Radio Free Asia
Source: Radio Free Asia
Authoritarian regimes are increasingly making use of regional cooperation organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to bolster each other’s regime security in the name of counter terrorism, experts told a recent seminar, reported Radio Free Asia.
In an Orion Policy Institute online seminar held days after Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping returned from a leadership summit of the regional Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), experts said authoritarian regimes are increasingly bolstering each other's domestic security in the name of pursuing "terrorists", "separatists" and "extremists."
Edward Lemon, assistant professor of international affairs at Texas A&M University, said authoritarian regimes rarely act alone, often relying on bilateral cooperation with local governments and regional organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), noted Radio Free Asia.
"Authoritarian regional organizations are built around the codification of authoritarian norms," Lemon told an online seminar run by the Institute on Sept. 28. "They bypass human rights, facilitate swift extraditions and bolster regime protections."
"In some cases [they actually grant] extraterritorial powers to law enforcement to physically go into the jurisdiction of members of an international organization ... and extradite or ... render and take back members of the diaspora," he said.
He said such groupings often form platforms for sharing information about overseas activists and run joint investigations into individuals who are seen as a threat to a regime.
"[This] privileges ... regime security over any concerns over individual human rights or the countries' obligations to international human rights law or norms," Lemon said. He said the top priority of the SCO is to combat "terrorism", "extremism" and "separatism," which are all terms derived from China's national security framework.
Once an organization is listed as a terrorist organization by one of the member states, it will be labelled a terrorist organization by all member states, he said.
Read the complete news here.
Edited & Collated by Team TRC