ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL OVERVIEW While many governments in the Asia Pacific region – home to 60% of the world’s population – increasingly repressed people’s human rights, there were also signs of positive change in some countries and contexts. There were loud and insistent demands for freedom of expression and justice, and activism and protests against violations grew. Young people were increasingly determined to speak out for their and others' rights. Online technologies and social media offered expanded opportunities to share information, expose injustices, to organize and advocate. Repeatedly, human rights defenders – often working in the most difficult circumstances and with limited resources – stood firm against heavy-handed state oppression, taking inspirational and courageous action. Yet the price was often high. Many governments displayed an appalling disregard for freedom, justice and dignity. They strove to muzzle opposing voices and suppress protest and activism, including online dissent, through crackdowns, by force or cynical deployment of old and new laws. In East Asia, governmental transparency diminished and the perception of a growing gap between governments and their citizens increased. This was compounded by entrenched repression in countries such as China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). A pattern of deepening intolerance towards criticism and open debate unfolded in South Asia, with bloggers murdered in Bangladesh, media workers assailed in Pakistan and space for civil society in countries such as India shrinking. In Southeast Asia, key rights – freedoms of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, expression, association and 32 assembly – came under extensive assault, with crackdowns by Thailand’s military regime and attempts to mute political voices in Malaysia. As the space for civil society shrank in many countries, discrimination – particularly against racial and ethnic minorities, and women and girls – expanded in a range of countries and contexts. In many states – including China, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Viet Nam – torture and other ill-treatment was among the tools used to target human rights defenders, marginalized groups and others. Such violations were often sustained by a failure to ensure accountability for torturers and other perpetrators of human rights violations. Impunity was pernicious, frequently chronic, and common to many states. Victims were denied justice, truth and other forms of redress. There was some progress on this front, however. They included slow steps towards delivering accountability for alleged crimes under international law that had plagued Sri Lanka for decades, although widespread impunity persisted; and the bilateral agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) on the military sexual slavery system before and during World War II which was nonetheless criticized for excluding survivors from its negotiations. In a historic ruling, a court in the Philippines convicted a police officer of torture for the first time under the 2009 Anti-Torture Act. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court indicated that it might soon open an investigation in Afghanistan, which could cover allegations of crimes by the Taliban, the Afghan government and US forces. In Myanmar, intensification of the conflict in Kachin State, and an eruption of violence in northern Rakhine State – where a security operation forced members of the Rohingya and Rakhine communities to flee their homes – aggravated an already serious human rights and humanitarian situation in which tens of thousands of people had been displaced by Amnesty International Report 2016/17