"The human rights issue has never been discussed by ASEAN leaders," said Indriaswati Dyah Saptaningrum, executive director of the Institute of Community Studies and Advocacy (Elsam), on the sidelines of a workshop of the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People Forum 2011 here on Wednesday.
The ASEAN summit is scheduled to take place at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) on May 7-8, 2011.
Protection of human rights is an important prerequisite to improve ASEAN, she said.
"How can we imagine a democratic ASEAN as our goal without talking about human right issues," she said.
Indriaswati said that ASEAN had a special agency, namely the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and this commission should be more active in enhancing protection human rights and reducing human rights violations by giving the mandate to the ASEAN countries.
"No development can be achieved if the human right issue is not further discussed at ASEAN leadership level," she said, adding that the ASEAN leaders` meetings are expected produce useful recommendations.
Elsam is one of the participants in the ASEAN Civil Society Conference (ACSC) workshop which discussed peace and justice.
The theme of peace and justice was raised because the ACSC/APF (ASEAN People Forum) believed that most countries in the Southeast Asian region continue to face the question of justice related to violations in the past.
In addition, ACSC also believed that although more and more countries in the region were beginning to be more democratic and to practice accountable governance, the demands for justice from victims who suffered due to the past atrocities were still ignored.
ASEAN groups Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.(*)
(B003/HAJM/B003).
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
