 Good evening to all. I am Bob Destro. I am the assistant secretary for democracy human rights and labor and the special coordinator for Tibetan issues at the US Department of State. I'm pleased to welcome everyone this evening to this digital interactive program, marking human rights day. Today's discussion will focus on the importance of strengthening civic participation by promoting respect for the freedoms of expression and association and the rights of peaceable assembly. I'm joined today or this evening by Fatiha Malidi-Diani, coordinator of Contras, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence and Indonesian Human Rights Organization. I'm joined by Sopheep Chak, the director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, and Patrick Pung, an independent human rights researcher based in Hong Kong. Fatiha, Sopheep, and Patrick, welcome and thank you for joining this discussion. For our live viewers this evening, if you'd like to ask questions of our panel, please post your questions as a comment on Facebook. Before we start, I'd like to say a few words about the value of civic engagement on this human rights day. If we think about it, all of us have neighbors and most of us have a pretty good idea from talking to them in day to day conversations about their concerns about life, the welfare of their families and issues affecting the health safety and welfare of our local communities. Most of the time, in our conversations with neighbors, we realize that the issues are individually oriented. We learn who's sick, who needs a job, who's getting married, and other neighborhood important issues. But neighborhood conversations also tell us important things about the needs of our respective communities, about the strengths and weaknesses of public services like garbage collection or police protection. It's conversations every day, every evening, every afternoon, such as these, both individual and community concerns that lead us to make plans to organize community efforts to help one another and to question those whom we elect to serve as our leaders. Human rights day is a great occasion to celebrate these small examples where our freedom and that of our neighbors to engage in activities relating to our communities is the foundation of a strong, vibrant, tolerant and stable democratic society. In our view, the public interest is best served when people can freely participate in society to express their interest in needs, to share different perspectives, or to engage others in casual conversations or spirited debate, including debates with public officials. With vibrant, well-functioning civil society, none of us should ever fear punishment or any other form of penalty, including public ostracism for speaking our mind or organizing lawful efforts to affect useful change in the community. Civic engagement is enriched when people create, join or organize formal or informal groups like clubs, religious organizations, political party, trade unions, and freely gather in private homes, private halls, public squares, whether in person or online. When ordinary people like you and me, advocacy groups, independent journalists, civil society actors, and others can freely communicate and come together, we are helping our societies advance democracy, human rights, and good governance, and we do so globally in events like this one. Additionally, some governments and private parties allied with them believe it's their right to respect, to restrict expression with which they disagree. They crack down on peaceful dissent and stifle the free flow of information and ideas that they find uncomfortable. In short, what they want to do is control the narrative, either to protect themselves, to harm others, or to control society. Respect for human rights is indispensable to preserving and expanding space for civic participation, and where governments and others do not respect the freedom of citizens to communicate freely, and to collaborate for their own vision of the common good. We must work together to change that behavior. Our conversation this evening is just such an effort. The United States has taken important steps to combat and deter human rights violations and abuses, and to promote accountability for the perpetrators of these abuses. In fiscal year 2020, the Department of State publicly designated 58 officials of foreign governments under an authority that we call Section 7031C, because of credible information of those officials involvement in gross violations of human rights. These actions underscore our support for international human rights, and for promoting accountability for those who violate them. And those rights include freedom of expression association, the right to peaceable assembly, and that's our topic for today. Before we get into our discussion, I'd like to ask our speakers to briefly introduce themselves and tell us about the work that you do. Fatia, let's start with you, if you wouldn't mind, and welcome to today's today's panel. Thank you very much, sir. Hello, everyone. It is very nice for me to involve in this webinar. My name is Fatia Mulidianti. I'm the coordinator of the Commission for Disappeared and Victims of Violence or Contrast, a human rights non-governmental organization based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Contrast is actually established in 1998, where at that time actually Contrast was established to help or support the people that actually become the victims of enforced disappearances during the regime of authoritarianism led by Suharto at the time. And then after that, during the time of the establishment, Contrast also involved in several other issues such as the civil and political rights, which also include about the fundamental freedoms, and then about the anti-death penalty, anti-torture. And then also now we are also developing the issue on business and human rights due to a lot of industrial activity in Indonesia, which is not based with the human rights principles. And we in the daily basis also do a focusing campaign and then also research regarding the situation of human rights, not only in Indonesia, but also in the international level. We engage with several other international community to gain solidarity in a human rights perspective and then also human rights issues amongst the world. That's all. Thank you. Very good. Thank you so much. Sopheep, you know, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you're doing? Yes, thank you so much. And good evening from here, from Cambodia. It's 7 p.m. right now. And it's my pleasure today to join with all of you and the rest of the panel. I'm Sopheep. I'm working for the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. We are the human rights organizations that work to promote and protect human rights in Cambodia. Mostly we focus on the civil and political rights. Our work focuses on mainly now five core focus areas, including the protection of fundamental freedom and to touch rightly for today's topic that is concerning the freedom of expression, of human rights and assembly and association. So we defend the human right defender at risk by providing them with the legal support and necessary human right defender protection mechanism. And second is to promote rule of law and judiciary reform. Third is promotion of the political participation and fourth is the anti-discrimination and promotion of the gender equality. And we also work on the promotion of the LGBTIQ right and other minority rights. And finally, is the business and human rights. Because when we're talking about human rights, a lot of time we look at the garment actor or the affected community or civil society organization ourselves, but we forgot that, you know, business are also the main actor who can be also abused, but also can promote the human right respect in the operation. So all of these are our core work at the moment. Thank you. Very good. Well, thank you. And Patrick, let me turn to you and welcome you this evening. And thank you for participating. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do and about yourself. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Greetings from Hong Kong. So I'm human rights researcher based in Hong Kong that I used to be an MSG researcher working on mainland Chinese and Hong Kong human rights issue. And my focus is on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. So I think like this topic is very much related to what we have today. And then actually, like you see the number of arrests of dissidents in Hong Kong and China in like increasing in the past few months, especially after the national security law in passing Hong Kong situation here is getting more nervous. The press and also politicians and activists are all very nervous and already already seen some people being imprisoned. So we are very concerned about freedom of expression here in Hong Kong with deteriorate. It's actually very much similar to situation mainland China. So yeah, this is something what I want to talk about this evening. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. And, you know, let me, let me kind of kick off the discussion with some questions. And I deliberately said earlier, I deliberately drew the analogy to living in a neighborhood. Because all of us live in a neighborhood. And the first thing that anybody would ask if if I were a newcomer moving to Indonesia or the Cambodia or the Hong Kong, it would be well okay so what's it like to live here in the neighborhood. You know, and so, you know, Fatia, why don't we start with you. And so, you know, what kind of challenges, you know, what are the freedom of expression issues that you have in your neighborhood. Yeah, okay. Thank you very much for the opportunity so basically I will just explain a bit about the general situation right now regarding the situation of the freedom of expression freedom of assembly in Indonesia. So basically, since 1998 after the reform, which when Indonesia entering the transitional justice period, we already declare ourselves as a democratic country and now Indonesia is actually become the third largest democratic country in the world. And we are the most successful democratic country as they are mentioned in Southeast Asia. But in reality actually, with all of the tools with all of the regulation and how actually the rule of law and then the other regulation that protecting promoting and then also respecting human rights actually already established in Indonesia. It's not being implemented comprehensively by the government, because, for example, today contrast also launch report regarding the situation of the civil liberties in Indonesia, which one of them is about the freedom of expression. And we see that the restriction of the freedom of expression and freedom of assembly in Indonesia right now is become the trend of the violation because of the trend and the high number of the police brutality that happened in Indonesia. For example, during this pandemic when the government issued a lot of regulation that actually discriminating about the rights of the freedom of assembly and then freedom of expression from the telegram letter from the Chief of National Police. There are a lot of people, human rights defenders, activists, even just like ordinary people like civilians being arrested arbitrarily by the government, by the police, because they're criticizing the government about the situation of COVID-19 handling. And then the second is about when we gather and go on the streets to protest regarding the establishment of the omnibus law that just being enacted last month. And there are 3000 arresting because of our freedom of expression in the public spaces and then also not only doing in the public spaces but also in the digital arena. So there are a lot of like doxing and then discrimination and then also like a stigma being put to the activists here and then also just to the civilians that raising their expression about the situation in Indonesia because of the government policy. And then when we try to do the demand the justice to the government, the government actually don't really hearing our voices and instead they are more threatening us with like the arbitrary arrest and then also to put our gadgets and then our platform to be hacked by the police. And then, so it is very hard for us actually right now this is a very difficult time to actually raise our expression to raise our concern regarding government policy, because now the government is not really in favor with what kind of aspiration that being raised by the public. So there are a lot of like discriminative laws such as the electronic and information transaction, which usually being used by the police and then by the government as well to criminalize the people that actually criticizing the government policy right now. So if you are coming to Indonesia, you have to really obey to the government, even the government said if the government said it's a hoax or this is like a betrayal to the country, then you have to agree that that's a betrayal. So if you are not agree with what we are saying then you then you will be criminalized. And that's always happened to us, and especially to the people of Papua right now, that become really more threatening because of the militaristic approach that being conducted by the government. Well, you certainly you certainly raised a lot of really, really good questions and and and we'll come back to them, because I have a number of other question follow up questions but I'm going to turn now to stop people and tell us about the situation that you're facing in in your neighborhood. Yes, thank you and I think it's not far away from Indonesia, but come to Cambodia now. Today, it's marked with 27 for human rights celebration in Cambodia, of course it's 72 globally but for Cambodia we've seen the Paris peace agreement and adoption of our constitution, we recognize the human rights and making the human rights day as one of the public holiday but this is the first year since since 27 years ago that now you know it's no longer a public holiday because the government decided to reuse the holiday so they choose human rights day as one to be eliminated so it, it, it tells us a lot I think there's some argument saying that well you know without an other country also don't make it as a holiday so what what does it make different here. Different those is that you know in Cambodia, this kind of important day is a day of kind of you know celebration, the tool where civil society actor, especially the community or government worker would come together, you know to celebrate but in a way to you know send the message to the government, you know to address their and often even those today or other day, you know, would count as a holiday, there's there are a lot of barrier for the community to take part to exercise their peaceful assembly, there's a lot of time where the local authority would, would hinder the community who traveled from the province to come and you know jointly with other community in the city for example to celebrate the human rights day or you know like in, in, in other case the factory owner would block or would refuse to allow the worker to, to, to, to take a day off even though it is a holiday and now when it become not a holiday, can you imagine how difficult for this community to be able to come out and to exercise their fundamental freedom. So I just want to reiterate, you know, like the important message of, you know, why, you know, like the government for this year on making the 10 December is no longer a human rights holidays. Come to the, come to your, your, your question regarding the situation of fundamental freedom. Cambodia have, have, I mean, the civic space in Cambodia have come to the challenge. A lot of people say, say that it's shrinking, but I would say that we are facing a closing civic space and the closing resulting from, you know, the restrictive legislation. There have been a lot of legal development in this past few years with, for example, the adoption of the law on association and geo law. I think some other country also have it and you can feel the chilling effect on our fundamental freedom there. The, the, the, the operation of civil society with the language is very challenging. That's, that's one legislation, the threat union law also come by and that restrict the ability of the union to exercise their, their freedom to union, freedom to strive for example. There have been also an effort and already, you know, the government have amend the constitution, which is our highest legislation by, by, by, by making sure that they can silent the critic. The amendment is to making sure that you uphold, I mean, as a citizen, as a Cambodian, we have to uphold the national interest. And what does it mean, you know, it means that we can criticize the state, we can say something critical again the country because it can see that it is a violation of, you know, abuse of, of the national interest. In, in the COVID time, the government have come up with the law on the management of the nation in the state of emergency. It was dropped in a very rough process. It gave a lot of power to the government to restrict the exercise of fundamental freedom without, you know, limit, limit term during the state of emergency as well. And, and, and there are some pending law that the government have just introduced, including the, the draft law on public public order, the law, the sub degree on the establishment of the national gateway that would touch upon on the digital rights and internet freedom. And, and also the government is now working on the draft law on cybercrime. This, this additional pending law would give additional restriction if it passed in current form, you know, to restrict more ability for the citizen to exercise their fundamental freedom, both online and offline, like the public order law I can just cite briefly, you know, one article is, is to restrict the, the right to sell, sell expression of the women, they limit, they restrict the, the, you know, like saying that women cannot wear the revealing clothes in public. So it really a step backward, where, you know, the government and, you know, the country as a whole have always mentioned that we respect the women's right, but then they impose on, on the women freedom to just simply, that she choose the dress she want to dress. So that, that, that's why I said is, is, is a back, is a step backwards. So that is the, the, the legislation. But in addition to the legislation, we have witnessed a significant assault on the fundamental freedom in this year alone but also in the past year, especially in this 2020, during the COVID time as well, we have document over 120 individuals have been arrested because they have exercised their fundamental freedom. In the last few, few, few months in July, the government have arrested a number of activists, and mainly they are the young activists, they are environmental activists, they are the, you know, just use who, who, who come to the street to demand, to, to demand the release of one of the well-known activists who, you know, like have been accused by the government of incitement, for example. So, you know, like most of the youth come to the street to demand the release and then they have been arrested. Now they are in, in detention and today I saw the tweet by the special reporter on the Human Rights Defender Mary, they have tweeted about the case because the family of those young have sent, sent the message with the photo of, of their children, you know, they are so young, some even just 19 years old. And, you know, few are the young, they are the rap singer, they also accused because their song are critical against the government. So, you know, like, combining with the legislation, the Jewish soul harassment is, is a repeated form that have been used again, individual, and especially those who are critical against the government. We also witness this, just, just, you know, like, now, this year, it marks three years already since the main opposition party have been dissolved. I'm not sure in Indonesia or in Hong Kong, our colleagues here have experienced in your country that the government have successfully dissolved the main opposition party. In Cambodia, we, we, we make the story that, you know, the opposition party have been dissolved, and then they are the parliamentarian and the Commune Council official who have been elected in the name of that party have been removed from the opposition and it has been replaced by the ruling, mainly the ruling party official. You know, it is very, I, I don't know how to say, but you know, like, it comes through the election, but then they have been dissolved and replaced by none elected official. There is a mockery against the democracy principle. But my point here, even though they have been dissolved for three years, last, last few weeks, last few weeks, the court have made a mass sermon again over 139 opposition associate and official to come to the court on one day. Can you imagine so, so this, this form of harassment again, key pillar of democracy, the parliamentarians, mainly the opposition, this, the, the media, the media also have been cracked down very hardly in this few years, we, we witness some media outlet have been sat down, and some journalists have been on, have been arrested and charged, and civil society organizations and have been also the soul or their activity have been suspended using the, the, the lango, the, the law on associates and NGO law that I mentioned earlier, and, and on a reason that have been recently have been fresh a lot of censorship but also target because they speak out or they, they speak related to the COVID-19 virus and, and the diamond, you know, employ the fat new accusation again. So, yeah, in short, in short, I just want to emphasize that there have been a legislative development that restrict the space, the judiciary form and also other form of intimidation that affect the ability of 10 million citizens to exercise our fundamental freedom. Thank you. Well, thank you, Sapeep. And Patrick, I would turn to you and ask you the same question. There's certainly been a lot more coverage, I think, of what's going on in Hong Kong, at least in our neck of the woods. There's certainly been more coverage, you know, but, but then we'll come back. We're starting to get a few questions on the Facebook page, but Patrick, why don't you go ahead and talk about the situation you're facing. Yeah, I mean, like for us in Hong Kong, we saw, like, shrinking space in just like past few months, like, like, after the National Security Law was passed, and actually you did not mention how the law was actually passed was kind of quite a kind of fast. And then also, you see, ranging from student leaders, activists, politicians, teachers, and even church people were targeted. And some of them are related to the, you know, the protests against the anti extradition bill last year, and some actually more related to, you know, actions and also expressions after the National Security Law was passed this year. But the problem is very much like I think very much similar to what we also heard from two other colleagues. It's online, some laws, especially for National Security Law is has a lot of very vague and broad definitions. The police can actually abuse the law very easily, and then we see more often like arrests of people accusing them of violating the National Security Law, arresting them in early morning, early hours. And actually we saw similar practice in mainland China for many years in the past. Those things happen in Hong Kong in a very strange way that we have never seen such things before. And then we are also very concerned about like whether our, you know, judicial independence can still be maintained. This is also a question about after the government can appoint judges to hear National Security Law cases. And actually that would make a huge difference on like how we can ensure that we still have judicial independence. So actually ranging from different areas, we can see very daunting situation here and also for legislators that we see like the legislators, for democracy legislators, they will disqualify and then their colleagues wanted to support them so they quit. So now we only have pro government legislators in the legislature. So you can imagine if you only have pro government legislators, there's no opposition that everything actually is out of control. And then also we can see like Beijing's influence is increasing. Definitely we see there's no way that we can see any improvement if there's no international pressure. And now even like talking here to be honest, who knows, we like the government can accuse me of colluding with foreign forces. I mean, like, even like joining a webinar can be accused of things like that. So it's quite ridiculous, but there's something very similar like what we see in mainland China just like today. As was so convention like the, you know, they're not having the holidays and of course there's no holiday was here in Hong Kong for to mark the International Human Rights Day and also not for China, of course. But today, we also have several main man human rights lawyers and the family members. They were restricted by the police. They were threatening them not to leave their home, not to take part in any events organized by consulate embassies to mark the International Human Rights Day. I mean, the police actually make those be marked quite bluntly. And then also one of the human rights lawyers been taken away and then still nobody know his whereabouts. It's almost like a daily situation getting worse for China and Hong Kong nowadays, then we actually, we can't see when actually we end. It's almost like no end in sight. So it's kind of very worrying. I mean, like, you also see several politicians and activists. They're very prominent ones, very young ones, but they have no choice, but they have to flee Hong Kong. I mean, like, it's something really ridiculous. Imagine like someone would be fleeing Hong Kong to seek asylum from our countries. So I would say the situation is just pretty grooming and then Well, you know, you know, I'm often reminded that there are that there are, excuse me that there are that we almost have to start at the bottom of the discussion here. And when I say that, what I mean is that, you know, we're reminded when we get on an airplane, you know, that we first have to put our own face mask on and then we help the people around us. And I think that that's a one of the reasons I started the conversation with the discussion of the neighborhood is that, you know, that's how we help each other. And that, you know, freedom of expression is, you know, this is this is a virtual example of a little community. You know, and we have to do what we can do. I mean, there's only so much we can do against a police department. You know, when I when I think back in the history of the United States, you know, they would communicate with one another in secret. You know, but the whole point is to keep the network together. You know, so some of the questions that we're getting. You know, some of the questions that we're getting from on Facebook is, you know, what role, you know, what role do these kind of private networks. If you're facing oppression, you know, how do we build up a private network of people that are like minded who will work together. You know, because at the end of the day, I think that the oppressive governments and I don't care who they are, you know, oppressive governments, or I would say sometimes we see in countries oppressive private organizations that are allied with the who basically do the government's dirty work for them. You know that these are that that we have to figure out ways to make a domestic a family and Indonesian a Cambodian, a Chinese argument for human rights. It's not just international. This is human rights is how we relate to one another. So the so one of the questions in particular is, you know, how do we, how do we build out those those private networks and how do we protect one another in that process. Yeah, so in our experience that we see there is not only Indonesia as we already speak here, there's some people from Cambodia from Hong Kong that have been the similar problem. And we know that in Southeast Asia or even in Asia right now we are in the situation of not a really good state that the freedom of expression is being threatened and we are in the time of the civic shrinking space. So, in contrast, we usually gather the solidarity and we are trying to engage as wide as possible. The international community that we can engage regarding the situation that happened from our domestic level. For example, when we had a massive demonstration that happened last year, we called that reform as a corrupted or reform as a decorum see. We also try to engage with those people that actually doing the same similar thing that happened in Hong Kong. And with what happened this year when we had the status of demonstration to protest regarding the enactment of the omnibus bill. We also gather with the people in Thailand and then also in other region in Southeast Asia and Asia in general. Because we know that in Asia we have a similar pattern of past human rights violations. We have the similar patterns on how actually the government trying to camouflage their authoritarianism with how the development is ongoing and about how they actually have their own perspective on human rights. But the thing is when we are actually doing the human rights work with the international standards that we have to also engage with the other people from the other side of the region. For example, from the international community from the Europe and then from the American as well to also having a capacity building and then exchanging back practices regarding how to protect ourselves. Because for example in Indonesia we don't have a very fruitful experience in protecting ourselves when we are being attacked in a digital arena. So we engage with the people that already you know tech savvy in the other part of the country for example with the American and then with the other organization from Europe. So we can also have the similar ability to protect ourselves in the digital arena and how to protect ourselves when we are actually doing our practicing our rights for the freedom of expression assembly. For example, when we know that in the other country there are a lot of demonstration as well like in America and in the US and then also in the other part of the country. We also try to encourage ourselves to also do the same and how to actually adopting ourselves when something happened to us. So if we are not be able or we are failed to protect ourselves or you know like doing advocacy for ourselves inside the country we have another people from outside the country across the country to also speak to our rights so we can do the same to them. So usually, for example, if there are a lot of people like thousands of people being arrested in Indonesia during the status of demonstration last month. We try to engage with the other organization in Asia and other countries to also raise the awareness raise the concern to the Indonesian government to you know release those people that being arrested by the government. That's like the example of what we do usually. Very good. I have a, I have a question from Susie from Cambodia, who's asking about, you know, what can, what can all of us do from overseas, you know, to to bring pressure and to get to help people out. I have a related question by Charles King, who has asked about a question that I'm very involved with which is, you know, how do we bring attention to in our own respective countries to the situation in yours, you know, and in particular, the issue of forced immigration in places like Xinjiang, you know, how do we, how do we make it. How do we make concern for human rights in Hong Kong, for example, a local issue here in the United States or a local issue in Cambodia. Patrick, what would you suggest because the Chinese government is particularly, you know, it gets particularly angry at people like me who it believes are meddling in its internal affairs. I mean, like, I have to first to thank you for raising, I mean, like, concern for China in Hong Kong. It's like, I think that the most important thing is to keep on raising international human rights standards. So, like, measure on like how we can pressure on governments like China in Hong Kong. The reason I'm saying this is that they sign and rectified a number of international treaties, and they're actually also members of the United Nations, and then even China is also a member of the UN Human Rights Council. And there's actually zero excuse, there's no excuse for them to say, sorry, I don't follow your standards. Just you sign and rectify them. And even like for some of those treaties, they even like put them in the domestic laws to, you know, to, you know, although not that perfect, but still they will include elements in their laws. So how can they still make any excuse at all. So for like the Xinjiang, exactly like for forced labor, the most important questions that we always ask people to ask. Okay, we don't want to argue the substance with you first. Why don't you give and give access to independent human rights experts. And proper tools to have access to do the independent investigation. I'm not even arguing your point, but you just allow access. But even that that would be a big questions on like where the China would allow. It would imply this would say, like the situation in Hong Kong, whether you allow Hong Kong to have an impartial debate. I mean, like among citizens here and also with people overseas about what's happening in Hong Kong, there's always just one single voice from Beijing and the Hong Kong government. It would be patriotic to the government. And that is actually only promoting nationalism, you're not actually promoting any forms of international cooperation, or you know, respect of any international human rights standards. So if you don't hold on to those principles, you just not a member of the international community. Is that the case, but that's not the case because if we are now living in a global village. We are all connected. So that's no way that you can just like step aside. No, you don't bother us. Only like always have the excuse of say don't interfere with our internal affairs that is always the excuse from Chinese government. But come on me like it's already 21st century is no longer like the way they how they want to operate the country. In the like 70 years ago in Norway. So I think like that's something what we should continue to pressure the government is to respect human rights international standards. That's something that you have international obligations to obey. Yeah, thank you. Well, you know, so people, you know, you have described I think very nicely, you know the challenges that you're facing in Cambodia, and how, you know, as the government kind of tightens control, you know, basically what we see and we see this in many, many different places. You know that that I think the Chinese government has been explicit, you know, on this point, that they have a just a completely different view of human rights than everybody else does. And basically you can do what you're free to do what the government wants you to do you're free to talk about what the government wants you to talk about. And my question is, you know, what can we be doing to to help you all, you know, in very practical ways. I mean, what ways are going to be actually effective in putting pressure on a government like Cambodia's, because just talking about international human rights treaties, they don't care if they actually cared. We wouldn't be having this conversation. You know so what you know what what specifics. Can we do that are unique to each of the countries that you're in. You know that would would be helpful because we have questions about you know what do we do from the outside. What do we do to help you on the inside so some people I'm going to shut up and listen to what you have to say. Thank you probably before I answer directly to your question I want to also join to other earlier question that concerning you know how do we protect the network internally, but also the question regarding how the diaspora, the Cambodian diaspora can support our work as well as your question how you can support our work so I will try to address all but when it comes to the to to the first point regarding how we can protect our network. I think from our experience so far especially within the shoe year that we have witnessed the first time ever you know the massive crackdown against civil society actor like I mentioned, you know, all the key pillar have been crackdown at the same time so it is the whole one that we can run to to protect each other. So how can civil society, organization like Earth, the why, and how, you know, human right defender can be supported so the experience that we have been through is, you know, like affirming that joint advocacy similar to what you have joined A4 in how we advocate for certain campaigns, certain course is really important and I think that is the opportunity or the gold side from the dark side during this last test crackdown is that I witnessed the increasing of how civil society organizations and come together. Before you know like we we we also work together but not not in the shoe year where civil society realize the need to come together to work more closely together to protect the space with with with I find it is an opportunity. And you know, like, beyond that is to strengthen our resilient system, the resilient system here, I think in the past, human right, and I say something like, like, our cell don't even realize the need, you know, to make sure to, to, to, you know, to strengthen or mitigate the risk again our cell we often look look look to other factor like our role as human right organization we have to protect other community, we don't aware the need or to step back. What do we need for our cell to strengthen our capacity, so I incorrect the civil society actor in the region or elsewhere you know to to to look back on our cell, what do we need to strengthen our capacity so that you know we can be able to to to to be resilient to continue our operation, not just operation but the mandate to support other human right defender. So strengthen the human right defender protection mechanism and when I say human right defender protection mechanism is to be a holistic approach, not just extend the legal support to the community, but also other humanitarian that also extend to their family member as well and activists are in trouble that family member in it and that is the role of civil society like this can extend to them. And third, is a key component and some some civil society like us fell to look in the past is the mental health support the mental health that we should invest, not just for the community, but for our own stuff for our own organization as well so that we are in the die mental health see you as and how can we protect other so it's really important to look within our cell and then also work with external actor in a way that we can be resilient together and that that that have been our experience so far. So the diaspora effort you know how how diaspora community can can can help us. I think it's really important for diaspora to stay close to the sea basin by watching out by following the sea basin closely, but mostly to look at the reliable source of information. I think there's a lot of time. It's very polarized, very polarized in the way that you know the diaspora often tend to either pro garment or fully anti the government with what is very dangerous in any society so I incorrect diaspora to watch out the reliable source of information to stay close to how human rights see you as and develop and how best that they can stand out with civil society and when I say stand out with civil society here is very important that the diaspora community have to listen have to support to the local community in this at view a lot of time I heard a lot of you know call out from from the obviously saying that why don't local people, especially for Cambodian company, why don't people stand up, why don't we go to protest, why people stay silent. I think we have to understand the local content. We have to listen to the how local people could could could do and support in a way that you know it be a momentum, not not building a confrontation a further confrontation because there's always class. I am and when I say that I did not mean to put blame on diaspora please don't don't misunderstood my point, but my, my, my point here is that we need the diaspora support to stand out with civil society, but listen to local community to respect the local decision, because we are inside while you are outside so I think that is really important and finally to your question, I think it's really important for international community to also stand out with civil society. There are challenging time when you know like certain international community would speak publicly saying that well we support human right community but at the same time, you do bilateral increasing the support to the government in a different way, it send a different message that you know like look, often the government especially in Cambodian contact they would say that the human right organization criticizing the government, but look, you know, we receive further aid, we you know, go support from this country or that country so I incorrect that you know the international community to stay consistent with, with, with the way that you stand with civil society don't send a different, don't send a message that would contradict your, your, your message to support with civil society and secondly is to, you know, like to, to, to, to make a concerted effort among other international community. I know that the US have been one of the outstanding country to calling our human right abuse often and US and few other like EU for example have been, have been a spotlight by the government saying that you, you always want to interfere our internal, so, so, so, so, but I think it's, it's really important that you stay with your line with your position to respect, I mean in principle with human right, you know, continue to, to, to stand with that position and make a concerted effort with other international community so that you are not alone as well, but it makes a stronger voice as international community when there's a human right abuse happen. And just finally, the other point that international community can do as well, like the US content is to set as example, I think, be example in human right as a respect in your country as well because there are some occasion, authoritarian government in other country would say, look, what happening in, in US, what the president have been saying, you know, again, media, what, what the US is crackdown on protesters, for example, so the government here, they often, you know, like, look back and say, again, the human right community, you never criticize US, you know, look, what happened in US, you call out, you call out again Cambodian government that there's human right abuse but look, what happening in US so I'm sorry to put it in, in a very direct way but you know, like being an example in term of human right respect in your country would also help us here, you know, to look, look at the US, you know, they respect human right. There's no question when it comes to the crackdown on fundamental freedom so yeah, I would end here. Thank you. Well, you know, the, the one thing that, that really strikes me as we go through this so there's a couple more really interesting questions that people have had. This is about, you know, what role does the students play, you know, another one from an Iranian friend who, who says, you know, look, you know, here we are in a country like Iran, you know, where, where, where Islam and nationalism are being used as an excuse, to shut down conversation, you know, and the, you know, what I'm reminded of is, is the importance of leaders like you. And, and when, when you think about what is it that each of us contributes. I mean that the students have a lot of time, they have a lot of time they have a lot of energy, you know, but unfortunately a lot of times they're not very focused, you know, and that's why you need leaders and that of course, in places like China they show up at three o'clock in the morning and take away the leaders. You know, and, and so leadership is, you know, and your comments saw people about the diaspora. I mean I deal with diaspora groups all the time. And, and they can be difficult, you know, because they're remembering what it was like, but they don't live there. You know, and so the question of how, how do you work, you know, how do we work together. You know, even those of us who live here in the United States we're privileged to live here. You know, but the one thing I would remind people is that the media is no less subject to criticism than anybody else's. And the one thing I would like to say is, look, I can criticize anybody I want I'm not going to go to jail for it. You know, I mean the you can criticize the president you can criticize the Supreme Court, you know, but the whole point is that when we actually act locally. I mean I'll give you the example of the question that that Mr. King asked about forced labor. You know, one of the things that we're going to do here in the United States is start encouraging our own labor unions and encouraging big importers say look we don't want to buy stuff. I mean, I'm not willing to pay a discount price. If that discount comes from slave labor, you know, and that gives me another way in which to attack governments that oppress their people. So I think stop if you were, you were talking specifically about the kinds of things that that could be done for Tia what about you know what are the kinds of things we could be doing to get the point across perhaps economically. You know to the government of Indonesia that that, you know, bad human rights is bad for business. Yeah, so actually one of the strongest message or one of the strongest advocacy that we usually do, since in contrast we also focusing on the international advocacy. So we are always encouraging the other countries government actually to raise the concerns recommendations in the UN forum. For example, like in the UPR process and then also in the other, you know, a session like for example human rights session and we know that Indonesia is also one of the members of the Human Rights Council, and then also the non permanent members of the UN Security Council but that's only like, you know, very, like, you know, very good figures of Indonesia on how they are really in the international level but the thing is, how about the realization of the, you know, of the human rights values and everything in domestic level. So we always encouraging the other government to also raise the concern what from what we have been documented in the domestic level, how the situation inside of the country and how they can support us in those kind of forum like a big forum. In the U.S. Security Council or in the Human Rights Council session and on and on the other forum that Indonesia is really, you know, committed to like for example, there are a lot of, you know, a lot of forum that we are actually involved there. So, for example, when Fanwatu at Malaysia and General Assembly raising a concern about Papua, we are really appreciating that because we know that not so many people even in the international level it's very difficult to access the information about what happened in Papua. And we are really appreciating about what Fanwatu already, you know, mentioned about the situation that ongoing in Papua. And that's what actually we need, even though the Indonesia will raise the concern about this states of vanity and it's non-interference principle, but the thing is it's not an interference because they are only raising the concern. They're only giving them recommendation and that's what you undo actually. And that's the forum to give state by state recommendation to each other. So I think that's a very good opportunity for, you know, like reflection to the Indonesian government on how they should do better regarding their enforcement on human rights in line with the international human rights standards. Because now in Indonesia, we know that the government is still having a perspective that human rights is a Western product and they have their own definition about human rights itself. So it's very difficult for us actually to talk about the situation on human rights based on the international standards, even though they already rectify so many convention and covenant, but it's never become, you know, their own standards, even though it's already adopted. But Indonesian government always have their own definition. Like you mentioned, for example, like in Iran when religion and then also nationalism become their own value that really, you know, being prioritized. That's also happening in Indonesia. For example, when we speak about that penalty, one of the legitimate legitimacy that they are actually raising is about in Islam, that penalty is still being accepted. So Islamic values and then also about nationalism is to two things that really influencing the policy making in Indonesia and not human rights. And it's very concerning for us, even though actually we know we engage with several religious leaders about how actually human rights being taught by the religion as well. But the majority of the Islamic religion it is actually also limiting about the space for the people to speak and then also it's segregating the other minority groups rights to speak about their rights as well here. Now this is this is the, this is one of the things that I think is very important. I mean, and I can tell you as a human rights lawyer that what people on the outside like me, and people who want to advocate for you, I can tell you two things. The first thing we need is facts on the ground. I mean, you know, unfortunately, I've been involved in many, many human rights discussions where we're talking, you know, it's like flying in an airplane at 50,000 feet. You know, you don't really see what's happening on the ground, you get these very high, you know, high ideas. You know what I want to know is what the policeman acts due to citizen why, you know, and I want to know why they did it, you know, and how they did it. You know, and in my conversations, especially with with Iranian human rights activists, you know, Islam is a kind of is a religion that takes justice very seriously. I think the fact that leaders are unjust is is exactly, you know, we want examples of how people are unjust. You know, and that's why I mentioned the, the, the, I mentioned that the United States government tries to call out individuals, you know, but we need facts, you know, we need the names we need names of the policemen, you know, and, and maybe I'm not I'm most of the time I'm not going to be the best person to be the messenger. I'm not Chinese, you know, I'm not Cambodian, I'm an American, you know, and so as soon as I say something they're going to say you're an outsider and mind your own business. You know, but at the end of the day, it's all about the welfare of the people of your community. That's why I started about the neighborhood. You know, and you got to convince your neighbors. You know, if you don't do don't convince the international community. Our job is to help you convince your neighbors. Because without them you're not going to get, you know, much of anywhere. Patrick, I think I'm going to give you the last word here because I think we're just about out of time. And so, you know, how would you like to wrap this up for us. Well, I just want to say I'm very much impressed by Fatih and also Sophie. I mean, like the points that actually they raise a very much relevant to our situation and then I mean like for consistency is very important. And very often we say, okay, the Chinese government or the Hong Kong government would not bother about international criticism, but actually it's not the case. As I've been like to a number of, you know, a UN meetings, the committee against torture and several other occasions. You see, the Chinese government send a huge delegation with high ranking officials attending the meetings. If they don't care, they would not spend so much money on that. So I think like that is actually a very good explanation to see they do care and actually also all the statements that you issue and also criticism from abroad, they all care, but they just pretend they don't care. And I think that's one of the common tactics by over entirely. That is, I think that's exactly right. They wouldn't spend the money and it's really if you want to help us do anything. It's help us to understand what they care about. If you want to help you, you know, that's why I said put your own face mask on first and then we have the people around us, you know, but in any event, I believe we're out of time I want to thank you so much for your participation this this this evening. I wish you all a really good evening and thank you to everybody who raised questions online. It was a great way to at least on your side of the world to to bring the celebration of human rights day to a close here in the United States it's early in the morning and and and so we will be we're inspired as we celebrate human rights day here by your experience we thank you for your participation and for your leadership and and please know that we're here to support you. And have a good evening. Thank you very much for the opportunity to have a good day. Yes. Okay, thank you all.