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Month: December 2024

Dissident US monk faces terrorism charge in Myanmar

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Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. A Myanmar court has charged a dissident Buddhist monk, who is also a U.S. citizen, with terrorism, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison, as well as other charges used by the military to crush dissent, sources said on Friday. Pinnya Jawta, the 60-year-old abbot of a monastery in Buffalo, New York, returned to Myanmar in November on a religious visit. A former political prisoner, he took part in anti-military protests in 2007 known as the Saffron Revolution, and in earlier activism against military rule. Senior monks appointed by the authorities to oversee the Buddhist clergy had ordered him to disrobe, so he appeared in the Mingaladon court in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon in ordinary clothes on Thursday to hear the charges, a lawyer observing the case said. “Depending on the circumstances of the case, section 50-J is punishable by a minimum of 10 years up to a life sentence,” said the lawyer, referring to the most serious charge levelled, which is used against those suspected of funding, organizing or participating in terrorism or harboring terrorists. He was also charged under section 505-A of the Penal Code, which is an incitement charge used to punish anyone deemed to have encouraged members of the civil service or security forces to mutiny, said the lawyer, who declined to be identified in fear or reprisals by the authorities. It has been used against numerous opponents of military rule since the generals ousted an elected government in February 2021. The third charge was under section 66-D of the Communications Act, which covers defamation. Rights groups say the law is incompatible with international human rights law and standards and is used to limit freedom of speech. Since the monk did not have a lawyer, he was not able to defend himself at Thursday’s hearing, the lawyer said. The U.S. embassy in Myanmar did not immediately respond to a request for comment. RELATED STORIES Rubio as US top diplomat could be a win for Southeast Asian human rights International criminal court seeks arrest warrant for Myanmar junta chief Junta chief vows to complete Myanmar census by year-end — then hold elections Myanmar has been in turmoil since the long-ruling military ended a decade of reform in 2021 and ousted an elected government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi. She and hundreds of political colleagues and supporters have been locked up while democracy activists have taken up arms and joined ethnic minority insurgent groups battling the military. U.N. experts said on Monday the world must pay more attention to Myanmar’s civil war and work harder to deny the military junta access to the weapons it has used to carry out a reign of violent terror against its civilian population. Military intelligence officers arrested Pinnya Jawta in Yangon on Nov. 13. He was later transferred to the city’s infamous Insein Prison, sources close to him told RFA. “I know he’s being detained in a cell block at Insein, not a big one,” one of the sources said. “He’s around 60 and he’s also suffering from diabetes.” He entered the country on a religious visa issued by the Myanmar embassy in the United States, they said. The Yangon region’s junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, told RFA he did not know about the case. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

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Activists tell US Congress of China’s far-reaching cultural erasure

Editor012 mins

WASHINGTON – A campaign by China’s government to rewrite the cultural identity and history of the country’s minority ethnic groups and political dissidents is increasingly being waged on American shores, activists told a U.S. congressional hearing on Thursday. The Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian and Chinese activists said that while the United States once stood as a bastion of free speech and a redoubt of cultural preservation for groups targeted by the Chinese Communist Party, many now feared Beijing’s extensive reach. Rishat Abbas, the president of the U.S.-based Uyghur Academy, told the hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that his sister Gulshan had been jailed in China on a 20-year sentence due to his and other family member’s anti-government activism abroad. RELATED STORIES Students banned from speaking Tibetan in Sichuan schools Hong Kongers self-censor out of fear, says sacked Tiananmen scholar US officials call for release of detained retired Uyghur doctor The U.S. government says China’s government is carrying out a “genocide” against the mostly Muslium Uyghur minority in the country’s far-west. Many Uyghurs abroad actively campaign to end the genocide and to do what they can to preserve their language and culture. But many look to the treatment of the family members, still trapped in China, of those Uyghurs who choose to speak out, and decide it’s safer not to provoke the Chinese Communist Party, even from abroad. “My sister’s imprisonment is a clear action of retaliation,” he said. “Her detention exposes the CCP’s aggressive policies that target Uyghurs simply for their identity and for the activism of their relatives abroad.” “She has never engaged in any form of advocacy in her life,” he said. Abbas said he was nonetheless not deterred, and hoped to one day bring a Uyghur-language textbook developed in the United States back to China’s Xinjiang region, where Uyghurs live under surveillance. Lawfare It’s not only Uyghur immigrants who have been targeted. In years gone by, American higher education institutions like Stanford University fearlessly curated U.S.-based historical archives about events censored by the Chinese government, said Julian Ku, a constitutional law professor at New York’s Hofstra University. But things have changed. Ku pointed to a lawsuit brought in the United States by the Beijing-based widow of the late Li Rui – a former secretary to Mao Zedong and later dissident who donated diaries to Stanford. Stanford says Li Rui donated the diaries through his daughter, fearing that they would be destroyed by Chinese officials if left in China. But Li Rui’s widow says they are rightfully hers and wants them returned. The widow, Ku explained, was inexplicably being represented by “some of the most expensive law firms in the United States,” and had likely already racked up legal fees in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars – and probably more – on a widow’s Chinese state pension.” Describing the tactic as “lawfare,” he suggested that the widow had powerful backers funding the battle, who may not even care if the litigation is ultimately successful. The nearly four years of costly legal battles sent a message to other U.S. universities, museums or nonprofits to avoid any contentious documents that might attract the attention of Beijing, Ku said. “They might think, ‘Well, maybe I don’t want to acquire that one, because it might subject me to litigation in China and maybe litigation here in the United States,” he said. “It serves as a deterrence for universities, museums and other institutions in the United States.” Living in fear Like Uyghurs, many ethnically Han Chinese in America also fear speaking out against Beijing even while in the United States, said Rowena He, a historian of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing who was last year banned from entering Hong Kong. “It’s very difficult to not to be emotional being in this room again because I remember 5-10 years ago, when I was first invited to testify to Congress,” He recalled. “I was extremely hesitant, because I was so concerned about my family members, and I was so worried.” “I lived with fear ever since the day I started teaching and researching the topic of Tiananmen,” she explained, citing the “taboo” around the topic in China, where the massacre is not openly acknowledged. She said increased funding for curriculums with alternate Chinese histories to the one put forward by Beijing could be one way to counter the “monopoly on historiography” held by China’s government. “If you go to Chinatown, many people are still supporting the CCP, even though they’re physically in the United States,” He said, noting that figures like herself were denigrated as anti-government. “Sometimes people call us ‘underground historians,’ but I do not like the term ‘underground,’” she said. “We are the historians.” Government funding Geshe Lobsang Monlam, a Tibetan monk who authored a 223-volume Tibetan dictionary and helps lead efforts to preserve Tibetan language outside of China, said one of the main obstacles for Tibetans outside China outside of pressure from Beijing was finding needed funds. “Inside Tibet, the young Tibetans have appeared powerless in their ability to preserve and promote their language,” the monk said, pointing to concerted efforts to erase use of the Tibetan language as young Tibetans grow proficient in using Mandarin through smartphones. “If there can be assistance by the United States to help procure technological equipment that can enable those of us in exile to continue our work on preservation of Tibetan culture and language and way of life … that would be very useful for us,” he explained. Temulun Togochog, a 17-year-old U.S.-born Southern Mongolian activist, similarly appealed for more funding for cultural preservation. Temulun Togochog,17, U.S.-born Southern Mongolian activist testifies before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Dec. 5, 2024. Togochog said while the decreased global focus on the plight of Mongolians in China had allowed her family in the United States to openly teach her about Mongolian culture and their native language with little fear of reprisal, resources were few and far between. Mongolians living in China’s Inner Mongolia…

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Myanmar’s Arakan Army captures Ann town, focus now on army HQ

Editor06 mins

Insurgents in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have captured the military’s last posts in Ann town and have turned their attention to a nearby army headquarters, residents said on Tuesday, another major step in the rebels’ aim to control the entire state. The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western-most state and has made unprecedented progress over the past year, pushing forces loyal to the junta that seized power in 2021 into a few pockets of territory. Residents of Ann, which is 220 km (135 miles) west of the capital, Naypyidaw, said the AA had seized the junta’s last posts in the Myo Thit, Lay Yin Kwin, Aut Ywar and Ah Hta Ka neighborhoods by Saturday, taking complete control of the town. “The Arakan Army has captured the entire town except the Western Command headquarters,‘’ one resident told Radio Free Asia. “Junta forces from their battalion areas captured by AA have gone to gather at the headquarters and are defending there,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. The military had fired at the advancing insurgents, setting fires in some of the town’s neighborhoods but the extent of the damage was not known, said the resident, adding he had no information about casualties in the fighting. AA fighters were now trying to seize the military headquarters on the southern side of Ann, where the defenders were being supported by extensive airstrikes, residents said. “The junta is protecting the Western Command day and night with massive firing from the air,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Only a few civilians had remained in Ann and the AA had taken them to safety so the town was now empty, the resident said. “There are people staying in the forest in shelters they’ve made waiting to go home if the situation improves,” the resident said. RFA tried to telephone AA spokesperson Khing Thukha, as well as military council spokesman Hla Thein to ask about the situation but neither of them answered phone calls. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? A year after offensive, rebels control most of Myanmar’s Rakhine state Myanmar rebels capture town on main road to Chinese-built port The AA, which largely draws its support from the state’s Buddhist majority, has made steady advances over the past year, from the state’s far north on the border with Bangladesh, through central areas to its far south, and it now controls about 80% of it. On Nov. 20, the insurgents captured the town of Toungup in the centre of the state, which is on a road hub including a link to the the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China is funding a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China. Residents said that AA was attacking the military’s Number 5 Operation Command headquarters, to the south of Toungup on the road to the town of Thandwe. In the far south of the state, fighting is getting closer to the junta-controlled town of Gwa township, residents there said. The AA has fully captured 10 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state. Edited by RFA Staff We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

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Kachin, Shan residents face hardships as China and Myanmar block trade

Editor07 mins

Read a version of this story in Burmese. Closures along Myanmar’s shared border with China have cut off residents of Kachin and Shan states from humanitarian aid and sent the prices of goods skyrocketing, sources from the regions said Monday. Myanmar’s civil war in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat prompted China to close all its border gates in Kachin state beginning on Oct. 19, and all border crossings in northern Shan state except for Muse township since July. Meanwhile, Myanmar’s junta has imposed restrictions on the transportation of goods to Kachin state from the country’s heartland, as the rebel Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, now controls all 11 of the state’s border gates with China, including the major trade checkpoints of Kan Paik Ti and Lwegel townships. In Shan state, the junta has also restricted the transportation of goods from Muse to areas of the state under the control of ethnic armed groups. The restrictions have left residents of the two border areas, and especially civilians displaced by fighting, feeling the squeeze, sources told RFA Burmese. A civilian sheltering in the Jay Yang camp for the displaced near Kachin’s Laiza township, where the KIA’s headquarters is located, said that between the border closures and junta restrictions on goods transported from the Kachin town of Bhamo and the state capital Myitkyina, “the situation has become dire.” “Residents are enduring severe hardships,” he said. “We are facing an uncertain and bleak future.” The displaced civilian said that the price of food items in Kachin state has risen dramatically, making it difficult for camp residents to afford basic necessities. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta chief seeks China’s help on border stability Myanmar’s Kachin insurgents take control of their border with China Myanmar rebels seize major border gate near China Nearly all prices have doubled since the border closures, he said, with eggs at 1,000 kyats from 400; a viss (3.5 pounds) of pork at 50,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of fish at 30,000 kyats from 15,000; a viss of chicken at 40,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of beef at 60,000 kyats from 30,000; a viss of potatoes at 10,000 kyats from 6,000; and a cup of chili peppers at 3,000 kyats from 1,500. Meanwhile, a liter (.26 gallon) of cooking oil now costs 25,000 kyats, up from 10,000, and a liter of gasoline costs 15,000 kyats, up from 7,000. At the time of publishing, the official exchange rate was 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar, while the black market exchange rate was 4,300 kyats per dollar. Prior to the border closures, relief groups had been providing camps for the displaced with rice, oil, salt and chickpeas, but now can only distribute around 30,000 kyats per person, camp residents told RFA. Displaced suffer shortages Residents said that since the KIA seized the Kan Paik Ti border gate on Nov. 20 and Chinese authorities shut down the crossing, food prices had increased in Myitkyina, and the Kachin capital is now enduring a fuel shortage. A resident of the Sha Eit Yang camp for the displaced, located in a KIA-controlled area along the border, told RFA that the gate closures had made life extremely difficult. “There is no work to earn money in the area near our camp, so we can only find jobs far away from the camp,” he said. “With all the border gates closed, we can’t earn any income.” A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023. Residents said that the TNLA has also blocked the transportation of fuel and food from Nam Hkam to Muse since Sunday, although TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo insisted that her group had imposed no restrictions on the flow of goods. RFA also tried to contact the junta’s spokesperson and economic minister for Shan state, Khun Thein, for comments on the commodity blockades, but he did not respond. Residents reported that restrictions have caused the prices of goods to “more than double” in Muse and Nam Hkam. Additionally, traders and drivers are out of work due to the closure of trade routes, traders in Muse told RFA. The restrictions imposed by China and Myanmar’s junta have impacted most of the nearly two million people who live in northern Shan state’s 20 townships, residents said. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

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Insurgents in Myanmar’s Chin state capture four military camps, group says

Editor04 mins

By RFA Burmese Ethnic minority insurgents battling Myanmar’s junta in Chin state have captured four camps from the military, killing 15 soldiers, said a spokesman for a rebel force in the northwestern state on the border with India. Conflict has consumed much of the remote Chin hills since the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021, forcing many thousands of villagers over the border into the neighboring Indian state of Mizoram, complicating a tense communal situation there. Fighters from two ethnic Chin insurgent forces, the Chin National Army, or CNA, and the Chinland Defense Force, captured four military camps between the towns of Hakha and Thantlang on Saturday after 10 days of fighting, said Salai Htet Ni, a spokesman for the CNA told Radio Free Asia. “We were able to capture the military council camps above Hakha town, between Hakha and Thantlang towns. Two junta’s captains, including a battalion commander and a police major, were killed in the battle. In addition to that, 11 bodies of soldiers were found and 31 were arrested by our forces,” he said. He said Chin forces suffered no fatalities but six fighters were wounded. He identified the captured camps as Thi Myit, Umpu Puaknak, Nawn Thlawk Bo and Ruavazung. He said the camps were important for the military’s control of the area, which is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the east of the border with India. Radio Free Asia tried to contact the military’s main spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, to ask about the situation but he did not answer phone calls. Salai Htet Ni said Chin forces were continuing to attack other military positions in the area. RELATED STORIES Food shortages reported in rebel-controlled areas of Myanmar’s Chin state Myanmar fighters capture hotly contested northwest town Rebel Chin forces in Myanmar capture town on Indian border Since the 2021 coup, anti-junta forces in Chin state have captured 11 towns, while the Arakan Army, which is based in Rakhine state to the south, has captured two Chin state towns near its border. According to civil society groups, about 200,000 people in the largely Christian state have been displaced by the fighting in Chin state, either to safer places within Myanmar or over the border into India’s Mizoram state. Some Hindu groups in India say the arrival of Christian refugees is exacerbating tensions between Hindus and Christians there. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

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China jails journalist Dong Yuyu for 7 years for ‘spying’

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A court in Beijing on Friday handed down a seven-year jail term to prominent journalist and columnist Dong Yuyu after finding him guilty of “espionage” in a trial behind closed doors that ended in July 2023, his family and press associations said. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court announced the verdict and sentence in the trial of Dong, 62, on Friday, saying it was based on evidence of his “meetings with Japanese diplomats,” his family told Reuters in a statement. The Japanese diplomat Dong met with was also detained by police, and China’s foreign ministry hit out at “foreign personnel engaged in activities inconsistent with their status in China.” The U.S. National Press Club said Dong, the former deputy head of commentaries at ruling Communist Party newspaper the Guangming Daily, hasn’t been allowed to see or speak with his family since his arrest at Beijing restaurant in February 2022. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Dong’s sentence. “CPJ condemns the sentencing of Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu to seven years in prison on espionage charges on Friday,” the group said via its X account. “The verdict is a travesty of justice and Dong Yuyu must be reunited with his family immediately.” Security was tight near the court building on Friday, with several police cars parked nearby and officers asking journalists to leave the area, Reuters reported. “Today’s verdict is a grave injustice not only to Yuyu and his family but also to every free-thinking Chinese journalist and every ordinary Chinese committed to friendly engagement with the world,” Dong’s family said in a statement sent to Reuters. The sentence was based on no evidence and “declares to the world the bankruptcy of the justice system in China,” the statement said. Commentator Espionage convictions in Chinese courts can result in sentences of 3-10 years in less severe cases, or life imprisonment in cases deemed more serious by the authorities. A man reads an issue of the Guangming Daily newspaper at a public display window in Beijing, China, June 10, 2020. Tarumi made an immediate protest to the foreign ministry, meeting with Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Jianghao, who told him that the meeting was “irregular.” Tarumi replied that Wu had misrepresented the meeting and objected strongly, with the support of the ambassadors of 13 other countries, according to his account. Eventually, the Japanese diplomat was released. Targeting Japanese diplomats A Beijing-based journalist who declined to be named said China intensified its surveillance of Japanese diplomatic missions following the incident, barring them from taking part in exchange activities as they normally would, and isolating them in their embassy and consulates. More than 700 journalists, academics and NGO workers have signed an online petition on Change.org calling for Dong’s release. Foreign diplomats, journalists and academics are now being scrutinized more closely by the Chinese authorities, and anyone who contacts them could potentially be accused of “espionage” in today’s political climate, the petition said. It said Chinese nationalists had called for the investigation of all former Nieman Fellows from China. Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular news briefing on Friday, when asked to comment on the sentence, that “Chinese judicial organs handle cases strictly in accordance with the law, and illegal and criminal activities will be investigated and prosecuted according to law.” Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

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