Members of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy's (TFD) 4th Asia Young Leaders for Democracy (AYLD) workshop today adopted a joint declaration vowing to promote democracy and combat democratic recession, as they marked the conclusion of the nine-day workshop in Taipei today.

The declaration issued by the 2017 AYLD’s 20 members, which come from 13 Asian countries and elsewhere, seeks to ensure democracy and fundamental rights in Asia through seven areas. They include combating alternative models of democracy; fighting against disinformation; rejecting extremism; refusing discrimination against migrants, minority groups and the LGBTQIA community; supporting political participation of unrepresented groups; ensuring free and fair elections; and combating uneven development.

“We value democracy for its own sake, and our commitment to these values is non-contingent and doesn’t depend on the false authoritarian promises of economic prosperity, national glory, and the rest,” the declaration reads.

Recognising the threat posed by disinformation to democracy, the declaration calls for an immediate media and information literacy education and fact-checking initiatives. It also stresses the need for support mechanisms from the civil society for LGBTQIA people, as their sexual orientations remain illegal in many Asian countries.

In a bid to translate their ideas into actions, the AYLD participants came up with three action plans that aim at promoting greater regional cooperation and exchange of ideas. The first one seeks to tap into the popularity of Facebook to facilitate information sharing, by creating a community page that will feature democracy-related articles that could later be translated into different Asian languages.

The second plan aims to build regional communities by holding a regular regional joint workshop to pass on firsthand knowledge and how-tos to young human rights defenders, with its main focuses covering cyber security, the utilisation of social media and legal training.

The last one revolves around the fight against disinformation, seeking to hold a series of media and information literacy workshops in schools and organisations that aims to equip young people with skills to combat fake news and disinformation.

As part of their commitment to maintain their network, the AYLD participants proposed the ideas of composing periodical report about their own countries’ situations and meeting up when they visit their respective countries.

In his closing remarks, TFD President Hsu Szu-chien congratulated the participants for finishing the program and praised them for their fruitful achievements.

“We hosted this workshop as yours, not ours. It is for you to make the best of it. No matter what you do in the future, we’ll be very proud of it as long as it serves the purpose of promoting and protecting democracy and human rights,” President Hsu said, expressing the hope that the network of AYLD alumni will continue to grow.

During the nine-day program, the TFD invited many distinguished speakers from the fields of democracy and human rights to share their ideas and experiences with the AYLD participants, including the US' National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman on global democracy recession; the US’ Oklahoma City University Political Science Professor Mohamed Daadaoui on combating extremism; the UK's Aberystwyth University Public Diplomacy Professor Gary Rawnsley on the role of social media in promoting and undermining democracy; and Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances Secretary-General Mary Aileen D. Bacalso on enforced disappearances.

Other lecturers include Taiwan International Queer Film Festival Founder Jay Lin on gay marriage; Taiwan's Awakening Foundation Director Lin Shi-fang on women's political participation in Taiwan; and Taiwanese independent journalist Jason Chih-Hsin Liu on fake news production, among others.