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British minister raised Jimmy Lai case with China’s vice president but to no avail
British foreign minister James Cleverly raised the case of jailed Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai with a top Chinese official recently to no avail after a court in the city rejected Lai’s judicial review over the hiring of a top British lawyer, according to a government report published on Thursday. “I raised [Lai’s] case with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng earlier this month, and we have raised it at the highest levels with the Hong Kong authorities,” Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs James Cleverly said in a statement introducing his government’s six-monthly review of the situation in Hong Kong, a former British colony. Han attended the coronation of King Charles III in London on May 6, amid growing criticism of the ruling Conservative Party, which appears to be backing away from promises of a tough stance on China. Cleverly didn’t say if a face-to-face meeting with Han had taken place, but said his government would “work with China where our interests converge while steadfastly defending our national security and our values.” He accused the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities of deliberately targeting “prominent pro-democracy figures, journalists and politicians in an effort to silence and discredit them.” British foreign minister James Cleverly, second from right, is reflected in glass with Britain’s Ambassador to Chile Louise De Sousa, in Santiago, Chile, May 22, 2023. A London-based group says the U.K. should do more to pursue those responsible for an ongoing crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong. Credit: Esteban Felix/AP He called on the Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong government to implement recommendations made by the United Nations Human Rights Council last July, which included repealing a national security law that has been used to justify a crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. “The Hong Kong authorities use the National Security Law and the antiquated offense of sedition to persecute those who disagree with the government,” Cleverly said, pointing to the ongoing trial of 47 opposition politicians and democracy activists for “subversion” after they organized a democratic primary election in the summer of 2020, as well as Lai’s national security trial for “collusion with a foreign power.” He said Beijing “remains in a state of non-compliance” with a bilateral treaty governing the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, pointing to a “steady erosion of civil and political rights and Hong Kong’s autonomy.” Benedict Rogers, who heads the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, called for further action against “those who are actively undermining China’s obligations to the people of Hong Kong.” “A failure to do so will only embolden the Chinese government to deepen its human rights crackdown, putting at risk not only Hong Kongers but U.K. nationals and businesses operating in the city,” Rogers said in a statement responding to the government report. Emergency visas In April, British lawmakers called on their government to issue emergency visas to journalists at risk of arrest or prosecution in Hong Kong, and to apply targeted sanctions to individuals responsible for Lai’s arbitrary arrest and prosecution. The group also expressed concerns over last week’s ruling by Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance, which rejected an appeal from Lai’s legal team after the city’s leader John Lee ruled that his British barrister, Tim Owen KC, couldn’t represent him. Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, founder of Apple Daily walks heading to court, after being charged under the national security law, in Hong Kong, Dec. 12, 2020. Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters Policy director Sam Goodman said Hong Kong’s courts no longer have enough judicial independence to act as a check on the current national security crackdown, nor to ensure a fair trial for political prisoners. “There is no such thing as a common law system which operates with ‘Chinese Communist Party’ characteristics,” Goodman said, adding that Hong Kong’s “common law system … has been systematically dismantled by Beijing.” Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui welcomed the criticism of Hong Kong’s human rights record. “In the long run, it will … unite our allies in free countries, and they will take a relatively tough stance, which will have an effect on their leadership,” Hui said. “If more allies of free countries clearly say that Hong Kong’s human rights are regressing, and that the national security law is a violation of human rights, then that is a very clear position,” he said. Pro-democracy activists display a banner and placards read as “No democracy and human rights, no national security” and “Free all political prisoners” during a march in Hong Kong, April 15, 2021, to protest against the city’s first National Security Education Day, after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law. Credit: Yan Zhao/AFP The Hong Kong government slammed the U.K. report as “malicious slander and a political attack on Hong Kong,” while Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the British government “has yet to wake up from its colonial dream.” “It continues … to interfere in Hong Kong affairs through a misleading ‘report’ which is steeped in ideological bias and inconsistent with the facts,” Mao told a regular news conference in Beijing. Lai’s son Sebastien warned earlier this month that Hong Kong is now a “risky” place to do business, and that arbitrary arrests, sentences and raids will likely continue under the national security crackdown. International press freedom groups say the ruling Communist Party under supreme leader Xi Jinping has “gutted” press freedom in the formerly freewheeling city, since Lai’s Apple Daily and other pro-democracy news outlets were forced to close. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
In North Korea, ‘Judas’ is nickname for informer and betrayer
‘Judas’ has become a scornful nickname for informers in North Korea. For example, when a girl confided in her friend during the COVID-19 pandemic that she planned to escape North Korea once the border with China reopened, she was brought before authorities and punished. Residents began calling the friend who sold her out “a modern-day Judas,” a woman from Kimjongsuk county, in the northern province of Ryanggang, told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “After this incident, whenever the informant passes by, other people in the neighborhood turn their backs on him and curse him as Judas,” the woman said. “Authorities who encourage the informants are called Judas as well.” The reference to the disciple who betrayed Jesus in the New Testament might be surprising given that Christianity has been illegal in the country for nearly 120 years. It is not a new term because underground Christians – who are persecuted in North Korea – are familiar with it. And Christianity does have roots in the country. Pyongyang was once such a bastion of Christians that it was called “Jerusalem of the East.” Korea was one of the only places in East Asia where Christianity had staying power after it was introduced in the 17th century. But came to an end once the peninsula fell to Japanese rule in 1905 and Shinto became the state religion, pushing believers underground. At the end of World War II in 1945, Christian missionaries returned to Korea, but only in the south, as the Soviet-occupied north forbade religion. Once North Korea was officially established in 1948, Christianity and other religions were completely outlawed, and the church remained underground. Efforts to stamp out Christianity But the nickname does appear to be used more widely these days. The fact that people are still aware of the story of Judas, who betrayed Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver, indicates that despite North Korea’s best efforts to stamp out Christianity, the religion still maintains a presence there. “People who lack loyalty or who stab their friends in the back are cursed as ‘Judas,’” a man living in Pyongsong, South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The five-household propagandist, who reports the movements of people and even trivial words to the police, is also called ‘Judas’ by his peers,” he said. The five-household watch is a sophisticated surveillance system in which paid informants, called propagandists, are tasked with monitoring five households in their neighborhoods. Five-household propagandists are enthusiastic Party members selected from factories and schools for exhibiting traits of loyalty. “As the public sentiment has worsened due to the prolonged COVID-19 crisis, the authorities are focusing on monitoring the residents by mobilizing the informants,” the South Pyongan resident said. “As if that was not enough, the authorities secretly planted more informants in the neighborhoods.” “In response, the residents are criticizing the authorities for creating distrust among the residents, telling them not to trust anyone, because they do not know who could be ‘Judas.’” North Korean authorities have tried hard to eliminate Christianity from the country, but believers are still there – though it’s impossible to know how many. The international Christian missionary organization Open Doors, citing a trusted North Korean source, described how in 2022 dozens of members of an underground church were discovered and executed, and more than 100 of their family members were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Vietnam denies UN inquiries about alleged repression of Khmer Krom minority
The Vietnamese government has denied allegations from United Nations experts that it represses the Khmer Krom minority living in the Mekong Delta region. The nearly 1.3-million strong ethnic group live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia, and face widespread discrimination in Vietnam and suspicion in Cambodia, where they are often perceived not as Cambodians but as Vietnamese. Scores of Khmer Krom asylum seekers reside in Thailand. Seven special U.N. rapporteurs operating under Human Rights Council mandates sent a 16-page letter to Hanoi on Oct. 18 about information it received concerning the country’s alleged failure to recognize the right to self-determination of the Khmer Krom as an indigenous people. The experts said they had also received evidence of alleged violations of the group’s freedom of expression, association and religion as well as their cultural and linguistic rights and land use rights. Concerns were also raised about Khmer Krom men detained by police and questioned for their activism, namely Duong Khai, Thach Cuong, Danh Set, Tang Thuy and Thach Rine. Of the five, authorities arrested and jailed Rine in October 2021 on charges of “abusing democratic freedoms” for wearing a T-shirt with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals logo. He was released in April 2022 without having had a fair trial or access to his family and lawyer, the letter said. “While we do not wish to prejudge the accuracy of these allegations, we are expressing our serious concern at what may constitute arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment of Khmer Krom persons with the aim of suppressing their right to freedom of expression, as well as the Khmer Krom Indigenous Peoples’ cultural and linguistic rights,” the letter said. 60 days to respond The U.N. experts gave the Vietnamese government 60 days to respond to its concerns and explain measures and regulations that it has taken to ensure the protection and rights of the Khmer Krom as an indigenous people. Vietnam’s permanent mission to the U.N. office in Geneva refuted the accusations in a response dated May 10. “The accusations stated in the Joint Communication distort the history and socioeconomic development situation with many false information about the State of Viet Nam’s policies and laws towards the ethnic minority communities in guaranteeing and promoting the rights as well as taking care of the lives of ethnic minorities, including the Khmer people,” the letter said. “In addition, the accusations about the individuals mentioned in the Joint Communication are also untrue, stem from unofficial sources, bear heavy arbitrariness and lack objectivity,” it said. The letter went on to say that the concept of “indigenous peoples” is not suitable with the characteristics, history of establishment and development of Vietnam’s ethnic groups. “In other words, in Viet Nam, there is no concept of indigenous peoples,” it said. Tran Mannrinth, a member of Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Federation, a human rights NGO, told Radio Free Asia that many young people from the ethnic group are discouraged from learning the Khmer language because books printed in Cambodia are not permitted in Vietnam, and Khmer-language material printed in Vietnam is full of mistakes by the ethnic-majority Kinh authors. “Vietnam finds ways to deny; however, if it does not know what indigenous people are, then how could it [endorse] the U.N. declaration?,” he asked, referring to Vietnam’s vote in favor of the adoption of the U.N.’s legally nonbinding Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. Tran Mannrith, who lived in Lai Hoa village with other ethnic Khmer Krom before permanently resettling in the United States in 1985, lamented the group’s loss of agricultural land to collectivization when Vietnam was reunified in 1975 and resettlement efforts that followed “During the time of war between Vietnam and [Cambodia’s] Khmer Rouge, Khmer people living near the border in Chau Doc were forced to move to other places,” he said. “After the fall of Khmer Rouge, the displaced people were allowed home, but most of their land and property was lost to other people.” Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
Cyclone Mocha inflicts heavy damage on Myanmar’s Rakhine state
Cyclone Mocha may have been less deadly than predicted, but it inflicted heavy damage on Myanmar’s Rakhine state, including the capital of Sittwe. On Monday, a day after the storm slammed into the coast, images from the city and surrounding area showed flattened homes, roads blocked by fallen electricity pylons, splintered remains of trees and widespread flooding. Power was cut off to Sittwe, a city of about 150,000. “Ninety percent of Sittwe township … is damaged or under debris,” aid and relief groups told Radio Free Asia. A precise death toll was hard to nail down. At least 30 people are believed dead, based on reports by local media and residents of the affected regions. Myanmar’s junta had said three people died, while the shadow National Unity Government – made up of opponents of the junta – put the figure at 18. Those figures are far lower than feared. Cyclone Nargis, which hit the same area in 2008, left nearly 140,000 dead or missing. The storm hit the coast on Sunday with sustained winds reaching over 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph). “Buildings have been badly damaged,” said a woman who lives in the Sittwe’s Lanmadaw (South) ward, asking not to be identified. “The monastery in front of my house is completely destroyed. Not one house is left undamaged.” The low-lying areas of Sittwe were inundated with flooding, she said, leaving residents to contend with brackish and, in some places, chest-deep water from the Bay of Bengal. “Piles of mud have been left inside the buildings,” she said. “Since there is no electricity, we haven’t been able to clean them … The roof of my house is almost gone and there is water downstairs. We don’t know what to do to clean them up.” Local residents stand on a broken bridge at the Khaung Dote Khar Rohingya refugee camp in Sittwe, Myanmar, Monday, May 15, 2023, after cyclone Mocha made a landfall. Credit: AFP A Sittwe firefighter told RFA that floodwaters in the city were “still as high as 1.5 meters (5 feet) in the low-lying areas” and that evacuated residents were waiting for word from the Rakhine state government to return to their homes. Impact in Bangladesh Meanwhile, in neighboring Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar to the west, some 1.2 million Rohingyas living in refugee camps after fleeing a military offensive in Rakhine state in 2017 remained largely unscathed by the cyclone, despite earlier fears that the mostly unprotected camps lay directly in the storm’s crosshairs. But while no casualties were reported in the aftermath of the cyclone, Rohingya refugees told RFA that thousands of homes were damaged in the sprawling camps due to strong winds, landslides, and flooding. “About 500 homes were damaged in our camp alone,” said Aung Myaing, a refugee at the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar. “About 10,000 homes in all refugee camps combined have been damaged. Some houses have been completely destroyed while others have been partially damaged.” He said camp residents are in need of bamboo and tarps to help shore up the damage. RFA-affiliated BenarNews reported that Mocha had destroyed more than 2,800 shelters, learning centers, health centers and other infrastructure in refugee camps in the neighboring sub-districts of Teknaf and Ukhia, citing Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, refugee relief and repatriation commissioner. He noted that landslides were also reported at 120 spots in the Rohingya camps. Rahman said there were no casualties because “we relocated them at an appropriate time.” ‘Trail of devastation’ In a flash update on Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance called Mocha “one of the strongest cyclones ever to hit the country” and said the storm had left a “trail of devastation” in Rakhine state, which is also home to tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. “Few houses have escaped damage in Sittwe and there is widespread destruction of flimsy bamboo longhouses in displacement camps,” UNOCHA said. “Health, relief items, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene needs are already being reported. Explosive ordnance risks are high in conflict-affected rural areas where landmines may have been shifted during flooding and where people have been on the move to safer areas.” A downed tree lies on a building in Sittwe, Myanmar, Monday, May 15, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Damage to telecommunications towers has severely hampered the flow of information in Rakhine, while water and power services were disrupted throughout the day on Monday, forcing residents to rely on generators for electricity. Relief efforts underway UNOCHA said humanitarian partners are starting assessments to confirm the magnitude of the damage in Sittwe and the Rakhine townships of Pauktaw, Rathedaung, Maungdaw, Ponnagyun, and Kyauktaw. It called for “an urgent injection of funds” to respond to the impact of Mocha and subsequent flooding in the region. In a response to emailed questions from RFA, the World Food Program said it is “mobilizing emergency food and nutrition assistance to 800,000 people affected by the cyclone, many of them already displaced by conflict.” Before the cyclone, the U.N. had estimated 6 million people were “already in humanitarian need” in Rakhine state, and the regions of Chin, Magway and Sagaing. Collectively, the states host 1.2 million displaced people, prompting OCHA to warn of “a nightmare scenario.” However, Mocha had weakened by Sunday evening and moved toward Myanmar’s northwest, where it was downgraded to a depression on Monday over the country’s Sagaing region. RFA was able to document the deaths of at least a dozen people. They included a 30-year-old woman from Rakhine’s Ramree township, two men in their 20s in Ayeyarwady region’s Yegyi township and Rakhine’s Toungup township, and four men of unknown ages in Rakhine’s Kyauktaw township. Others killed included a resident of Sittwe, a man in his 50s from Mandalay region’s Pyin Oo Lwin township, a young couple from the Shan state city of Tachileik, and a 70-year-old woman from Magway region’s Sinphyukyun township. Attempts by RFA to contact…
Rohingya must stay at camps despite approaching cyclone, Bangladesh govt says
Bangladeshi authorities evacuated hundreds of thousands of people Saturday from coastal areas near the projected path of a monster storm, but Rohingya refugees would be prevented from leaving their camps in Cox’s Bazar, the home minister said. As of late Saturday, Bangladeshi state media reported, the government had moved as many as 400,000 people into 1,030 cyclone shelters in Chittagong division, which covers Cox’s Bazar and other districts near Bangladesh’s southeastern border with Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where Cyclone Mocha is expected to make landfall on Sunday. During a public event in Dhaka on Saturday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that agencies including the Armed Police Battalion in Cox’s Bazar were ordered to stop any of the 1 million or so Rohingya sheltering at camps there from leaving those confines and spreading across the country. “Law enforcers are on alert so that the Rohingya people cannot take advantage of the disaster to cross the barbed-wire fence. But if Cyclone Mocha hits the Bangladesh [areas] instead of Myanmar, the Rohingya people will be brought to a safe place,” Khan said in televised comments. World Vision, a humanitarian group, had warned on Friday that the storm threatened the safety of thousands of children at the world’s largest refugee camp, situated in Cox’s Bazar. “Cyclone Mocha is expected to bring heavy rain and flooding along the coasts of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, posing severe threat to the safety of children and communities in danger zones along coastal and low-lying areas,” the NGO said in a statement. The cyclone is the most powerful and potentially dangerous sea-based storm seen in this corner of the Bay of Bengal in nearly two decades. On Saturday, India’s meteorological department said the weather system had intensified into an “extremely severe cyclonic storm.” This satellite image provided by the India Meteorological Department shows storm Mocha intensify into an extremely severe cyclonic storm, May 13, 2023. Credit: India Meteorological Department via AP As of 12 p.m. Saturday (local time), the center of the storm was over the sea close to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, and packing winds of up to 231 kilometers per hour (143.5 miles per hour) as Mocha churned toward the low-lying coastal border areas between Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT). Rakhine is expected to take a direct hit from the storm. “According to the forecast by GDACS [Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System], tropical cyclone MOCHA can have a high humanitarian impact based on the maximum sustained wind speed, exposed population, and vulnerability,” UNOSAT said. In a press release, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR warned that Mocha could bring “significant rainfall with landslides and flooding of camps near the sea.” The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a separate bulletin on Saturday that the storm was forecast to generate wind speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour (124.2 miles per hour) when it makes landfall on Sunday afternoon. “Heavy rain and strong winds associated with the cyclone are expected to cause flooding across Rakhine, where many townships and displacement sites are in low-lying areas and highly prone to flooding,” OCHA said. “Many communities are already moving to higher ground to designated evacuation centers or to safer areas staying with relatives,” the U.N. agency said. A girl looks out from a tuk tuk while evacuating in Sittwe, in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Mocha, May 13, 2023. Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP In the Bangladeshi capital, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said her government was preparing to safeguard the nation and its people from the storm, but that there might have to be shutoffs to the electricity and gas supply. “Cyclone ‘Mocha’ is coming. We’ve kept ready the cyclone centers and taken all types of preparations to tackle it,” the state-run news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha quoted Hasina as saying on Saturday. Her Awami League government faces a general election in late 2023 or early 2024. In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh’s meteorological agency raised the danger signal for the coming cyclone to 10, the most severe rating. Meanwhile, Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, the country’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, confirmed that law enforcement agencies would prevent Rohingya from leaving the camps. He said Rohingya would have to seek shelter at mosques, community centers and madrassas located within the sprawling refugee camps in the district. “We have prepared some buildings including mosques and community halls as temporary cyclone shelters. About 20,000 Rohingya people would likely need cyclone shelters if there will be a landslide,” he said. The Rohingya would face no risk from storm surges because their shelters are located in hilly areas, he added. “As there are 1.2 million Rohingya, we have no capacity to evacuate them to [cyclone] shelters,” according to a statement issued on Saturday by Md. Enamur Rahman, Bangladesh’s state minister for disaster management and relief. He did not give a reason and did not immediately respond to a follow-up phone call from BenarNews. Nearly three-quarters of a million people who live in the camps fled to the Bangladesh side of the frontier with Myanmar after the Burmese military launched a brutal offensive in Rakhine, the homeland of the stateless Rohingya, in August 2017. “Four and a half thousand volunteers are working under the leadership of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner for the Rohingya people,” Enamur Rahman said. “There is no risk of floods on the hills but rainfall can cause landslides. Keeping this fear in mind, I have asked the volunteers to be prepared,” the state minister said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
Wolf out the door
China and Canada have carried out tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats, with Beijing responding in kind after Ottawa showed the door to a Chinese diplomat who was found trying to intimidate a Canadian politician and his family. The ethnic Chinese lawmaker had drawn Beijing’s wrath over his sponsorship of a Canadian parliamentary motion condemning China’s rough treatment of its Uyghur minority group. Sharp-elbowed, sharp-tongued “Wolf Warrior” diplomats have stoked concerns about Chinese influence operations in a number of host countries with their efforts to stifle exiled critics and opponents.
For China’s ‘young refuseniks,’ finding love comes at too high a price
Linghu Changbing will be 23 this year. Even before the pandemic hit China, he was already starting to feel that the traditional goals of marriage, a mortgage and kids were beyond his reach. “I had no time to find a girlfriend back in China, because I was working from eight in the morning to 10 at night, sometimes even till 11.00 p.m. or midnight, with very little time off,” said Linghu, who joined the “run” movement of people leaving China in 2022. “I didn’t earn very much, so I couldn’t really afford to go out and spend money having fun with friends, or stuff like that,” he says of his life before he left for the United States. “I had very little social interaction, because I didn’t have any friends, which meant that I couldn’t really pursue a relationship,” he said. “As for an apartment, I had no desire to buy one at all.” The situation he describes is common to many young people in China, yet not all are in a position to leave. They are part of an emerging social phenomenon and social media buzzword: the “young refuseniks” – people who reject the traditional four-fold path to adulthood: finding a mate, marriage, mortgages and raising a family. They are also known as the “People Who Say No to the Four Things.” Three years of stringently enforced zero-COVID restrictions left China’s economic growth at its lowest level in nearly half a century, with record rates of unemployment among urban youth. Refusing to pursue marriage, mortgages and kids emerged from that era as a form of silent protest, with more and more people taking this way out in recent years. ‘Far too high a price’ Several young people who responded to a brief survey by RFA Mandarin on Twitter admitted to being refuseniks. “I’m a young refusenik: I won’t be looking for a partner or getting married, I won’t be buying a property and I don’t want kids,” reads one comment on social media. People use mobile phones in front of a fenced residential area under lockdown due to Covid-19 restrictions in Beijing, May 22, 2022. Credit: Noel Celis/AFP “Finding love comes at far too high a price,” says another, while another user comments: “It’s all very well having values, or being sincere, but all of that has to be backed up with money.” “It’s not that I’m lazy,” says another. “Even if I were to make the effort, I still wouldn’t see any result.” Others say they no longer have the bandwidth to try to achieve such milestones. “I’ve been forced back in on myself to the point where I feel pretty helpless,” comments one person. For another, it’s more of a moral decision: “I think the best expression I can make of paternal love is not to bring children into this world in the first place.” Similar comments have appeared across Chinese social media platforms lately, and have been widely liked and reposted. Marriage rates have been falling in China for the past eight years, with marriages numbering less than eight million by 2021, the lowest point since records began 36 years ago, according to recent figures from the Civil Affairs Ministry. People are also marrying much later, with more than half of newly contracted marriages among the over-30s, the figures show. According to Linghu Changbing, who dropped out of high school at 14 and moved through a number of cities where he supported himself with various jobs, refuseniks are mostly found in the bigger cities with large migrant populations. Young people in smaller cities like his hometown are more likely to be able to afford a home, and will often marry and start families as young as 18. “In my experience, refuseniks seem to cluster mostly in the busier cities,” he says. “The more competitive a city, the more you will see this phenomenon.” Curling up, lying flat, running away and venting Shengya, a migrant worker in Beijing, has a similarly depressing view. He spent two years doing nothing at his parents’ house, a phenomenon that has been dubbed “lying flat” on social media. “I basically lay around at home the whole time,” he said. “I couldn’t get motivated to do anything. My dad asked me why I didn’t go out and get a job, and I told him: ‘The only point of a job would be to prevent starvation, but I already get enough to eat here, so what difference would it make?’” An employment agency in Shanghai. Credit: Reuters Linghu Changbing went through a very similar phase, until someone got him a job working overseas. Looking back on that time, he says that China’s young refuseniks are similar to the rats in the Universe 25 experiments by ethologist John B. Calhoun in the 1960s, in which rats given everything they needed eventually stopped bearing young, leading the population to collapse. “The marginalized rats gradually gave up competing at all, and suppressed their natural desires, leading to constant personality distortions,” he says. “Lying flat” has entered the online lexicon as a way of describing the passive approach adopted by many young people in China, while “curling up,” also known as “turning inwards,” describes a personality turned in on itself from a lack of external opportunity for change. While those who can join the “run” movement, leaving China to seek better lives overseas, others act out their frustrations in indiscriminate attacks on others, known on social media as “giving it your all,” or “venting.” For late millennials and Generation Z in China, curling up, lying flat and running away are the main available options, as not many young people have the wherewithal to leave the country and start a new life elsewhere. ‘A very heavy burden’ A Chengdu-based employee of an architectural firm, who gave only the nickname Mr. J, said he first came to the realization that he would be a refusenik during the rolling lockdowns, mass incarceration in quarantine camps and compulsory daily testing…
Reporting carries high costs for RFA journalists in authoritarian Asian countries
To mark the 30th anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s proclamation of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 1993, Radio Free Asia is highlighting the plight of its journalists and bloggers who have been jailed or detained in several of the Asia-Pacific region’s authoritarian states. This year’s theme, “Freedom of expression as a driver for all other human rights,” highlights the relationship between threats to media freedom, journalist safety, and increasing attacks on other key human rights. The concerns are valid, as the jailing of RFA reporters and bloggers, and their BBC and Voice of America colleagues, occurred in countries and territories that have experienced a decline in broader freedoms–if they had such liberties to begin with. Edmund Wan Edmund Wan Yiu-sing, known by his DJ name “Giggs,” was sentenced by a court in Hong Kong in October 2022 to two years and eight months in prison for sedition and money laundering, charges he confessed to in a plea deal. Prior to his February 2021 arrest, he hosted programs that reported and commented on Hong Kong and Chinese politics for D100, an independent online radio station. Wan also hosted a program for Radio Free Asia’s Cantonese Service from 2017 to 2020. Authorities charged that Wan hosted programs that “incited others to resist or overthrow the Chinese Communist Party” and “promoted Hong Kong independence,” the Hong Kong Free Press independent news outlet reported. Wan had pleaded guilty to one charge of seditious intent for on-air comments he made in 2020, and three charges of money laundering related to crowd funding transactions. In exchange, six other charges were left on file, which means they cannot be pursued without the court’s permission. The charges come under a law, created when Hong Kong was under British rule, that defines sedition as “intent to arouse hatred or contempt of the Hong Kong [government] or to incite rebellion, and cause dissatisfaction with it.” The sedition law was revived by the Hong Kong government during the 2019 protest movement and has been used to arrest pro-democracy activists.In addition to the time in prison, the court also ordered Wan to hand over HK$4.87 million (about U.S. $620,000) in assets. Yeang Sothearin Former Radio Free Asia Khmer news anchor Yeang Sothearin was taken into custody in November 2017, along with Uon Chhin, an RFA photographer and videographer. They were charged with “illegally collecting information for a foreign source” after RFA closed its bureau in the capital of Phnom Penh in September of that year amid a government crackdown on independent media. They were slapped with additional charges for illegally produced pornography in March 2018. If convicted of the first charge, they could face a jail term of between seven and 15 years. Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin are out on bail, but they remain in legal limbo after several courts have rejected a series of appeals. In October 2022, Cambodia’s Supreme Court returned Yeang Sothearin’s passport, allowing him to visit his ailing father and sister in Vietnam. Cambodia ranks 140 out of 180 in the 2022 Reporters without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, between Equatorial Guinea and Libya. After Cambodia’s emergence from decades of warfare in the 1990s, the country’s press had “flourished until the long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen launched a ruthless war against independent journalism before the 2018 elections,” RSF said. Uon Chhin Former Radio Free Asia Khmer photographer and videographer Uon Chhin and RFA news anchor Yeang Sothearin were taken into custody in November 2017, amid a gathering crackdown on independent media by long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen. The pair were charged with “illegally collecting information for a foreign source” after RFA closed its bureau in the capital of Phnom Penh in September of that year. They were slapped with additional charges for illegally produced pornography in March 2018. If convicted of the first charge, they could face a jail term of between seven and 15 years. Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin are out on bail, but they remain in legal limbo and their media careers frozen after several courts have rejected a series of appeals. Cambodia ranks 140 out of 180 in the 2022 Reporters without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, between Equatorial Guinea and Libya. “Hun Sen went after the press mercilessly ahead of parliamentary elections in July 2018. Radio stations and newspapers were silenced, newsrooms purged, journalists prosecuted – leaving the independent media sector devastated,” said RSF. “Since then, the few attempts to bring independent journalism back to life have drawn the wrath of ruling circles.” Htet Htet Khine Htet Htet Khine, a former BBC television presenter, was sentenced in September 2022 to three years in prison with hard labor for “incitement” and “illegal association” for her reporting work. The face of BBC Media Action’s national television peace program Khan Sar Kyi (Feel It) from 2016 to 2020, which documented the impact of war on Myanmar society, the freelance journalist and video producer had been in detention in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison awaiting trial since Aug. 15, 2021, when she was arrested with fellow reporter Sithu Aung Myint. Htet Htet Khine was arrested six months after the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup by junta security forces, one of some 150 journalists detained by junta authorities. Family members expressed concern over Htet Htet Khine’s well-being in prison amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the prospect of physical abuse by jailers. Veteran journalists told Radio Free Asia that her case underscored the fact that reporters face serious personal risk to carry out their work under military rule in Myanmar. Sithu Aung Myint A special court in Yangon’s Insein Prison in December 2022 sentenced veteran journalist Sithu Aung Myint to seven years in prison, which came on top of two earlier sentences totaling five years for allegedly inciting sedition in the army, meaning he will have to spend 12 years in prison. The sentence by a court set up by the junta that took power in a Feb. 1, 2021, military coup…
Popular Lao activist who criticized government on Facebook shot and killed
A 24-year-old Lao activist who championed human rights and posted articles critical of the government was shot and killed in the capital by an unidentified gunman, according to video footage posted on a Facebook page he helped maintain. Jack Anousa, an administrator of a Facebook group that uncovered and denounced human rights abuses in Laos and called for the end of one-party rule, was shot at 10:26 pm on Saturday in the After School Chocolate & Bar shop in Vientiane’s Chanthabury district. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 4 am early Sunday, the Facebook page said. Black-and-white security camera footage shows a man wearing a cap coming to the door of the shop and appearing to ask a question of a woman standing in the kitchen area. He briefly closes the door before entering again, stepping inside and firing two shots at Jack, and leaves, prompting two women with him to scream, “Jack, Jack!” Separate color footage from a security camera outside the back door shows the assailant, wearing a gray cap and brown shirt, come to the back door and use a handkerchief to grab the doorknob, presumably to avoid leaving his fingerprints, before asking the question and then stepping inside to fire the gun. No arrests have been made. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, strongly urged the government to investigate and reveal the facts for the public to know. “If they don’t do anything, people will think that state officials have a connection with the case,” he said. “Right now, we can’t say who did the killing.” Robertson said that those who have been critical of the government have paid a heavy price in the past, including getting kidnapped and disappearing. The most prominent example is the case of Sombath Somphone, an activist who was stopped at a police checkpoint in 2012, forced into a white truck and driven away. He hasn’t been seen since then. On his Facebook page, which has over 10,000 followers, Anousa recently posted comments saying that while the government has blamed thick haze on farmers burning forests and farmland, city dwellers have also burned lots of trash and Chinese and Vietnamese companies have burned toxic waste that has polluted the air. Last May, he published a post about how the Lao and Chinese governments helped each other get rich while Lao people have only grown poorer. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Myanmar’s military kills 3 civilians after raiding Sagaing region villages
Junta troops are continuing brutal raids on a township in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, arresting and killing three villagers this week, locals told RFA. A column of around 100 troops began raiding villages in Sagaing township again on April 30, according to residents speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. They said the column swept up the Mu River, fighting local People’s Defense Forces along the way. They arrested civilians in three villages and killed them this week, one resident told RFA Tuesday. “A shepherd boy who was arrested in Maung Htaung village was shot dead this morning in Ma Au Pin village. It seems that he was being held hostage,” the local said. “Two civilians from Htein Kone and Let Pan Thar villages were shot dead yesterday.” Last month troops beheaded a man, and burned down more than 50 homes and a Buddhist hall in Sagaing township’s Ta Pa Yin Kwe, the second raid on the village this year. Thousands of residents have fled their villages in the township over the past month, adding to Sagaing region’s growing humanitarian crisis. More than half a million people in Sagaing region have fled due to fighting, junta arson attacks and general insecurity since the February 2021 coup, according to independent research group Data for Myanmar. RFA called the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Aye Hlaing, seeking comment on the arrest and killing of civilians in Sagaing township but no one answered. Troops left Ma Au Pin village Tuesday morning, heading towards Myinmu township according to the villager who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity. Sagaing District Battalion 8 Commander De Wa told RFA two of his soldiers were killed in a two-day battle this week. He said junta forces raided a PDF camp on Tuesday morning, taking weapons and ammunition. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
