In Bangladesh, police used rubber bullets, live rounds and tear gas against opposition-led protests resulting in at least one death. Thousands of people were arrested. Security forces also used unlawful force against protesters in Indonesia, the Maldives and Nepal. Restrictions on the rights to freedom of association also deepened in several countries. In Cambodia, the only opposition party was disqualified from taking part in elections and a leading opposition politician sentenced to 27 years’ imprisonment. In the Philippines, human rights and humanitarian organizations were among those accused of links to banned communist groups or “red-tagged”, leaving their members vulnerable to trumped-up charges, unlawful killing and other human rights violations. In South Korea, trade unions faced an increasingly hostile environment and dozens of labour activists were placed under criminal investigation. Governments must respect and facilitate the exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. The work of human rights defenders must be respected and protected and a safe and enabling environment for their work ensured. ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS Human rights defenders, political and environmental activists and others were arbitrarily arrested and detained for challenging government policies and actions or on the basis of their ethnic, religious or other identity. In China, arbitrary detention and unfair trials of Uyghurs and people from other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region continued. In Myanmar, more than 20,000 people remained in detention for opposing the 2021 military coup and grossly unfair trials continued. In Pakistan, the authorities used the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance and the vaguely worded Anti-Terrorism Act to arbitrarily detain over 4,000 people involved in protests following the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan in May. Another 103 civilians, including political leaders and activists, were put on trial in military courts. Although the courts in India granted bail or quashed detention orders of several arbitrarily detained journalists in Jammu and Kashmir, human rights defenders there and elsewhere in the country continued to be held without trial, often for years. In Mongolia, inadequate procedural guarantees resulted in high numbers of arrests without warrants. Governments must end all arbitrary arrests and detention of government critics and others and immediately release anyone detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association or other human rights. IMPUNITY AND THE RIGHT TO JUSTICE Impunity remained widespread and victims were routinely denied their rights to justice, truth and reparation. Although the decision by the International Criminal Court to resume investigations in the Philippines offered some hope for families of the countless victims of unlawful killings during the ongoing “war on drugs”, accountability for serious human rights violations there remained almost completely elusive. In Thailand, impunity prevailed for unlawful killings by state security forces. The governments of Sri Lanka and Nepal again failed to make significant progress towards delivering justice, truth and reparations to the tens of thousands of victims of crimes under international law and other grave human rights violations during the respective internal armed conflicts. The State of the World’s Human Rights 43