As governments across East and Southeast Asia tighten restrictions on activism and association, civic space is rapidly shrinking. Leah Lin, founder of the Asia Citizen Future Association, explains how Taiwan’s democracy faces its own contradictions and why slowing the decline of freedoms may be the most radical act left.
From the streets of Jakarta to Bangkok’s Victory Monument and Manila’s main thoroughfares, the past year has seen a wave of protest across East and Southeast Asia. Yet, these movements have also been met with increasingly sophisticated state responses: arrests, surveillance, and laws that redefine dissent as disorder.
Leah Lin has spent years analysing how activists navigate these increasingly restrictive conditions. After nearly a decade working with human-rights defenders, she founded the Asia Citizen Future Association (ACFA) in 2022. “We wanted to find a way to connect Taiwan and Southeast Asia,” she explained, “not just to exchange ideas, but to work on concrete issues together.”
Closing Doors, Rising Risks
Those issues have only grown more urgent. Since Myanmar’s military coup in 2021, the junta’s security forces have killed over 2,000 protesters and arrested at least 14,000 people. Thousands of activists have fled to the Thai border.
In the Philippines, the practice of “red-tagging” (labeling activists, journalists, and human rights defenders as communist sympathizers or terrorists) has intensified. Between July 2022 and April 2024, media watchdogs documented approximately 135 incidents of attacks and threats against media workers.
Vietnam’s cybersecurity law and Thailand’s proposed NGO regulations make organizing increasingly difficult. In October 2024, Thailand’s Ministry of Interior introduced a draft Act on Associations and Foundations requiring all civil society organizations to register or face criminal penalties. The proposed law would also mandate a minimum of 30 members to form an association, impose strict rules on foreign funding, and allow authorities to dissolve groups for vague reasons, such as actions “contrary to public morality” or those that “may endanger national security.”
“Governments in East and Southeast Asia are learning from each other,” Lin said. “They’ve become more skillful at controlling civic life, not through open violence, but through regulation and technology.”
Laws framed around cybersecurity, counterterrorism, or money laundering are increasingly used as weapons against NGOs. “In many countries, laws that were once meant to protect are now used against NGOs,” Lin explained.
The result is a chilling effect. “There’s this narrative that NGOs are foreign agents,” she said. “Governments use ‘national security’ and ‘stability’ as justifications, but what they really achieve is to stigmatize activism.”
Taiwan: A Haven That Isn’t One
Many rights groups see Taiwan as a potential safe haven: a democratic country surrounded by authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes. However, the reality is more complicated for those who attempt to relocate their work there.
Last year, ACFA interviewed several organisations from Southeast Asia about the idea of relocating. “Most said they would rather stay in their own countries,” she said. “For them, being close to their community is everything. Relocation is the last resort.”
Still, some are thinking ahead. “There’s a growing sense they might one day need to leave,” Lin said. “They see Taiwan as attractive, but the legal barriers are high.”
Taiwan’s Civil Associations Act, originally enacted in 1942 and revised in 1992 after the end of martial law, remains largely unchanged in its restrictive nature. Despite long-lasting advocacy by civil society, only the Political Parties Act was passed in 2017. Draft laws for social and religious associations remain pending.
“It’s very old and very restrictive,” Lin said. “It’s not made to guarantee people’s rights to organize, it’s made to stop them.”
To start a social organisation, thirty founding members are required, along with a twelve-person board. “It’s like starting a transnational company,” Lin said, laughing softly. “You need thirty friends willing to give their ID copies and pay fees just to form an NGO.”
For foreign groups, the hurdles are even higher. If an NGO from Thailand wants to register here, they must find thirty Taiwanese citizens or “Alien Resident Certificate” holders, she explained. “Otherwise, they can only open a representative office, but that’s not a legal entity. If their home organisation is shut down, the Taiwan office disappears too.”
ACFA is now working with the Taiwan Association for Human Rights to push for an amendment. “We want to abolish the Civil Associations Act and replace it with a Social Organizations Act,” Lin said. “Our goal is to reduce the number of founders from thirty to under ten, as is the case in other countries in the region.”
The idea is not just bureaucratic reform. It’s about making Taiwan’s civic space genuinely open, both for its own citizens and for those seeking safety from repression abroad.
Double Standards
Even within Taiwan, civil liberties can collide with national-security rhetoric. Lin mentioned recent incidents where foreigners were questioned and detained for joining or documenting pro-Palestine protests.
“In Taiwan, foreigners technically have the right to protest,” she said. “But in practice, it depends on who you are and what issue you stand for”, she explained. “Pride Parade every October welcomes foreigners; nobody complains. But if migrant workers protest unpaid wages, it becomes a problem.”
That tension, she argued, mirrors patterns across the region. “Governments use national security to limit protest. It’s the same logic everywhere.”
Regional Solidarity
Each year, ACFA hosts Asia Citizen Future Week, a forum bringing together activists and NGOs from across the region. “It’s a platform for mutual learning,” Lin said. “We invite human-rights defenders, media workers, and civil-society leaders to discuss how to protect civic space.”
In one session, an LGBT activist from the Philippines shared how his perception of Taiwan changed after attending. “He had visited Taiwan many times for LGBT-related events,” Lin recalled. “But he said it was the first time he truly understood Taiwan’s broader civil-society struggles. He realised democracy here didn’t happen automatically, people fought for it.”
For Lin, that realisation captures ACFA’s mission. “We want to build understanding, not just talk about democracy as an ideal, but connect people through shared experience.”
The forums also expose inequalities within international human-rights systems. “Some defenders said the existing protection mechanisms feel colonial,” Lin said. “They depend too much on Western funders and English-speaking networks. We need an Asian mechanism, something built from our own region as well as decolonial funding.”
Gen Z Movements
Lin sees hope in the region’s young protesters, from Thailand to Indonesia, who have turned frustration into movement. “They’re not fighting only for democracy,” she said. “They’re fighting for survival, for housing, jobs, and dignity.”
These youth-led demonstrations are often spontaneous, leaderless, and digitally driven. Civil society organizations in Southeast Asia are increasingly using technology, including social media and mobile messaging apps, to mobilize support and coordinate campaigns. However, governments have kept pace with innovations in suppression strategies.
“It’s not the old model of organised protest and it is not civil society-led,” Lin noted. “They share a sense of economic and social injustice across borders. Whether in Japan or Indonesia, young people feel the same: inequality, unaffordable rent, no good jobs.”
“Slowing the Decline”
When asked what gives her hope, Lin paused for a long moment. “Honestly,” she said, “I just don’t want things to get worse too quickly.”
She smiled wryly. “I know it sounds negative, but slowing the decline is already meaningful. We work so that violations happen more slowly, so there’s still time to act.”
That pragmatism, she believes, is what keeps civil society alive. “Success isn’t only when a new law is passed,” she said. “It’s when activists and communities stay connected. When we can still talk, still organise, still believe there’s something worth protecting.”
Antonio Prokscha is a press officer and editor at Amnesty International Austria, currently based in Taipei, Taiwan.
This article originally appeared in New Bloom, an online magazine featuring radical perspectives on Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific.
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