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Year: 2022

Hong Kong’s Chinese University evicts student media as PolyU cuts ties with union

Editor09 mins

A Hong Kong university has evicted a student newspaper and radio station, after another cut ties with its student union, amid an ongoing crackdown on freedom of speech on university campuses in the city. The student newspaper and radio station at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), which cut ties with the student union last year after it played a key role in recent pro-democracy protests, “CUHK Campus Radio moved out of Room 302 of the Benjamin Franklin Centre on April 20,” the radio station said in an announcement on its Facebook page on Thursday. “[We] started broadcasting in 1999, 23 years ago, and now we have reached the end,” the statement said. Students running the CUHK Student Press were also told to move out of the club room by university management on the same day, so repairs could be carried out. Asked if they could return after the work was completed, management declined to reply. The newspaper had been running since 1969, and hosted a huge archive of former news and features produced by students, the more historically valuable of which were sifted out and removed by student journalists before they vacated the space, local media reported. No mention was made of the eviction on the paper’s Facebook page, and no stories had been posted since April 20, when the paper reported on a compulsory vaccination program for students. The evictions came after the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) cut ties with its student union. CUHK Campus Radio, which has been evicted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is the latest casualty in an ongoing crackdown on freedom of speech on university campuses in the city under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing. Credit: CUHK Campus Radio. Campus protests Both CUHK and PolyU were besieged by riot police during the 2019 protest movement, and saw days of pitched battles between protesters and riot police in November of that year. Rights groups hit out at the Hong Kong police for ‘fanning the flames’ of violence, as desperate protesters were trapped for several days inside the PolyU campus, while hundreds more waged pitched battles with riot police on the streets of Kowloon. The U.S.-based group Human Rights in China condemned police action in and around Poly U as “trapping students, journalists, and first aiders, and reportedly handcuffing the latter group.” “[We] received an email from the Student Affairs Office on the evening of [April] 14 … [in which] the union was officially ordered to drop Hong Kong Polytechnic University from its name,” the Poly U student union said in a Facebook post. “All organizations linked to the union are required to move out of the PolyU campus on or before July 15, 2022,” it said. “The union has been trying to negotiate … with the university for years, but has been unable to reach a consensus,” the statement said. “The university will stop providing all venues and other support [previously] provided to the student union.” The April 15 post called on students to pay attention to the move. “A student union is not just a student organization, but also an expression of collective consciousness,” it said. “We hope PolyU students won’t give up their right to protect themselves.” Meanwhile, the Law Society of Hong Kong served notice on a prominent human rights law firm, which will be forced to close in June after representing an 18-year-old woman who accused several police officers of gang-rape during the 2019 protest movement. Vidler & Co. also represented Indonesian reporter Veby Mega Indah, who lost vision in one eye after being hit by a non-lethal projectile fired by police while covering the protests, although she later terminated her instruction of the firm. Firm founder and senior partner Michael Vidler told RFA he wouldn’t be able to comment on the reasons for the Law Society’s order to cease practicing until June 3, owing to a legal injunction in force until that date. Vidler has also worked with other high-profile Hong Kong dissidents including Joshua Wong, and in 2013 assisted a trans woman — in W V. Registrar of Marriages — to win the right for any transgender person in the city to marry as their affirmed gender. In January, the Education University of Hong Kong became the latest of the city’s universities to cut its student union loose, amid an ongoing clampdown on public speech, under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The university said it hadn’t “authorized” the union. Hong Kong student unions have provided various types of activities and benefits for students for decades, receiving funding and premises to do so, as well as participating in the formulation of policy by sending elected representatives to sit on university committees. But since the national security law took effect on July 1, 2020, they have been increasingly criticized by officials and denounced in the CCP-backed media, often a harbinger of official reprisals. Media reports said the University of Hong Kong (HKU), CUHK, City University, Polytechnic University, Lingnan University and Baptist University have all stopped collecting student union dues since the start of the current academic year. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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On the ‘run’ from China

Editor01 mins

China’s zero-COVID policy of mass compulsory testing, stringent lockdowns and digital health codes has sparked an emigration wave. Keyword searches on social media and search engines, as well as immigration lawyers, attest to spiking interest in emigration to Western countries among middle-classes fed up with food shortages, confinement at home, and other intrusive policies. The tide of emigrants has sparked a meme playing on the Chinese character “run” in late supreme leader Mao Zedong’s birth name, Mao Runzhi, and the English word “run.”

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Indonesia wants Chinese lender to fund overrun for high-speed rail line

Editor06 mins

Indonesia will ask the China Development Bank to finance 75 percent of the nearly U.S. $2 billion cost overrun for the construction of a Beijing-backed fast train project linking the capital Jakarta with Bandung, a project official said Thursday. The cost of the rail line, which is now projected to be completed next year, has swelled to nearly $8 billion. The project is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s $1 trillion-plus program to finance and build infrastructure projects across the globe. “Obviously the first one to be offered is CBD [China Development Bank], the lender financing 75 percent of the project,” said Dwiyana Slamet Riyadi, president director of the consortium, PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC), according to a report by Tempo, the Indonesian news outlet. Dwiyana said the Indonesian government had proposed that the same financing structure apply to the cost overrun, with the consortium covering 25 percent.  KCIC is a joint venture of a consortium of four Indonesian state-owned companies – KAI, Wijaya Karya, PTPN VIII, and Jasa Marga – and a consortium of Chinese companies. The Indonesian consortium controls 60 percent of KCIC, while China Railway Engineering Corp. and other Chinese companies control the rest. The 89-mile (143.2-km) Jakarta-Bandung rail line is expected to slash travel time between the Indonesian capital and Bandung from three hours to 40 minutes, officials have said. In January, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said the project was expected to be operational by June 2023. The contractor, meanwhile, said the project was 82 percent complete. Since construction began in 2017, the project has been dogged by criticism about its impacts on surrounding areas as well as concerns about rising costs. On Wednesday, Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi witnessed the laying of the first section of track for the rail link in West Java. Last October, Jokowi decided to allow the government to share the cost of the railway project, contradicting an earlier pledge and decree in 2015 that prohibited the use of state funds for its construction. A presidential spokesman said Jokowi’s directive would allow the project to be completed. A month later, the finance minister told a parliamentary panel that the government had decided to inject 4.3 trillion rupiah ($299 million) into the project. Critics had expressed concern that the move could deplete state coffers and lead Indonesia into a debt trap. Yusuf Rendy Manilet, an economist at the Indonesian Center for Reform of Economics, a private think-tank, said renegotiating funding for the project is necessary. “The government should also look at whether the risks [to state coffers] remain the same or there are adjustments or additional risks,” Yusuf told BenarNews. The economist said potential overruns should have been agreed upon during the project’s planning stage. “This needs to be especially noted considering that China will become one of Indonesia’s main economic partners in the next few years,” Yusuf said. Now, the government and other stakeholders need to recalculate the cost because of the overrun, he said. Knock-on effects from capital move In February, the consortium said the high-speed rail service was expected to become profitable 40 years after completion – not 20 as earlier projected – partly because plans to move the national capital from Jakarta to Borneo could sharply reduce the number of riders. Moving the seat of government away would cut the projected number of passengers using the railway connecting Jakarta to Bandung in West Java nearly in half because many government employees are expected to relocate to the new capital, a company spokesman said. An AidData study released last year noted that Indonesia owes $17.28 billion in “hidden debt” to China, more than four times its $3.90 billion in reported sovereign debt. Nearly 70 percent of China’s overseas lending is directed to state-owned companies and private-sector institutions and the debts, for the most part, do not appear on government balance sheets, said the U.S.-based international development research lab. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

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Chinese national living in the Netherlands forced to shut down Twitter account

Editor07 mins

A Chinese national living in the Netherlands and his family in China have been harassed by Chinese police over posts to social media he made while out of the country, including voicing support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion, RFA has learned. Gao Ronghui, who hails from Pingtan county in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian, provided audio recordings of phone calls with police from Suao police station in Pingtan county, who have also visited his parents and elderly grandmother, he said. “Did you take part in the demonstration?” the officer is heard asking Gao, who had told him he supports Ukraine. Gao replies: “I saw the demonstration in the square.” “As Chinese citizens, we don’t take part in demonstrations,” the police officer tells him, repeating: “You can’t take part.” In another section of the audio file provided to RFA, the police officer asks him if he wrote “reactionary comments” on Twitter. “Let me tell you this: the internet is wide open. Just because you’re in a foreign country, doesn’t mean that China doesn’t know what you’re doing,” the officer warns him. “We know everything, do you understand?” The officer then orders Gao to “delete everything you wrote online, and on Twitter.” “This has to be deleted immediately and we can pretend we never saw it and all will be forgiven,” the officer says, before threatening his family. “If there is a problem with your political stance, it will affect your family for generations, if you have kids, where they go to school, anything you want to do. Politics is a massive thing.” High blood pressure Gao told RFA that he had shut down his Twitter account temporarily after the phone call. “My grandmother had high blood pressure because of this, and my mother was depressed for two or three weeks, and spent about three days in hospital on a drip,” he said. “I feel very confused and helpless right now,” Gao told RFA. “I feel that the CCP is depriving me of my freedom even here in the Netherlands.” “I want to tell them that the only person responsible for their actions is the person doing them … [but] they have silenced me. They, the system, they’re the ones who should change, not me. It’s the 21st century,” he said. Gao said he fled China after police raided his family home in July 2021 over social media posts he had made, then summoned him for questioning. “I walked to the police station from a friend’s house that day. It took 20 minutes, and during that time I deleted everything on my phone,” he said. “I knew I couldn’t have committed any crime other than just spreading the truth.” “When I got to the police station, I was severely beaten and abused, and they forced me to sign a guarantee that I would support the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party (CCP) line, and not post anything that would endanger national security,” Gao said. “From that day on, I started planning to leave the country.” ‘Feel the iron fist’ Gao said he finally felt free after arriving in the Netherlands, and began expressing his political views freely in public, supporting practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been heavily suppressed by the CCP inside China, and showing solidarity with Ukraine. “[I even] sprayed the Chinese embassy with paint to vent my anger,” Gao said. “I knew this was wrong, and I went to the police station and turned myself in, but the Dutch police told me it was okay.” “Around that time, I started to criticize the CCP again on Twitter, in solidarity with the suffering Chinese people. I know that if I don’t speak up for them today, no one will speak for me tomorrow,” he said. But Gao wasn’t as free as he had hoped he would be, and the long arm of Chinese law enforcement has succeeded in controlling his actions by threatening his family. He said he hoped public anger over the recent lockdowns in Shanghai and other parts of China under the CCP’s draconian zero-COVID policy would fuel political opposition back home. “I think some Chinese people are going to wake up because of the Shanghai lockdown, as they feel the iron fist themselves,” Gao said. “We should stand united to change China.” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Children of Myanmar’s conflict zones deprived of key immunizations

Editor08 mins

Children whose families have fled fighting in Myanmar’s conflict zones are being deprived of essential immunizations due to lack of access to health care, refugees and medical professionals said Thursday. From infancy to 18 months of age, children are required to receive 12-13 routine immunizations to ensure healthy growth and protection from disease. They include vaccines designed to protect against tuberculosis, measles, hepatitis B, diphtheria, chickenpox, tetanus, polio, meningitis, severe pneumonia, Japanese encephalitis, rubella, severe diarrhea and cervical cancer. But doctors told RFA’s Myanmar Service that regular injections are often not an option for families caught in fighting between junta troops and the armed opposition in the nearly 15 months since the military seized power in a coup. They said small children — especially those in the war-torn remote border areas of Kayin, Kayah, and Chin states and Sagaing region — have been most affected by the failure to immunize, which can lead to stunted growth, severe illness and even death from otherwise treatable medical conditions. A refugee mother from Kayin state sheltering near Myanmar’s border with Thailand told RFA that she was recently forced to flee her village with the baby girl she had given birth to only days earlier. “I had to leave my village with my two-week old baby, and she hasn’t received any vaccines yet,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We had to sleep on the other side of the river [in Thailand] because of the fighting and the baby got sick as the weather was very cold for three or four days. I was so worried for her. The medics tending the refugees here gave us some Paracetamol and she got better, but I wish we could get her vaccinated.” Parents have described a similar situation in Sagaing region, where the military has been burning homes to the ground in raids on villages, they say have provided haven for anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries. A woman from Sagaing’s Yinmabin township Chinbon village said she has been on the move with her young child since her home was recently targeted by military airstrikes. “We’ve been running from place to place, so there is no medication, no vaccines for these children,” said the woman, who also declined to be named. “Many children in the area suffer from poor health, and we just have to give them whatever we can find. There is no proper medicine. We don’t have clinics or hospitals around. My baby is now 15 months old and hasn’t been vaccinated because we’ve been on the run all this time in the jungle.” Lack of medical care since coup Before the coup, Myanmar’s regional Ministries of Health under the democratically elected National League for Democracy government organized routine immunizations for children through hospitals, clinics and rural health centers. In some towns and villages, children were vaccinated by health workers at administrative offices and churches. But since the takeover, many parents in Myanmar’s conflict zones told RFA that their children have never received a full medical exam or routine immunizations. Than Naing Soe, the director of the Health Awareness Center under the junta’s Ministry of Health, rejected claims that families lack access to immunizations for their children. “We’ve been providing vaccinations for children constantly at hospitals and clinics. We can do that,” he said. “Public health services are also being administered in wards and villages, while hospital-based immunization activities are gaining momentum.” But a mother in Chin state’s Tedim township, where anti-junta resistance is strong, alleged that vaccines are not being delivered to health facilities in the region. “In Chin State, no health services or medicine has been available since the coup,” she said, noting that many midwives in rural clinics have joined the [anti-junta] Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), while those who didn’t have no supplies. “We haven’t received anything since the coup. Medical supplies stopped coming in a long time ago. What were we supposed to do? We have had to do whatever it takes to care for our children.” Rebuilding the country A doctor in the CDM, who gave her name only as Olivia, said children are at risk of developmental conditions if they do not receive their required immunizations within a specified age range. “During the 18 months after birth, the baby should be vaccinated in a timely manner. … Only then will they have a chance to fully develop mentally and physically,” she said. “If not vaccinated, their health and safety is at risk. … Losing children means losing key human resources needed to rebuild the country.” The United Nations Children’s Fund said in February that nearly 1 million children in Myanmar are deprived of access to routine immunizations, while around 5 million are at risk of contracting disease due to a lack of vitamin supplements. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Hun Sen favors cronies with parcels of drained lake land

Editor010 mins

Cambodian’s autocratic Prime Minister Hun Sen has doled out at least 900 hectares of land reclaimed from one of the last large natural lakes in Phnom Penh to his sister, a wealthy tycoon and ally, and top military officials all benefiting from the largesse, according to a domestic land rights organization. The privatization and filling of Boeung Tamok Lake, also known as Beoung Tumnup Kabsrov, has picked up during the past few years, with little left of the body of water on the northwest side of the capital city. The lake spans six communes in Prek Pnov and Sen Sok districts and is home to a diverse ecosystem of birds and fish. It is also home to 300 families and 1,000 people, many of whom earn a living through fishing, aquaculture farming and home-based businesses, according to the Cambodian NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT). Most of the families live in dilapidated and poorly built housing, with 30% residing in makeshift shelters. The lake’s boundaries were officially demarcated in 2016 when the Cambodian government declared Boeung Tamok’s original 3,240 hectares as state public property, according to an April 2021 report by the NGO. As part of a land privatization drive, the government granted dried-out parts of the lake to ministries authorized to resell the land for urban development projects and to oligarchs and cronies close to the government, STT reported. In more than four years, the government has issued more than 40 directives to reclaim parts of the lake or to give away the land, according to STT, which assists poor communities to protect their rights to land and housing. As of late 2021, the government had reclaimed more than half of the lake area, or about 1,670 hectares. Hun Sen-approved land giveaways that went to 11 government ministries and institutions, including the Interior, Justice and Health ministries, Phnom Penh City Hall and the National Police, according to STT and to reports by VOD, a local independent media outlet. The Ministry of Interior, for instance, sold the allocated land to finance the construction of a new building headquarters on the old site. In addition, 22 individuals also received reclaimed lake land from Hun Sen. Among those who have benefited are his sister, Hun Seng Ny, who received 20 hectares of land. Vong Pisen, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces; Sao Sokha, deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces; and other senior military officers each received more than 36 hectares, VOD reported based on information in subdecrees signed by Hun Sen. Kok An, a wealthy tycoon close to the prime minister, received 155 hectares of land. Hun Sen also handed over 100 hectares to Chheng Thean Seng, the younger sister of wealthy real estate businesswoman Chheng Sopheap, also known as Yeay Phu, who has been implicated in several land grab scandals in Cambodia. Say Sophea, wife of Phoeung Phalla, a two-star general of the Special Forces Parachute Unit, received 75 hectares, VOD reported Environmental activist Thon Ratha, who was jailed for criticizing the government’s reclamation of Boeung Tamok, said he fears that the lake could soon disappear, like other natural lakes in Boeung Tumpun and Boeung Choeung Ek districts. The fact that individuals close to Hun Sen received parcels of the restored land raises a suspicion of corruption, he said. “Whether to sell or rent, how much to sell for, or whether to rent it and for how long — we seem to have no information about these questions other than the decision to give parts of the lake to this person and that person,” he told RFA. “That’s why I’m still skeptical. We’re worried that there may be a systematic conspiracy or corruption.” A map shows Phnom Penh’s Boeung Tamok Lake and the Tompoun/Cheung Ek Wetlands. Credit: RFA graphic ‘It belongs to the state’ Government spokesman Phay Siphan said that those who acquired land bought it from the original owners. He also said that before the government offered the land for sale, state institutions assessed the impact on local communities living there, though he did not know if the reclamations had forced some residents to leave their homes. “They bought it from the people in two stages, during which they asked for a [subdecree] to cut away part of the land from the lake,” he said. Seang Muy Lai, director of the Housing Rights and Research Project at Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, said that Boeung Tamok should be kept for the benefit of the public. More than 200 poor families living on the lake face eviction, Seang Muy Lai said. “It is unreasonable to give away parts of the lake that are two to three meters deep,” he said. “There should be no one occupying it. It is illegal to allow anyone to occupy the lake because it belongs to the state.” The environmental watchdog group Mother Nature Cambodia has urged the government to stop the development of reclaimed areas of the lake because of the negative impact on communities that rely on the body of water for their livelihoods and significant flooding in the city as the result of runoff during heavy rains. Lim Kean Hor, Cambodia’s minister of water resources and meteorology, has clashed with Hun Sen over the issue for expressing growing concern over the encroachment on the riverbanks and waterways that are properties of the state and has warned that warned that flooding is connected to landfilling developments such as Boeung Tamok. “The bank of the river, the river, the creek, the canal, and the lake, these are all public properties, so all provincial authorities and governors must take measures to facilitate the prevention of abuse from dumping land which is not in compliance with the law,” he said in a May 2020 letter issued all municipal governments and provincial authorities. Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Cambodian activist safe in Thailand after 6-day flight through jungle

Editor09 mins

A prominent Cambodian activist who fled her country in a six-day journey through the jungle safely arrived in Thailand, where she plans to seek asylum with the U.N. In Cambodia, meanwhile, government officials said they would not call foreign officials as witnesses in a “treason” case against another critic of the country’s ruling party. Sat Pha, who has supported the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), told RFA that she fled after a hand-written threat, which she believed was from the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, saying she could be “disappeared” was tacked to her door. “Authorities know how to assault, arrest and imprison [activists],” she told RFA’s Khmer Service. Opponents of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) have been targeted in a 5-year-old crackdown that has sent leaders of the CNRP into exile and landed scores of its supporters in prison. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017 in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. Sat Pha is one of the many Cambodians who has become disenfranchised in land disputes with the government or developers. She has also protested the detention of former CNRP politicians, and, she says, been beaten by governmental officials. “The authorities attacked me until my legs were injured. Has the govt. arrested any authorities? As a leader [Hun Sen] he doesn’t protect citizens. He knows how to assault, arrest and imprison. Killers are never brought to justice,” she said. Sat Pha said she became ill in her journey but is now in a safe location in Thailand. She said she is in the country illegally and is running low on food. She plans to request asylum from the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) office in Thailand. Sat Pha was released from prison in Cambodia six months ago after serving a year in detention for inciting social unrest during a peaceful protest in front of Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh.  RFA was unable to contact Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha for comment.  However, Cambodian People Party spokesman and lawmaker Sok Ey San told RFA that he believes Sat Pha fabricated her story to earn sympathy. “Police have a duty to look for the suspects. There is a need for cooperation between the victim and the police. It might be a personal dispute,” he said. Sok Ey San previously denied that the threat came from CPP leadership. Sat Pha has the right to ask NGOs for help when she doesn’t have any confidence in the authorities, Soeung Seng Karuna, spokesperson for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association told RFA. “It is normal for a victim who is threatened to seek asylum,” he said. Kem Sokha Trial In the treason trial of CNRP former leader Kem Sokha in Phnom Penh, prosecutors on Wednesday refused to summon representatives of any foreign governments that he is accused of colluding with.  The prosecution citied the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an international agreement that codifies diplomatic immunity. Defense lawyer Ang Odom told RFA after Wednesday’s session that the convention does not forbid representatives of foreign governments from testifying, adding that the prosecution told the defense they could ask the foreign governments to testify. “They need to do it, but they asked us to instead,” he said, adding that the defense plans to officially request that the prosecution summon foreign government representatives to testify in next week’s session, scheduled for April 27. “All relevant parties will help the court seek the truth. They need to speak the truth about the alleged collusion to commit treason,” he said. The government claims Kem Sokha was in league with Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Australia, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Taiwan and India in plots to commit treason against Cambodia. The government may have a legitimate point regarding the Vienna Convention, Cambodian American legal analyst Theary Seng, who is herself on trial in Phnom Penh for treason and incitement, told RFA. “Rarely do I have the opportunity to agree with this regime’s political tool [the court], but in this instance it is right to deny the defense’s request. First, there is clear international custom and provision enshrined in Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that gives diplomats immunity from criminal proceedings as a charged person or a witness,” she said. “Second, it is not politically feasible that any country, especially a superpower, would give way to an incendiary charge as ‘treason’ in another country’s court system, as that carries countless criminal and political implications,” she said. Theary Seng said that putting a diplomat on trial would be a loss of face for the country he or she represents. “It is understandable that Kem Sokha’s lawyers will look to influential figures or countries to come their client’s defense in denying this most serious charge of treason. But it is a dead-end road. Rather, the defense lawyers should place the onus on the prosecutors and court in demanding why the regime did not expel the diplomats or close down the embassy, making the diplomat persona non grata or communicating to the sending state the extremely serious nature of the change,” she said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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US, Chinese diplomats square off on Twitter over human rights, jailed Uyghur

Editor010 mins

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield sparked a social media spat with her Chinese counterpart on Wednesday after she called on the head of the U.N. Human Rights Council to release an overdue report on rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. In a tweet, Thomas-Greenfield urged Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, to release the report on Xinjiang, which Bachelet previously said would be finished in September 2021. “And let’s be clear: any visit by the High Commissioner to China must have unhindered and unfettered access,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted, referring to Bachelet’s upcoming visit to China. Bachelet announced in March that she had reached an agreement with the Chinese government for a visit “foreseen to take place in May” to China, including the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). No dates have been announced. In response, the spokesperson of Chinese mission to the U.N. tweeted that, “China welcomes the visit by @mbachele including a trip to Xinjiang. This is a normal exchange between two sides. There is no place for political manipulation and malicious pressure. Such indiscreet remarks only reveal the US intention to set up obstacles to disrupt the visit.” A second tweet said, “To some U.S. politicians who are obsessed with making lies: STOP turning a blind eye to the human rights violations in your own country. Save your own people from desperate racism, violence and inequality. Smearing and defaming China cannot cover or divert your failure.” Bachelet first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to the Uyghur region in September 2018, shortly after she became the U.N.’s top human rights official. But the trip has been delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. International rights groups have said that Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang must be independent and unhindered to be credible. Bachelet’s office is under pressure from rights activists to issue the overdue report on alleged serious rights violations by Chinese authorities who target Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the XUAR. In March, about 200 human rights groups urged Bachelet to make the report public without delay. Up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others have been held in a vast network of internment camps operated by the Chinese government under the pretext of preventing religious extremism and terrorism among the mostly Muslim groups. The U.S. government and the legislatures of several Western countries have declared that China’s maltreatment of the Uyghurs and other minority Muslims in Xinjiang constitutes genocide and crimes against humanity. ‘A political pawn’ Thomas-Greenfield’s tweet followed a meeting on Wednesday with the family Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur physician detained for more than three years in an internment camp in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region. “Just met with the family of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur medical doctor who’s been unjustly detained in China,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted. “The U.S. will continue to push for her safety and release — and speak out against PRC [People’s Republic of China] atrocities toward Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups.” On Sept. 11, 2018, Chinese police took Gulshan Abbas, now 59, from her home to one of the region’s camps. Her family, including her sister, Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur American activist who is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs based in Washington, D.C., later learned that Gulshan had been sentenced in March 2019 to 20 years in prison on false charges. Rushan has said that her sister was detained on trumped-up “terrorism” charges after she spoke out against the Chinese Communist Party (CPP). Gulshan’s daughter, Ziba Murat, told RFA on Thursday that her mother was a “nonpolitical, kind, generous person and gentle grandmother” with chronic health issues. “As a health care provider, she devoted her life providing medical treatments for people suffering from illnesses/disease,” Murat said. “The CCP defiled my mother’s name as if she is a political pawn. My mother is a law-abiding and caring human being, deserving of dignity.” In response to the Thomas-Greenfield’s tweet, the Chinese mission account tweeted: “Q: Who is Gulshan Abbas? A: a criminal sentenced to jail for crimes of participating in a terrorist organization, aiding terrorist activities. It is common sense to respect the rule of law. Time to stop making yourself a laughing stock.” That prompted Rushan Abbas to join in the exchange: “Did I make my sister up or is she in prison? Your claims have 0 credibility. 1st #China denied the existence of my sister (see) & called me a liar, saying I stole images of others. Now they falsely link her to ‘terrorism.’” In reference to the upcoming visit to China by Bachelet of the U.N., 56 civil society organizations on Tuesday issued a statement laying out certain conditions that must be met in order for the visit to be credible, including the release of the overdue report on serious human rights violations in Xinjiang. They also demanded that Bachelet meet with independent civil society groups, human rights defenders and diaspora groups before leaving for China and to set up unsupervised meetings with human rights defenders and others who have been forcibly disappeared or who have been arbitrarily detained. The groups also said they were concerned that Bachelet has remained silent on the human rights crisis in Tibet, in contrast with her predecessors. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a Germany-based Uyghur activist group that signed on to the statement, said Bachelet also has a responsibility to meet with Uyghur groups and survivors to hear directly from them before her visit to China. “Engagement with the affected communities must be a priority for her and her office,” WUC president Dolkun Isa said in a statement. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China on Thursday issued a letter to Claude Heller, chair of the U.N. Committee Against Torture, urging him to release a review of China’s actions. “The human rights situation in China has demonstrably worsened since the committee’s last review in 2015, particularly in the XUAR, which prompted the United States…

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Water release from Chinese dam causes Mekong River to rise downstream

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Residents in Laos said they were surprised to find water on the Mekong River rising this week due to unannounced releases from the Jinghong Dam upriver in China, although there were no reports of significant damage. The Mekong in parts of Laos rose more than 30 centimeters (0.98 feet), according to a notice issued Wednesday by water authorities in Thailand. Water levels rose higher in Thailand, to between 70 and 80 centimeters in Chiang Khan district in Loei province and Chiang Saen district of Chiang Rai province, Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources said. Officials in Laos and in Thailand said they were not notified of the release from the dam in in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. China has 11 massive dams, including two large storage dams, along the mainstream of the Upper Mekong Basin, known as the Lancang in China. Laos has two hydropower dams in operation on the Mekong mainstream and dozens more on its tributaries as part of the government’s aim to bring in revenue by exporting electricity to the country’s richer neighbors. A Lao fisherman who lives in Tonpheung district said he noticed higher water on Wednesday. “At 10 a.m. on April 20, the Mekong River water level in front of Tonpheung district was about 30 centimeters higher than it was the day before, and it is expected to be higher today and tomorrow,” he said. “So far, we haven’t been affected yet. We’ve already secured our boats by tying them up to the stakes on the riverbank.” The dam near Jinghong includes a 1,750-megawatt hydroelectric power station, and water is sometimes released to generate more electricity. But sudden releases of water can pose a threat to communities downstream. The Office of National Water Resources said that the Mekong’s water flow rose to 1,626 cubic meters per second, from 970 cubic meters per second, following the release at Jinghong. Thai water authorities and the Mekong Dam Monitor, which tracks water levels in the river, expect levels to increase between 80 centimeters and 160 centimeters, or 1.6 meters, on Thursday and Friday. Lao officials received no notice about the increased water discharge from China, an official at the Natural Resources and Environment Department of northern Laos’ Bokeo province said. “Usually there must be some kind of a notice or a letter informing us of the discharges so that we can issue a warning to our residents,” said the official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons and to speak freely. An estimated 80% of the nearly 65 million people who live in the Lower Mekong River Basin depend on the river for their livelihoods, according to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental organization representing Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam that manages the shared water resource. Agriculture and fisheries production in the Lower Mekong River Basin can be harmed by either higher or lower levels of water discharge from China. A resident of Bokeo’s Tonpheung district, which sits along the Mekong River, told RFA that locals heard about the upstream water release from the crew of a Chinese cargo ship. “Oh, the water level is now inching up,” he said. An MRC member told RFA that it also did not receive any notice or warning from the Chinese about the dam discharge. A member of the Hak (Love) Chiang Khong Group, a Thai nonprofit environmental campaign in Chiang Rai, told RFA that the Jinghong Dam has discharged more water nine times since the beginning of the year, including twice in April. “We believe that the dam will release more water whenever it wants to produce more electricity or to raise the Mekong River’s water level so that Chinese cargo boats can navigate down to Laos and Thailand,” he said. Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Cooking oil prices in North Korea remain high despite more imports

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Cooking oil prices in North Korea remain high despite more imports from China, the result of the government diverting the new supplies to food factories in preparation for a major holiday, sources in the country told RFA. Food prices skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Sino-Korean border was shut down and all trade was suspended for about two years, starting in January 2020. As supplies dwindled, sugar, cooking oil and other ingredients became unaffordable luxuries to many North Korean families. Poor harvests in North Korea in both 2020 and 2021 added market pressure by creating shortages of staples like rice and corn. Ahead of the Day of the Sun, a holiday celebrating the life of leader Kim Jong Un’s late grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung, North Korean authorities began importing more ingredients for cakes and sweets, but residents outside the capital Pyongyang are not seeing much benefit. Though freight trains laden with cooking oil are now rolling in from China, North Koreans are not seeing a price drop, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “In early April, the news spread that the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train was importing 20 cargo compartments of sugar, flour and cooking oil almost every other day, raising hopes that the cooking oil prices would fall soon,” he said. “However, the price of 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of cooking oil is still equivalent to 5 kg (11 lbs.) of rice. Residents are wondering where all the imported cooking oil is going. They are complaining that they don’t know when they will be able to add oil to their dishes,” the source said. The current price of cooking oil is 22,000 won per kg ($7.43 per lb.) at the marketplace in Sinuiju, a border city that lies across the Yalu River from China’s Dandong, the source said. Locally produced cooking oil costs 25,000 won per kg. In 2019, before the pandemic, cooking oil cost 13,000 to 15,000 won per kg. In contrast, prices for flour are falling as supplies increasingly come in via maritime trade through Sinuiju and are distributed to local markets as far away as South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang. At the height of the pandemic, flour cost as much as 30,000 won per kilogram, but now it costs 11,000 to 12,000 won per kilogram. In the city of Pyongsong in South Pyongan, food factories received orders to increase production of sweets, instant noodles and bread, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Raw materials such as flour, sugar, and cooking oil are imported on the Dandong-Sinuiju weekly freight train,” the second source said. “On the occasion of Kim Il Sung’s birthday, authorities ordered the import of food materials from China by increasing the frequency of freight trains. They ordered gifts of sweets and food to distribute to high-ranking officials, national contributors and Pyongyang citizens,” he said. Residents of the capital Pyongyang live lives of privilege, with more access to luxuries than people living in the provinces. “Food products from the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train are not released to the market,” the second source said. “After the cargo is disinfected at the Uiju food-quarantine facilities, it is only supplied to food production plants in Pyongyang and other food production companies under the party and the military. The price of food products in the marketplace is not going down,” he said. Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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