- ijrepjournalism@gmail.com
- contact@ij-reportika.com
Category: East Asia
In North Korea, a soldier’s biggest threat may be the censor
The North Korean military is harshly punishing soldiers for divulging “sensitive” information —including their location or unit’s size — in letters back home, sources in the military told RFA. In most of the world’s militaries, especially during wartime, soldiers are typically forbidden from relaying certain facts about their deployment. But in secretive North Korea, which is still technically at war with South Korea, even honest mistakes can bring consequences that last a lifetime. One soldier was recently punished when censors found that a letter he wrote revealed where the unit was located and the name of the battleship he served on, a military source from Sinpo, a city in the eastern province of South Hamgyong, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The soldier was arrested and interrogated by the State Security Department for nearly two months and was eventually separated from the service with a dishonorable discharge,” he said. “If you fail to fulfil your military service time and are punished and discharged this way, that’s the end of any prospect for a good life.” Every North Korean male serves about seven years in the armed forces, according to South Korean intelligence. All the mail that they write is read and censored. Soldiers are supposed to use military postcards to write to their families or sweethearts to make it easier for censors to identify offending passages. But postcard supplies are down, so soldiers are sending more letters written on ordinary paper, in makeshift envelopes, according to the source. That affords more opportunities for mistakes. “Military mail takes more than a month or two for the letters to come and go, and the soldiers are never able to write down everything they want to say on the postcard,” the source said. If letters containing sensitive information are caught by censors, the person who delivered the letter to the post office can be punished alongside the sender, he said. “Earlier this month, an East Coast squadron naval unit in the city of Sinpo held an educational session on how not to divulge military secrets in letters,” the military source said. “The session pointed out how soldiers have been sending letters to civilian addresses with confidential information that the public should not know. The soldiers were warned not to reveal the location of troops, details about combat missions and troop movements. These are acts of treason and in violation of the military oath,” he said. Another soldier who was caught by censors was sent to work in a coal mine, a resident of the South Hamgyong province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “My friend’s younger brother, who enlisted to the army, was punished and separated from the military with a dishonorable discharge earlier this year. He bragged about his unit’s arms equipment in a letter to a friend at home who couldn’t join the military due to his physical condition, and this was caught in postal censorship,” said the second source. “My friend’s brother was then deployed as a coal miner in a rural county. If you are discharged from the military for a mistake, you are placed in the most difficult areas of society and will be excluded from all personnel appointments. This includes membership in the Workers’ Party, commendations and university recommendations,” she said. Party membership unlocks certain privileges like better education, housing and food rations — perks no longer available to the former soldier. “Mining work is difficult and dangerous, so my friend’s parents tried to get their son out of the mine any way they could, but it didn’t work,” the second source said. “My friend’s parents found out that there was a note in their son’s discharge document, saying ‘He must be assigned as a coal mine worker at the toughest coal mine. He should never be transferred to another company,’” she said. Though a market economy has begun to emerge in recent years, North Koreans still must report to their government-assigned jobs. Toiling away in the mine provides no opportunity for the former soldier to earn money on the side. “What I know about my friend’s younger brother is that he was bright and active. Now he is quiet and rarely speaks. He doesn’t meet his friends and he is very lonely. His parents are so sad,” she said. “It seems excessive to impose a lifetime of punishment on young soldiers for inadvertently bragging about information related to military secrets. The fact that every letter we send and receive is inspected by the state security department is also terrifying,” she said. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
China military PR video hints at 3rd aircraft carrier launch
A newly released military propaganda video suggests that the third aircraft carrier of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could be launched soon, Chinese media and experts said. A six-minute video, produced by the PLA Navy Political Publicity Bureau and the army broadcaster, was posted on Friday. It provides a glimpse into China’s aircraft carrier program and how the PLA carriers and personnel operate. China already has two aircraft carriers in operation, named Liaoning and Shandong. The third is being built and the promotional video seems to give a hint that its launch is imminent. At the end of the video, timed for China’s Navy Day which falls on Saturday, an officer is shown taking a call from his mother who appears to urge him to have “the third child,” to which the man replies: “That’s being arranged.” The camera then moves to two photos of a carrier’s flight deck – an apparent reference to the first two aircraft carriers – before shifting to a blank screen and closing credits. This bizarre hint nevertheless got some Chinese media excited. The state-run tabloid Global Times wrote: “This is a very clear implication that the country’s third aircraft carrier is coming soon.” The Global Times quoted Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, as saying that the third carrier, known as Type 003, could be launched “in the second half of 2022.” The paper said the carrier may be named Jiangsu, after the province in eastern China. A file photo showing China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning taking part in a military drill of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the western Pacific Ocean, April 18, 2018. Credit: Reuters. Covid lockdown “From the video, it does seem that the third Chinese carrier would be launched in the near future,” said Sheu Jyh-Shyang, a military expert at the Taiwan’s Institute for National Defence and Security Research (INDSR). The U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report last November that the launch “could be as soon as February 2022” but it has been delayed several times as China is struggling with the Covid pandemic. Recently severe lockdown measures have been imposed in Shanghai, home of the Jiangnan Shipyard where the Type 003 is being constructed – and where the Covid situation has disrupted shipping and may have caused delays in arrival of components for the vessel. Compared to the first two carriers, the Type 003 appears to be larger, and it has some new important components including catapult systems, used for launching aircraft from the ship. “It is the first CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery) carrier that China has,” said Sheu from INDSR. “CATOBAR carriers have much better capabilities, but they still need to have enough operating experience,” he added. The CSIS report last November also said that after launch, it would still be years before the Type 003 is commissioned into the PLA Navy and achieves initial operating capability. China already has the biggest naval fleet in the world, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence. But the U.S. has far more aircraft carriers: 11 compared to China’s two. A screengrab from a video to mark China’s Navy Day on April 23, 2022, jointly produced by the Propaganda Bureau of PLA Navy’s Political Department and the official Weibo and WeChat accounts of the Chinese military. Credit: Global Times. Vulnerable as the ‘Moskova’ Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, which is watching China’s military developments closely, said in a report published earlier this year that the Type 003 would enable the PLA Navy to project power past the “first island chain.” The first island chain, conceptualized during the Cold War, commonly refers to the major archipelagos that lie off the East Asian mainland coast. The chain stretches from the Kamchatka Peninsula in the northeast to the Malay Peninsula in the southwest, and includes the territory of U.S. allies Taiwan and the Philippines. Taiwanese observers also pay attention to the PLA’s plan to procure new warplanes for the Type 003. “The first two (aircraft carriers) have only J-15 fighters and maybe some helicopters but the third one may have some airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) KJ-600 aircraft,” military analyst Sheu said. The Xian KJ-600 is said to accurately detect and track other airplanes and so greatly increases the effectiveness of carrier-based combat aircraft. Meanwhile, Taiwanese media have been looking at the sinking of Russia’s flagship “Moskva,” reportedly by Ukrainian Neptune missiles, last week. Russia said it was damaged in an unexplained fire. The missile cruiser Moskva was built in the same Black Sea Shipyard Mykolaiv in Ukraine as China’s first aircraft carrier back in the Soviet days. Beijing bought the ship, then called Varyag, and renamed it to Liaoning. The Liaoning regularly patrols the Taiwan Strait and may be deployed in the event of armed conflict with the self-governing island. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that shall be united with the mainland. Taiwanese newspaper Liberty Times quoted an analyst as saying that “Taiwan has a bigger and more powerful anti-ship missile arsenal than Ukraine.” The Chinese aircraft carriers could be “as vulnerable as the ‘Moskva’ to Taiwan’s anti-ship missile,” it said.
Uyghur lecturer sentenced to 13 years, allegedly for writings, foreign connections
A Uyghur academic who studied in Germany has been sentenced to 13 years in prison in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to a security officer at a university where the man worked. The officer who spoke with RFA did not give the reason for the imprisonment of Ababekri Abdureshid, a lecturer at Xinjiang Normal University in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi). “He was sentenced for 13 years in prison, I believe,” the security officer said, adding that Abdureshid’s family would know the reasons behind his arrest and imprisonment. “We don’t know anything about this man’s case,” he said. The scholar, who studied for a year as a visiting scholar in Germany in 2012, was apprehended in early 2018 after returning to Xinjiang, according to his friend and former colleague, Husenjan, who now lives in exile in Norway. Husenjan said he heard through social media from sources in Xinjiang that Abdureshid had been sentenced. “I got the news from a very close colleague of Ababekri Abdureshid that he was sentenced to over 10 years in prison,” Husenjan told RFA. “[He] published academic articles on Uyghur culture and literature in both regional and national magazines.” Abdureshid, a university lecturer on philology, the study of languages, faced a difficult choice between staying in Germany or returning to Xinjiang. He decided to return home even though Uyghur higher education had been deteriorating, Husenjan said. When RFA contacted officials at Xinjiang’s Education Bureau for information about Abdureshid’s incarceration, they suggested calling judicial authorities. In an earlier report, RFA confirmed Abdureshid, who had been missing since 2018, was in captivity, although it was unknown whether he had been sentenced to prison. Abdureshid was born in 1981 in Qaraqash (Moyu) county, Hotan (Hetian) prefecture, the second-largest county in Xinjiang by population with more than half a million Uyghurs. He was admitted to the Xinjiang University in 2006 to pursue a master’s degree in modern Uyghur literature. From 2009 to 2012, Abdureshid studied for a doctorate at Minzu University of China in Beijing. During this time, he was a visiting scholar in Germany for a year. While in Germany, Abdureshid once visited Turkey and met with colleagues there to exchange views on research topics, according to Husenjan, who added that the scholar’s connections to colleagues and friends in Germany and Turkey were a further reason for his detention by authorities in Xinjiang. Officials at Xinjiang Normal University have consistently refused to comment on Abdureshid’s imprisonment when contacted by RFA. But a Chinese judicial official in Korla (Kuerle), capital of Bayin’gholin Mongol (Bayinguoleng Menggu) Autonomous Prefecture, told RFA that the Chinese government had sent people who returned from studies in foreign countries to “re-education centers.” After he had returned to Xinjiang, Abdureshid married and began working at the university in 2013. He was interrogated by Chinese police multiple times for refusing to drink alcohol. Chinese authorities have arrested numerous Uyghur intellectuals, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures in Xinjiang as part of a campaign to control members of the mostly Muslim minority group and, purportedly, to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities. More than 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in in the region. The purges are among the abusive and repressive Chinese government policies that have been determined by the United States and some legislatures of Western countries as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Hong Kong’s Chinese University evicts student media as PolyU cuts ties with union
A Hong Kong university has evicted a student newspaper and radio station, after another cut ties with its student union, amid an ongoing crackdown on freedom of speech on university campuses in the city. The student newspaper and radio station at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), which cut ties with the student union last year after it played a key role in recent pro-democracy protests, “CUHK Campus Radio moved out of Room 302 of the Benjamin Franklin Centre on April 20,” the radio station said in an announcement on its Facebook page on Thursday. “[We] started broadcasting in 1999, 23 years ago, and now we have reached the end,” the statement said. Students running the CUHK Student Press were also told to move out of the club room by university management on the same day, so repairs could be carried out. Asked if they could return after the work was completed, management declined to reply. The newspaper had been running since 1969, and hosted a huge archive of former news and features produced by students, the more historically valuable of which were sifted out and removed by student journalists before they vacated the space, local media reported. No mention was made of the eviction on the paper’s Facebook page, and no stories had been posted since April 20, when the paper reported on a compulsory vaccination program for students. The evictions came after the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) cut ties with its student union. CUHK Campus Radio, which has been evicted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is the latest casualty in an ongoing crackdown on freedom of speech on university campuses in the city under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing. Credit: CUHK Campus Radio. Campus protests Both CUHK and PolyU were besieged by riot police during the 2019 protest movement, and saw days of pitched battles between protesters and riot police in November of that year. Rights groups hit out at the Hong Kong police for ‘fanning the flames’ of violence, as desperate protesters were trapped for several days inside the PolyU campus, while hundreds more waged pitched battles with riot police on the streets of Kowloon. The U.S.-based group Human Rights in China condemned police action in and around Poly U as “trapping students, journalists, and first aiders, and reportedly handcuffing the latter group.” “[We] received an email from the Student Affairs Office on the evening of [April] 14 … [in which] the union was officially ordered to drop Hong Kong Polytechnic University from its name,” the Poly U student union said in a Facebook post. “All organizations linked to the union are required to move out of the PolyU campus on or before July 15, 2022,” it said. “The union has been trying to negotiate … with the university for years, but has been unable to reach a consensus,” the statement said. “The university will stop providing all venues and other support [previously] provided to the student union.” The April 15 post called on students to pay attention to the move. “A student union is not just a student organization, but also an expression of collective consciousness,” it said. “We hope PolyU students won’t give up their right to protect themselves.” Meanwhile, the Law Society of Hong Kong served notice on a prominent human rights law firm, which will be forced to close in June after representing an 18-year-old woman who accused several police officers of gang-rape during the 2019 protest movement. Vidler & Co. also represented Indonesian reporter Veby Mega Indah, who lost vision in one eye after being hit by a non-lethal projectile fired by police while covering the protests, although she later terminated her instruction of the firm. Firm founder and senior partner Michael Vidler told RFA he wouldn’t be able to comment on the reasons for the Law Society’s order to cease practicing until June 3, owing to a legal injunction in force until that date. Vidler has also worked with other high-profile Hong Kong dissidents including Joshua Wong, and in 2013 assisted a trans woman — in W V. Registrar of Marriages — to win the right for any transgender person in the city to marry as their affirmed gender. In January, the Education University of Hong Kong became the latest of the city’s universities to cut its student union loose, amid an ongoing clampdown on public speech, under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The university said it hadn’t “authorized” the union. Hong Kong student unions have provided various types of activities and benefits for students for decades, receiving funding and premises to do so, as well as participating in the formulation of policy by sending elected representatives to sit on university committees. But since the national security law took effect on July 1, 2020, they have been increasingly criticized by officials and denounced in the CCP-backed media, often a harbinger of official reprisals. Media reports said the University of Hong Kong (HKU), CUHK, City University, Polytechnic University, Lingnan University and Baptist University have all stopped collecting student union dues since the start of the current academic year. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
On the ‘run’ from China
China’s zero-COVID policy of mass compulsory testing, stringent lockdowns and digital health codes has sparked an emigration wave. Keyword searches on social media and search engines, as well as immigration lawyers, attest to spiking interest in emigration to Western countries among middle-classes fed up with food shortages, confinement at home, and other intrusive policies. The tide of emigrants has sparked a meme playing on the Chinese character “run” in late supreme leader Mao Zedong’s birth name, Mao Runzhi, and the English word “run.”
Indonesia wants Chinese lender to fund overrun for high-speed rail line
Indonesia will ask the China Development Bank to finance 75 percent of the nearly U.S. $2 billion cost overrun for the construction of a Beijing-backed fast train project linking the capital Jakarta with Bandung, a project official said Thursday. The cost of the rail line, which is now projected to be completed next year, has swelled to nearly $8 billion. The project is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s $1 trillion-plus program to finance and build infrastructure projects across the globe. “Obviously the first one to be offered is CBD [China Development Bank], the lender financing 75 percent of the project,” said Dwiyana Slamet Riyadi, president director of the consortium, PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC), according to a report by Tempo, the Indonesian news outlet. Dwiyana said the Indonesian government had proposed that the same financing structure apply to the cost overrun, with the consortium covering 25 percent. KCIC is a joint venture of a consortium of four Indonesian state-owned companies – KAI, Wijaya Karya, PTPN VIII, and Jasa Marga – and a consortium of Chinese companies. The Indonesian consortium controls 60 percent of KCIC, while China Railway Engineering Corp. and other Chinese companies control the rest. The 89-mile (143.2-km) Jakarta-Bandung rail line is expected to slash travel time between the Indonesian capital and Bandung from three hours to 40 minutes, officials have said. In January, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said the project was expected to be operational by June 2023. The contractor, meanwhile, said the project was 82 percent complete. Since construction began in 2017, the project has been dogged by criticism about its impacts on surrounding areas as well as concerns about rising costs. On Wednesday, Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi witnessed the laying of the first section of track for the rail link in West Java. Last October, Jokowi decided to allow the government to share the cost of the railway project, contradicting an earlier pledge and decree in 2015 that prohibited the use of state funds for its construction. A presidential spokesman said Jokowi’s directive would allow the project to be completed. A month later, the finance minister told a parliamentary panel that the government had decided to inject 4.3 trillion rupiah ($299 million) into the project. Critics had expressed concern that the move could deplete state coffers and lead Indonesia into a debt trap. Yusuf Rendy Manilet, an economist at the Indonesian Center for Reform of Economics, a private think-tank, said renegotiating funding for the project is necessary. “The government should also look at whether the risks [to state coffers] remain the same or there are adjustments or additional risks,” Yusuf told BenarNews. The economist said potential overruns should have been agreed upon during the project’s planning stage. “This needs to be especially noted considering that China will become one of Indonesia’s main economic partners in the next few years,” Yusuf said. Now, the government and other stakeholders need to recalculate the cost because of the overrun, he said. Knock-on effects from capital move In February, the consortium said the high-speed rail service was expected to become profitable 40 years after completion – not 20 as earlier projected – partly because plans to move the national capital from Jakarta to Borneo could sharply reduce the number of riders. Moving the seat of government away would cut the projected number of passengers using the railway connecting Jakarta to Bandung in West Java nearly in half because many government employees are expected to relocate to the new capital, a company spokesman said. An AidData study released last year noted that Indonesia owes $17.28 billion in “hidden debt” to China, more than four times its $3.90 billion in reported sovereign debt. Nearly 70 percent of China’s overseas lending is directed to state-owned companies and private-sector institutions and the debts, for the most part, do not appear on government balance sheets, said the U.S.-based international development research lab. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Chinese national living in the Netherlands forced to shut down Twitter account
A Chinese national living in the Netherlands and his family in China have been harassed by Chinese police over posts to social media he made while out of the country, including voicing support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion, RFA has learned. Gao Ronghui, who hails from Pingtan county in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian, provided audio recordings of phone calls with police from Suao police station in Pingtan county, who have also visited his parents and elderly grandmother, he said. “Did you take part in the demonstration?” the officer is heard asking Gao, who had told him he supports Ukraine. Gao replies: “I saw the demonstration in the square.” “As Chinese citizens, we don’t take part in demonstrations,” the police officer tells him, repeating: “You can’t take part.” In another section of the audio file provided to RFA, the police officer asks him if he wrote “reactionary comments” on Twitter. “Let me tell you this: the internet is wide open. Just because you’re in a foreign country, doesn’t mean that China doesn’t know what you’re doing,” the officer warns him. “We know everything, do you understand?” The officer then orders Gao to “delete everything you wrote online, and on Twitter.” “This has to be deleted immediately and we can pretend we never saw it and all will be forgiven,” the officer says, before threatening his family. “If there is a problem with your political stance, it will affect your family for generations, if you have kids, where they go to school, anything you want to do. Politics is a massive thing.” High blood pressure Gao told RFA that he had shut down his Twitter account temporarily after the phone call. “My grandmother had high blood pressure because of this, and my mother was depressed for two or three weeks, and spent about three days in hospital on a drip,” he said. “I feel very confused and helpless right now,” Gao told RFA. “I feel that the CCP is depriving me of my freedom even here in the Netherlands.” “I want to tell them that the only person responsible for their actions is the person doing them … [but] they have silenced me. They, the system, they’re the ones who should change, not me. It’s the 21st century,” he said. Gao said he fled China after police raided his family home in July 2021 over social media posts he had made, then summoned him for questioning. “I walked to the police station from a friend’s house that day. It took 20 minutes, and during that time I deleted everything on my phone,” he said. “I knew I couldn’t have committed any crime other than just spreading the truth.” “When I got to the police station, I was severely beaten and abused, and they forced me to sign a guarantee that I would support the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party (CCP) line, and not post anything that would endanger national security,” Gao said. “From that day on, I started planning to leave the country.” ‘Feel the iron fist’ Gao said he finally felt free after arriving in the Netherlands, and began expressing his political views freely in public, supporting practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been heavily suppressed by the CCP inside China, and showing solidarity with Ukraine. “[I even] sprayed the Chinese embassy with paint to vent my anger,” Gao said. “I knew this was wrong, and I went to the police station and turned myself in, but the Dutch police told me it was okay.” “Around that time, I started to criticize the CCP again on Twitter, in solidarity with the suffering Chinese people. I know that if I don’t speak up for them today, no one will speak for me tomorrow,” he said. But Gao wasn’t as free as he had hoped he would be, and the long arm of Chinese law enforcement has succeeded in controlling his actions by threatening his family. He said he hoped public anger over the recent lockdowns in Shanghai and other parts of China under the CCP’s draconian zero-COVID policy would fuel political opposition back home. “I think some Chinese people are going to wake up because of the Shanghai lockdown, as they feel the iron fist themselves,” Gao said. “We should stand united to change China.” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Children of Myanmar’s conflict zones deprived of key immunizations
Children whose families have fled fighting in Myanmar’s conflict zones are being deprived of essential immunizations due to lack of access to health care, refugees and medical professionals said Thursday. From infancy to 18 months of age, children are required to receive 12-13 routine immunizations to ensure healthy growth and protection from disease. They include vaccines designed to protect against tuberculosis, measles, hepatitis B, diphtheria, chickenpox, tetanus, polio, meningitis, severe pneumonia, Japanese encephalitis, rubella, severe diarrhea and cervical cancer. But doctors told RFA’s Myanmar Service that regular injections are often not an option for families caught in fighting between junta troops and the armed opposition in the nearly 15 months since the military seized power in a coup. They said small children — especially those in the war-torn remote border areas of Kayin, Kayah, and Chin states and Sagaing region — have been most affected by the failure to immunize, which can lead to stunted growth, severe illness and even death from otherwise treatable medical conditions. A refugee mother from Kayin state sheltering near Myanmar’s border with Thailand told RFA that she was recently forced to flee her village with the baby girl she had given birth to only days earlier. “I had to leave my village with my two-week old baby, and she hasn’t received any vaccines yet,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We had to sleep on the other side of the river [in Thailand] because of the fighting and the baby got sick as the weather was very cold for three or four days. I was so worried for her. The medics tending the refugees here gave us some Paracetamol and she got better, but I wish we could get her vaccinated.” Parents have described a similar situation in Sagaing region, where the military has been burning homes to the ground in raids on villages, they say have provided haven for anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries. A woman from Sagaing’s Yinmabin township Chinbon village said she has been on the move with her young child since her home was recently targeted by military airstrikes. “We’ve been running from place to place, so there is no medication, no vaccines for these children,” said the woman, who also declined to be named. “Many children in the area suffer from poor health, and we just have to give them whatever we can find. There is no proper medicine. We don’t have clinics or hospitals around. My baby is now 15 months old and hasn’t been vaccinated because we’ve been on the run all this time in the jungle.” Lack of medical care since coup Before the coup, Myanmar’s regional Ministries of Health under the democratically elected National League for Democracy government organized routine immunizations for children through hospitals, clinics and rural health centers. In some towns and villages, children were vaccinated by health workers at administrative offices and churches. But since the takeover, many parents in Myanmar’s conflict zones told RFA that their children have never received a full medical exam or routine immunizations. Than Naing Soe, the director of the Health Awareness Center under the junta’s Ministry of Health, rejected claims that families lack access to immunizations for their children. “We’ve been providing vaccinations for children constantly at hospitals and clinics. We can do that,” he said. “Public health services are also being administered in wards and villages, while hospital-based immunization activities are gaining momentum.” But a mother in Chin state’s Tedim township, where anti-junta resistance is strong, alleged that vaccines are not being delivered to health facilities in the region. “In Chin State, no health services or medicine has been available since the coup,” she said, noting that many midwives in rural clinics have joined the [anti-junta] Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), while those who didn’t have no supplies. “We haven’t received anything since the coup. Medical supplies stopped coming in a long time ago. What were we supposed to do? We have had to do whatever it takes to care for our children.” Rebuilding the country A doctor in the CDM, who gave her name only as Olivia, said children are at risk of developmental conditions if they do not receive their required immunizations within a specified age range. “During the 18 months after birth, the baby should be vaccinated in a timely manner. … Only then will they have a chance to fully develop mentally and physically,” she said. “If not vaccinated, their health and safety is at risk. … Losing children means losing key human resources needed to rebuild the country.” The United Nations Children’s Fund said in February that nearly 1 million children in Myanmar are deprived of access to routine immunizations, while around 5 million are at risk of contracting disease due to a lack of vitamin supplements. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Cambodian activist safe in Thailand after 6-day flight through jungle
A prominent Cambodian activist who fled her country in a six-day journey through the jungle safely arrived in Thailand, where she plans to seek asylum with the U.N. In Cambodia, meanwhile, government officials said they would not call foreign officials as witnesses in a “treason” case against another critic of the country’s ruling party. Sat Pha, who has supported the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), told RFA that she fled after a hand-written threat, which she believed was from the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, saying she could be “disappeared” was tacked to her door. “Authorities know how to assault, arrest and imprison [activists],” she told RFA’s Khmer Service. Opponents of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) have been targeted in a 5-year-old crackdown that has sent leaders of the CNRP into exile and landed scores of its supporters in prison. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017 in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. Sat Pha is one of the many Cambodians who has become disenfranchised in land disputes with the government or developers. She has also protested the detention of former CNRP politicians, and, she says, been beaten by governmental officials. “The authorities attacked me until my legs were injured. Has the govt. arrested any authorities? As a leader [Hun Sen] he doesn’t protect citizens. He knows how to assault, arrest and imprison. Killers are never brought to justice,” she said. Sat Pha said she became ill in her journey but is now in a safe location in Thailand. She said she is in the country illegally and is running low on food. She plans to request asylum from the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) office in Thailand. Sat Pha was released from prison in Cambodia six months ago after serving a year in detention for inciting social unrest during a peaceful protest in front of Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh. RFA was unable to contact Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha for comment. However, Cambodian People Party spokesman and lawmaker Sok Ey San told RFA that he believes Sat Pha fabricated her story to earn sympathy. “Police have a duty to look for the suspects. There is a need for cooperation between the victim and the police. It might be a personal dispute,” he said. Sok Ey San previously denied that the threat came from CPP leadership. Sat Pha has the right to ask NGOs for help when she doesn’t have any confidence in the authorities, Soeung Seng Karuna, spokesperson for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association told RFA. “It is normal for a victim who is threatened to seek asylum,” he said. Kem Sokha Trial In the treason trial of CNRP former leader Kem Sokha in Phnom Penh, prosecutors on Wednesday refused to summon representatives of any foreign governments that he is accused of colluding with. The prosecution citied the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an international agreement that codifies diplomatic immunity. Defense lawyer Ang Odom told RFA after Wednesday’s session that the convention does not forbid representatives of foreign governments from testifying, adding that the prosecution told the defense they could ask the foreign governments to testify. “They need to do it, but they asked us to instead,” he said, adding that the defense plans to officially request that the prosecution summon foreign government representatives to testify in next week’s session, scheduled for April 27. “All relevant parties will help the court seek the truth. They need to speak the truth about the alleged collusion to commit treason,” he said. The government claims Kem Sokha was in league with Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Australia, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Taiwan and India in plots to commit treason against Cambodia. The government may have a legitimate point regarding the Vienna Convention, Cambodian American legal analyst Theary Seng, who is herself on trial in Phnom Penh for treason and incitement, told RFA. “Rarely do I have the opportunity to agree with this regime’s political tool [the court], but in this instance it is right to deny the defense’s request. First, there is clear international custom and provision enshrined in Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that gives diplomats immunity from criminal proceedings as a charged person or a witness,” she said. “Second, it is not politically feasible that any country, especially a superpower, would give way to an incendiary charge as ‘treason’ in another country’s court system, as that carries countless criminal and political implications,” she said. Theary Seng said that putting a diplomat on trial would be a loss of face for the country he or she represents. “It is understandable that Kem Sokha’s lawyers will look to influential figures or countries to come their client’s defense in denying this most serious charge of treason. But it is a dead-end road. Rather, the defense lawyers should place the onus on the prosecutors and court in demanding why the regime did not expel the diplomats or close down the embassy, making the diplomat persona non grata or communicating to the sending state the extremely serious nature of the change,” she said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
US, Chinese diplomats square off on Twitter over human rights, jailed Uyghur
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield sparked a social media spat with her Chinese counterpart on Wednesday after she called on the head of the U.N. Human Rights Council to release an overdue report on rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. In a tweet, Thomas-Greenfield urged Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, to release the report on Xinjiang, which Bachelet previously said would be finished in September 2021. “And let’s be clear: any visit by the High Commissioner to China must have unhindered and unfettered access,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted, referring to Bachelet’s upcoming visit to China. Bachelet announced in March that she had reached an agreement with the Chinese government for a visit “foreseen to take place in May” to China, including the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). No dates have been announced. In response, the spokesperson of Chinese mission to the U.N. tweeted that, “China welcomes the visit by @mbachele including a trip to Xinjiang. This is a normal exchange between two sides. There is no place for political manipulation and malicious pressure. Such indiscreet remarks only reveal the US intention to set up obstacles to disrupt the visit.” A second tweet said, “To some U.S. politicians who are obsessed with making lies: STOP turning a blind eye to the human rights violations in your own country. Save your own people from desperate racism, violence and inequality. Smearing and defaming China cannot cover or divert your failure.” Bachelet first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to the Uyghur region in September 2018, shortly after she became the U.N.’s top human rights official. But the trip has been delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. International rights groups have said that Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang must be independent and unhindered to be credible. Bachelet’s office is under pressure from rights activists to issue the overdue report on alleged serious rights violations by Chinese authorities who target Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the XUAR. In March, about 200 human rights groups urged Bachelet to make the report public without delay. Up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others have been held in a vast network of internment camps operated by the Chinese government under the pretext of preventing religious extremism and terrorism among the mostly Muslim groups. The U.S. government and the legislatures of several Western countries have declared that China’s maltreatment of the Uyghurs and other minority Muslims in Xinjiang constitutes genocide and crimes against humanity. ‘A political pawn’ Thomas-Greenfield’s tweet followed a meeting on Wednesday with the family Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur physician detained for more than three years in an internment camp in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region. “Just met with the family of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur medical doctor who’s been unjustly detained in China,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted. “The U.S. will continue to push for her safety and release — and speak out against PRC [People’s Republic of China] atrocities toward Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups.” On Sept. 11, 2018, Chinese police took Gulshan Abbas, now 59, from her home to one of the region’s camps. Her family, including her sister, Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur American activist who is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs based in Washington, D.C., later learned that Gulshan had been sentenced in March 2019 to 20 years in prison on false charges. Rushan has said that her sister was detained on trumped-up “terrorism” charges after she spoke out against the Chinese Communist Party (CPP). Gulshan’s daughter, Ziba Murat, told RFA on Thursday that her mother was a “nonpolitical, kind, generous person and gentle grandmother” with chronic health issues. “As a health care provider, she devoted her life providing medical treatments for people suffering from illnesses/disease,” Murat said. “The CCP defiled my mother’s name as if she is a political pawn. My mother is a law-abiding and caring human being, deserving of dignity.” In response to the Thomas-Greenfield’s tweet, the Chinese mission account tweeted: “Q: Who is Gulshan Abbas? A: a criminal sentenced to jail for crimes of participating in a terrorist organization, aiding terrorist activities. It is common sense to respect the rule of law. Time to stop making yourself a laughing stock.” That prompted Rushan Abbas to join in the exchange: “Did I make my sister up or is she in prison? Your claims have 0 credibility. 1st #China denied the existence of my sister (see) & called me a liar, saying I stole images of others. Now they falsely link her to ‘terrorism.’” In reference to the upcoming visit to China by Bachelet of the U.N., 56 civil society organizations on Tuesday issued a statement laying out certain conditions that must be met in order for the visit to be credible, including the release of the overdue report on serious human rights violations in Xinjiang. They also demanded that Bachelet meet with independent civil society groups, human rights defenders and diaspora groups before leaving for China and to set up unsupervised meetings with human rights defenders and others who have been forcibly disappeared or who have been arbitrarily detained. The groups also said they were concerned that Bachelet has remained silent on the human rights crisis in Tibet, in contrast with her predecessors. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a Germany-based Uyghur activist group that signed on to the statement, said Bachelet also has a responsibility to meet with Uyghur groups and survivors to hear directly from them before her visit to China. “Engagement with the affected communities must be a priority for her and her office,” WUC president Dolkun Isa said in a statement. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China on Thursday issued a letter to Claude Heller, chair of the U.N. Committee Against Torture, urging him to release a review of China’s actions. “The human rights situation in China has demonstrably worsened since the committee’s last review in 2015, particularly in the XUAR, which prompted the United States…
