- contact@ij-reportika.com
Category: Americas
New exposé on the Chinese police stations around the world
Second part of the comprehensive Investigative Report on the Chinese police stations around the world with maps and locations..
Asia Fact Check Lab: Did NATO donate HIV-infected blood to Ukraine?
During the past two weeks, a conspiracy theory alleging that NATO members had donated HIV and hepatitis-infected blood to Ukraine was originally posted and spread on Weibo by “Guyan Muchan,” an influential account with more than 6 million followers. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) tracked down and confirmed the pro-Putin Telegram channel Breaking Mash as the disinformation’s source. Further inquiries by the Ukraine-based fact-checking organization StopFake caused the Ukrainian government to release a formal statement debunking the disinformation. On Nov. 3, Guyan Muchan, a widely followed Weibo user, published a post claiming to reveal a tainted blood scandal involving NATO and Ukraine. The statement reads: “Ukraine asked NATO to provide more than 60,000 liters of blood for wounded soldiers in the Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions. NATO member countries provided Ukraine with canned blood. However, Ukrainian medical staff found HIV and hepatitis B and C viruses in the blood after random examinations. Kiev has written to NATO requesting an independent assessment of the donor blood and asking that blood “not be collected on the African continent.” In the first group, 6.3% of the samples had HIV, 7.4% had hepatitis B and 3.2% had hepatitis C. In the second group: 5.9%, 6.8% and 3.1%, respectively. The information is obtained by leaked files after the Ukrainian government office computers were hacked.” The post contained three images. The first was a picture of a statement that hackers allegedly had obtained confidential documents from Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal’s email. The second was an alleged letter from Ukraine’s Minister of Health to Shmyhal. The third was the English translation of the letter. Each image’s background contained the word “mash” as a watermark, which AFCL used to trace the post back to its original source. Guyan Muchan is one of China’s “patriotic” influencers who in recent years rose to fame by pandering to domestic nationalist sentiment. Her post claiming the use of tainted blood was liked by hundreds of people, with other influential social media figures reposting it to millions more. This “news” swiftly spread on a number of Chinese language websites, including the popular internet news portal 163.com. What is the claim’s source? AFCL was unable to find any reports about the claim from credible English media outlets. A few English websites with poor news credibility did repost it, including the pro-Russia website info.news and the gun-lover community forum snipershide.com. A slew of unreliable Twitter accounts have also posted the claim in English. Chief among them is ZOKA, a user with more than 105,000 followers. Marcus Kolga, director at DisinfoWatch, a fact-checking project under the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Canada, told AFCL that ZOKA is a “well-known pro-Kremlin account.” AFCL also found the Russian version of the claim being spread on many websites, forums and social media platforms. After comparing both the publishing time and watermark, AFCL traced the claim back to a post on the Telegram channel “Breaking Mash,” first published at 1 a.m. on Nov. 3. The original post has since gained over 1a million views. Breaking Mash is the official Telegram channel of the Russian-language website Mash.ru. The website’s content is full of lies and is highly aligned with Moscow’s propaganda, according to Christine Eliashevsky-Chraibi, a media veteran and translator at Euromaidan Press. Mash senior staff are suspected of being close to the Russian government, with company executive Stepan Kovalchuk’s uncles, Kirill and Yuri Kovalchuk, marked as “elites close to Putin” by the United States.S. In sum, both the claim’s original Russian source along with the English websites and social media accounts that spread the claim all suffer from low credibility. Is the claim true? AFCL deems the Guyan Muchan post to be false. It came from a pro-Russia Telegram channel with low credibility. The Ukraine Ministry of Health refuted the claim in a statement offering more details about blood donation in Ukraine. The claim alleges that the “scoop” was leaked from the hacked email of Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal. But no credible media outlets reported on the leaked emails.The statements the claim relies on use questionable language that normally would not be appropriate for official documents. For example, the claim alleges that the mMinister of hHealth demanded that NATO’s donor blood “not be collected on the African continent.” The possibility of such racist language appearing in a formal government document is unlikely. Eliashevsky-Chraibi said the alleged government letter is “very suspicious” as there’s “no date, no signature, no stamp” and it was “not formal procedure.” Through the Ukraine based fact-checking organization StopFake, AFCL checked with the Ukrainian government regarding the veracity of this claim. On Nov. 7, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health published a statement on its official website refuting the claim. Ukraine has never requested blood donations from any organization outside of the country, and all donor blood needed for the battlefield comes from within Ukraine and meets European standards, according to the ministry’s statement. Whenever there is an urgent need at a blood center, people respond quickly to requests for donations, negating the need for any supplies from outside of the country. The statement adds that Ukraine does not have a “random sampling” system of donor blood. Instead, it tests all donations to ensure they are safe and reliable. The alleged letter from Ukraine’s Minister of Health is a forgery, the statement says. The allegation about blood donated to Ukraine originated on the Russian telegram channel Breaking Mash [left] and then was picked up by a pro-Kremlin account on Twitter [center] and a few hours later by an account on Weibo [right] with 6.44 million fans. Credit: Asia Fact Check Lab screenshots Background Information In late October, the Kyiv Post, a leading English newspaper in Ukraine, published a report that Russia’s Wagner private military company had recruited Russian prisoners suffering from severe infectious diseases, in particular HIV and hepatitis C. This news bears some similarities with the claim made on the Breaking Mash Telegram channel, including the mention of HIV, hepatitis and the war, but…
China uses carrots and sticks to boost Uyghur-Han intermarriage-report
China mixes financial, education and career incentives with coercive measures such as threats to families under state policies to promote intermarriage between majority Han Chinese and ethnic minority Uyghurs in the restive Xinjiang region, a new report by a Uyghur rights group has found. The Uyghur Human Rights Project analyzed Chinese state media, policy documents, government sanctioned marriage testimonials, as well as accounts from women in the Uyghur diaspora, that government incentivizes and coercion to boost interethnic marriages has increased since 2014. “The Chinese Party-State is actively involved in carrying out a campaign of forcefully assimilating Uyghurs into Han Chinese society by means of mixed marriages,” said the report. The findings on forced marriage by Washington, DC-based NGO come as Western governments and the United Nations have recognized that Chinese policies in Xinjiang amount to or may amount to genocide or crimes against humanity. Forced labor, incarceration camps and other aspects of China’s rule in Xinjiang have drawn sanctions from Britain, Canada, the European Union and the United States. The study, “Forced Marriage of Uyghur Women: State Policies for Interethnic Marriage in East Turkistan,” draws on state media propaganda films, state-approved online accounts of interethnic marriages and weddings, state-approved personal online testimonials from individuals in interethnic marriages, as well as government statements and policy directives. “The Party-State has actively encouraged and incentivized ‘interethnic’ Uyghur-Han intermarriage since at least May 2014,” the Uyghur Human Rights Project says in the report, released on Nov. 16. Interethnic marriage policies gained momentum after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a “new era” at the Xinjiang Work Forum in 2014, touting a policy of strengthening interethnic “contact, exchange, and mingling,” the report said. “Uyghur-Han intermarriage has been increasing over the past several years since the Chinese state has been actively promoting intermarriage,” said Nuzigum Setiwaldi a co-author of the report. “The Chinese government always talks about how interethnic marriages promote ‘ethnic unity’ and ‘social stability,’ but these actually are euphemisms for assimilation,” she told RFA Uyghur. “The Chinese government is incentivizing and promoting intermarriage as a way to assimilate Uyghurs into Han society and culture. Carrots include cash payments, help with housing, medical care, government jobs, and tuition waivers. When it comes to sticks, “young Uyghur women and/or their parents face an ever-present threat of punishment if the women decline to marry a Han ‘suitor,’” the report said, citing experiences of Uyghur women now living in exile. “Videos and testimonies have also raised concerns that Uyghur women are being pressured and forced into marrying Han men,” said Setiwaldi. The report cites an informal marriage guide for male Han party officials published in 2019, titled “How to Win the Heart of a Uyghur Girl.” Han men who want to marry Uyghur women are told that the woman they love “must love the Motherland, love the Party, and she must have unrivaled passion for socialist Xinjiang,” it said. Commenting on the report, scholar Adrian Zenz said the Chinese Communist Party’s “policy of incentivizing Han and coercing Uyghurs into interethnic marriages is part of a strategy of breaking down and dismantling Uyghur culture.” Zenz, a senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C., was the first outside expert to document the network of mass internment camp for Uyghurs launched in Xinjiang in 2017 and he has analyzed China’s Uyghur population policies. The intermarriage strategy serves the goal of “optimizing the ethnic population structure, breaking the ‘dominance’ of concentrated Uyghur populations in southern Xinjiang as part of a slowly unfolding genocidal policy,” he told RFA. “It’s important that people pay attention to the different forms of human rights abuses that are taking place in the Uyghur region, particularly those that are underreported, like forced marriages,” said Setiwaldi. “People can raise awareness and push their governments to hold the Chinese government accountable.” China had no immediate comment on the report. Last month, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement dismissed U.S. efforts to debate the U.N. report, saying, “the human rights of people of all ethnic backgrounds in Xinjiang are protected like never before” and “the ultimate motive of the U.S. and some other Western countries behind their Xinjiang narrative is to contain China.” Written by Paul Eckert for RFA.
North Korean censors destroy more than half of soldiers’ Mother’s Day letters
North Korea’s military ordered soldiers to write letters to their mothers ahead of the country’s Mother’s Day, which was on Wednesday, but military censors destroyed more than half of them for ideological reasons, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. To make matters worse, the censors even used the contents of some letters to identify and punish problematic soldiers, sources said. “The letters from soldiers of each unit … are opened before they arrive at the regimental postal office, and the ones that contain complaints about the difficulties of military service are sorted out and destroyed,” a source from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The number of mothers who aren’t receiving letters is likely in the hundreds of thousands. Every able-bodied North Korean must serve in the military. Until recently, male soldiers spent 10 years in the service, but since 2020, men serve eight years and women five as part of a fighting force estimated by the CIA World Factbook to be 1.15 million strong. From the letters sorted out, the censors made a list of soldiers with “weak ideological wills” – in other words, those who complained about hunger or fatigue, the source said. Those soldiers will be sent to ideological training. Letters written by a unit of soldiers guarding the border with China in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong had to pass through two rounds of censors, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The letters were first opened and censored by the company security officers, then they were all collected at the regiment and the military’s security authorities inspected them again,” the second source said. Some of the soldiers on the weak ideology list did not even complain. Instead they made the mistake of asking about their mothers’ wellbeing, the second source said. “A soldier sent his regards to his mother and asked her if the house had not collapsed in a recent flood and if the farming was going well,” the second source said. “However, the military security department pointed out that this shows that the soldier … does not trust the Party and speaks weakly instead of trusting that the Party takes care of the lives of all citizens.” Because so many soldiers are now going to be sent to ideological reeducation, they are griping about the authorities’ duplicitous behavior, because they are the ones that ordered them to write the letters in the first place, the second source said. Though Mother’s Day is most commonly celebrated around the world on the second Sunday in May, it falls on other dates in many countries. It is a relatively new holiday in North Korea, introduced in 2012 during the first year of Kim Jong Un’s reign, and became a public holiday in 2015. Authorities chose Nov. 16 in remembrance of an iconic speech about mothers delivered on that day in 1961 by Kim’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
“The results may be unpredictable”, said Xi schooling Trudeau over media leaks
Chinese leader Xi Jinping schooled Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit on Wednesday over leaks about their one-on-one meeting, according to a video of the incident. The encounter was apparently sparked after Reuters quoted Canadian government sources as saying that Trudeau had held a side meeting with Xi on Tuesday, their first in more than three years. During it, Trudeau reportedly expressed concerns about Chinese interference in Canadian elections. “Everything we’ve discussed has been leaked to the papers, and this isn’t appropriate,” Xi says while seeming to force a smile in comments translated by an interpreter. “That was not the way the conversation was conducted.” “This isn’t how we go about it, right? If there is sincerity on your part, then we shall conduct our discussions with mutual respect,” Xi said in footage from a break at the G20 obtained by CTV News Channel’s Annie Bergeron-Oliver, a reporter accompanying Trudeau. The Chinese interpreter failed to fully translate the entirety of Xi’s Chinese into English. After Xi said “this is inappropriate” while shaking his head in seeming disapproval, he gave Trudeau one last look, spread both hands and shook his head again while uttering, “otherwise the results may be unpredictable.” Between Xi’s two utterances, Trudeau tried to emphasize the importance of open communication between leaders. “In Canada we believe in free and open and frank dialogue and that is what we will continue to have,” he said. “We will continue to look to work constructively together but there will be things we disagree on.” Halfway through listening to his interpreter’s translation of Trudeau’s speech however, Xi noticed the nearby cameras. Xi then repeated the phrase, “Let’s create the conditions” twice, shook hands with Trudeau and quickly left. A report from Reuters on Tuesday revealed that Trudeau and Xi’s meeting had been preceded by the arrest of an employee from Canada’s largest power company. The man was charged with stealing trade secrets for China. At a routine press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning declined to comment on the incident.
Well-heeled Chinese plan to flee amid COVID lockdowns, economic shift
A growing share of wealthy and middle class Chinese are making plans to leave the country, citing the government’s stringent zero-COVID policies and a perceived return to the planned economy of the Mao era under leader Xi Jinping, according to online data and Chinese nationals with experience of the phenomenon. The WeChat Index, which publishes search statistics from the social media giant, on Thursday showed around 38.3 million searches using the keyword “emigration.” While the #emigration hashtag wasn’t blocked on Weibo on Thursday, the number of views was in the tens of thousands, with much of the content focusing on the disadvantages of living overseas, suggesting some kind of intervention by the ruling Communist Party’s “public opinion management” system. At their peak, search queries for the keyword “emigration” hit 70 million several times during the Shanghai lockdown between March and May, and 130 million immediately afterwards. The same keyword also showed peaks on Toutiao Index, Google Trends and 360 Trends between April and the end of June 2022. Two highly educated Chinese citizens told RFA in recent interviews that they and their friends are either leaving or planning to leave soon, as the grueling zero-COVID program of rolling lockdowns, compulsory mass testing and tracking via the Health Code smart phone app have taken their toll on people’s mental and physical health, not to mention their livelihoods and the economy as a whole. Gao, a Shanghai-based financial executive who asked for his full name to be withheld for fear of reprisals, said that lately he has been binge-watching YouTube videos in Mandarin from consultants promising to offer Chinese nationals a better life — in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, in Moldova, even war-torn Ukraine — anywhere, in short, but China. The phenomenon even has its own code name using a Chinese character playing on the English word “run.” “I strongly and strongly encourage everyone to run!” gushes one immigration consultant on a YouTube video viewed by RFA. “Today I will be sharing how easy it is to emigrate to the United States,” the YouTuber promises. “It is very likely that after watching this video, you will start re-examining your life and making plans.” ‘Lost all hope for the future’ Gao, who had absorbed a number of such videos before speaking to RFA, said he has been looking for somewhere else to live for some time now. “The current situation isn’t looking very good,” he told RFA. “Since the 20th party congress [last month], everyone has lost all hope for the future.” “Everyone has looked at their ideas, their values, their policies, the stringency of the zero-COVID policy, the return to a planned economy and heavy-handed suppression [of dissent], and come to their own conclusions,” Gao said, adding that he and his high-earning friends all share the same view. “The fact that we are facing economic collapse — there’s nothing left worth staying on for,” he said. “Everyone is taking a risk-averse approach to planning their future, because the risks associated with staying are getting bigger and bigger.” The night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. One Chinese activist visited an emigre Chinese arts and cultural community in the town. “There are a lot of cultural types who have congregated there … and who aren’t going back,” she says. Credit: AFP Chinese social activist He Peirong, who has nearly 40,000 followers on Twitter, said she had just left for Japan. “I had been preparing to leave the country since July, but I didn’t let anyone on WeChat know that I was leaving,” she told RFA. “I spent more than 10,000 yuan on home renovations, and I left halfway through.” “China has set off an immigration wave,” she said. “A lot of people are now heading off to live in Japan, Europe and the United States. Where people go depends on their economic situation.” She said she had also visited an emigre Chinese arts and cultural community in Chiang Mai, Thailand. “We would eat, drink and perform together every day; everyone was very happy,” she said. “There are a lot of cultural types who have congregated there … and who aren’t going back.” Before she left, He Peirong had been a vocal critic of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and was instrumental in aiding the daring escape from house arrest and subsequent defection of blind Shandong activist Chen Guangcheng. She later took supplies to Wuhan to support citizen journalists reporting from the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She said she decided to leave China after being barred from the railway ticketing system owing to a poor “social credit” rating. “In the fall of 2018, I was blacklisted by the ministry of railways, so I filed a lawsuit against them,” she told RFA. Long waiting lists There are currently very long waiting lists for people hoping to emigrate to Europe, the United States, Canada or Australia, while price tags for investment visas in those countries are also fairly high. Southeast Asian nations are seen as too risky, due to their close ties with China, and willingness to deport Chinese nationals wanted by the authorities back home. Rights groups say China currently engages in illegal, transnational policing operations across five continents, targeting overseas Chinese for harassment, threats against their families back home and “persuasion” techniques to get them to go back, according to a recent report. Hong Kong, itself in the grip of a citywide national security crackdown and mass emigration wave following the 2019 protest movement, is also no longer a safe springboard to overseas residency, Gao said. Gao is now looking at Ukraine, where he already has a friend. “Ukraine is war-torn right now, but that won’t go on for long … there is all kinds of hope and vitality in the future of this country,” he said. “I have a friend living in the westernmost part of the country, where there’s no fighting, and they are living quite peacefully.” “People have told me that you can apply for a…
ASEAN leaders call for measurable progress on Myanmar peace plan
ASEAN leaders called Friday for measurable progress in their peace plan for Myanmar, amid growing criticism over the Southeast Asian bloc’s failure to stem the deepening conflict in one of its 10 member states. Meeting at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia, the group reaffirmed their commitment to the Five Point Consensus that was agreed to in April 2021 and aims to bring peace and restore democracy to Myanmar following the military coup against the elected government that has spawned a deepening civil conflict. A statement emerging from the summit in Phnom Penh called on ASEAN Foreign Ministers to establish a specific timeline for implementation of a plan that includes “concrete, practical and measurable indicators” of progress. ASEAN reserved the right to review Myanmar’s representation at its meetings. The call for tangible progress comes as human rights groups assail ASEAN’s failure to pressure the Myanmar junta, which has largely ignored the Five Point Consensus and resisted dialogue with representatives of the civilian administration it ousted. Instead, the military has dubbed many of its key political opponents as terrorists or outlaws and waged a scorched earth campaign in the Burmese heartland. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo speaks to the media during ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. CREDIT: AP/Apunam Nath Earlier Friday, Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo expressed “deep disappointment” about the worsening situation in Myanmar. Indonesia is set to take over the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN from Cambodia, which is nearing the end of its 12-month stint. Myanmar’s coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was excluded from the summit, and Widodo told reporters he wanted to extend a ban on Myanmar junta representatives, who are barred from meetings of ASEAN leaders and foreign ministers, The Associated Press reported. Friday’s statement, however, stopped short of barring the junta from attending other ASEAN meetings. “Indonesia is deeply disappointed the situation in Myanmar is worsening,” Widodo said. “We must not allow the situation in Myanmar to define ASEAN.” Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also called on Myanmar to abide by and implement the Five Point Consensus. Analysts say there are clear fault lines among ASEAN’s 10 members on how to deal with the Myanmar crisis – with Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore reportedly taking a tougher line than nations such as Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Nevertheless, as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen kicked off Friday’s proceedings, he asserted: “Our Motto ‘ASEAN: One Vision, One Identity, One Community’ still holds true to its values today.” He was speaking at the opening ceremony of what were actually two summits in one day. ASEAN is required to hold two leaders’ meetings a year but countries that don’t have the cash to pay for separate meetings are allowed to hold them back-to-back. Also on the agenda were security issues, regional growth and geopolitics. Marcos seemed to urge caution over global powers gaining further influence in the region. Leaders of strategic rivals the U.S. and China – President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Li Keqiang – are joining summit meetings in Phnom Penh this week. “It is imperative that we reassert ASEAN Centrality. This in the face of geopolitical dynamics and tensions in the region and the proliferation of Indo-Pacific engagements, including the requests of our dialogue partners for closer partnerships,” he said. Marcos’ comments came a day after top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, said Saturday’s ASEAN-U.S. Summit would try to promote the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, whose signatories include the Philippines. That framework is widely seen as Washington’s effort to counter China’s investment in infrastructure and industry in Southeast Asia and beyond. “ASEAN is clearly at the center of the region’s architecture, and the U.S.’s strategic partnership with ASEAN is at the heart of our Indo-Pacific strategy,” Kritenbrink said. The 10 ASEAN members will still need international trade and investment partners as the world recovers from the impact of COVID-19. Hun Sen was cautious about expectations of a strong post-pandemic recovery. “While we are now enjoying the fruits of our efforts and moving towards sustainable growth we should always be vigilant as the current socio-economic situation in ASEAN as well as in the whole world remains fragile and divided,” he said. But he cited forecasts that economic growth in ASEAN would reach 5.3% this year and 4.2% in 2023, which he called “impressive compared to the rest of the world.” ASEAN leaders also held talks Friday with China, South Korea and the United Nations. On Saturday they meet with India, Australia, Japan, Canada and the U.S. Next week, there will be further summits of leaders of the G-20 in Indonesia, and APEC in Thailand. Indonesia is next to take the ASEAN chair and it may be hosting an 11th member. Leaders issued a statement Friday saying they agreed in principle to East Timor joining the bloc.
Uyghur Canadian leaders urge Trudeau to acknowledge ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang
Uyghur community leaders in Canada asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau why his administration has not followed Canada’s parliament in recognizing the situation in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as genocide. Trudeau met with about 10 community leaders on Monday in Montreal to discuss a wide range of topics related to Xinjiang, including the possibility of banning imports of products produced by forced labor. “He said he was aware of it and looking into it. He said Canada was considering banning forced labor products coming into Canada,” Keyum Masimov, project leader of the Ottawa-based Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, or URAP, told Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service on Tuesday. The meeting’s organizer was lawmaker Sameer Zuberi, who in June introduced a motion in parliament to help Uyghurs fleeing “ongoing genocide” in China by expediting entry for “10,000 Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in need of protection” starting in 2024. Parliament voted 258-0 in support of the measure last month, echoing the February 2021 motion to recognize the situation in Xinjiang as genocide, which passed 266-0. “We were able to convey our concerns to him that we were puzzled by his administration’s reluctance to recognize the Uyghur genocide as every Uyghur Canadian has at least one family member, neighbor, or friend locked up in the concentration camps,” Masimov said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with Keyum Masimov, project manager of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, at a meeting of Laurier Club members in Montreal, Nov. 7, 2022. Credit: Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project Monday’s meeting between the community leaders and Trudeau was a message to Uyghurs everywhere that Canada’s government is paying close attention to their plight, Mehmet Tohti, the executive director of URAP, told Ij-Reportika while on the sidelines of a conference at the European Parliament. “It’s a strong signal to China,” Tohti said. “This was a great opportunity to convey to the prime minister, who is running Canada, about the concrete concerns of Uyghurs.” Those concerns included the case of Huseyincan Celil, a Uyghur Canadian serving a life sentence in China on terrorism charges, Tohti said. Authorities in Uzbekistan arrested Celil during a visit there in 2006 and extradited him to China, where he was tried as a Chinese national despite having acquired Canadian citizenship, an act that by Chinese law revokes his Chinese citizenship. Tohti acknowledged that Canada’s Parliament has four pieces of legislation pending that are either directly or indirectly related to Uyghur forced labor, and that the Canadian government’s China policy framework, which will be announced later this month, includes banning forced labor products. “Most importantly, Canada is fully aware of the Uyghur situation by taking certain steps to resettle 10,000 Uyghur refugees and assist victims of genocide,” Tohti said. “Our hope is that Canada takes bigger and faster steps.”
Cambodia’s publicity shy king forced into center of political fracas
As he approaches two decades on a powerless throne, Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni has found himself caught in a political fight between the country’s long-time strongman and a former opposition leader forced into exile. The dispute, which began with a public mudslinging between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his political nemesis, Sam Rainsy, over who had betrayed the nation, has put a spotlight on the European-educated former dance instructor, who as king has preferred to remain in the shadows. “I believe that King Norodom Sihamoni did not want the honor or fame as his predecessors. He did not have such ambition or greed,” Oum Daravuth, who is one of Norodom Sihamoni’s advisers, told RFA. “The king does not want his name to be as famous as others. He just wants to live in hiding; he does not want anything else.” But the fight between Hun Sen and Sam Rainsy has broader implications than who wins a war of words. Hun Sen has threatened to dissolve the little that remains of his political opposition, which traces its roots to Rainsy, less than a year out from a national election. It has also revived a debate over the 69-year-old’s rightful role as the constitutional monarch of a fractured parliamentary system that has been slowly deconstructed under Hun Sen’s rule. While the king is legally required to reign as national figurehead and leave governing to the National Assembly and the prime minister’s Council of Ministers, some in the opposition have called upon Sihamoni over the years to challenge Hun Sen’s repression of their ranks. But the king has rarely even responded to such requests, instead mostly remaining inside the royal palace, quiet and out of view. Upon taking the throne in 2004, the king had pledged to remain close to the people of Cambodia and serve out his days promoting national unity. “I will never live apart from the beloved people,” Sihamoni said. “The Royal Palace will remain a transparent house and, for me, there will never be an ivory tower. Every week, I will devote several days to visiting our towns, our countryside and our provinces, and to serving you.” Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihamoni greets Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen during the annual Water Festival on the Tonle Sap river in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Nov. 10, 2019. Credit: Reuters The quiet king Sihamoni comes from a family that claims lineage back to the “god kings” of Angkor, when the Khmer Empire ruled much of Southeast Asia before being forced under Siamese, Vietnamese and eventually French rule. His father, the late King Norodom Sihanouk, was also known as the “father of independence” for overseeing Cambodia’s 1953 breakaway from French colonial rule. Sihanouk later led the 1980s shadow government that opposed the Vietnamese occupation, after its army had driven the Khmer Rouge from power, and fought a civil war against Hun Sen’s government before the 1991 U.N.-brokered peace restored elections. Sihanouk abdicated in 2004 to ensure he had a say in choosing his successor. Prince Norodom Ranariddh, whose party won the U.N.-run 1993 elections but was forced into a coalition with Hun Sen, reportedly wanted the throne, but Hun Sen preferred Sihamoni. Lesser known than his politician half-brother at the time, Sihamoni, who was born in May 1953, had previously served as Cambodia’s UNESCO ambassador and lived in France, where he taught classical dance. As a young boy, he had been sent to study music and dance in Prague, and earned a master’s degree from the city’s Musical Art Academy. In 1975, the year the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, Sihamoni went to North Korea to study filmmaking. But he soon returned to Phnom Penh, where he was kept prisoner in the royal palace with his father and Queen Mother Norodom Monineath until Pol Pot’s regime fell in 1979. Since assuming the throne, the son has embodied the principle enshrined in the 1993 Constitution that the king “shall reign but shall not rule.” Cambodia’s unequivocal ruler has been Hun Sen for more than three decades, and he has recently announced plans to keep that power in the family, pushing his son Hun Manet as successor after 2028. Self-exiled Cambodian opposition party founder Sam Rainsy speaks during an interview at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nov. 10, 2019. Credit: Reuters The ‘t’ word The recent trouble started when Rainsy said on RFA’s Oct. 25 nightly program that the king’s acquiescence to Hun Sen’s rule — and, in particular, decisions made in 2005 and 2019 to cede territory claimed by some Cambodians to neighboring Vietnam — made him an accomplice to “treason.” “What Hun Sen uses as a ploy is to force the king to support his treason. If the king yields to Hun Sen’s intimidation, and turns to support Hun Sen’s treason, the king must be responsible,” he said. “If it was me, I would have abdicated, because I must not be intimidated by Hun Sen.” Rainsy, who in 2015 fled Cambodia to his home in Paris after the government reignited a 2011 defamation conviction against him, said on RFA that Sihamoni’s faintheartedness would be long remembered. “It is dangerous for our nation that you turned out to be a rubber stamp for the traitor,” Rainsy said. “It means you contributed to committing treason, for which you must be responsible before the Khmer nation and history.” In response, Hun Sen called for Cambodians to “stand up to oppose this traitor and any party that dares to connect with this traitor,” alluding to the Candlelight Party, which was once named the Sam Rainsy Party. The prime minister has since called on members of the party to denounce their former leader, or risk their party being banned from politics. “We must do so in order to defend the monarchy,” he said. Prince Sisowath Thomico [right], a member of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, speaks to supporters during a demonstration at the Freedom Park in Phnom Penh on April 24, 2013. Credit: AFP Border disputes Large…
Interview: “Freedom and democracy won’t come without effort”
Vietnamese lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan spoke to RFA about a Nov. 1 meeting with U.S. officials in the run-up to the 26th U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue. On Nov. 1, Vietnamese rights lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan attended a meeting between representatives from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City and family members of several jailed political dissidents at the eve of the 26th U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue held on Nov. 2. Radio Free Asia spoke to him about the meeting on Nov. 3. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. RFA: What were your recommendations for the U.S. government at the meeting regarding human rights in Vietnam? Ngo Anh Tuan: The meeting was held on the eve of the annual U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue. I came to the meeting at their [the U.S. government’s] invitation and was the only lawyer there. I can’t repeat what I said verbatim but here are the key things that I raised: Firstly, Vietnam should hold dialogues with political dissidents and utilize their knowledge and talents for the country’s development. President Ho Chi Minh did this after establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which had been seen as an appropriate policy. Unfortunately, they [the current Vietnamese government] don’t do it now. Secondly, [Vietnam] has to amend or remove the harsh provisions relating to freedom of speech in its current Penal Code as they contradict Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution and human rights treaties to which Vietnam is a signatory. Thirdly, [Vietnam] must immediately stop using its Departments of Information and Communications (DOICs) to assess people’s thoughts and ideologies and accuse them [instead of] investigation and procuracy agencies and judges. As long as these practices aren’t eliminated, DOIC assessors should be summoned to trials to clarify what they have assessed and respond to defense lawyers. Currently, DOIC assessors avoid attending hearings. While the current law stipulates that all the evidence to accuse a defendant must be clarified at the trial, I’ve never seen any judiciary assessors at any trials that I have attended. RFA: Were there any lawyers giving similar recommendations? What are your expectations for the implementation of these recommendations? Ngo Anh Tuan: I did not ask how many lawyers they had invited but I was the only lawyer at the meeting. I don’t expect all of my recommendations will be implemented right away as it would be too ambitious for a dialogue like this. It would also be challenging to realize the easiest thing in my first recommendation. Some minor issues can be done at the moment. RFA: Suppose they could only implement one of the three recommendations, which one would you like to prioritize? Ngo Anh Tuan: We want all of them to be implemented. However, what I think they can do now is the third one, i.e., the assessment of people’s thoughts and ideologies. I believe people from investigative agencies, the procuracy and the courts realize this legal flaw. If assessors are allowed to [freely] make accusations, they will be able to easily charge people for so many things. It is unacceptable that they [the assessors] examine the ideological side and then conclude the objective side of a crime. By doing so, they have made accusations before [the judicial system]. This goes against all legal principles of both Vietnam and the world. Lawyers have raised this issue many times with them and I think they also want a change. However, they won’t be able to do so if the current regulations are not amended. RFA: Lawyers often encounter unpleasant or even illegal acts from authorities. Why didn’t you raise this issue in your recommendations? Ngo Anh Tuan: I think the oppression against lawyers is not that serious but the disrespect for lawyers is a matter of fact. However, we [lawyers] put clients’ interests before ours. If we face difficulties, we still can fight against them while our clients are in much more disadvantaged situations. Our clients and ordinary people out there are much more vulnerable and disadvantaged than us. It is more appropriate for the Vietnam Bar Federation or provincial bar associations to speak up for lawyers’ rights. I choose to speak up for people’s rights as people’s interests should outweigh lawyers’. RFA: You have said that freedom and democracy won’t come without effort and we have to create them and create opportunities for people around us instead of waiting for others to bring freedom and democracy to us. Could you elaborate on this? Ngo Anh Tuan: I believe most intellectuals are knowledgeable enough to realize this but they may think this is someone else’s job, not theirs. They also understand that we need to join hands to make the country a better place but they also think it’s OK if that does not include their hands. A Vietnamese saying goes: “Lead the charge if it’s a party. Follow others if it’s a march across waters.” They would think: As the pioneers have raised their hand, we can stand behind them and will raise our hand when success is almost there. Politics is not something super. It affects everyone, including us and our family members. For example, an inappropriate administrative decision creates difficulties for ordinary people, including us. Familiar things like land and salary issues are also politics. Society will be better if everyone speaks up against injustice and wrongdoings. Everyone can make contributions but many chose to forgo their rights. If everyone thinks we don’t need to speak up since the person next to us will do it, society, of course, will be at a standstill. RFA: Do you hope that human rights in Vietnam will be improved after each human rights dialogue between the U.S. and Vietnam? Ngo Anh Tuan: In this meeting, an officer asked me if they [the U.S. government] could help in any way. I bluntly asked back: Why did you ask that question? Can you really help? I also attended a similar meeting with the EU’s…
