ICC NOTE: Protesters stand outside of Sunnyland, California to ensure ASEAN leaders see their opposition towards the many dictatorial regimes present for the summit between President Obama and Southeast Asian leaders. ICC has reported on religious persecution from all but one of the 10 members of ASEAN and of those only two leaders were democratically elected. The call for religious freedom to be a point of discussion was made prior to the summit however, reports suggest the only area of human rights which were discussed was ‘a commitment to high labor and environmental standards’. the President has a unique opportunity to build his legacy of someone who champions religious freedom if he were to only make it one of the focal points to the summit in which he requested. 

2/16/2016 United States (VOA) – As U.S. President Barack Obama greeted leaders of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations at the Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California Monday, protesters outside said they want human rights at the top of the agenda.

Obama told the leaders gathered for the two-day summit on trade and security issues that his administration has rebalanced its foreign policy toward Asia and the Pacific. “This has included engagement with Southeast Asia and ASEAN, which is central to the region’s peace and prosperity,” the president said, “and to our shared goal of building a regional order where all nations play by the same rules.”

Among the hundreds of protesters outside, many were from Cambodia, where Prime Minister Hun Sen has dominated politics for 30 years. “We are here today to send a clear message to Hun Sen that we don’t support communists, we don’t support a dictator, we don’t support a tyrant,” said Bona Chhith of the Cambodian American Alliance. “Hun Sen must go,” he said.

Others criticized the government of Laos, and Vietnam’s dominance over Laos and its others neighbors. “Vietnam, go home,” said one protester. “Laos belongs to Laos.”

The 2014 coup in Thailand drew protests over the inclusion in the meeting of the Thai prime minister, Prayut Chan-o-cha. Thai-American Chao Suethae said of the country’s leader, a former general, “He shouldn’t come to [such a] free land as the United States. The dictator should not stay in this free country.”

An American who served in the US Army during the Vietnam War, Ruben Treviso of the American GI Forum, worried that the sacrifice of fallen soldiers would be in vain if these trade talks are not tied “to human rights.”

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