ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL OVERVIEW There were modest gains for the rights of women and LGBTI people in several countries; a new law criminalizing torture and enforced disappearance was adopted in Thailand; and the mandatory death penalty was abolished in Malaysia. Yet, overall, the outlook for human rights in the Asia-Pacific region remained bleak. Escalating armed conflict in Myanmar resulted in yet more civilian deaths and displacement. In Afghanistan, the Taliban intensified their repression especially against women and girls. A growing intolerance of dissent was evident throughout much of the region as restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association tightened in multiple countries and territories. Critics of government policies and actions, including human rights defenders, political activists and journalists, were arbitrarily arrested and detained; protests against injustice were often met with unlawful, sometimes lethal, force. Long-standing patterns of discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities and socalled lower castes, women and girls, LGBTI people and Indigenous Peoples persisted. People belonging to these and other marginalized groups were particularly hard hit in countries suffering economic crises. They were also the first to suffer the often-deadly consequence of climate-change induced weather events, yet governments across the region failed to take effective action to curb carbon emissions or to put in place effective protection and adaptation measures. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION The right to freedom of expression remained under threat as many governments intensified crackdowns on media, human rights defenders, opposition parties, government critics and others. Several countries maintained or intensified already extreme restrictions. In Afghanistan, journalists and other media workers were among those subjected to harassment and arbitrary detention, and more media outlets were shut down or were forced to close their doors. In Myanmar, journalists were among those sentenced to long terms of imprisonment in unfair trials. In North Korea, there was no let-up in the government’s total control over civic space with harsh penalties imposed on anyone who criticized the government or engaged in “reactionary” ideology. Elsewhere, government efforts to silence critical voices took multiple forms. New laws or regulations restricting the rights to freedom of expression came into force in Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Singapore. The new government in Fiji repealed a law limiting media freedoms, but other restrictive legislation remained. In Cambodia, the licence of one of the few remaining independent media outlets was revoked. The Indian government weaponized the central financial and investigation agencies to carry out raids on and suspend the licences of media outlets and human rights organizations. Bhutan, where civil servants are barred from sharing information of public interest with the media, slipped down global press freedom rankings. Censorship and surveillance technologies were increasingly used to suppress dissent. In China, new guidelines placed further restrictions on social media users, while social media companies required certain users to disclose their identity, raising concerns about the right to privacy. In Hong Kong, the draconian National Security Law and colonial-era sedition law were The State of the World’s Human Rights 41