New exposé on the Chinese police stations around the world
Second part of the comprehensive Investigative Report on the Chinese police stations around the world with maps and locations..
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Year: 2022
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Is Qatar FIFA 2022 the Most Controversial World Cup ever?
The latest in the slew of controversies that have surrounded the FIFA World Cup is the blocking of Tod TV by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, disappointing millions of football fans in the country. Tod TV is the popular streaming service of the Qatari broadcaster BeIN and is the FIFA World Cup’s official streaming platform. While the reasons for this sudden action on behalf of the Saudi authorities are unclear, it is not helping Qatar’s case which is already neck-deep in controversies around the tournament. It is yet another addition to the many issues being raised with respect to Qatar’s suitability as a football World Cup host, the fairness of the entire bidding process, the problems created by the local climate, and the ever-emerging news on human rights violations happening in the country. Bribing the FIFA officials to win the bid to host the World Cup The most controversial issue surrounding the World Cup is the alleged corruption by the Qatari authorities in winning the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Qatar was accused of providing more than $3 million to FIFA officials as bribes in exchange for the bid to host the 2022 edition. Though the allegations were later dismissed, this was not the first time such allegations of corruption were leveled against FIFA. Russia and Brazil too brought to the surface similar allegations against the working of FIFA. The lack of infrastructural preparedness The unsuitability of Qatar to host such a massive and significant football event has prompted another set of issues around the tournament. The lack of infrastructural preparedness is the biggest of these issues. Neither did they have world-class stadiums, nor enough hotels to accommodate the swarms of football fans that were likely to flood the country to watch the games. The primary reason perhaps is Qatar’s limited history in the sport itself. Given the lack of football culture in Qatari society, it makes little sense to bid for such a large event. The adverse climate The climate is the second big reason why Qatar is a terrible choice of place to host the event. The hot and humid climate of Qatar is a nightmare for any outdoor sporting event, turning it into a health hazard for not just the incoming fans but also the thousands of workers engaged in building the required sports infrastructure. Most of these workers were migrants coming from Southeast Asia and Africa, who over the last several months ended up being trapped in very abusive working conditions. The extensive construction in the run-up to the tournament, including the building of seven new stadiums and about a hundred hotels took a massive toll on not only the health but also on the lives of these workers. The exploitation of the workers and the Kafala System The manner of treatment meted out to the workers employed to complete various infrastructure projects in a speedy manner right before the tournament has prompted public outrage across the globe. The Kafala system practiced in the Middle-eastern countries has been a source of controversy for a prolonged period of time. It is primarily a system put in place to heavily monitor migrant laborers, putting the Gulf-based employers of these workers in-charge of their visa and legal status and giving them the reins to exploit these workers as they deem fit. Interestingly, various global publications had not only predicted but also warned against the potential abuses and death that workers were likely to face in the build-up to this tournament. Unfortunately, most of these warnings were ignored by the world as we waited for them to turn true. In August 2022, the Qatari authorities arrested and deported over 60 migrant workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Egypt, and the Philippines, who were protesting against the non-payment of wages by their employer, the Al Bandary International Group. Some of these demonstrators had not received their wages for months. The death of the construction workers The exact number of deaths of migrant workers is still unknown. Some estimates, including one by the Guardian, report that at least 6,500 migrant workers have died since 2010 when Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup. The Qatari officials, as expected, deny these figures. The official figures state that 37 people have died while working on projects related to the football tournament and eventually 34 of those deaths were deemed unrelated to the job. Since then, human rights groups across the globe have been demanding further investigations into these deaths facilitated by this systematic modern-day slavery regime in the Gulf. The Religious Extremism The religious extremism of the country is perhaps the icing on the cake, making it the most problematic location ever to host the event. Being the first Muslim country to host the event, it is bringing its own flavor to the event. Similar to other countries in the region, Qatar has guardianship laws that put several restrictions on the liberties of women, including their rights to make work-related decisions, seek education, and even certain aspects of healthcare being dependent on the permission given by the male family members. In addition, homosexual relationships between consenting men are illegal in Qatar and can result in imprisonment of one year. Reports of harassment, abuse, and forced conversion therapies are not rare in Qatar. It, therefore, came as a surprise to everyone that FIFA, while being well aware of Qatar’s stand against homosexuality, still went on and approved its bid. It went as far as saying that LGBTQ fans can ‘refrain’ from sexual activities while in Qatar. Lastly, much to the disappointment of millions of fans, mere two days before the tournament, FIFA confirmed that no alcohol would be sold inside the stadiums, in line with the high amount of restrictions on the sale of alcohol in Qatar. Perhaps Qatar had high hopes with respect to the FIFA World Cup hosting, hoping to elevate its status as the Middle East region’s sporting hub and help its case in becoming a regional…
One of the biggest rebellions in the history of China
From Lhasa and Xinjiang to Beijing and Shanghai, protests have erupted across China and have taken the shape of a colossal rebellion.
Labor Uprising In China’s Zhengzhou against Zero COVID & Apple’s Foxconn factory
A labor uprising over COVID-19 restrictions and contract violations by Apple at Foxconn’s iPhone factory in central China is unfolding in Zhengzhou. The government-deployed security officers are trying to suppress the uprising with violence as shown in the videos circulating on Chinese social media. #LaborUprisingInChina trending on Social Media #LaborUprisingInChina trended for hours in many parts of the world on 23rd November 2022. People on social media showed sympathy towards the suffering laborers at the Foxconn iPhone factory. What is happening in Zhengzhou? Laborers and workers at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory held protests on the factory campus, where they have had to stay since a closed-loop system was announced to counter the spread of COVID-19 without compromising productivity under the Zero Covid policy. Videos of the violence in Zhengzhou showed masked laborers facing off police in protective suits. The authorities have used force and severely injured many of them. The violence comes as China tightens once again its COVID-19 measures, making it the only major economy still subscribed to full lockdowns to face virus outbreaks. China’s coronavirus measures have triggered domestic dissent this year. We have covered over 450 protests in China this year. However, near the end of the year, China is beholding a massive labor uprising from one of the most downtrodden classes in the manufacturing hub of the world. Local authorities are continuing to stick to the “zero-Covid strategy” championed by the central government in Beijing. The easing of the restrictive measures imposed on large factory compounds like the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou is unlikely. Why are laborers at Foxconn protesting? Some workers said they were informed that the bonus that was initially promised to them would be delayed, and the situation in the dormitory, where workers who have been there for weeks were mixed with the newly hired workers, enhances the risk of them being exposed to the coronavirus. Videos of many people leaving Zhengzhou on foot had gone viral on Chinese social media earlier in November, forcing Foxconn to step up measures to get its staff back. To limit the fallout, the company said it had quadrupled daily bonuses for workers at the plant this month. On Wednesday, workers said that Foxconn failed to honor their promise of an attractive bonus and pay package after they arrived to work at the plant. Numerous complaints have also been posted anonymously on social media platforms — accusing Foxconn of having changed the salary packages previously advertised. “the allowance has always been fulfilled based on contractual obligation” Foxconn said in a statement on Wednesday Ij-Reportika reached out to one of the laborers who protested on the 23rd. Under the condition of anonymity, he said, “We are made to live in miserable conditions, we don’t have any rights, we don’t want to work in the Apple factory day in and day out with all our livelihoods destroyed. We are at high risk of getting infected by the virus and on top of all this our contracts are violated and our payments and bonuses are stuck. They offered me 8000 Yuan to leave and go back to my hometown. But I refused to take it!! Protesting Labor at Zhengzhou
Amid growing protests, China cautiously mulls relaxing zero-COVID rules: analysts
There are signs that China is mulling less draconian public health controls amid ongoing protests in the streets and on university campuses, political analysts say. The Chinese government released a package of 20 new policy measures on Nov. 11 aimed at “optimizing” the country’s pandemic response, including slightly relaxed quarantine requirements for people returning home from areas designated “high risk.” The move has generally been seen as a cautious relaxation of the zero-COVID policy, espoused by Communist Party leader Xi Jinping as the only way forward when it comes to containing the virus, and comes amid growing public dissatisfaction with the policy and widespread censorship of dissenting voices. University students in the central city of Zhengzhou protested over long-running restrictions on Nov. 16, according to video clips uploaded to social media sites. One video clip showed masked young people in a heated discussion with an official in a black jacket, urging him to read the students’ demands, a copy of which was also circulating on social media. In a second clip, the Zhengzhou University students start shouting at the official in frustration after he appears to stall. “Looks like you’re not going to address a single one of these issues for us here tonight,” says one protester. Social media posts said the university’s Communist Party secretary came out to talk with students, but a live stream of the conversation was later blocked and student dorms searched by security officials. Protests in Guangzhou, Urumqi and Lhasa The students’ resistance to nationwide campus lockdowns followed street protests by migrant workers who broke out of lockdown in the southern city of Guangzhou, as well as protests in Urumqi and Ghulja in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, and the Tibetan capital Lhasa in recent weeks. Reports have emerged that the northern city of Shijiazhuang could be a pilot zone for a slightly more relaxed approach to mass testing. The Financial Times reported on Nov. 15 that the city is “tiptoeing away from Beijing’s most draconian pandemic measures, in what some see as a test case for a gradual retreat from President Xi Jinping’s strict zero-Covid policy.” People line up to be tested for COVID-19 on Flower City Square in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, Nov. 16, 2022. Credit: cnsphoto via Reuters Widespread rumors that the city is gearing up to “live with COVID-19” prompted the city’s party Secretary Zhang Chaochao to deny the move on Nov. 14, promising that the municipal authorities wouldn’t “lie flat” in the face of the threat from the virus. Former Chinese Red Cross Director Ren Ruihong said the government is announcing looser restrictions from Beijing, but leaving it to local officials to decide how best to control the virus locally — an issue that figures highly in government key performance indicators and therefore affects individuals’ career prospects. “The central government will gradually relax its pandemic prevention guidance, even if only to deflect public dissatisfaction from itself,” Ren told Radio Free Asia. “The situation with regard to different opinions [about how to implement the measures on the ground] is pretty chaotic right now, with the central government unwilling to take the blame.” This has left room for variation in local pandemic prevention policies, and caused a “disconnect” from Beijing, Ren said. This has resulted in an ongoing and severe lockdown in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, while requirements for testing in Shijiazhuang have at least partly been dropped, according to a resident there who spoke to RFA. Still need negative PCR tests People returning to the city from low-risk areas still need a negative PCR test from the past 48 hours, and need the permission of their residential committees to return home. The same requirements apply to anyone leaving the city. While confusion remains over whether kindergarteners still need a recent negative test to attend school, resident Sun Liang said regular testing regardless of a person’s movements has been dropped, while “active testing” is still in place for travel to certain public places. “You still need a negative PCR from the past 24 hours to get into an office building, and a negative result from the past 48 or 72 hours to ride the subway or the bus,” Sun told RFA. Some districts appeared to be just as confused as residents by what was happening in their city, shutting down test stations only to reopen them a day later, according to social media posts. But Sun said the city is likely being used as a guinea pig for the rest of China. “It is indeed being used as a pilot, but it’s just not being totally freed from restrictions as some people have been saying,” he said. “If they totally removed all restrictions, then there might be a backlash in which people think the government doesn’t care what happens to them.” “A lot of pharmacies are now selling drugs you can take orally for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, which may be an even bigger sort of pilot,” he said. The Financial Times cited several residents of Shijiazhuang as saying that the idea of loosening restrictions made them fearful of catching the virus. Veteran U.S.-based rights activist and political commentator Yang Jianli likened China’s COVID-19 policy to “riding a tiger.” “This is caused by the fact that Xi Jinping and the Chinese government failed to import internationally made vaccines in time in the wake of the Wuhan lockdown,” Yang said. “The Chinese government is in a dilemma right now. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.” Translated and written by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Asia Fact Check Lab: Did NATO donate HIV-infected blood to Ukraine?
During the past two weeks, a conspiracy theory alleging that NATO members had donated HIV and hepatitis-infected blood to Ukraine was originally posted and spread on Weibo by “Guyan Muchan,” an influential account with more than 6 million followers. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) tracked down and confirmed the pro-Putin Telegram channel Breaking Mash as the disinformation’s source. Further inquiries by the Ukraine-based fact-checking organization StopFake caused the Ukrainian government to release a formal statement debunking the disinformation. On Nov. 3, Guyan Muchan, a widely followed Weibo user, published a post claiming to reveal a tainted blood scandal involving NATO and Ukraine. The statement reads: “Ukraine asked NATO to provide more than 60,000 liters of blood for wounded soldiers in the Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions. NATO member countries provided Ukraine with canned blood. However, Ukrainian medical staff found HIV and hepatitis B and C viruses in the blood after random examinations. Kiev has written to NATO requesting an independent assessment of the donor blood and asking that blood “not be collected on the African continent.” In the first group, 6.3% of the samples had HIV, 7.4% had hepatitis B and 3.2% had hepatitis C. In the second group: 5.9%, 6.8% and 3.1%, respectively. The information is obtained by leaked files after the Ukrainian government office computers were hacked.” The post contained three images. The first was a picture of a statement that hackers allegedly had obtained confidential documents from Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal’s email. The second was an alleged letter from Ukraine’s Minister of Health to Shmyhal. The third was the English translation of the letter. Each image’s background contained the word “mash” as a watermark, which AFCL used to trace the post back to its original source. Guyan Muchan is one of China’s “patriotic” influencers who in recent years rose to fame by pandering to domestic nationalist sentiment. Her post claiming the use of tainted blood was liked by hundreds of people, with other influential social media figures reposting it to millions more. This “news” swiftly spread on a number of Chinese language websites, including the popular internet news portal 163.com. What is the claim’s source? AFCL was unable to find any reports about the claim from credible English media outlets. A few English websites with poor news credibility did repost it, including the pro-Russia website info.news and the gun-lover community forum snipershide.com. A slew of unreliable Twitter accounts have also posted the claim in English. Chief among them is ZOKA, a user with more than 105,000 followers. Marcus Kolga, director at DisinfoWatch, a fact-checking project under the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Canada, told AFCL that ZOKA is a “well-known pro-Kremlin account.” AFCL also found the Russian version of the claim being spread on many websites, forums and social media platforms. After comparing both the publishing time and watermark, AFCL traced the claim back to a post on the Telegram channel “Breaking Mash,” first published at 1 a.m. on Nov. 3. The original post has since gained over 1a million views. Breaking Mash is the official Telegram channel of the Russian-language website Mash.ru. The website’s content is full of lies and is highly aligned with Moscow’s propaganda, according to Christine Eliashevsky-Chraibi, a media veteran and translator at Euromaidan Press. Mash senior staff are suspected of being close to the Russian government, with company executive Stepan Kovalchuk’s uncles, Kirill and Yuri Kovalchuk, marked as “elites close to Putin” by the United States.S. In sum, both the claim’s original Russian source along with the English websites and social media accounts that spread the claim all suffer from low credibility. Is the claim true? AFCL deems the Guyan Muchan post to be false. It came from a pro-Russia Telegram channel with low credibility. The Ukraine Ministry of Health refuted the claim in a statement offering more details about blood donation in Ukraine. The claim alleges that the “scoop” was leaked from the hacked email of Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal. But no credible media outlets reported on the leaked emails.The statements the claim relies on use questionable language that normally would not be appropriate for official documents. For example, the claim alleges that the mMinister of hHealth demanded that NATO’s donor blood “not be collected on the African continent.” The possibility of such racist language appearing in a formal government document is unlikely. Eliashevsky-Chraibi said the alleged government letter is “very suspicious” as there’s “no date, no signature, no stamp” and it was “not formal procedure.” Through the Ukraine based fact-checking organization StopFake, AFCL checked with the Ukrainian government regarding the veracity of this claim. On Nov. 7, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health published a statement on its official website refuting the claim. Ukraine has never requested blood donations from any organization outside of the country, and all donor blood needed for the battlefield comes from within Ukraine and meets European standards, according to the ministry’s statement. Whenever there is an urgent need at a blood center, people respond quickly to requests for donations, negating the need for any supplies from outside of the country. The statement adds that Ukraine does not have a “random sampling” system of donor blood. Instead, it tests all donations to ensure they are safe and reliable. The alleged letter from Ukraine’s Minister of Health is a forgery, the statement says. The allegation about blood donated to Ukraine originated on the Russian telegram channel Breaking Mash [left] and then was picked up by a pro-Kremlin account on Twitter [center] and a few hours later by an account on Weibo [right] with 6.44 million fans. Credit: Asia Fact Check Lab screenshots Background Information In late October, the Kyiv Post, a leading English newspaper in Ukraine, published a report that Russia’s Wagner private military company had recruited Russian prisoners suffering from severe infectious diseases, in particular HIV and hepatitis C. This news bears some similarities with the claim made on the Breaking Mash Telegram channel, including the mention of HIV, hepatitis and the war, but…
Xi steals the limelight at APEC, showcasing China’s regional clout
UPDATED at 5:45 a.m. EST on 11-19-2022. Even as host Thailand passes the APEC baton to its successor the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been busy using the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to highlight China’s growing clout and push back against U.S. influence in the region. Having secured an unprecedented third term as leader at the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress last month, Xi embarked on his first major foreign tour since the pandemic struck nearly three years ago – to the Group of 20 Summit in Bali, then the APEC Summit in Bangkok that ended Saturday. The APEC summit was the third and final gathering of world leaders in Asia in the space of nine days. With U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin both absent from APEC, the Chinese president virtually had the stage to himself. During his tour, Xi has for the most part struck a conciliatory tone during his encounters with other heads of states – including U.S. president. The Biden-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 went some way to tamping down months of rising U.S.-China tensions. “It certainly appears that Xi Jinping and China’s propaganda enterprise are trying to set a softer tone and appear less overtly antagonistic during the G-20 and APEC summits,” said Drew Thompson, visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. While in the Thai capital, Xi met with a host of regional leaders including key U.S. allies. He held bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Singaporean Premier Lee Hsien Loong and Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. on a wide range of issues including economic cooperation and security. Xi also met with Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha — although their initial photo op went viral on social media for the wrong reasons because of the appearance that Xi had snubbed Prayuth’s offer of a handshake. “President Xi certainly wants to be a major player,” said Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, noting the Chinese leader’s confidence in having unscripted interactions with other leaders – like when he chastised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over alleged leaks of diplomatic conversations at the G-20. But Thompson observed: “The underlying differences between China and its neighbors and trading partners remain deeply entrenched and there are no signs that China is adapting its foreign policy approach and how it pursues its interests.” Chinese leadership Gao Zhikai, vice president of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, said Xi’s attendance at APEC accentuated China’s growing leadership role in stark contrast with the U.S.’s “diminishing relevance.” Biden did in fact attend the G-20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia that preceded it – a meeting Xi skipped – in an effort to signal U.S. commitment to the region. But when it came to APEC, which focuses on economic cooperation – an area of Asia policy in which Washington is generally perceived as trailing China – Biden had returned home for a family event. “The fact that Biden is not at the meeting shows that the U.S. doesn’t care much about APEC,” Gao told RFA. “Of course, the whole world is aware that his granddaughter is getting married,” said the academic who served as a translator for late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and sometimes acts as de-facto media spokesman for the Chinese Communist Party. “But if there was interest, the U.S. would know how to show it,” he added. ‘Proud Pacific power’ That’s obviously not the narrative conveyed by Washington, which now takes over the rotating chair of the 21-member APEC bloc, which was set up in 1989 to promote free trade. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was in Bangkok in Biden’s place, told the summit that her country is “a proud Pacific power” and that “the United States is here to stay.” Harris had a brief meeting with Xi in which she urged the Chinese leadership to “maintain open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between our countries.” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris greets China’s President Xi Jinping before the APEC Leaders’ Retreat in Bangkok, Thailand Nov. 19, 2022. (The White House/Handout via REUTERS) On the theme of economic cooperation, Harris said the Indo-Pacific serves as the market for almost 30 percent of American exports and U.S. companies invest $1 trillion a year in the region. She vowed that the U.S. “will uphold the rules of the road” and “will help build prosperity for everyone.” Her statement clearly struck a chord with some participating nations which want to avoid being caught up in big-power competition between China and the United States. Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc said his country supports “all regional and multilateral cooperation frameworks which are based on international principles and regulations.” Harris appeared to draw a contrast between the U.S. initiative and China’s Belt and Road Initiative that has invested large sums of money in infrastructure across the world, but which critics say can leave recipient countries in heavy debt to Beijing. Xi said that China is considering holding the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2023. Reinvigorating APEC Gao contended that Harris’ main purpose at APEC was actually to promote the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. The Biden administration launched the IPEF in May as the center of its economic strategy for the region, and the U.S. vice president said the grouping now represents some 40 per cent of the global gross domestic product and is “dedicated to equitable growth and high environmental and labor standards.” It does not include either Russia or China. Gao said he suspects “the U.S. is hollowing out APEC for the benefit of IPEF,” which he described as an “artificial, ill-designed” grouping. “But APEC will remain APEC, a natural, coherent forum of cooperation for all countries in the region,” he said. Ja Ian Chong at the National University of Singapore said “China…
China uses carrots and sticks to boost Uyghur-Han intermarriage-report
China mixes financial, education and career incentives with coercive measures such as threats to families under state policies to promote intermarriage between majority Han Chinese and ethnic minority Uyghurs in the restive Xinjiang region, a new report by a Uyghur rights group has found. The Uyghur Human Rights Project analyzed Chinese state media, policy documents, government sanctioned marriage testimonials, as well as accounts from women in the Uyghur diaspora, that government incentivizes and coercion to boost interethnic marriages has increased since 2014. “The Chinese Party-State is actively involved in carrying out a campaign of forcefully assimilating Uyghurs into Han Chinese society by means of mixed marriages,” said the report. The findings on forced marriage by Washington, DC-based NGO come as Western governments and the United Nations have recognized that Chinese policies in Xinjiang amount to or may amount to genocide or crimes against humanity. Forced labor, incarceration camps and other aspects of China’s rule in Xinjiang have drawn sanctions from Britain, Canada, the European Union and the United States. The study, “Forced Marriage of Uyghur Women: State Policies for Interethnic Marriage in East Turkistan,” draws on state media propaganda films, state-approved online accounts of interethnic marriages and weddings, state-approved personal online testimonials from individuals in interethnic marriages, as well as government statements and policy directives. “The Party-State has actively encouraged and incentivized ‘interethnic’ Uyghur-Han intermarriage since at least May 2014,” the Uyghur Human Rights Project says in the report, released on Nov. 16. Interethnic marriage policies gained momentum after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a “new era” at the Xinjiang Work Forum in 2014, touting a policy of strengthening interethnic “contact, exchange, and mingling,” the report said. “Uyghur-Han intermarriage has been increasing over the past several years since the Chinese state has been actively promoting intermarriage,” said Nuzigum Setiwaldi a co-author of the report. “The Chinese government always talks about how interethnic marriages promote ‘ethnic unity’ and ‘social stability,’ but these actually are euphemisms for assimilation,” she told RFA Uyghur. “The Chinese government is incentivizing and promoting intermarriage as a way to assimilate Uyghurs into Han society and culture. Carrots include cash payments, help with housing, medical care, government jobs, and tuition waivers. When it comes to sticks, “young Uyghur women and/or their parents face an ever-present threat of punishment if the women decline to marry a Han ‘suitor,’” the report said, citing experiences of Uyghur women now living in exile. “Videos and testimonies have also raised concerns that Uyghur women are being pressured and forced into marrying Han men,” said Setiwaldi. The report cites an informal marriage guide for male Han party officials published in 2019, titled “How to Win the Heart of a Uyghur Girl.” Han men who want to marry Uyghur women are told that the woman they love “must love the Motherland, love the Party, and she must have unrivaled passion for socialist Xinjiang,” it said. Commenting on the report, scholar Adrian Zenz said the Chinese Communist Party’s “policy of incentivizing Han and coercing Uyghurs into interethnic marriages is part of a strategy of breaking down and dismantling Uyghur culture.” Zenz, a senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C., was the first outside expert to document the network of mass internment camp for Uyghurs launched in Xinjiang in 2017 and he has analyzed China’s Uyghur population policies. The intermarriage strategy serves the goal of “optimizing the ethnic population structure, breaking the ‘dominance’ of concentrated Uyghur populations in southern Xinjiang as part of a slowly unfolding genocidal policy,” he told RFA. “It’s important that people pay attention to the different forms of human rights abuses that are taking place in the Uyghur region, particularly those that are underreported, like forced marriages,” said Setiwaldi. “People can raise awareness and push their governments to hold the Chinese government accountable.” China had no immediate comment on the report. Last month, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement dismissed U.S. efforts to debate the U.N. report, saying, “the human rights of people of all ethnic backgrounds in Xinjiang are protected like never before” and “the ultimate motive of the U.S. and some other Western countries behind their Xinjiang narrative is to contain China.” Written by Paul Eckert for RFA.
Leaked documents reveal Myanmar junta’s plans to strike in Chin state
The Myanmar junta is preparing to launch airstrikes against the Chin National Front in the country’s western Chin state, a spokesperson for the ethnic armed organization told Radio Free Asia, citing leaked internal military documents. According to the documents, which the Chin National Front, or CNF, acquired earlier this month, the airstrike is intended to target the organization’s headquarters on Mt. Victoria, in Thantlang township. “We cannot reveal where we got this intelligence information, but we are preparing the best we can for the defense against this airstrike,” CNF spokesperson Salai Htet Ni told RFA’s Burmese Service. He said the documents revealed that churches, hospitals, clinics and schools are also on the list of possible targets. News of the plans frightened people living in the area, a civilian living near Mt. Victoria told RFA. “We are the only village near that mountain,” he said. “If they also target the village, we could be hit hard.” Thant Zin, the junta’s spokesperson for Chin state, has not responded to the CNF’s claims that the military is preparing to launch airstrikes in region. The military only launches airstrikes when absolutely necessary, said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of Thaenaga Institute for Strategic Studies, a pro-military think tank formed with former military officers. “The position is the same for all armed organizations in the country. If they view something as detrimental for their security, they take military action. This is a very normal path,” he said. “But I am suspicious that such an important decision to launch an airstrike has been leaked to the outside. It is hard to say whether their information is right or wrong.” Junta forces last month killed 63 people in Kachin state, many of them members of the Kachin Independence Organization, when they bombed a concert in what is believed to be the bloodiest single airstrike in Myanmar since last year’s military coup. Translated by Ye K.M. Maung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
China sentences mother of Uyghur Dutch airman to 15 years for visiting him abroad
Chinese authorities have sentenced the mother and sister-in-law of an Uyghur member of the Dutch air force to 15 years in prison on charges of supporting terrorism and revealing state secrets. The cases are another example of Beijing severely punishing members of the ethnic minority for visiting or contacting relatives abroad. Capt. MUN (pseudo name for security concerns), now a Dutch citizen, has been living in the Netherlands since 2006. His mother came to visit him in 2014 to attend his wedding, he told IJ-Reportika. In 2016, the same year he joined the Royal Netherlands Air Force, he lost contact with his mother, Imanem Nesrulla, and his sister-in-law, Ayhan Memet, he said. In 2018, while he was stationed in the United States of America, his sister-in-law was able to initiate contact with him for the first time in two years, using the WeChat messaging platform. She told him that Chinese authorities arrested his mother and sent her to a concentration camp, MUN said. Then in 2019, he heard that his sister-in-law was arrested for telling him about his mother’s arrest. MUN made several appeals to the Dutch government to find out more information about both cases, but it wasn’t until he returned to the Netherlands in 2020 that his inquiries made any headway. The Dutch foreign ministry contacted the Chinese Embassy, and in July 2021 he received news that his mother and sister-in-law had both been sentenced to 15 years in prison. “[Ayhan] had told me of my mother’s situation, hoping I would get my mother released since I was living in Europe and working in the military. Just for this information, the authorities sentenced her to 15 years in jail.” MUN said. Enemy force According to the written response he received from the ministry, Imanem was charged with “supporting terrorist activities and inciting ethnicity [sic] hatred and discrimination,” and Ayhan for “illegally providing national intelligence to foreign forces.” In China’s view, MUN said he is considered part of an “enemy force.” MUN said he was very disappointed that the Dutch foreign ministry could do nothing to help him after they were able to reveal his family members’ fates. “It seems this will hurt their big interests,” he said. “I wrote to my prime minister twice but did not receive any response.” MUN said that both his mother and sister-in-law lived and worked in Qumul (in Chinese Hami), about 370 miles east of Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Due to his professional responsibilities, MUN has refrained from any involvement with political activities, but he expressed that he can remain silent no more, and he is now doing as much as he can for his mother and sister-in-law. “[Previously] I was not willing to speak to the media as a complainer and a victim because of my position,” he said. But now, “I have to do this for my mother and sister-in-law, who are in prison because of me.”
