture of Marat Tolegenuly Zhylanbayev; Source |
Marat Tolegenuly Zhylanbayev [6] is a human rights activist and politician, who has an unregistered political party in Kazakhstan which has been declined for registration by the justice ministry. He became a well-known activist at the time when he criticized the former president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev for being a crony capitalist which means being advantageous for the closed ones in business. Zhylanbayev also participated in the anti-government protest in January 2023 over the increase in petroleum prices and widespread poverty. Recently, on October 30, 2023, he was prosecuted and held on trial for allegedly funding the extremist organization. Initially, the police arrested him for participating in an unsanctioned protest, in which he was under administrative control for 20 days. After that, instead of being released, he was charged with funding a banned extremist organization, which itself is a political party that was termed an extremist organization by the government. Even though Zhylanbayev is claiming that the so-called transactions were to fund the independent candidate for the elections, neither the receiver nor the sender is from that extremist organization. The court closed the trial over the unknown witness against Zhylanbayev, which seems suspicious of further examination of the unjust proceedings. However, the prosecutor was praying for 10 years in prison for him. Even when he tried to stand in an election independently, he was barred from contesting elections for a breach of electoral law, citing that he allegedly started campaigning early online. It is well known that his voice has been tried to be silenced by bogus allegations and misuse of the law, even restricting his freedom to stand in the election. He has been going through this because of his dissent against the government, Not only him but many other activists are also behind bars for showing objection to the government where Kazakhstan's constitution guarantees the protection of freedom of speech.
Dance in the world’s largest democracy
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| New Indian Parliament; Source |
India, being the world's largest democracy, has a dark colonial past where it gained independence through dissent. But ironically, the same draconian colonial laws, such as sedition, are still prevailing. Not only sedition, but laws namely the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) [7], the National Security Act (NSA) [8], the Official Secrets Act[9], and even Section 144[10] of the IPC are also known to be misused to suppress the voice of dissenters. Sedition is one of the most frequently used provisions to suppress dissent even before independence. starting with Mahatma Gandhi to recently Disha Ravi[11] who was attracted to sedition provision during the farmer’s protest and later being granted bail by the Delhi High Court. Even though the Supreme Court has paused its use for a while to revise the 124A provision by the government, the 22nd Law Commission report[12] has been worrying and upholding the sedition and recommending it to be more draconian based on the fact the threat to internal security still exists and the misuse of sedition is merely an allegation. Still, I found this claim has no support where we can argue that the conviction rate of the sedition is relatively low. So the law commission is well supporting the current Modi government’s authoritative regime, where we can witness the surge of sedition cases and the misuse of the law against the dissenters. The visual representation below shows the data regarding the same.
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| Source |
The ruling government has further taken a step and started to suppress voices by the misuse of the law, not only the activists, but it also now spread like a virus to the lawmakers. In the History of the world's largest democracy, the Modi regime created a record of silencing 141 democratically elected members of the parliament. This includes the MPs who have questioned and insisted on protesting after the security breach to the Home Minister on December 13, they were suspended for alleged misconduct, were the government is the place to answer those questions over a serious issue like a security breach, instead of silencing them using the power. We cannot take this effect of the suspension lightly because India has created a record of suspending MPs.While Modi’s government passed some crucial bills in the parliament without the opposition MP’s debate. I would like to argue that they have not only suspended the MPs of the opposition Bloc along with them they also suspended the people of the democracy who elected those MPs. They silenced the people while passing the crucial law for them. They neglected the voices of the people which seriously questioned the world's largest democracy. As India is one of the most powerful and democratic countries in Asia, it is saddening to see how the dissent of the people and lawmakers is silenced by the misuse of the law.
These highlighted instances are just some of the glimpses that show the landscape of the dissenters in Asia. There are many other instances where the dissenters are deliberately silenced. Such as the arrest of a pro-democracy publisher in Hong Kong [13], the Crackdown on independent media in Azerbaijan[14], the death of a journalist in the Philippines who was shot dead live on air[15], the Military rule in Myanmar[16], the silencing of dissenters in Sri Lanka, etc.
Technological Dissent; A New Perspective
In this world of technology, everything gets digitized. Likewise, freedom of expression and free speech have also evolved and digitalized. In various forms such as expressing opinions or thoughts on social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, etc, this evolution makes it easier to express freedom of expression and dissent and potentially it has been used as a powerful tool to express dissent. Even though it restricts some activities such as inciting violence, posting sexual content, child pornography, and other illegal stuff, there is a loophole in which the rightful dissent that questions the human rights violation is censored and forcefully removed by the platform. In addendum, many countries also introduced laws regulating social media platforms which they ultimately misuse to suppress the voice of dissent in online platforms. Even social media platforms work biasedly towards the dissemination of truthful information. One such case is given below:
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| Instagram post of Motaz Azaiza which is being censored; Source |
The Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza has been constantly posting about the events of genocide, where Israel's military forces are targeting attacks on civilians and children of Palestine. His account and his posts have been censored by the meta group. The posts showing the bombardment of Palestinian hospitals and children are censored for sexual activity and nudity. To further suppress the Palestinian voices, Instagram does not recommend his account to general users. Fortunately, those who found his handle before Meta’s censorship can view his account. According to data by Human Rights Watch, documents over 1,050 takedowns by Meta over the support of Palestine, out of which 1,049 were deemed to be peaceful content, which unduly suppressed the dissent of the Meta users throughout their platform[17]. There are still millions that are not documented by Human Rights Watch yet censored by the meta.
This shows how business entities such as Meta are suppressing the voices, thereby highlighting the trend of corporations like Meta prioritizing their interests over the fundamental right to freedom of expression. It also underscores the need for stronger safeguards and regulations to protect users' rights and prevent such undue censorship from occurring.
Conclusion
I would like to end with the Quote of Martin Luther King "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Our society made progress through dissenting opinions, debates, expressing new ideas, and challenging existing notions. Like in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice Marshal’s single-man opinion guided upcoming judgments to eradicate racial discrimination. Just imagine if there are no dissenting opinions, our society can become stagnant without any progress. We must appreciate, recognize, and follow the courage of Ren Zhiqiang to Motaz Azaiza, where they understand the power of dissent and make their voices louder till they reach us.
References and sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/world/asia/china-communist-party-ren-zhiqiang.html
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/08/kazakhstan-government-critic-trial-extremism
https://thewire.in/law/explainer-how-the-sedition-law-has-been-used-in-the-modi-era
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