• ijrepjournalism@gmail.com
  • contact@ij-reportika.com
Ij reportika Logo

Month: June 2022

Teachers in Myanmar caught in crossfire as conflict rages

Editor014 mins

Schoolteachers in Myanmar, many of whom joined a national strike to protest the ruling military regime, have been increasingly caught in the crossfire following the February 2021 coup that overthrew the elected government. As of May, at least 40 teachers had been killed, according to the ruling junta. Educators who have gone on strike to oppose the regime and those who have not have both been killed in fighting between soldiers and members of anti-regime militias. At least 10 teachers have been killed in 33 arson attacks in the past two months alone, according to Save The Children, an aid group. About 260 schools and other educational buildings have been attacked since the coup. Now, the junta is asking schoolteachers who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a massive strike by teachers, doctors and other professionals against the military coup, to return to classrooms in schools administered by the regime’s Education Department. Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesman for the junta, told reporters on May 19 that People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), militias that have fought against the military, were to blame for harassing and killing teachers who resumed working after they quit the CDM. Military officials blamed a local militia for the deaths of Moe Moe Khaing, a middle school principal, and Kay Zar Khine, her younger sister, who were killed inside their home in Wetlet township, Sagaing region, on Jun. 6. A spokesman for the Wetlet PDF denied the accusation and condemned the attack. Zaw Min Tun said the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and PDF “terrorists” are behind threats to close down schools. “A total of 504 schools were destroyed by terrorists who blew them up with mines in the last academic year, and 37 school teachers were killed,” he said. Naing Htoo Aung, secretary of the shadow National Unity Government’s Defense Ministry, which oversees PDFs across the country, said he had instructed militias not to attack civilian targets. “We have explicitly instructed our forces to target only military personnel,” he said. “We do not condone such killings of civilians [accused of being] dalan [pro-junta informants].” “We don’t accept this kind of killing although we are carrying out a revolution,” he said. “This is not acceptable. It is not in line with international law. We are launching a revolution because we want democracy. We are taking up arms because we have no choice. We cannot be seen by the international community as a terrorist group.” Naing Htoo Aung also said the NUG would act if it had information about the perpetrators of the attacks. Teachers in uniform take part in a Civil Disobedience Movement demonstration against the military regime that overthrew the elected national government, in Dooplaya district, eastern Myanmar’s Kayin state, May 13, 2021. Credit: AFP/KNU Dooplaya District ‘They do not trust us’ Zaw Min Tun told a news conference in Naypyidaw on June 16 that the regime contacted 3,156 teachers to urge them to return to work. Of these, 379 are high school teachers, 1,005 are middle school teachers, and 772 are primary school teachers. The junta pledged that it would take no action against CDM teachers who have been holding spring classes in NUG-dominated areas if they have not committed any crimes. But some who have quit the CDM and have resumed working for the junta are being monitored, said Chi Cho, a high school teacher in Yangon who joined the CDM in April 2021, but decided to come back due to financial difficulties. “Even though we have to go back to work to earn a living, we’ve noticed that the junta has asked the teachers to keep an eye on each other,” she said. “It shows they do not trust us.” Chi Cho added that teachers who return have not yet received their salaries because they had joined the CDM. Other teachers are adamant about remaining involved in the CDM movement because they do not want to work under the military junta. Salai Nwe Oo, a high school teacher in Falam township in western Chin state, said he will not work for the military regime. “From the very beginning, we had decided not to work under this military dictatorship,” he said. “We did not want to be a tool of a dictator. Therefore, from the beginning, we said we would not return to work until we regained power — never under a military junta.” According to the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation, there were almost 450,000 teachers nationwide in the 2020-21 academic year under the NLD government. About 200,000 teachers took part in the CDM, and about 130,000 of them were fired by the junta last year. Only a small percentage of experienced teachers are returning to classrooms in schools, said an official from the Teachers’ Federation who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Regardless of whether teachers are striking or at work, they face various threats, the person said. “Most employees, whether they are involved in the CDM or not, are facing anxiety, fear and social problems from both sides,” the official said. Sai Khine Myo Tun of the NUG’s Education Ministry said the junta was recalling CDM staff as part of their efforts to reassert control over the country. “They have a big dream to hold elections in 2023 and to form a legitimate government, so they are trying to show that they can provide public services that support the administrative machinery,” he said. “That’s why CDM teachers and other staff are being called back to work. “Teachers and staff fully understand that the junta’s commitment is not to sustain education and develop the country but to establish their governing mechanism,” he said. Students and their parents wait outside the entrance of the No. 3 Basic Education High School in Mingalar Taung Nyunt township, Yangon, Myanmar, June 2, 2022. Credit: RFA ‘These dangerous times’ In the meantime, the NUG has been trying to assist education staff in the CDM who have been threatened with arrest, or have lost…

Read More

Vietnam Communist Party head says officials in bribery scandal apologized

Editor06 mins

Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party, has said that two senior officials caught in a recent bribery scandal apologized to him for their actions but still needed to be punished as a warning to others, state media reported. Trong, who is also a member of the National Assembly for Hanoi, made the comment in a meeting in the capital Hanoi on Thursday, the reports said. But online critics of the government expressed continued frustration with Vietnam’s leadership for not doing more to root out graft in the government and mismanaging the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trong, 78, has been general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) — the highest position in Vietnam — since 2011, and served as the country’s president from 2018 to 2021. As head of the Politburo, Vietnam’s highest decision-making body, he is the most powerful leader in the country. On June 6, the VCP announced it had expelled Hanoi Mayor Chu Ngoc Anh and Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long from the party following accusations that they were involved in a U.S. $172 million scandal. They were paid by Viet A Technologies Company to provide overpriced coronavirus test kits to hospitals. It is not unusual for senior government officials to apologize to the head of the VCP when they face high-profile corruption charges. Oil executive Trinh Xuan Thanh, who was convicted of embezzling assets from units of Vietnam’s state-owned oil company, and Nguyen Bac Son, a former minister of information and communications imprisoned for accepting a U.S. $3 million bribe, both expressed remorse for their actions. Musician Tuan Khanh from Ho Chi Minh City told RFA that the Trong’s response to the Viet A Technologies scandal has been insufficient. “He merely performed a simple act of expressing anguish and regret when the party members and those in top positions were penalized and dismissed from the party,” he said. “That shows Trong is a figure of the party circle with no vision to lead the nation forward but to nowhere.” Hanoi resident Nguyen Son noted that party leaders never apologize to Vietnamese citizens after they are convicted of wrongdoing. “The fact that so far the governing party has disrespected the common people is not new,” he told RFA. “They are afraid that if they apologize or take responsibility for the wrongdoing, it would mean that their power has been diminished. “They never publicly apologize to the people in the media,” he said. “Such a government cannot be said to be of the people, by the people and for the people. It is a government that grasps all power in its hands, so whether they apology or not, nothing can be done about it.” Lawyer and democracy activist Nguyen Van Dai was even more critical of Trong, who he said should accept more responsibility for the actions of officials in his government. “I cannot imagine why as a human he can lose all sense of decency,” he said. “The fact that he thinks all wrongdoing by the officials under him does not at all relate to him is unacceptable.” Dai said their remains a disconnect between the government and the people because under the one-party communist system leaders do not need to face the voters in open elections. Vietnam ranked in 87th place out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perception Index, with a higher ranking corresponding to a widespread perception of corruption in the public sector. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Read More

New prison to house criminals from Laos’ Chinese-run special economic zone

Editor07 mins

People convicted of crimes in the Chinese-run Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in northern Laos, a hotbed of human trafficking and smuggling, will soon serve their sentences in a new prison built by the zone as a gift to its host province. Lao authorities have complained that they cannot easily enter the zone, which operates largely beyond the reach of Lao laws, creating friction with locals. In a ceremony on June 16, the deputy of the zone’s board of directors, Cheng Yu Feng, gave control of the new facility to Bokeo province’s Department of Public Security. “It will be used within the zone. If there are any criminals [in the SEZ] they will be sent to this prison,” she told RFA’s Lao Service on Friday. An official from the security department, who requested not to be named, told RFA that the prison will be used as soon as the facilities are ready. “As of now, the building is not ready yet, and the relevant authorities are discussing how to transfer prisoners there, and how the security system will work,” the official said. The official was unable to comment on how many prisoners are in the zone or where they are being held. Nearby villagers told RFA that the prison is built about three kilometers (1.86 miles) away from the SEZ in Mouangkham village. “Most of the crimes in the zone, as I have observed, are those cases related to human trafficking,” a villager told RFA. “The criminals include Thai, Burmese and Lao citizens in the casino and some of them work as online scammers who chat with victims on social media platforms.” Most of the victims have been Lao nationals lured by middlemen to perform jobs as scammers trying to convince people to invest or buy shares in the Kings Romans Casino. When they couldn’t meet their sales quotas, they were detained against their will, and in some cases sold off to work in the sex industry. The new prison will replace a much smaller one within the zone, another villager told RFA. “There was a three-room prison before this bigger newly built prison,” the villager said. “The former one was located near the road to Bokeo International airport. The old prison also belongs to the zone.” A lawyer told RFA that the prison must be managed by the Ministry of Public Security under Lao laws. “Any Lao law breaker can only be punished by Lao police and officials,” the lawyer said. Lao citizens and foreigners who work in the SEZ also must be tried under Lao laws, the lawyer said. The Golden Triangle SEZ is run by Zhao Wei, chairman of the Dok Ngiew Kham Group, with Zhao’s firm holding 80 percent interest and the Lao government holding 20 percent. Located where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet, the Golden Triangle area got its name five decades ago for its central role in heroin production and trafficking. In 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department declared Zhao Wei’s business network, centered on Kings Romans Casino, a “transnational criminal organization” and sanctioned Zhao and three other individuals and companies across Laos, Thailand and Hong Kong. Zhao’s business “exploits this region by engaging in drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, bribery and wildlife trafficking, much of which is facilitated through the Kings Romans Casino located within the [Golden Triangle] SEZ,” a Treasury statement said. The State Department’s 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report said Laos had increased its efforts to combat trafficking, but fell short in victim identification and screening procedures, and failed to adequately investigate suspected perpetrators of sex trafficking. According to the information from the SEZ board, the new 900 square-meter prison was built in October 2021. It was originally scheduled to be completed in May. There are 30 rooms within the prison, six of which are offices for prison staff. RFA was not able to determine the prisoner capacity of the facility. The new facility was funded and constructed by a Chinese company with the total cost of around 11.37 billion kip (U.S. $764,000). Translated by Phouvong, Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Read More

Arrests in Rakhine raise fears of renewed conflict between military, Arakan Army

Editor011 mins

Residents in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state are increasingly on edge, worried that fighting between the military and the Arakan Army (AA) will soon erupt once again as arrests of personnel from both sides escalate. The national military fought an increasingly bitter war with the AA, which says it is fighting for autonomy for ethnic minority Rakhine people, from December 2018 until a truce was reached in November 2020, months before the army seized power in a February 2021 coup. The coastal state was awash with refugees from that fighting, but stayed relatively quiet for many months while anti-coup protests and fighting by local militias raged across much of Myanmar but tensions started rising in recent months. The military this week detained people who it suspected of having links with the AA in the state capital Sittwe, and Mrauk-U, Ponnagyun and Kyauktaw townships, in response to the AA’s recent arrests of junta soldiers. Since Thursday, the military has been blocking the city gates of Sittwe, after the AA arrested a naval lieutenant and a sailor there. It also shut down waterways from Sittwe to various towns in the state, which borders the Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh.  Police and soldiers are checking hotels, guest houses and residences all over Sittwe looking for suspected AA members. Residents told RFA that at least seven civilians were arrested on Thursday evening. Three civilians, including 46-year-old Oo San Maung, were arrested by 30 soldiers in the Mingan Block 9 area of the city, his son Myo Kyaw Hlaing told RFA’s Burmese Service. “They came to search our house. My father went out to the front of the house and said no one was there,” said Myo Kyaw Hlaing. “They just arrested him without saying a word. Not only my father, two other youths in our ward were arrested.  We have no contact with those arrested yet.” Residents told RFA that three minors and Soe Thiha, a visitor from Taunggup, were arrested in Sittwe on Friday Morning. There have been reports of more civilian arrests but RFA has not been able to confirm this independently. At about 9 p.m. Thursday night, soldiers fired shots at a group of people as they returned to a guest house in the same part of Sittwe, a person in the group told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “One of my friends and I were going back to our guesthouse on a motorbike. Three other guys were on another. The soldiers blocked our path and shouted at us to stop. When we didn’t stop, they fired four or five shots at us,” he said. “The guys on the other motorbike left it and ran away. I was lucky I didn’t lose mine,” said the man, who said he was not hurt in the gunfire. The military arrested more than 20 civilians in Mrauk-U township on Wednesday after the AA arrested three military personnel on Tuesday. “Aa far as we know, some of the civilians they arrested were released that day,” a resident of Mrauk-U told RFA. “We heard that six people were released, and I think there are still more than 10 people detained,” the resident said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The AA arrested a soldier and three policemen in Ponnagyun and Kyauktaw townships between June 16 and 22. In response the army arrested 30 civilians, according to local reports. Among the civilians, sources told RFA that four women were said to have been released, but the rest were still in detention. Other reports said that the AA has arrested more than a dozen members of the police and military in Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw townships, and the military has detained at least 50 civilians over the past few days in retaliation. RFA tried to contact the junta’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, by telephone for comment, but he did not respond. Zaw Min Tun, however, warned the AA at a press conference on May 19 that it would be responsible for the consequences of detaining soldiers. “What we are doing at the moment, the reason we are detaining the Rakhine people, is for their own good. We do not want them to get into trouble,” he told reporters. “I would like to repeat that we are detaining the Rakhine people so that they will not get into trouble. We are patiently working for peace within the union. If anything happens regarding this, don’t blame the military for the consequences,” Zaw Min Tun said. The AA’s spokesman, Khine Thukha, told a news conference on June 14 that AA members were only retaliating against the military for its abuses. “The reason for the arrests is that the Myanmar army raided houses of our ULA/AA members at night time,” he said. The ULA refers to the United League of Arakan, which is the political wing of the Arakan Army. “Some of our troops were detained by the military during last month and this month. That’s why we have arrested their troops. If they keep on doing that, we will retaliate,” he said. He said if the military releases the AA members, the AA would release the soldiers they arrested, but he would not disclose how many each side had arrested. Pe Than, a former member of the state parliament, said the situation in Rakhine was volatile. “It depends a lot on how many more people are going to be arrested in future and how much trouble there will be,” said Pe Than. “If both sides keep on doing this, the number of detainees, which is just a few at present, will become a lot. The arrests might be in groups instead of one or two. And then, as the situation worsens, there could be some clashes that could blow up into renewed fighting,” he said. Pe Than said the military and the AA should negotiate a peaceful resolution before the violence escalates. But tensions between the junta and the AA have been high since early May, with locals and Rakhine politicians concerned…

Read More

Jailed Cambodian American activist is allowed to meet with lawyer

Editor05 mins

A Cambodian American democracy activist jailed in Cambodia on treason charges has been allowed to meet with her lawyer after being transferred last week from the capital to a prison farther north, a move that supporters had feared would isolate her from lawyers and friends, RFA has learned. Now serving a six-year prison term, Theary Seng was sentenced on June 14 together with 50 other activists for their association with the Cambodia National Rescue Party, a group opposing long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen that was banned by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in November 2017. The charges against the activists stem from abortive efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, who has been living in exile in France to avoid convictions in court cases described by his supporters as politically motivated. Theary Seng, who holds citizenship both in Cambodia and the United States, was arrested June 14 while protesting outside the courthouse against the trial that convicted her, and began serving her sentence the same day at Prey Sar Prison in the capital Phnom Penh. Prison authorities later confirmed to RFA that she was then transferred to Preah Vihear Prison in the country’s far north. Blocked by authorities from meeting Theary Seng while she was held in Prey Sar, lawyer Choung Chou Ngy told RFA on Thursday he was recently able to meet his client for about two hours in her new prison, where she said authorities check her health every day. “Around 10 women are being held with her in her cell,” Ngy said. “I told her that people are speaking positively about her on social media, and she said she was grateful for their support. We also discussed details of her case she didn’t know about because of her arrest.” Theary Seng then asked him to file an appeal in her case, which he will submit to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court of Appeal in the next few days, Ngy said. Theary Seng denies the charges of treason made against her, Ngy added. “She said that she has only demanded and fought for respect for human rights and democracy in the interests of society as a whole, and she is being silenced because of her advocacy work.” Also speaking to RFA, Ny Sokha — president of the Cambodian rights group Adhoc — said that Theary Seng should be immediately released. “If the Cambodian government continues to harass and arrest political party activists, this will not look good for Cambodia’s future. More international sanctions will likely be imposed if the situation with human rights is not improved, especially before the next election,” he said. The European Parliament in May adopted a resolution calling on the Cambodian government to stop persecuting and intimidating political opponents, trade unionists, human rights defenders and journalists ahead of local elections in June and national campaigns next year. The ruling Cambodian People’s Party led by Hun Sen is now five years into a no-holds-barred crackdown on its political opposition and civil society, jailing or driving into exile scores of opposition figures. Translated by Sok Ry Sum for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Read More

China steps up anti-NATO rhetoric ahead of Madrid summit, citing ‘Cold War’ ethos

Editor09 mins

China is stepping up anti-NATO rhetoric ahead of the military alliance’s summit next week, calling it a “product of the Cold War” dominated by the United States, while an envoy of leader Xi Jinping is hoping to convince European leaders the country doesn’t back the Russian invasion of Ukraine, analysts said. “NATO is a product of the Cold War and the world’s biggest military alliance dominated by the U.S.,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told journalists in Beijing on June 23, three days ahead of the summit in Madrid. “It is a tool for the US to maintain its hegemony and influence Europe’s security landscape [which] is clearly against the trend of our times,” he said in comments reported in the English edition of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper, the People’s Daily. Wang cast doubt on NATO’s core purpose as a defensive organization, saying it had “willfully waged wars against sovereign countries that left a large number of civilians dead and tens of millions displaced.” “NATO has already disrupted stability in Europe. It should not try to do the same to the Asia-Pacific and the whole world,” Wang said. Wang’s comments came after Zhang Heqing, cultural counselor at the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, commented on a video of tens of thousands of people demonstrating in Brussels against the cost-of-living crisis on June 20, claiming it was a protest against NATO. “Tens of thousands of protesters marched in #Brussels chanting “Stop #NATO” on June 20, expressing anger at the rising living costs & condemning NATO countries’ rush to arm #Ukraine,” Zhang wrote, quote-tweeting the nationalistic Global Times newspaper. ‘Political warfare’ and ‘disinformation’ Teresa Fallon, director of Belgium’s Center for Russian, Europe and Asian Studies, said the march had had nothing to do with NATO. “The protests had nothing at all to do with NATO, but Beijing is using this form of political warfare or disinformation in the run-up to the NATO summit which takes place next week,” Fallon told RFA. “This type of clunky propaganda nevertheless may be believed by some people,” she said, adding that China shares its view of NATO with its ally Russia. The stepped-up rhetoric appears somewhat at odds with apparent attempts by the CCP under Xi Jinping to mollify European leaders, sending special envoy Wu Hongbo to meet with key figures ahead of the NATO summit. “Dispatching his special envoy to Europe for a three-week charm tour was just one of many acts of high-stakes damage control ahead of the 20th CCP Congress this autumn,” Atlantic Council president Frederick Kempe wrote in a commentary for CNBC ahead of the summit. “Xi’s economy is dangerously slowing, financing for his Belt and Road Initiative has tanked, his zero-Covid policy is flailing, and his continued support of Russian President Vladimir Putin hangs like a cloud over his claim of being the world’s premier national-sovereignty champion as Russia’s war on Ukraine grinds on,” Kempe wrote. “Xi’s taking no chances ahead of one of his party’s most important gatherings, a meeting designed to assure his continued rule and his place in history,” the article said, citing recent meetings between Wu and European business leaders as evidence of a more conciliatory approach by Xi. Fallon agreed. “I would say that there is a disillusionment across the board with China,” she said. “Beijing is attempting a diplomatic dance where they try to convince Europeans that they really aren’t supporting Russia.” “In reality, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth, trying to tell the Europeans one thing, while at the same time supporting Russia,” she said, adding that Beijing is the biggest customer for Russian energy, and those sales contribute to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war coffers. Problems at home Craig Singleton, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Beijing’s current foreign policy is largely driven by pressing problems at home. “Global public opinion of China sits at record lows and Chinese leader Xi Jinping refuses to leave the country to meet with other world leaders,” Singleton told RFA. “Making matters worse is that China’s economy, long in decline, is really now in freefall on account of Xi’s financial mismanagement.” “This most recent outreach to EU capitals is reflective of growing recognition in Beijing that its wolf-warrior tactics have undermined China’s economic position with Europe, one of China’s most important trading partners, and that China needs the European market and European consumers to help get itself out of its current economic mess,” he said. While Germany’s current government had sent a number of “mixed signals” about its views on China since taking office, Berlin would likely ultimately rethink its relationship with Beijing, as it has already done with Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine, Singleton said. “China’s attempts to reset its relationship will be seen in Europe as insincere and likely leading to a continued erosion of the relationship,” he added. “Making matters worse is that European frustrations with China’s equivocations on Russia and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, [so] anger is growing against China from lots of European capitals, and there is no indication that China is rethinking its support for Russia’s invasion,” he said. Singleton said the growing willingness of European countries to enhance trade and investment ties with democratic Taiwan in recent months “will almost certainly irritate Beijing,” and lead it to lash out in ways that were inimical to its own foreign policy goals in Europe. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Read More

Former journalists for Hong Kong’s folded Apple Daily take reporting to social media

Editor09 mins

One year after the paper was forced to shut down and several senior editors arrested by national security police, former reporters at Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper are still writing the stories the paper might have run, and posting them to social media. Journalist Alvin Chan, who uses the hashtags #AppleDaily and #keeponreporting on his Facebook page, posted a report showing a small group of people gathered outside the now-empty headquarters of Jimmy Lai’s Next Digital media empire late on Thursday night. “A group of former Apple Daily reporters happened to show up at the same time outside the … empty Next Digital building tonight … and took photos,” Chan wrote. “Then, suddenly, several police vehicles arrived at the scene, sirens blaring, so they left, leaving other journalists there still reporting.” Chan isn’t the only former Apple Daily staffer reporting on news that would be considered in breach of a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. Former colleague Leung Ka Lai has started a Patreon page, and continues to post reports to her Facebook page, including interviews with leaders of the 2019 protest movement that prompted Beijing to tighten its grip on the former British colony. “I’m not reconciled to this, no,” Leung told RFA. “How can they just use such violent methods to eliminate a media organization?” “The Apple Daily shouldn’t be allowed to just disappear like this,” she said. “I figured there had to be some work I can keep on doing.” Employees, executive editor in chief Lam Man-Chung (L) and deputy chief editor Chan Pui-Man (C) cheer each other in the Apple Daily newspaper office after completing editing of the final edition in Hong Kong, June 23, 2021. Credit: AFP ‘The spirit of those times’ Leung has published around 40 reports on her page since the paper closed, most of them about the aftermath of the 2019 protest movement, many of them based on interviews with arrestees and protest leaders. “They say the protesters are a forgotten group, but their experiences are actually representative of the spirit of those times,” Leung said. “My specialty is doing in-depth profiles … I think it’s very important to write down what happened to them, and preserve their thoughts and experiences.” “It feels more like a record, like the role of a storyteller, writing down their stories,” she said. Leung said she is trying to put into practice the ethos of the protest movement, summarized as a quote from late martial arts legend Bruce Lee, “be water.” “To be a human being, you need principles, and lines beyond which you won’t go,” Leung said. “If the biggest lesson Hong Kong people took from 2019 was to be water, then this needs to be integrated into everyday life, not just be a slogan.” Chan has dedicated his page to reporting on the progress of thousands of cases from the 2019 protest movement through the Hong Kong judicial system. “I like being a reporter, so I think that by reporting on cases from the public gallery, I can offer something like a glimmer of light that lets each other know we exist,” Chan said. “I don’t know if you can call it a sense of mission; it’s more the method I have chosen to use,” he said. Sensitive topics bring personal risk Chan, who remains in Hong Kong, said he still needs to consider his personal risk under the national security law. “I need to think about the dangers and risks behind some reports, and won’t touch any of the more controversial or sensitive topics,” he said. “I hesitate and struggle over whether to report certain Hong Kong-related events in foreign countries,” he said. “It’s a tough, rugged and difficult road to travel, that of an independent journalist.” “It means more risks at a time when there is little room for 100 flowers to bloom,” Chan said, in a reference to the criminalization of public dissent under the national security law. “But it makes what we are doing as reporters more meaningful,” he said. “Journalists write the history of a particular time, so I want to preserve the truth for the next generation, including my own.” According to a June 22 report from the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), Hong Kong’s rating under three measures of civil and political rights has plummeted since the survey began in 2019. Hong Kong’s score for the “right to assembly and association” fell from 4.5 in 2019 to 3.1 in 2020, and then to 2.5 in 2021. The city’s rating for the “right to hold and express opinions” and “right to participate in politics” fell by 2.7 and 2.4 respectively in 2021, putting all three indicators in the “very poor” category. The draconian national security law imposed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020 has sparked a crackdown on pro-democracy media organizations. After Lai’s Next Digital media empire was forced to close, the crackdown has also led to the closure of Stand News and Citizen News, as well as the “rectification” of iCable news and government broadcaster RTHK to bring them closer to Beijing’s official line. Hong Kong recently plummeted from 80th to 148th in the 2022 Reporters Without Border (RSF) press freedom index, with the closures of Apple Daily and Stand News cited as one of the main factors. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Read More

Hundreds forced to flee after troops torch homes in Magway

Editor03 mins

Man Gyee Lay Pin village, Mying township, Magway region was burned down by junta forces and affiliated Pyu Saw Htee groups on June 22, 2022. CREDIT: Mying Villages Revolution Front (MVRF) More than 500 residents of Kan Nat village were forced to flee when military forces and junta-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee members torched nearly all of its 115 homes. More than 80 soldiers and members of the affiliated militias raided the village in Magway region’s Mying township on June 15, and set fire to three houses, according to local residents. The following day they burned down more than 90 houses, leaving few homes standing, according to a resident who did not want to be named for safety reasons. “There are about 115 houses in the village, but nearly 100 were set on fire by the military and Pyu Saw Htee groups. They had weapons and we were afraid to do anything,” the resident said. One resident told RFA that a few days earlier military troops were deployed to Kan Ni village, which is next to Kan Nat. They were ambushed by the local People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). Junta forces fired heavy artillery before they entered the village on June 15 and forced the residents to flee empty handed. When locals returned to their village to try to put out their burning homes they were forced to run for a second time when troops shelled the village again. Soldiers also burned houses in other villages near Kan Nat. In the past a military council spokesman has told RFA that the burning of villages in Magway region is the work of PDFs, not junta troops. Data for Myanmar, which systematically monitors the damage to buildings and houses across the country, reported on June 7 that a total of 18,886 houses had been burned down from the day of the coup on February 1 last year to May 31, 2022. Of that total, 3,055 houses were in Magway region.

Read More

Investigative Journalism Reportika © March 2022 by Ij-Reportika is licensed under CC BY 4.0