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Year: 2023

Authorities arrest Tibetan man twice for possessing Dalai Lama photo

Editor04 mins

Chinese authorities have arrested a Tibetan man for a second time for being in possession of a photo of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, sources with knowledge of the situation said.  Possessing photos of the Dalai Lama, who has resided in northern India since 1959, is considered an act of separatism and has been a punishable offense in Tibetan-populated areas of China for decades. Tibetan sources recently told RFA that authorities arrested Tsultrim, a Tibetan from Tsaruma township in Ngaba’s Kyungchu county, in February 2023 after they discovered pictures of the 14th Dalai Lama on his mobile phone.  He was detained until April, they said, when he was sentenced to two years in prison by the People’s Court of Ngaba, a Tibetan region in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, also known as Aba in Chinese. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity. Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity. Authorities in China maintain a tight lockdown on the flow of information in and out of the country’s Tibetan regions, and it can often take weeks to learn of arrests and other incidents through the exile community. Tsultrim, whose age is unknown, is serving his sentence in Yaknga Prison, and none of his family and friends are allowed to see him, said a Tibetan who lives in exile.  After graduating from Northwestern Minzu University in 2016, Tsultrim worked as a self-employed businessman, said the source who declined to be named so he could speak freely.  “He has always been an intelligent young Tibetan and has advocated for preservation of the Tibetan language,” the source said. Prior to this incident, Chinese authorities summoned and interrogated Tsultrim in July 2022 for sharing a picture of the 14th Dalai Lama on social media and saving the photo on his mobile phone, said a Tibetan from inside the western region.  Authorities examined his phone and detained him for two months until September when he was released, said the source who also declined to be named. “However, during his detention, he was beaten and had gone through such a tough time that he wished death upon himself,” the source told RFA.   In May, authorities also sentenced two Tibetan monks in Sershul county, or Shiqu in Chinese, on separatism charges for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama on their phones, giving one three years and six months in jail, and the other three years, RFA reported earlier. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.

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Junta threatens prison terms for unregistered SIM card users

Editor04 mins

Myanmar’s junta-controlled Ministry of Transport and Communications is threatening mobile phone service sellers and users with six months in prison if they don’t register, or fraudulently register, SIM cards, state controlled newspapers said Wednesday. A ministry statement carried by the media, citing Section 72 of the telecommunications law, told users they needed to submit their personal information to register the cards. One Yangon resident told Radio Free Asia he had mixed feelings about the announcement. “This kind of systematic registration is good under normal circumstances but security has become a concern following the [Feb. 2021] military coup,” said the person, who declined to give his name for security reasons. A technology expert who also requested anonymity said the junta could use artificial intelligence to eavesdrop on calls and texts in order to spot anti-junta conversations. Just over a year ago, the Department of Post and Telecommunications under the junta’s Ministry of Transport and Communications said it would cancel all SIM cards that hadn’t been registered with a national ID card and confiscate any remaining balance on the cards. The ministry said all SIM cards must be registered by Jan. 31, 2023. Although the practice is common in many countries, critics say Myanmar’s military intends to use identity registration as a way to crack down on pro-democracy activists and the People’s Defense Forces. In July 2021, the junta reportedly told major mobile operators to track the devices of dissidents and report on their behavior. The move prompted Norway’s Telenor to abandon its Myanmar operations a few months later. A company named Shwe Byine Phyu, with reported ties to top junta leaders, stepped in to provide telecom services in Telenor’s place under the “Atom” brand. Last year, Qatar-based telecom operator Oredoo, which is the third most popular brand in Myanmar, sold its investments for US$576 million to Singapore’s Nine Communications, reportedly owned by a Myanmar national close to the military. The other two operators have even closer military ties. Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) came entirely under the junta’s control following the 2021 coup. Mytel is a joint venture between the Myanmar military and Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense. Aung Pyae Sone, son of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, holds Mytel shares. According to the list of telecommunications operators in 2021, there were 20 million Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT)  SIM users, 18 million Atom users, 15 million Ooredoo users and 10 million Mytel users. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

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Make revolution, not love

Editor01 mins

North Korean authorities have threatened to punish young couples partaking in “degenerate” romantic behavior at solemn historical sites honoring the ruling Kim family. The warning came after an angry official carped that lovebirds were “casually holding hands and openly dating” at the birthplace of Kim Jong Suk, grandmother of leader Kim Jong Un. Monuments to the three-generation Kim dynasty that dominate the urban landscape of North Korea are popular dating venues because they are well-lit in a country where electricity is a luxury.

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Clean energy growth is keeping the 1.5 C target alive, IEA says

Editor07 mins

Significant growth in clean energy technologies, like solar panels and electric vehicles, has helped keep viable the target to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the International Energy Agency said in a new report on Tuesday. However, it warned that China and advanced economies must intensify their climate commitments to reach the goal on time. According to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world must limit global warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial temperatures by the end of this century to tackle the urgent threats posed by climate change, including rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and disruptions to ecosystems. Global investment needs to escalate to US$4.5 trillion annually from the next decade, a leap from the anticipated $1.8 trillion in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its updated report on the “Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario.” For the world to adhere to the Paris climate goal, wealthy nations are urged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, five years ahead of previous targets.  China, the world’s top carbon emitter, is called on to expedite its timeline by a decade to 2050. The report comes as temperatures reached unprecedented highs this year, with last month declared the warmest August globally and warmer than all other months except July 2023, when the record was broken with the global average temperature at 16.95 C (62.51 F), according to the World Meteorological Organization. Fossil fuel is peaking, but needs to decrease more The Paris-based IEA said the past two years have witnessed a 40% surge in clean energy investments, with solar energy and electric vehicles projected to contribute to a third of emissions cuts by 2030. “Our analysis showed that even if no new climate policies are put in place by the governments … three fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas, may well peak before 2030 within this decade,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told a virtual press conference on Tuesday. He added that this is a significant development due to a robust and spectacular increase in clean energy technologies and the changes in the economic structure of key consuming countries. “Solar [has] become the king of electricity markets. The old king – coal – is over; now solar is the new king. Not only for climate reasons, but because it is cheap, the cost is coming down.” He also said that one in 25 cars sold worldwide two years ago was electric, whereas this year it has increased to one in five and is growing in key markets.  “So the growth coming from solar, electric cars, other renewable technologies are very, very impressive, and they will play an extremely important role in bringing down the need for fossil fuels in the next years,” he said. Birol also said that to reach the 1.5 degrees target, the use of fossil fuels must decline close to 25% between now and 2030. China’s coal expansion and 1.5 can’t go hand in hand The report said China’s 2030 carbon emissions projection is expected to be more than a third of the 2015 scenario due to the substantial solar and wind power growth. Less than 10% of China’s electricity production comes from renewable sources, but Beijing has floated a plan to increase it to 25% by 2030.  An infographic showing the deployment of clean energy technologies that remains highly concentrated in China and advanced economies. Credit: IEA According to the IEA report, the Chinese government in 2016 had aimed for EVs to be 12% of total vehicle sales in 2020. The target has been revised to 20% for 2025, bolstered by significant subsidies and tax breaks.  However, all these new developments and climate change impacts, including heat waves and drought, have put tremendous pressure on China’s electricity. From 2015 to 2022, power production surged over 6% annually, according to the IEA. Despite the vast growth of renewables, the demand was unmet, leading to a spike in coal-powered electricity generation.  Consequently, China’s global contribution to coal-based electricity grew by 10 percentage points during this timeframe.  Answering a question by Radio Free Asia on China, Birol said that according to the IEA’s analysis, China is “number one” in solar, wind, electric cars, additional new nuclear capacity, and hydropower, “in all clean energy sources,” as well as a leader in clean energy investments. “But at the same time, coal – the fuel with the most carbon content – is still having a dominant position in the Chinese energy mix,” Birol said. “When we look at the global picture, we see that there is no room for unabated new coal plants if we want to stick to our 1.5 degrees target.” Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

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India plans to extend fence along Myanmar border

Editor010 mins

India plans to begin installing an additional 70 kilometers (44 miles) of border fencing over concerns about illegal immigrants entering Manipur state from neighboring Myanmar and an increase in arms and drugs smuggling. India and Myanmar share a 1,600-kilometer-long (1,000-mile-long) border. Manipur state, where the additional fencing will occur, accounts for 400 kilometers (250 miles) of that border, of which less than 10% is fenced, leaving the region open for arms and drug smuggling, according to Indian media.  Earlier this year, Indian authorities began installing barbed-wire fencing along Manipur’s border with Myanmar to curb smuggling, infiltration and other border crimes, according to Indian media. “In view of the rise in illegal immigration and drugs smuggling from the neighboring country, safeguarding our porous borders has become an urgent necessity,” N. Biren Singh, chief minister of Manipur state, said at a meeting with officials from India’s Border Roads Organisation, Indian media reported on Sept. 24. The organization develops and maintains road networks in India’s border areas and in friendly neighboring countries. The move comes as nearly 60,000 Burmese civilians from Chin state and the northern Sagaing region have fled across the border into India’s Manipur and Mizoram states since the military ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup, according to ethnic Chin civil society organizations. Junta forces have bombed and conducted armed attacks on civilian areas while trying to root out resistance fighters. Over 5,000 of them have taken refuge in Manipur state, of which more than 70 have been arrested for immigration violations or other charges, according to India For Myanmar, a group that helps Burmese refugees in India. Trapping civilians Human rights groups and Burmese refugees have decried the move to extend the fence in Manipur because it would keep people from fleeing into a safe area. “The closure of the border is only intended to fence off Myanmar refugees, but I don’t think it will prevent many other crimes and other illegal trade,” said Salai Dokhar, founder of India For Myanmar.  “If India wants to end these illegal businesses, it should cooperate with the western countries and those with strong democratic values to be able to take more effective actions along the border,” he said. In 2018, under Myanmar’s previous civilian-led government, travel was allowed through the Myanmar-India land border to promote trade between the two countries. But now the Manipur government has accused Myanmar of allowing more arms and drug trafficking on the border, thereby worsening ethnic conflict in the state due to an influx of Burmese civilians fleeing violence at home. Ethnic conflict Manipur itself is experiencing an ethnic conflict between the mostly Hindu Meiteis and the mainly Christian Kukis, and state officials often accuse the Burmese refugees who seek a safe haven there of making the problem worse.  In the meantime, Indian authorities in Manipur state arrested an alleged terrorist suspected of being associated with Myanmar-based rebel groups, and handed him over to the National Investigation Agency, India’s central counter-terrorism law enforcement agency, the Indian English-language daily newspaper Deccan Herald reported on Sept. 23.  Refugees who fled Myanmar rest in a shelter at Farkawn quarantine camp in India’s eastern state of Mizoram near the Myanmar border, Sept. 23, 2021. Credit: AFP Although Myanmar’s armed resistance groups have traveled across the border to India, they have done nothing to cause harm or damage, and have even helped arrest border drug smugglers, said Chin National Defense Force spokesperson Salai Kyung Gain.  The Chin ethnic armed group in western Myanmar’s Chin state, which lies south of Manipur state and east of India’s Mizoram state, is the armed wing of the Chin National Organization. “If we close these entrances and exits on the border, there will be some difficulties,” Salai Kyung Gain said. “Drug and arms trade always occurs along the border, but they have become more frequent lately during tough situations like there is now.” “But since our defense forces and revolutionary forces have to commute to the Indian side of the border, such as to Mizoram, we help arrest some [weapons and drug smugglers] as much as we can to protect the people,” he said. ‘Will hurt Myanmar refugees’ If the Manipur state government extends the fence, it will hurt Myanmar refugees forced to flee their homes by Myanmar junta forces fighting anti-regime forces in Chin state and Sagaing region, said Salai Kyung Gain. Indian authorities have driven back Burmese civilians from Sagaing and Chin who fled across the border to Manipur, forcing them to shelter along the border in difficult conditions, some of the refugees said.  Pu Khaing, a displaced Burmese, told RFA that those who fled were civilians and not arms or drug smugglers. “There is no problem for us with their fence because we are no longer building our refugee camps on the Indian side, but only on the Myanmar side of the border,” he said. “They [Indian authorities] drove us out, but the smugglers have their own way of crossing the border. Ordinary refugees don’t get involved with them.” A Burmese refugee in Mizoram, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said the local office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in New Delhi should not ignore the situation. “If they shut down the [Burmese refugees’] right to freedom of travel, we will have to see what kind of measures UNHCR will take,” he said. “Another thing is that we have to wait and see what kind of action the Mizoram state government will take against us.” The Indian Embassy in Yangon and the UNHRC in New Delhi did not respond to emailed requests for comments. RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment.  Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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Young political prisoner dies of heart attack in Myanmar prison

Editor02 mins

A 21-year-old political prisoner who was sentenced to a long term in Myanmar’s Insein Prison died of a heart attack at the weekend, sources close to the family told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The prison authorities informed family members about the death of Min Hein Khant on Sunday evening and they went to the Yangon prison to see the body. A source close to the family said Min Hein Khant was in good health before his arrest, but he was severely tortured during interrogation and did get treated for heart disease in prison. “I found out that he had a heart attack in May,” said the source. “He fell down and went to prison hospital. There, the doctors checked and found out that he had a heart attack but he was told to see a specialist only after he was released from prison. There was nothing in the prison.  “He fainted once again in August and I heard that he was fine yesterday, but he died after fainting. It happened because he could not have proper medical treatment.” Min Hein Khant was a member of Pazundaung and Botahtaung townships’ Youth Strike Committee and was arrested on Nov. 1, 2021. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison under the Explosive Substances Act. RFA phoned the junta’s prison department about his death but no one answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

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What to do about ‘freedom from speech?’

Editor015 mins

A recent survey from the Pew Research Centre, ostensibly about the opinions of Buddhists and Muslims in South and Southeast Asia, offered a disheartening read to those of us who cherish free speech. But the study also highlighted that it is wrong to think the only enemies of free speech are the region’s authoritarian governments.  The pollsters asked respondents from four Southeast Asian states to choose between two statements: “People should be allowed to speak their opinions publicly even if they upset other people” or “harmony with others is more important than the right to speak one’s opinion”. Around two-thirds of respondents—69 percent in Cambodia, 67 percent in Indonesia, and 64 percent in Singapore—chose harmony over free speech. Interestingly, 59 percent of Thais chose the opposite.   It’s more straightforward, though not easy, to pick a fight with governments for their repression of free speech, as it is to argue against the common claims that free speech is an illusion or that democracies are just as censorious as authoritarian states. What’s harder to comprend, and more dangerous not to rebut, is the proposition that freedom of speech is undesirable and honesty is a species of antisocial behavior. Indeed, the argument you should keep silent even if you know you would speak the truth. But that is what one confronts in Southeast Asia, vide the Pew survey.   A Thai man prays in the rain during an all-religion prayer meeting for peace and harmony at the Lumpini park, in Bangkok in 2010. Thousands of residents gathered at dawn to pray for peace at sites across Bangkok where people were killed and high rise buildings torched in two months of political violence. Credit: Manish Swarup/AP I say it’s harder because one must realize that it is not just your governments who want to silence you; it’s also your neighbors. None of this is palatable. It’s far easier to think that all tyranny stems from way up high, in part because one has to get on in society with people who think differently and, also, because it provides a convenient excuse for inactivity.  However, this isn’t a new realization. In 2015, Pew conducted a global survey on people’s attitudes towards free speech. Only 29 percent of Indonesians, for example, thought that people should say what they want without censorship and just 21 percent reckoned that internet use without censorship is important.  What point is there in free speech if one is only allowed to say something uncontroversial or what everyone else already (appears) to think? That’s not free speech; that’s repetition. And repetition doesn’t change people’s opinions nor educate. Why not stick to what you thought at sixteen years old and never change your mind? But in order to be allowed to question your established ideas, to educate yourself, you have to be presented with uncomfortable information in an uncomforting way—few people relish being told they’re wrong and that they have been wrong for years.  I say “allowed” because that is at the core of free speech. It is often assumed that the true victim of censorship is the person engaged in speaking. They are victims, but so, too, is everyone else. If your thoughts are censored, then I am now able to hear them. If my thoughts are censored, you are not allowed to hear my opinions and judge them against your own. As such, censorship makes each person a prisoner of their own thoughts and makes society barren silos. Enforcing the will of the majority I am not singling Southeast Asia out unfairly, The desire for “freedom from speech” is universal. Indeed, the want for a “quiet life”, to be protected from discomforting truths, is much in the Western consciousness, and increasingly so.  It is the defining ethos of totalitarianism—a Western concept—and of almost all religions. Isn’t the founding tenet of Christianity, Judaism and Islam that Adam was wicked for giving up the “harmony” of Eden for a free life, and that all us apparent descents are still being punished for that “crime”? It is often said that censorship is grounded in the need to protect minorities. That, at least, is how social “harmony” is often defined in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia; multiethnic countries with political systems that fracture on racial or religious lines. However, time and time again what one finds in practice is that censorship is used to enforce the will of the majority over the minority. Worse, what this becomes is the assertion that harmony can only be protected by prosecuting the minority so that the majority does not engage in violence.  Malaysia’s Police Chief Khalid Abu Bakar warned journalists “Don’t do anything or publish drawings or writing that can cause exasperation in the community.” Credit: Alexandra Radu/AP file photo There are numerous examples of this. But to take a lesser-known one: in early 2017, a small Chinese-language daily newspaper in Malaysia ran a caricature of the president of the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) that was deemed by some to be anti-Islamic. Shortly after the cartoon went public, admittedly to the newspaper’s small readership of mainly ethnic-Chinese, a PAS state commissioner warned the newspaper not to forget what happened to the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, when 12 journalists were murdered at the French newspaper’s Paris offices two years earlier. “If you remember last time, there was a French newspaper that published a caricature that angered the whole Muslim world,” said Muhammad Fauzi Yusof, adding that the newspaper would be responsible for the “devastating” consequences. Then-Police chief Khalid Abu Bakar waded into the debate. “Don’t do anything or publish drawings or writing that can cause exasperation in the community. We have to be careful with these things,” he instructed newspapers and journalists. What do we make of this? Obviously, it was not the Chinese-language newspaper, representing a minority, that threatened violence but the politician, from the majority, who told journalists that they could be assassinated en masse. And what about the police chief? He didn’t arrest the politician for a…

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Former Chinese central bank chief calls for end to ‘hukou’ red tape

Editor010 mins

A former governor of China’s central bank has called on the country’s leaders to relax “hukou” household registration rules to allow people to move into cities as the leaders struggle to boost a flagging property market and stimulate domestic consumption. Former People’s Bank of China Gov. Yi Gang called in a Sept. 19 article published by a national political advisory body for policy measures to boost consumption, including pressing ahead with ongoing urbanization plans by cutting through the red tape that prevents people from easily moving to live and work in other cities. Noting that the post-zero-COVID recovery in China remains lackluster, Yi called for “city-specific policies” to boost demand for housing, including easier loan terms for residential landlords, and financial subsidies to cash-strapped local governments to enable them to buy up empty housing stock as affordable rented housing. “Some scholars have estimated that reform of the household registration system can boost consumption among migrant workers and new arrivals to a city by 23%,” Yi wrote, in a reference to the “hukou” system that limits access to services like healthcare and schooling, as well as the right to buy property, to natives of a given area. Yi Gang, former People’s Bank of China governor, called in an article this month for policy measures to boost consumption. Credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images file photo The authorities have rolled out limited reforms to the system, which makes it hard for people to put down roots anywhere other than their hometown. In recent years, they have removed registration restrictions from all locations in the eastern province of Zhejiang except the provincial capital in July, and lifted hukou restrictions across the whole of Jiangxi and Shandong provinces in 2021. Abolishing barriers But other prominent commentators have taken it further. Beijing University of Science and Technology professor Hu Xingdou called in 2017 for an end to the hukou system, as the biggest, “first-tier” cities like Beijing and Shanghai attract far more wealth and resources than other areas, increasing inter-regional inequality. Yi, who still sits on the standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that advises the government, appeared in his article to be cautiously agreeing with this approach, suggesting that many minds in the government system think that Beijing needs to do more to inject life into the economy. “It will be necessary to provide better protection for migrant workers in housing, medical care, children’s education, social security and other aspects while working in cities,” he wrote. “At the same time, we also need to pay attention to maintaining a certain degree of mobility of labor between urban and rural areas, between different cities, and between the east and west,” he said, adding: “This is also a way to bake stability into the Chinese economy.” China’s household registration system limits access to services like healthcare and schooling, as well as the right to buy property, to natives of a given area. Credit: Public domain Ren Liqian, who manages China investments at U.S.-based WisdomTree Asset Management, said via X that while she agrees with hukou reform, she was less sure whether it would boost consumption. “While the current reforms to the household registration system will have some economic benefits, they definitely won’t pay huge economic dividends,” Ren wrote. “This may not be good to hear, but I can afford to be honest because I’m not in charge.” Beijing is under huge pressure to find ways to improve economic performance, U.S.-based economist Li Hengqing said. “Everyone from the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee to the State Council is feeling the pressure,” Li said. “With the exception of [party leader] Xi Jinping, they all feel that poor economic performance is responsible for social unrest and growing public dissatisfaction.” While the government wants to launch an all-out effort to boost the economy, it can no longer turn to massive spending on local infrastructure as a way to do this. “The central government’s credit is very low right now, and there are a number of debts it is finding hard to repay both principal and interest on by maturity, so eventually bad debts will appear,” Li said. “So that means that the cost of financing [a stimulus package] would be very high.” Wider dissatisfaction? U.S.-based economist Zheng Xuguang said Yi’s article hints at wider dissatisfaction with Xi Jinping’s current policies among party elders. But he said Yi’s suggestion was unlikely to have much of an impact in the face of dwindling exports and plummeting foreign business confidence. “Investors have been pessimistic about China’s political situation and Sino-U.S. relations for a long time, which means there is no hope of a rebound in investor confidence or in consumption,” Zheng said.  A worker pulls a cart of elevator parts at a factory in Haian city, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on Sept. 5, 2023. Credit: AFP “I think the party elders are likely unhappy, but Xi Jinping doesn’t care very much … they feel that they have to raise it, but party elders no longer have much of a say in politics,” he said. Cong Liang, deputy director of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, was resolutely upbeat during a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, saying China has already survived two financial crises, and will bounce back again. “Positive factors in China’s economy are accumulating, and naysayers will be disappointed yet again,” Cong said in comments paraphrased by state news agency Xinhua.  However, Cong also acknowledged that China’s economy faces “a lot of difficulties and challenges.” Li said the upbeat news conference would only widen the disconnect between what the government says and what people hear. “What [Cong] said flew in the face of people’s actual experience, which means the government loses even more credibility,” Li said. “After time, people will regard them negatively – so that if they say go east, then everyone else will look to the West.” “Even if the government told the truth, people would still assume the opposite was true,” he said. Translated with…

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Vietnam executes death row prisoner Le Van Manh

Editor04 mins

Death row prisoner Le Van Manh was executed on Friday morning, lawyer Le Van Luan posted on Facebook, in a case with evidence which lawyers said was not clear enough to convict. “News and official documents said that defendant Le Van Manh was executed on the morning of September 22, 2023,” said Luan. A death notice dated September 22, 2023 from the People’s Committee of Thu Phong commune, Cao Phong district, Hoa Binh province, posted widely on social media said that death row prisoner Le Van Manh, born in 1982, died at 8:45 a.m. on September 22, 2023 at a Hoa Binh Provincial Police execution facility. Upon receiving news of the imminent execution last week, Manh’s family said they did not accept the verdict because it was an unjust sentence. They said they would continue to protest his innocence to authorities in Hanoi. In 2005, when he was 23 years old, Le Van Manh was sentenced to death for allegedly raping and killing a female student in the same village earlier that year. The case occurred on March 21, 2005, but it was not until April 20 that police arrested Manh on a robbery charge in another case. After four days of detention Manh was prosecuted for murder and child rape. Manh’s mother Nguyen Thi Viet told Radio Free Asia her son said that he had been tortured to force him to confess. During the trial lawyers requested an examination of the defendant’s body to determine whether he had been tortured, but the court refused. A day before the execution – September 21 – the European Union delegation along with the embassies of Canada, the United Kingdom and Norway in Vietnam issued a joint statement calling on Hanoi to stay execution of the sentence. “We strongly oppose the use of capital punishment at all times and in all circumstances, which is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and can never be justified, and advocate for Vietnam to adopt a moratorium on all executions,” said the statement posted on the EU delegation’s Facebook page. This is the second joint statement by the EU and the UK, Norway and Canada on the death penalty in Vietnam in the last two months. Late last month, they issued a statement calling on Vietnamese authorities to stay the execution of Nguyen Van Chuong, who was convicted of murder in Hai Phong in 2007. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

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Hun Manet tells UN Cambodia’s elections were fair

Editor011 mins

A month after he succeeded his father as Cambodia’s prime minister in the wake of the country’s latest election without an opposition, Hun Manet falsely told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that the July 23 ballot was “free and fair” and “credible and just.”  Hun Sen handed power to his son after claiming victory in an election in which he banned the last remaining opposition party, the Candlelight Party, and threatened prison time and disenfranchisement for any Cambodians who joined the party’s efforts to boycott the vote. His ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which has been in power since 1979, won 120 of the 125 available seats – a five-seat drop from 2018, with those seats going to its longtime coalition partner Funcinpec. Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly in English, Hun Manet said it was his “great pleasure” to address the chamber “as the new prime minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia,” and lauded the election. “Over 8.2 million people cast their ballots, a turnout rate of 84.59%,” he said, pointing to the participation of 18 minor parties as evidence of fairness. “This is the highest turnout since the U.N.-supervised election in 1993, and a clear indication of our people’s greater political maturity and enthusiasm in exercising their democratic rights.” “The election has been widely assessed as free and fair, credible and just, by thousands of observers,” he said.  The United States and European Union declined to send observers due to concerns about the election’s integrity. Hun Manet also appeared to address U.S. claims and satellite imagery that appears to show China building a military base in the port city of Sihanoukville, which his father has also repeatedly denied. The new premier declined to mention the banning of the opposition and his father’s threats of imprisonment. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) “Cambodia shall not authorize any foreign military base on this territory, as clearly stated in its constitution,” he said. “Cambodia will continue on its present path of independence and a neutral foreign policy.” Hun Manet became Cambodia’s new premier on Aug. 22, after 38 years of rule by his father, who rose to power in 1985 under the communist regime installed by Vietnam after its ouster of Pol Pot. Hun Sen long ruled with an iron fist, banning the resurgent Cambodia National Rescue Party shortly before the 2018 election and jailing its leader after the party threatened to win even a flawed election. Some members of the CNRP then reassembled into the Candlelight Party to contest this year’s election, before that party, too, was banned.  Hun Manet’s government has appeared no more eager for friendly competition, and has refused to give the party official registration documents it would need to contest in any future elections. Change, or no change? Outside the U.N. building on Friday, Cambodian-Americans and former opposition party leaders protested Hun Manet’s appearance, calling for his government to be stripped of Cambodia’s U.N. seat. Former CNRP lawmakers including Ho Vann, Kong Saphea, Eng Chhay Eang and Mu Sochua – all of whom face lengthy prison sentences if they return to Cambodia – were in attendance, and the protesters reprised popular chants from the party’s post-2013 election mass protests, including the rhetorical “Change, or no change?” Sochua, who also served as Cambodia’s minister for women’s affairs from 1998 to 2004, told Radio Free Asia she thought Hun Manet would not be able to completely quieten the sense of shame about how he took power, unable to campaign, on his own, in a free election. “I don’t think that he sits in that seat comfortably,” Mu Sochua said of Cambodia’s U.N. seat. “Hun Manet is not a free man.” Former CNRP lawmaker Mu Sochua [right], who faces a lengthy prison sentence if she returns to Cambodia, says she believes Hun Manet would not be able to completely quieten the sense of shame about how he took power. She protested Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Manet’s appearance at the United Nations in New York City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (Alex Willemyns/RFA) It was clear, she said, that Hun Sen hoped to give his regime – known for arresting opposition leaders, banning rival parties and violently attacking critics – a new coat of sheen using Hun Manet’s face. But Mu Sochua said the world should not buy what Phnom Penh was selling, and pointed to the decision to deny the opposition Candlelight Party its registration papers and the vicious beating of Ny Nak as evidence that the new prime minister was more of the same. “If he wanted to be legitimized, if he wanted to be a new generation of Cambodian leader, we would have to start with free and fair elections,” she said. “You cannot fake legitimacy. How can he show a new face for Cambodia when he is under the control of his father?” No change Others said they had traveled to New York to make sure the world knew Cambodians wanted the chance to freely choose their leaders. “I came here because Cambodia is going on the wrong path for democracy,” said Thy Doak, 63, who traveled from Boston. “This dictator passed his power to Hun Manet which goes against the Paris Agreements that [say] we should have free and fair elections.” Doak said he arrived in Cambodia as a refugee in 1984 and wanted his compatriots back home to enjoy the same freedoms he did now in the United States. He said he had no hope Hun Manet would deliver that. “He’s no different from his father. There’s no change,” he said. “I don’t want Hun Manet to be a part of this thing. Cambodia does not deserve it. We’re supposed to be a democracy, but we have a dictatorship.”  Cambodian-Americans and former opposition party leaders protest Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Manet’s appearance at the United Nations in New York City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (Alex Willemyns/RFA) Susie Chhoun, 45, who was born in the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp along the Cambodian-Thailand before her parents were given asylum in the…

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