Asia Regional Hub

Protection Scheme for Human Rights Defenders & Scholar-Activists in Asia

The Political Science Program at the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila, and their home unit, the Department of Social Sciences, have been at the forefront of critical scholarship and praxis. They were active proponents of the democratisation movement at the University until the 1990s and played a pivotal role in the institutionalisation of academic unionism at the turn of the millennium. Faculty members have been actively involved not only in professional organisations but also in people’s organisations, community-based, and civil society organisations both within the country and internationally. In 2024, UP Manila established the Committee on the Promotion and Protection of Academic Freedom and Human Rights (CAFHR) as a university-based mechanism dedicated to monitoring, safeguarding, and aiding in the face of violations of academic freedom and human rights.

The Political Science Program at the University of the Philippines, Manila, offers a period of protection for human rights defenders and scholar-activists for three to five months.

Background

Violent attacks, harassment, vilification, imprisonment, and filing of trumped-up charges against human rights defenders is widespread across Asia and Southeast Asia. From targeting environmental activists who courageously expose the devastating impacts of extractive industries, journalists documenting corruption and political violence in authoritarian-ruled countries, to women and gender rights defenders advocating for the rights of women and members of the lgbtqia+community to end the deeply rooted forms of gender-based violence, minority rights activists in several South Asian countries are under attack. These attacks against Asian HRDs are not only a direct threat to their safety, but also a deliberate attempt to silence voices challenging systemic discrimination and structural violence. These attacks also target academics, scholars, students, and researchers championing academic freedom, and trade unionists defending the rights and welfare of workers and the blatant intrusion of military personnel in universities. The attacks are not isolated incidents, these are deeply embedded in the socio-political and economic context of each and every country in the region.

In this context, universities in Asia have a vital role to play, not only as centers of learning and knowledge production, but as active and responsive institutions of higher learning committed to upholding human rights, academic freedom and safeguarding those who defend them. As temporary sanctuaries, universities can offer a critical space for well-being, reflection and resistance. They serve as safe havens where human rights defenders can regroup, recharge, skill up, and reclaim their strength and build transnational networks with fellow human rights defenders across the region, and exchange knowledge and strategies that reinforce their advocacy and solidarity with one another. By embracing this protective function of academic institutions, universities reaffirm their role as bastions of academic freedom and human rights. In doing so, universities do not only stand in solidarity with human rights defenders, but also strengthen their own institutional relevance in the face of authoritarianism, state harassment, vilification, shrinking democratic space, and rising repression across the region.