August 2022 - Page 7 of 14 - Investigative Journalism Reportika

More than a thousand villagers flee Sagaing region battle

Editor2 years ago03 mins

Two People’s Defense Force members died in fighting with Myanmar junta troops in Sagaing region’s Ye-U township. A local PDF commander confirmed they were both members of the local defense force. The PDF said at least 10 junta troops also died but RFA could not independently verify this. More than 1,000 locals fled Kone Thar, Ywar Thit, Nga Pyaw Taw and Kun Ohn villages after air raids on Wednesday, residents told RFA. A Kone Thar resident, who declined to be named for security reasons, said during the battle in the village the junta used helicopter gunships and fired on the village for around 30 minutes. Fighting broke out when junta soldiers arrived from Nyaung Hla and Mu Son villages. Helicopters were brought in to help the soldiers, arriving twice in the morning to drop off troops and fire on PDF members. The local resident told RFA the gunfire was not just aimed at the militia but also damaged roads and a hospital. Although most of the residents were able to flee, some elderly people were left in Kone Thar. Locals said they don’t know how many residents were killed because they were afraid to return to the village until the fighting died down. They said around 100 junta soldiers are still in Kone Thar. RFA’s calls to Sagaing region’s Military Council Minister of Social Affairs Aye Hlaing went unanswered. Military Council spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, said in the past the military council forces only attack villages in Sagaing Region that are training and hiding members of the PDFs. Internet and telephone access in Ye-U township is often cut off when junta forces carry out raids, locals told RFA. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said more than 1.2 million people have fled their homes across Myanmar between the Feb. 1, 2021 coup and Aug. 3.

Taiwan hits out at fake news about Chinese warship

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One of the most widely used photos of the recent drills by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) around Taiwan turned out to be the latest “fake news” in China’s disinformation campaign against the democratic island, a Taiwanese fact-checking organization has claimed. The photo, distributed by Chinese state news agency Xinhua, depicts a PLA soldier observing military drills in the waters near Taiwan through a pair of binoculars. In the background, a Taiwanese warship without a hull number is clearly visible. Next to it is a chimney, later identified as the smokestack of the Ho Ping Power Plant in Hualien County on the east coast of Taiwan. The Xinhua photo shows many irregularities. CREDIT: Taiwan FactCheck Center The Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC), a Taipei-based independent organization, conducted a thorough examination of Xinhua’s photo and published the findings on its website on Tuesday. It said there are too many irregularities, calling the proportions of objects in the photo “unreasonable” and saying there were obvious signs of manipulation such as the lack of a hull number on the alleged Taiwanese warship and its outline, which TFC said was “too clean.” Another photo released by Xinhua in the same batch clearly shows hull number 935 of the Lan Yang, a Taiwanese Navy Chi Yang-class frigate. Experts and analysts consulted by TFC concluded that the photo is a composite of different images. Xinhua said the photo was taken on Aug. 5, 2022, the second day of the unprecedented four-day drills conducted by the PLA Eastern Theater Command. The photo led to widespread speculation on Chinese internet forums that a PLA Navy (PLAN) destroyer had come closer than 12 kilometers (6.5 nautical miles) from the coast of Hualien, well within Taiwan’s territorial waters. A state’s territorial waters are defined by maritime boundaries 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) from its coast. Several Chinese and Taiwanese media outlets reported that PLAN destroyer Nanjing, where the soldier’s photo was taken, was only 11.78 kilometers from the coast of Hualien and the Ho Ping Power Station on Friday morning. The hull number of Taiwanese warship visible on the right, is not present in the image on the left. CREDIT: Taiwan FactCheck Center ‘Hybrid warfare’ The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense dismissed the news, describing it as “disinformation.” “No PLAN vessel has entered our territorial waters since August 4 when the PLA drill started,” the Ministry said on Twitter. China has stepped up its disinformation campaign and cyberattacks as part of “hybrid warfare” against Taiwan. Hybrid warfare is a combination of conventional military actions on the ground and hacks, or disinformation campaigns, designed to attack public morale and sow confusion. Maj. Gen. Chen Yu-lin, deputy director of the Political and War Bureau of Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said earlier this week that the current wave of “cognitive operations” started even before the military drills were announced as a response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit. Pelosi is the most senior U.S. official to visit the island in 25 years. Her visit was condemned by Beijing as a “serious violation of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Chen Hui-min, TFC’s editor-in-chief, told RFA his organization had detected a 30-40% increase in fake reports online since Pelosi’s visit. “The biggest difference [from the past] is that it seems to be spreading from English-language Twitter,” Chen said. The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it had been hit by 170 million cyber attacks per minute during the height of the tension last week. China considers Taiwan a Chinese province that must be reunified with the mainland at all costs. Meanwhile only two percent of 23.5 million Taiwanese people identified themselves as Chinese, down from 25 percent three decades ago, according to a new study by Taiwan’s National Chengchi University.

Vietnamese human rights journalist’s appeal set for Aug. 25

Editor2 years ago08 mins

The appeal hearing for a journalist, jailed for nine years for “anti-state propaganda” will take place in two weeks’ time. One of Pham Doan Trang’s lawyers told RFA the outcome depends on whether or not she pleads guilty at Hanoi’s High People’s Court on Aug. 25. Trang, 44, was jailed in Dec. last year for breaching Article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code, which is often used to silence activists. Her appeal will be held at the headquarters of the high court in Hanoi’s Cau Giay district. Ngo Anh Tuan was one of the lawyers who defended Trang in her original trial and will also represent her at the appeal hearing. He said his client has always asserted her innocence so he thinks it is unlikely the sentence will be reduced. “Ms. Trang has pleaded not guilty from the outset, up until now,” he told RFA. “We agree with her. In the defense’s view Ms. Trang is not guilty so there is no need to ask for a reduction in the sentence.” “The probability of the first-instance judgment being upheld is over 90% because, in cases like this as we’ve shown many times, it’s about attitude.” “That means if our clients ask for mercy, it’s likely to be acceptable. However, if they don’t ask for mercy the possibility of upholding the sentence is very high. Ms. Trang’s case is no exception.” The activist’s mother, Bui Thi Thien Can, told reporters she did not know if she would be able to attend the public appeals court, even though she was at the original hearing, because she doesn’t think it will achieve anything. “If it was other countries they would probably have a bit of respect for international pressure but the Vietnamese communists are very stubborn,” she said. “As soon as Trang was arrested, as well as before the first-instance hearing, many foreign embassies called on Vietnam to release Trang immediately and unconditionally, but the regime ignored them.” Can said her daughter has not been allowed to see her relatives since her arrest more than 22 months ago. They have also been refused permission to send her meals, which is allowed in many cases. Instead they have to buy it from the detention center’s canteen for the Hanoi police to give to her. Trang is accused of “making, storing and circulating documents and articles with content aimed at opposing the State of Vietnam,” between Nov. 2017 and Dec. 2018, according to the original indictment. Trang is also accused of possessing documents titled: “A Brief Report on Vietnam’s marine environmental disaster,” “General assessment of the human rights situation in Vietnam,” and “Report on a review of the 2016 law on religion and belief related to exercising the right to freedom of religion and belief in Vietnam.” The Hanoi People’s Procuratorate said the documents contained “psychological warfare rhetoric, spreading fabricated news to cause confusion among the people, and propagating disinformation about guidelines and policies of the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Trang is also accused of giving interviews to foreign broadcasters such as the BBC Vietnamese Service and Radio Free Asia containing “content that distorts the State’s policies.” Trang co-founded Luat Khoa, an English-language magazine and newspaper. She also wrote many political books such as “Politics for Ordinary Citizens” and “Handbook for Prisoners’ Families.” She also worked at one point for the state-controlled VietnamNet newswire. She was arrested on Oct. 6, 2020, just hours after the annual Vietnam-U.S. Human Rights Dialogue. The arrest was related to her co-authoring the Dong Tam Report, published in English and Vietnamese. She wrote about land disputes in Hanoi’s Dong Tam commune and the raid by some 3,000 police in the early hours of Jan.9, 2020, leading to the death of spiritual leader Le Dinh Kinh and the arrests of dozens of people. Trang has been detained and beaten by the Vietnamese police many times. After being beaten by security forces during a protest against the Hanoi government’s felling of thousands of old trees in Hanoi’s city center in May 2015, her leg was broken and she had to use crutches. Trang’s mother said her daughter was beaten many times during the investigation both by investigating officers and fellow prisoners. Trang suffers from heavy and prolonged menstrual bleeding, or menorrhagia, low blood pressure, and leg pain, but does not receive adequate medical treatment. Trang has been awarded many prestigious international awards for her activities in promoting human rights and freedom of the press, including the U.S. State Department’s International Women of Courage Award and the Press Freedom Prize from Reporters Without Borders. She also won the Homo Homini (human to human) Award from the Czech Republic’s People in Need, the Media Freedom Award 2022 presented by the Canadian and U.K. governments, last year’s Martin Ennals Award for championing freedom of expression and this year’s International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

North Korea launches drive to shame children who neglect war veteran parents

Editor2 years ago07 mins

Authorities in North Korea are working to identify citizens who neglect their Korean War veteran parents, sometimes stripping those who aren’t living up to their familial obligations of their posts within the ruling party, sources inside the country said. As of the beginning of August, authorities began a project to determine where the children of the 1950-53 Korean War veterans live, a resident of South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA on Sunday. RFA reported in July that a number of elderly veterans had been found to be malnourished and suffering COVID-19 symptoms such as high fevers and coughing. Party officials who neglect their war veteran parents are being accused of filial impiety and removed from their positions, the woman said. But some North Koreans say the government’s campaign is an exercise in blame shifting, accusing the war veterans’ children of providing insufficient support when the government itself should be doing more. The project came about after the 8th National Conference of War Veterans in Pyongyang on July 27, which commemorated the armistice that ended the fighting. The Workers’ Party of North Korea issued a directive to take care of war veterans and to treat them well in society. During their investigation, authorities found a few county residents failing to carry out their obligations by living apart from their parents who are elderly war veterans, the woman said. They lost their jobs as a result. “Four people were caught, including one [party] secretary in the lathe work department at the Chuncheon River Machinery Factory and three cell secretaries in the textile factory,” the source said. “Their positions were taken away the next day.” Cell secretaries are among North Korea’s elite society, typically overseeing five to 30 party members in their cell, the main unit that links the party to the masses, according to a 2021 report by NK News. The four workers have been given a second chance to fulfill their family duties, however. “Six months of revolutionary measures were given,” said the source, referring to a punishment by authorities to make offenders learn the revolutionary ideology propagated by North Korea’s regime. After a stint working as laborers — considered a disgrace in North Korea — and after they move their veteran parents into their homes, the shamed North Koreans will be allowed to resume their previous positions, the woman said. North Korean authorities decided not to dismiss them from their positions because their veteran parents might complain that such a punishment would be too harsh, the woman said. People of national merit Though North Korean veterans are classified as people of national merit and are eligible for government provisions for food and living expenses, they still suffer from a lack of societal support, said a resident of North Pyongan province. The party committee in Chongju, one of the province’s main cities, also began a similar investigation at the beginning of August through the heads of neighborhood-watch units to determine whether there are adult children not serving or caring for their war veteran parents, he told RFA on Sunday. Five farmers who live with their elderly veteran parents at the Osong village cooperative farm were found to be “examples of poor filial piety” because they could not provide them with three meals each day due to financial hardship, said the source, who also declined to be named so as to speak freely. The farmers also locked in their elderly veteran parents who were suffering from dementia, so they could do their work, he said. “The farmers were called to the county party base and wrote self-critical confessions that they were undutiful to their veteran parents,” the source said. “They were released after receiving ideological education that they should serve their veteran parents whom the party cherishes.” But other residents aware of the situation have asked, “Who doesn’t want to serve a warm meal to their parents?” said the man. They then criticized the authorities for not taking responsibility for the lives of veterans and providing for them, instead placing the full burden on their children who have their own problems making ends meet. “They complain that they are making the poor and elderly war veterans the burdens of their children rather than of the state,” he said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee for RFA Korean. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

China-led rare earth mining in Myanmar fuels rights abuses, pollution: report

Editor2 years ago09 mins

China’s outsourcing of rare earth mining to Myanmar has prompted a rapid expansion of the industry there, fuelling human rights abuses, damaging the environment and propping up pro-juna militias, according to a new report published Tuesday by rights group Global Witness. The report, entitled “Myanmar’s Poisoned Mountains,” used satellite imagery to determine that what amounted to a “handful” of rare earth mines in Myanmar’s Kachin state in 2016 had ballooned to more than 2,700 mining collection pools at almost 300 separate locations, covering an area the size of Singapore, by March 2022 — slightly more than a year after the military seized power in a coup. Global Witness found that China had outsourced much of its industry across the border to a remote corner of Kachin state, which it said is now the world’s largest source of the minerals used in green energy technologies, smartphones and home electronics. “Our investigation reveals that China has effectively offshored this toxic industry to Myanmar over the past few years, with terrible consequences for local communities and the environment,” Global Witness CEO Mike Davis said in a statement accompanying the release of the report. The local warlord in charge of the mining territory, Zakhung Ting Ying, has become the “central broker” of Myanmar’s rare earth industry, the report said, along with other leaders of militias loyal to the military regime, making backroom deals with Chinese companies that are illegal under the country’s laws. It said that his militia’s links to the junta mean “there is a high risk” that revenues from rare earth mining are being used to fund the military’s human rights abuses and crushing of dissent. Rights groups say security forces have killed at least 2,167 civilians and arrested more than 15,000 others since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. “Rare earth mining is the latest natural resource heist by Myanmar’s military, which has funded itself for decades by looting the country’s rich natural resources, including the multi-billion-dollar jade, gemstone and timber industries,” Davis said. “Since the 2021 coup, the regime has relied on natural resources to sustain its illegal power grab and with demand for rare earths booming, the military will no doubt be spotting an opportunity to fill its coffers and fund its abuses,” he added. A rare earth mining operation in Kachin state, Myanmar, March 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Global Witness noted that the processes used to extract heavy rare earth minerals have polluted local ecosystems, destroyed livelihoods and poisoned drinking water. It said multiple health issues reported near the rare earth mines in China have also been reported by residents living close to the mines in Myanmar. Meanwhile, civil society groups and community members — including indigenous people — who speak out against the illegal industry or refuse to give up their land to make way for new mines face threats from the militias who run the area, the report said. Supply chain at risk Global Witness said that its findings come amid a huge increase in demand for the minerals as production of green energy technologies ramps up. Sales of processed rare earth minerals for magnet productions are expected to triple by 2035. The group warned of a high risk that the minerals are finding their way into the supply chains of major household name companies that use heavy rare earths in their products including Tesla, Volkswagen, General Motors, Siemens and Mitsubishi Electric. Davis said the report’s findings demonstrate the need for the international community to broaden sanctions against the junta to include rare earth minerals. “The disturbing reality is that the cash that is fuelling the environmental and human rights abuses caused by Myanmar’s rare earth mining industry ultimately stems from the global push to scale up renewables,” he said. “As the climate crisis accelerates and demand for these low-carbon technologies skyrocket, today’s findings must be a wake-up call that the green energy transition cannot come at the cost of communities in resource-rich countries, and must instead be equitable and sustainable, prioritizing the rights of those who are most impacted.” Rare earth ores [left] are burned down before being transported from Kachin state to China. At right, sacks of rare earth ores await transport to China. Credit: Global Witness via AP Global Witness called on companies to stop mining heavy rare earths in Myanmar and ensure that minerals from the country do not enter the global supply chain. It also urged governments to impose import restrictions for rare earths produced in Myanmar, impose sanctions on armed actors illegally profiting from the industry, and introduce stronger policies to reduce the harms associated with extracting the minerals. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that about 240,000 tons of rare earth minerals were mined globally in 2020, with China accounting for 140,000 tons, followed by the United States with 38,000 tons and Myanmar with 30,000 tons. Though China is the world’s largest producer of rare earth minerals, it buys the ore from neighboring Myanmar, exploiting its cheaper labor. Myanmar exported more than 140,000 tons of rare earth deposits to China, worth more than U.S. $1 billion between May 2017 and October 2021, according to China’s State Taxation Administration. In this early 2022 image from video, a creek in Myanmar’s Kachin state is lined with trash, pipes and other construction materials from a former rare earth mining site. Local villagers have said water from the creek is no longer usable for drinking or growing crops and that their skin itches after being exposed to water near rare earth mining sites. Credit: Global Witness via AP

COVID-19 infections rise in Xinjiang, said to be spread by Chinese tourists

Editor2 years ago2 years ago012 mins

Authorities in Xinjiang are implementing new lockdowns in response to a coronavirus outbreak thought to have originated with Chinese tourists who visited the western region’s Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, local officials said. After Chinese media reported that the number of COVID-19 infections in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region had begun to rise, authorities in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) and other urban areas ordered residents to quarantine, the sources said. The number of infected people in Xinjiang rose to 274 from July 31 to the end of the first week of August, according to an Aug. 7 report on Tengritagh (Tianshan), the official website of the Xinjiang government. The new variant of the virus was first detected in the Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture, where Ghulja is located, and spread widely from there. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, authorities have divided Xinjiang into 45 high-risk areas, 34 medium-risk areas and nine low-risk areas, and implemented quarantine measures at different levels, the report said. Those areas include the cities of Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), Ghulja (Yining), Aksu (Akesu), Kumul (Hami), Chochek (Tacheng), Bortala (Bole), and Kashgar (Kashi). Chinese government officials told reporters at a press conference in Urumqi on Aug. 8 that there were 34 infected people in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, which is in the northern part of Xinjiang, but they did not say how and where they caught the highly contagious respiratory virus. A community official said that the new infections were thought to have been brought by Chinese tourists from Gansu province, and the first viral outbreak in Ghulja was found in Uchon Dungan village. A Chinese government official in Samyuzi village told RFA that quarantine measures have been implemented in his village, and that residents are prohibited from going outside. A security official in Ghulja’s Mazar village said the epidemic in Ghulja was first detected in Mai village, also known as the Uchon Dungan village, and that the virus was spread by Chinese tourists from Gansu province. The official, who declined to give his name for safety reasons, also said that he and others now were busy with quarantine-related work and that there were five infected residents in the village, who ate in one of the same restaurants where the Chinese tourists ate. “They are being treated now,” he said. “They got infected while they were eating with some Chinese tourists from China proper. They got the virus from those tourists. The ones who got infected were [ethnic] Hui and Dungan [Chinese Muslims].” “The government checked all the people who went to eat in that restaurant and also where those Chinese tourists went while they were traveling here,” he said. “We heard that the Chinese tourists came from Gansu province.” The village security officer also said there were two infected people in Borichi hamlet of Yengitam village, who ate in the same restaurant where the Chinese tourists dined. He told RFA that he learned about the local COVID-19 infections from other community officials on the Chinese instant-messaging platform WeChat, but that he did not know where or how the infected people were being handled because information was not passed on to lower-level officials like him. “They also went to the same restaurant with those Chinese tourists,” he said. Two of the infected residents of Uchon Dungan village had been renovating their houses and bought some construction materials in Chinese provinces, he added. Uchon Dungan village residents have not been allowed outside for several days and are performing COVID-19 tests at home, the village security official said. When COVID-19 first sprang up in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, Uyghur and Kazakh residents in Xinjiang were increasingly being confined to “re-education” camps. They have since been subjected to lockdowns during local coronavirus outbreaks. At that time, residents said that authorities were testing unknown drugs on them, according to an earlier RFA report. Ghulja city was also locked down due to a rising number of COVID-19 cases in late 2021. Desperate residents short of food were forced to complain to authorities despite official warnings to keep quiet, sources told RFA at the time. In late January, Chinese government health officials issued a statement about new COVID-19 infections in Qorghas (Huocheng) county, located between Ghulja and the border to Kazakhstan, in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, and said a lockdown had been implemented as a measure to curb the spread of virus. Officials wearing protective face masks stand on a street during the coronavirus pandemic in Lhasa, capital of western China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, 2020. Credit: RFA COVID cases in Tibet Meanwhile, neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) reported four COVID-19 infections on Aug. 7, the first sign of the virus in the region since a single case was found at the start of the pandemic in January 2020. Asymptomatic infections were detected in four travelers between the ages of 47 and 61 from Ngari prefecture, according to local Chinese health authorities. Also on Aug. 7, 18 people tested positive for the coronavirus in Tibet’s capital Lhasa — the youngest being 3 years old and the oldest 76 — though only two people in the group were symptomatic, the TAR government’s report said. They all had traveled from Shigatse to Lhasa by train earlier this month. The members of the group and people who had contact with them are in quarantine for observation. “COVID has spread to Lhasa now, and there are 18 [people] who have tested positive for it,” said a Tibetan source who declined to be identified. “There has been a lot of commotion in the city since yesterday as the number of COVID cases rises. Stores are crowded with panicked shoppers trying to buy essential goods and facemasks.” The source said he believed the actual number of infections in the area to be higher than what Chinese health officials reported. “[T]he number is likely to rise in the coming days,” he said. After the cases emerged, officials in Shigatse, Tibet’s second-largest city with a population of about 800,000 people,…

Family presses for answers in death of Cambodian man after gambling raid

Editor2 years ago04 mins

The family of a 47-year-old Cambodian man is seeking justice after he ducked into a café to avoid a rainstorm, got caught in a police raid on on-line cockfight gambling, and suffocated during a rough interrogation, his daughter said Tuesday. Soung Dorn, who was deputy chief of Rong village in the central province of Kampong Thom, died Sunday evening at the hands of a military policeman who pressed his arm over his windpipe until he stopped breathing, Nearadey Din told RFA after reporting the death in an appeal for justice on Facebook. “As he came from a meeting, it was raining and he took shelter in a coffee shop. Then a military police officer grabbed my father and pressed his neck until he could not breathe, and he died,” she wrote on Facebook. I’m still so sad and shocked, I feel like fainting,” she told RFA Khmer. “This should not have happened to my father. They can make an arrest, but why make people die?” Nearadey appealed on Facebook to Prime Minister Hun Sen and the chair of the Cambodian Huma Rights Commission “to seek justice for our father, who has suffered atrocities and such inhumanity.” In response to the incident, the commander of the National Gendarmerie, Sao Sokha, told local media that he had ordered the suspension of officials involved in the arrest on Sunday and set up a commission to investigate the case immediately. But Nearadey told RFA on August 9 that her family and villagers reject the police forensic results that said Soung Dorn died of a heart attack. She said that her father was healthy and never had heart disease or any other disease. People shouted that he did not look good and suggested taking him to the hospital first, and arrest of him later, but they refused to do so,” said Nearadey, referring to military police. Nearadey also rejected claims by National Gendarmerie spokesman Eng Hy, who wrote on his Facebook page that officers had tried resuscitate her father with CPR. She said the military police left her father to die and then took him to a district hospital.

Junta ‘crimes against humanity’ include assault, torture of women, children: report

Editor2 years ago012 mins

Attacks on civilians by Myanmar’s junta since its takeover in February 2021 constitute crimes against humanity and include the widespread sexual assault of women and the torture of children, a United Nations investigative unit said in an annual report Tuesday. The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said it had gathered evidence that sexual and gender-based crimes, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, and crimes against children have been perpetrated by members of the security forces and armed groups. The IIMM said in its report that children in Myanmar have been tortured, conscripted and arbitrarily detained, including as proxies for their parents. “Crimes against women and children are amongst the gravest international crimes, but they are also historically underreported and under-investigated,” Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM, said in a statement issued by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in Bangkok that accompanied the release of the report. “Our team has dedicated expertise to ensure targeted outreach and investigations so that these crimes can ultimately be prosecuted. Perpetrators of these crimes need to know that they cannot continue to act with impunity. We are collecting and preserving the evidence so that they will one day be held to account.” Other vulnerable groups impacted by the crimes include members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community in Myanmar, according to the IIMM. The IIMM said it has collected more than 3 million pieces of information from almost 200 sources since starting operations three years ago, including interview statements, documents, videos, photographs, geospatial imagery and social media material. Since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, the IIMM said it had found “ample indications” that crimes have been committed in Myanmar “on a scale and in a manner that constitutes a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population.” The report found that the geographic scope of the potential crimes had expanded to include Chin, Kayin, and Kayah states, from Yangon, Naypyidaw, Bago, Mandalay, Magway and Sagaing regions a year earlier. Additionally, the IIMM reported the number of instances of potential criminality had also increased from a year ago, including with the junta’s July 25 hanging of four democracy activists in the country’s first judicial executions in more than 30 years, which drew public and international condemnation. Koumjian noted that the report came just two weeks ahead of the five-year commemoration of clearance operations that displaced nearly 1 million ethnic Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, most of whom remain in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh. “While the Rohingya consistently express their desire for a safe and dignified return to Myanmar, this will be very difficult to achieve unless there is accountability for the atrocities committed against them, including through prosecutions of the individuals most responsible for those crimes,” he said. The IIMM said it is sharing relevant evidence to support international justice proceedings currently underway at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Myanmar junta troops torched houses in Mu Kan village, Tabayin township, Sagaing region, June 14, 2022. Credit: Tabayin Township Brothers aid group Township targeted The IIMM report came as residents and aid workers in Sagaing region told RFA Burmese that the military had razed around 700 houses from 30 villages in Tabayin township during its scorched earth offensive in the area between Jan. 1 and Aug. 8. Around 4,000 people are in need of assistance as a result of the burnings, they said. A resident of Tabayin, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns, said junta troops had continued to use arson attacks in their search for opposition forces in the township as recently as Monday, when they burned down Mu Kan village on the road between Ayadaw and Shwebo townships. “The fires started [Monday] morning. Mu Kan is almost gone,” said the resident, who said the perpetrators belong to a military unit that had torched at least one other village in the township since January. “Even though we called it a village, it’s like a big town. It has a hospital and clinics. Currently, the residents are on the run. We heard some people have also been arrested. The army has set up camp there.” Residents told RFA there are more than 800 houses in Mu Kan and said this was the second time the military had set fire to the village, after burning more than 160 houses there in June. A member of the Tapayin Township Brothers aid group said that the estimated 4,000 residents left homeless due to the arson attacks since the start of the year are enduring severe difficulties and “in need of urgent help.” “Residents of 30 villages lost around 700 houses in the fires,” said the aid worker, who also declined to be named, citing a list the group had compiled of military arson attacks in the township. “The situation in Tabayin township is getting worse lately. The villagers’ lives have been disrupted, especially those who lost their homes. They need a lot of help. Everyone in the region has been affected, so aid donations have dwindled significantly.” The aid worker said that a few charity organizations and the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) have provided some assistance to the township, “but it is not enough.” He said his organization had provided 346 houses in 17 villages with 30,000 kyats (U.S. $14) each, but the need for assistance remains substantial. Helpless against attacks A resident of Tabayin’s Ma Ya Kan village, who asked to remain unnamed, said troops are “targeting the villages” and inhabitants are helpless to stop them. Refugees are in need of food, clothing and shelter, he said, adding that the military had also destroyed the crops in their fields. “The military arrests anyone they see in the villages, uses them as porters, and finally kills them. If they see residents wearing earrings on them, they tear them off. That’s how bad it is,” the Ma Ya Kan villager said. “We have no place to live, so…

Vietnamese police raid centers of banned religious sect

Editor2 years ago07 mins

Police in northern Vietnam this month raided eight centers of an ethnic religious group described by authorities as an illegal separatist organization, a charge the group denies, sources say. On Aug. 2, public security officers and police armed with guns and shock batons raided separate locations of the Duong Van Minh religious group in the Bao Lam district of Cao Bang province, sources told RFA. “The local authorities came at 3:00 a.m. when people were still sleeping,” said one witness to the raids, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They gathered at the houses that keep funeral and ritual objects and demolished them.” “We were given no notice that the raids would take place,” he said. By early morning, all local establishments of the group had been destroyed, he added. Authorities then ordered followers of the Duong Van Minh religion to take down altars kept in their homes for family use and to surrender any items used for worship, saying police would use force to confiscate any objects not handed over, local sources said. “Almost all families were determined to protect their houses and altars and did not let authorities’ representatives inside,” one follower said, also declining to be named because of safety concerns. “Some asked the officials whether they had any documents allowing them to come in or orders telling them to demolish the houses. The police responded that they had confidential documents and orders but were not allowed to let local people see them,” he said. Police then broke down the doors of the families’ homes, destroyed altars and hung pictures of former Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh in their place. Vietnamese flags were also placed at the houses’ front doors, sources said. Calls seeking comment from the People’s Committees of Cao Bang province and Bao Lam district rang unanswered this week. The Duong Van Minh sect was founded in 1989 with the stated goal of promoting the elimination of outdated, expensive and unhygienic funeral customs. There are are at least 8,000 ethnic Hmong practitioners of the religion in four provinces in Vietnam’s northern mountains. The religion is not officially registered, and government authorities say the sect is conspiring to establish an independent Hmong state and break away from Vietnam, a charge the group denies. Police have been working for the past year to eliminate the sect, according to state media reports, and an Aug. 9 article published on the website of the Cao Bang Broadcasting Station said that Bao Lam district authorities were now fully mobilized to suppress the religion. Largest campaign to date Speaking to RFA, Vu Quoc Dung—executive director of VETO!, which monitors religious freedom in Vietnam—called the August raids the largest campaign carried out against the Duong Van Minh religion to date. “It was a systematic campaign, as it mobilized all agencies and associated unions as participants,” he said. “And the government this time applied the same measures in different places, such as forcing locals to sign a commitment to leave the religion, removing altars, banning worship gatherings on Sundays and burning or demolishing the Duong Van Minh religion’s funeral houses.” Dung said the campaign to eliminate the Duong Van Minh religion is being directed by leaders at all levels of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the crackdown has now been conducted across four northern provinces, affecting around 10,000 followers. Followers of the religion say they are determined to protect their beliefs, however. “There was widespread discontent among followers after authorities broke into their houses without showing any legal documents or orders, and many are saying that local authorities have broken the law by doing this,” one Duong Van Minh follower told RFA. “Many now plan to reinstall their altars and file complaints against those acts.” Vietnam’s government strictly controls religious practice in the one-party communist country, requiring practitioners to join state-approved temples and churches and suppressing independent groups. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in a report released April 25 recommended that the U.S. government place Vietnam on a list of countries of particular concern because of Vietnamese authorities’ persistent violations of religious freedom. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Taiwan grapples with the potential impact of ‘normalized’ war-games on its doorstep

Editor2 years ago2 years ago011 mins

Prolonged military exercises around the democratic island of Taiwan by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could mean a longer-term impact on the island’s trade and economic development, especially if Beijing decides to normalize blockading the island, analysts told RFA. Some cited recent activity as suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is shifting from a policy of seeking peaceful “unification” to an emphasis on military force to put pressure on the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China. They said there are growing concerns that China will normalize military exercises, ignore the median line of the Taiwan Strait, and use ongoing military exercises to blockade the island and prepare the PLA for invasion. Tso Chen-Dong, political science professor at National Taiwan University, said military action was unlikely to occur immediately, however. “They need to take into account how they would actually do this, and they will only get behind the idea if it’s doable,” Tso told RFA. “Otherwise, it’s not very useful just to look at the numbers of troops on paper.” “The main thing is that they want to use this opportunity to put further pressure on the relationship with Taiwan,” he said. According to Wang Chi-sheng of Taiwan-based think tank the Association of Chinese Elite Leadership, China’s People’s Liberation Army has already been doing this by repeated incursions over the median line and into Taiwan’s territorial waters near the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, which are visible from China’s southeastern province of Fujian. “Flying over the median line of the Taiwan Strait is an attempt to erase that line by means of a fait accompli,” Wang told RFA. “Chinese ships have also started moving into [Taiwan’s] restricted waters around Kinmen and Matsu, which they haven’t done up until now.” “The focus is on normalization,” he said, adding that Beijing’s future intentions will only likely become clear after the CCP’s 20th National Congress later this year. He said Beijing will likely continue to insist on “unification” with Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the CCP nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China, under the same system it currently applies to Hong Kong, where a citywide crackdown on dissent is under way. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi gestures next to Legislative Yuan Vice President Tsai Chi-chang as she leaves the parliament in Taipei, Taiwan August 3, 2022. Credit: Reuters Repeated incursions Taiwan government legal expert Shen Shih-wei agreed, saying that the positioning of the military exercises following Pelosi’s visit made repeated incursions across the median line. “This has a very significant impact on the compression of our airspace for training purposes, and on international flight routes,” Shen told reporters. “This kind of targeted deterrence [contravenes a United Nations charter], which stipulates that no country should use force to threaten the territorial integrity or political independence of another country,” he said. “We believe that the CCP is very clear about these norms, and we hope that it will abide by them.” Vincent Wang, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Adelphi University, said Taiwan’s democratic way of life is walking a tightrope, as far as the CCP is concerned. “This is why China had such a big reaction to Pelosi’s visit,” he said. “China doesn’t want the world to see a high-ranking U.S. politician visiting a democratic society [run by people it considers Chinese] yet is independent of China,” Wang said. “The visit was a public show of support for Chinese democracy [as China sees it],” he said. The visit doesn’t appear to have deterred other foreign politicians from visiting Taiwan. Britain’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee said it will send a delegation to the island by the end of the year. “If American dignitaries can visit Taiwan one after the other, this will provide moral support for people from other democratic countries who want to make similar visits,” Wang said. He said recent economic sanctions imposed on more than 100 Taiwanese food companies would have a short-term impact on trade with China, which accounts for 30 percent of exports in that sector, but later recover. A Navy Force helicopter under the Eastern Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) takes part in military exercises in the waters around Taiwan, at an undisclosed location August 8, 2022 in this handout picture released on August 9, 2022. Credit: Eastern Theater Command/Handout via Reuters Blockade concerns Meanwhile, Frank Xie of the Aiken School of Business at the university of South Carolina, said the CCP’s lifting of a fishing moratorium in the area could mean it starts blockading the island. “Such a blockade would have a huge impact on international shipping and air traffic, further amplifying the global supply chain crisis,” Xie said. “Taiwan, including its chip industry, would bear the brunt of the impact.” Xie said the military exercises have had a small impact on international trade, mainly in the field of transportation, including flight delays and cargo ship detours to avoid military exercise areas. But a longer-running blockade would be hugely damaging to Taiwan, both because of the increased risk of miscalculations, and the economic impact from increased transportation costs, Xie said. A Taiwanese businesswoman surnamed Lee who has run a plastics business in mainland China for many years, says many Taiwanese businesses in mainland China are currently thinking about relocating. “Of course they’re nervous, because most of the Taiwanese businesses are in coastal areas, which is where the military exercises are,” Lee said. “But there’s very little they can do.” “If they were to relocate to Taiwan, that would be easier said than done … because it’s hard to find cheap labor,” she said. “But many countries in Southeast Asia aren’t very stable.” William Yu, an economist at UCLA Anderson Forecast, said Taiwan’s economy is still in a robust state despite the rising tensions with China, however. “There will be no impact on Taiwan’s economy in the short term,” Yu…

Month: August 2022