Organized by Raoul Wallenberg Institute and SEA Junction on 9 December 2023
My name is Phil Robertson, and I am the Deputy Director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. I want to thank Lia and SEA Junction, and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, for organizing this film festival, and inviting me to speak.
We are Human Rights Watch are big fans of promoting human rights through film.
We recently marked our 30th Anniversary of the HRW Film Festival, which regularly screens films in over 15 cities around the world. We think film festivals like this one today help bear witness to human rights violations via a direct storytelling and exposé form. This creates a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with knowledge about a particular situation, and build a bridge or connection that can galvanize people to act.
The reality is that we are dealing with a world that reads less, and watches more. My daughter says that I need to start using TikTok. I am resisting 😊.
We’re in a world that is overwhelmed with information, and sometimes disinformation, yet wants to be stimulated, engaged, entertained.
We’re in a world where human rights abuses are clearly on the rise, not just in Asia but across many regions – just as we’re on the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which comes tomorrow – and as the world seems to have fewer answers on how to promote and protect human rights.
And what’s visual is increasingly what matters. Look at the situation of Burma, starting in the coup in February 2021. During the first 4 months – lots of visuals of street protests, artists, innovative demonstrations, and stand offs with the military – recorded by the people themselves on mobile phones, conveyed to the world by internet. Then the crackdown started in mid to late March, and the military coup group, the SAC, started arresting people taking video, pursuing and imprisoning journalists, and initiating internet stoppages.
As the video and images started to dry up, other stories came up – and the world began to look away. And ever since then, we have been fighting to get the attention of the world back on Burma.
But instead, the world is focused on the latest visual thing, the latest big news – right now, that’s war in Gaza. Before the Hamas attack on October 7, it was the war in Ukraine.
Film also gets to the under reported people, areas, and groups – like the fisherman and his family facing environment devastation in the Tonle Sap, or migrant workers risking everything, or refugees, or stateless persons.
It’s not a coincidence that collectives of photographers and film makers have developed among the Rohingya, confined amid the desperation of Kutapalong refugee camp in Bangladesh They want to tell their story, so they turn to photographs and film.
So, let’s salute the filmmakers, and the journalists, who are trying to get human rights issues and messages to the public, and create a world where human rights, equality and non-discrimination, development and justice are leading the way, rather than falling behind.
Now I want to hear from the movie makers because they are the real reason that we’re here.
Thank you!
*Author Bio
Phil Robertson is the Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. He oversees the organization’s work throughout Asia, with special focus on Southeast Asia and the Korean peninsula. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 2009, he worked for fifteen years in Southeast Asia on human rights, labor rights, protection of migrant workers, and counter-human trafficking efforts with a variety of non-governmental organizations, international and regional trade union federations, and UN agencies (see further https://www.hrw.org/about/people/phil-robertson) .He can be reached at email: RobertP@hrw.org, mobile phone: (+66) 85-060-8406.
