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Category: East Asia
Myanmar Bank missive suggests junta seeks more than financial ties with Russia
Recent moves by the Central Bank of Myanmar to promote cooperation between military-owned lenders and their Russian counterparts suggest the junta is seeking more than financial ties to the Kremlin and may be brokering a back channel for arms deals, analysts said Wednesday. In an April 25 letter, the Central Bank of Myanmar told the Myanmar Banking Association that five Russian banks will hold talks this month with local lenders, including the military backed Innwa and Myawaddy banks. The letter, which did not say which banks would be involved in the talks, may signal that the two junta-linked lenders plan to act as conduits for military purchases of Russian weaponry, economic and political analysts said. A Myanmar-based economist, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns, told RFA’s Myanmar Service the junta’s plan to link with Russian banks was part of a bid to show that its ties to Russia run “beyond economic ones.” He said establishing political and military ties to other larger nations is key to the junta’s survival at a time when the military leadership is being ostracized by the international community over its Feb. 1, 2021, coup and subsequent violent repression of opponents to its rule. According to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, security forces have killed at least 1,821 civilians and arrested 10,526 more in the 15 months since the military seized power from the democratically elected National League for Democracy government, mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests. An arrangement to procure arms via the two banks stands to benefit both Russia, which has been increasingly cut off from the global financial system in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, and the junta, whose arms suppliers have faced criticism for providing the regime with weaponry used to repress opponents to its rule. In March, the rights group Justice For Myanmar said in a statement that as a major supplier of arms and dual use goods to Myanmar’s military, Russia is “aiding and abetting the military’s genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” and called for international action to stop the trade. It called for sanctions against 19 companies that it said have supplied Myanmar since 2018, including multiple subsidiaries of the Russian state-owned arms giant, Rostec, as well as manufacturers of missile systems, radar and police equipment. The group said many of the companies it identified have exported to Myanmar since the coup. A branch of the Myawaddy Bank in Yangon’s Yanken township, in a file photo. Credit: RFA ‘Boosting trade’ When asked for comment, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA that last week’s letter to the Myanmar Banking Association was related to boosting trade between Russia and Myanmar and had “nothing to do with arms.” “Russia wants to increase links in the trade and energy sectors, and [cooperation in] other sectors will follow,” he said. “[Myanmar’s] banking sector must be upgraded so businesses can grow. Foreign currency is not based on U.S. dollars alone.” Zaw Min Tun noted that recent inter-governmental initiatives between Beijing and Naypyidaw had established a system for trade through the direct exchange of Chinese yuan for Myanmar kyats. He said the junta is working to create a comparable system for trade with Myanmar’s neighbors Thailand and India. “Similarly, we are now working to facilitate trade between [Russia and Myanmar] with a direct exchange of the ruble and the kyat,” he said. The minister said that all purchases of arms are made on a government-to-government basis, adding that the need to establish banking links stems from junta plans to purchase energy from Russia, as well as import fertilizer from and export agricultural products to its Republic of Tatarstan. An official with a private bank in Myanmar, who declined to be named, told RFA that the Central Bank’s letter could indicate a strategy shift in line with Zaw Min Tun’s stated goals for the junta. “Before this Russian issue, there was the China Initiative … and you can now transfer money to China by going to the nearest Myanmar bank,” they said. “Now they are planning the same thing with Russia for a direct exchange between kyats and rubles. … So, there will be more countries that can use rubles as well as Myanmar’s currency. There will be more channels for all countries close to China and Russia to make their monetary system easier.” In October 2021, a delegation of the Russia-Myanmar Friendship and Cooperation Association visited Myanmar and met with Than Nyein, the governor of the Central Bank of Myanmar. Observers have said that the meeting could set the stage for linking the two countries’ banking systems as part of a bid by the junta to improve Myanmar’s banking sector. Ties beyond banking However, another official with a private lender in Myanmar, who also spoke anonymously, said that the junta is better off looking for other countries to work with, both because of Russia’s relatively poor economy and the stigma associated with its invasion of Ukraine. “I don’t think any private banks will get involved in this [initiative]. Myawaddy and Innwa are half-owned by the government, so I think only those banks will be involved,” they said. “Linking with these Russian banks is not going to bring much benefit. Other countries would have already done so if that was the case.” Myanmar-based businessman Nay Lin Zin told RFA that, despite Zaw Min Tun’s comments, he believes the Central Bank’s letter is about more than building links between banking systems. “I don’t think Innwa and Myawaddy Banks can accomplish much just by opening an account in Russia, but it might benefit them if they could open branch offices there or the Russians opened a branch office here,” he said. “There may be other purposes at play. Of course, it is better to have more channels to choose from than to rely on [the U.S. dollar] alone. But we can’t just ignore the dollar, which is accepted all over the world. We can’t demote…
Seven teachers from high school in China’s Xinjiang confirmed imprisoned
At least seven educators from a high school in the third-largest city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been imprisoned by Chinese authorities, a local police officer and school employees said. The seven imprisoned are among more than 10 teachers from the No. 8 High School in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) arrested in recent years amid an intensification of a crackdown on Uyghurs in the turbulent region that began in 2017, the sources said. RFA reported in April that Dilmurat Abdurehim, the school’s former principal who went missing nearly a year ago, was being detained in the city, according to municipal education officials and a Uyghur living in exile who provided information on the man’s disappearance. The Uyghur in exile, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by the Chinese government, told RFA that he found out that at least 10 other teachers from the high school had been arrested by authorities and provided the names of Abdurehim along with two others — Nighmet and Shohret. Through calls to local police and school employees, RFA confirmed that at least seven of the 10 were currently in prison. When RFA called a local police station located in the same area as the high school, a police officer said that around 20 to 30 teachers had been taken to “re-education centers” and seven or eight of them had been sentenced to prison. He also said that the other two who were imprisoned were Elshat and Nighmet. “There were 29 teachers [who were arrested or detained],” he said. Around 20 have been released so far.” “Around seven or eight [were arrested],” he said. “One’s name is Elshat. He is around 40 to 50 years old. The other one is Nighmet.” Ghulja’s No. 8 High School has about 4,000 students, about half of whom are ethnic Uyghurs and the other half Han Chinese, and 200 staff members, including Uyghur, Kazakh and Chinese teachers. It has provided what it calls “bilingual education” since 2010, requiring Mandarin to be used as the primary language of instruction in schools, with the Uyghur language and literature taught as subjects. A school official contacted by RFA acknowledged that some teachers had been detained by authorities but said that he did not know them and could not provide details because it was a “state secret.” He said the school’s human resources department would have more information about the imprisoned educators. When asked if Abdurehim, Nighmet and Shohret were among those arrested, he told RFA to contact municipal education officials. “I can’t tell you this,” he said. “This is definitely a state secret. If you insist on knowing know, you can ask the city education bureau.” An employee in the school’s human resources department said she could not provide information about the arrested teachers since she was fairly new to her position there, but she did not deny that some educators had been arrested by Chinese authorities. “If I knew all the names and details, I would tell you, but since I am new, I don’t have those details,” she said. A school security official told RFA that three Kazakh teachers had been taken to “re-education camps” but later were released and continued to work at the high school “There are some Kazakh teachers who were taken to re-education. Qemer, Nurjan and Ewzel were taken to re-education and came back later,” he said. Founded in 1934, the No. 8 High School was one of only two high schools in Ghulja at the time. After 1949, the school was renamed after Ehmetjan Qasimi, president of the Republic of East Turkistan which was established in the northern part of what is now the XUAR by Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in 1944 with help from the former Soviet Union. Qasimi and other republic leaders died in a mysterious airplane crash while flying to Beijing for a political consultation with the then Communist leaders of People’s Republic of China in 1949. Authorities have targeted teachers and intellectuals in Xinjiang because they are the brains of Uyghur society and the most significant means of passing on Uyghur culture and identity, Abdureshid Niyaz, an independent Uyghur researcher based in Turkey, told RFA in a 2021 report. 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 violated the human rights of 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.
China casts its ‘SkyNet’ far and wide, pursuing tens of thousands who flee overseas
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s law enforcement agencies routinely track, harass, threaten and repatriate people who flee the country, many of them Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, under its SkyNet surveillance program that reaches far beyond China’s borders, using a variety of means to have them forcibly repatriated. A video clip of a Uyghur mother and her 13-year-old daughter crying for help after being detained in Saudi Arabia and told they would be sent to China recently surfaced on social media, highlighting China’s use of pliant allies to circumvent criminal justice processes and ensure political refugees and Muslims are sent back. The Safeguard Defenders rights group has called on the Saudi authorities to release Abla Buhelchem and her daughter Babure Miremet immediately, as well as two other Uyghur men being held without charge by Saudi police. “We call on Saudi authorities to immediately release four Uyghurs – including a 13-year-old girl and her mother – who are at grave risk of enforced disappearance, torture and forced separation if sent back to China,” the group said in a statement on its website. Abla Buhelchem and her daughter were detained near Mecca and told by police they would be sent back to China along with Abla Buhelchem’s ex-husband Nurmemet Rozi and Hemdulla Weli, both of whom have been detained without charge since November 2020. Rozi and Weli were both in Saudi Arabian on pilgrimage, an act that the CCP deems “extremist” along with many other required expressions of Islamic faith, and were detained at the request of the Chinese embassy. It said the two men were moved from the detention center where they were being held in March 2022, and their whereabouts are currently unknown. Abla Buhelchem (L) and her 13-year-old daughter Babure Miremet (R), who have been detained in Saudi Arabia and told they would be sent to China. Credit: Uyghur Human Rights Project. ‘ Gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights’ On Friday, April 1, United Nations legal experts said the four should on no account be sent to China. “The prohibition of refoulement is absolute and non-derogable under international human rights and refugee law,” the statement said. “States are obliged not to remove any individual from their territory when there are substantial grounds for believing that the person could be subjected to serious human rights violations in the State of destination, including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.” Norway-based Uyghur scholar Abdul Ayup, said he last heard from Abla Buhelchem on April 9. “At that time, she had already arrived at the detention center in Riyadh,” Ayup said. “She said she was waiting for the Chinese embassy personnel. She said that she was told that she would be deported in three hours. She kept crying.” Abduweli, a person familiar with the situation, said all four were still in detention in Saudi Arabia as of April 28. He said he had tried to warn Abla Buhelchem of the danger, and advised her to leave the country, but she wanted to stay and tell her ex-husband’s story to the international community, fearing he would disappear and be forgotten about. “My friends who work in the Saudi government told me privately that Uyghurs shouldn’t come to Saudi Arabia.” “As far as I know, there has been no clear accusation until now, and the officials have not explained why they were arbitrarily arrested without any documentation,” Abduweli said. “This is very strange.” Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International secretary-general for the Middle East and North Africa, said the forcible repatriation of the four Uyghurs was “unconscionable,” and a violation of Saudi Arabia’s obligations in international law. “In China, they will be arbitrarily detained, persecuted, and possibly tortured,” Maalouf said. Nurmemet Rozi (L)m Abla Buhelchem’s ex-husband, and Hemdulla Weli, who have been detained without charge in Saudi Arabia since November 2020. Credit: Safeguard Defenders Arab world repatriations In 2020, Saudi Arabia and 45 other countries signed a letter in support of China’s mass detention camps in Xinjiang, marking a “turning point” for Saudi foreign policy, according to Bradley Jardine, fellow at the Kissinger Institute for U.S.-China Relations. At least five other governments in the Arab world — Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Syria and the United Arab Emirates — have detained, extradited, or participated in cross-border repression of Uyghurs at China’s request. And the problem isn’t confined to the Middle East. “It is very difficult for Uyghur advocates to travel to Central Asia now,” Omer Kanat, chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress told RFA after being sent back to Turkey from Kazakhstan. “I was stopped by border officials while visiting Kazakhstan. I was interrogated by Kazakh security officers at the airport, who asked me why I came to Central Asia.” Beijing’s allies among Central Asian nations are grouped under its Shanghai Cooperation Organization initiative. “They told me that no member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is going to let me in, then they sent me back to Turkey,” Omer Kanat said. According to statistics from the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, the Chinese government has detained, deported or extradited more than 1,300 Uyghurs since China’s “war on terrorism” began in 2014, most of the them from Muslim-majority countries. U.S.-based Freedom House has described in a recent report several key features of China’s transnational crackdown. Political dissidents, activists also sent back China will target ethnic groups like the Uyghurs, but also political dissidents, rights activists, journalists and former officials using its overseas networks. Between the launch of the SkyNet program in 2014 and June 2021, China repatriated nearly 10,000 people from 120 countries and regions, the report said. Yet according to Safeguard Defenders, just one percent are brought back to China using judicial procedures; more than 60 percent are just put on a plane against their will. “The diversity of the CCP’s so-called ‘extradition’ is something that worries us,” Chen Yanting of Safeguard Defenders told RFA. “For example, the Interpol red…
Musk’s Twitter acquisition prompts renewed fear of Chinese influence, infiltration
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has sparked fears that the platform may now be more vulnerable to Beijing’s influence, amid an ongoing overseas influence and infowar campaign by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Musk’s recent U.S.$44 billion acquisition of the social media platform was questioned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos soon after it was finalized, with Bezos tweeting on April 26: “Interesting. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?” The tweet came in response to an earlier one from New York Times reporter Mike Forsythe, who noted that China was the second-biggest market for Musk’s Tesla electric cars in 2021, with the company relying heavily on Chinese battery-makers to make electric vehicles. “After 2009, when China banned Twitter, the government there had almost no leverage over the platform,” Forsythe tweeted on April 25, adding: “That may have just changed.” The same question was posed to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Foreign Press Center in Washington on May 3. While Blinken declined to comment on private companies, he responded in more general terms: “Free speech, including free media, including platforms of one kind or another, are incredibly important to to the Biden administration,” he said. Blinken also accused Beijing of waging “hybrid warfare” against the democratic island of Taiwan, “including disinformation, including cyber attacks.” “These are designed to basically distort the information environment and democratic processes,” Blinken said. “So we’ve partnered with Taiwanese authorities on civil society organizations, to support independent fact based journalism, to try to build societal resilience to disinformation, and other forms of foreign interference.” Blinken also indirectly touched on more detailed concerns expressed on Twitter in recent days that Musk might consider making it easier for Beijing to identify who is posting on Twitter, or tolerate CCP-sponsored propaganda accounts, which have previously been deleted in large numbers from the platform. “We’ve been deeply concerned about what we’re seeing from [China], in terms of its misuse of technology to try to do things like increased surveillance, harassment, intimidation, censorship, of citizens, journalists, activists, and others,” Blinken said. “These very same leaders in Beijing are using the free and open media that we ensure that are protected in democratic systems to spread propaganda to spread disinformation.” A Tesla model 3 is seen during the 19th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition in Shanghai, April 19, 2021. Credit: AFP. Tesla needs Beijing’s goodwill He also warned that Beijing is keen to extend its censorship and propaganda efforts internationally. “It also appears that they are further using these systems to stalk, harass and threaten critics who are outside [their] territory,” Blinken said. “We condemn and we’ve taken action against these efforts and will continue to defend the principles of free press an open secure, reliable, interoperable internet and the benefits that flow from it.” Taiwan Association for Strategic Simulation deputy secretary Ho Cheng-hui said Tesla is heavily dependent on Beijing’s goodwill to maintain current operations. “There is their megafactory in Shanghai, and all of his supply chain, like batteries, comes from China,” Ho told RFA. “The Chinese government has always been very good at controlling companies … and has always placed strong controls on big capital and on freedom of speech.” Musk’s acquisition of Twitter will make it much easier for China to wield influence there and affect freedom of speech internationally, and that includes exerting influence over foreign companies, he said. “The Chinese government will never relent, even in part, on controlling freedom of speech, especially where it wants to protect itself or prevent speech that isn’t in its interest,” Ho said. “I can’t see them letting an opportunity to interfere with a platform like that go.” After the takeover, Musk took to Twitter to invite his “worst critics” to stay on the platform and keep the tradition of free speech alive there. But he added that speech could only be free “I want even my worst critics to stay on Twitter, because that’s what free speech is all about,” Musk said after acquiring Twitter. However, he also tweeted, “By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.” Foreign companies, including Cambridge University Press, have previously used the notion of compliance with laws and regulations to justify implementing Beijing’s censorship demands. Love-hate relationship? Musk tweeted on April 26: “I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.” Taiwan strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu said Musk appears to have a love-hate relationship with the CCP. “Musk is a global entrepreneur who has tried to have restrictions and rules in different countries changed to create ways of operating and values that are conducive to the ongoing development of his business,” Shih told RFA. “Twitter is part of his business [empire] now.” But he said it was hard to predict how far Musk would be willing to use Twitter as leverage with Beijing. “We also don’t know how far Musk’s control of Twitter is going to result in enabling or breaking free speech,” Shih said. Tesla’s financial report released in February 2022 showed that its annual revenue from the Chinese market was worth U.S.$13.844 billion for the whole of 2021, compared with U.S.$6.662 billion for the whole of 2020, a year-on-year growth rate of 107.8 percent. Reuters reported on May 3 that authorities in Shanghai had helped Tesla transport more than 6,000 workers and carry out necessary disinfection work to reopen its factory last month amid the city’s lockdown, according to a letter that Tesla sent to local officials. Tesla reopened its factory in Shanghai on April 19 after a 22-day hiatus amid widespread coverage from state media. The letter lauded a company run by the Lingang Group had arranged for 6,000 Tesla workers to be bused in to the factory and disinfected the whole premises to enable production to start up again, Reuters said. The letter also mentioned plans for further expansion of the Shanghai facility, the agency said. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin…
Testing Chinese patience
Millions of residents of Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities face not only extensive long-term lockdowns under China’s zero-Covid policy, but also an exhausting regimen of testing in response to the spread of the omicron variant. The Chinese capital used the May Day holiday to test millions of people, adding to the stress of securing daily necessities under tight controls on movement.
China amphibious assault ship held live-fire drills in South China Sea
China’s largest Type 075-class amphibious assault ship Hainan has conducted combat training and live fire drills in the South China Sea, Chinese media reported. The exercise took place on April 22 but news about it only emerged this week on an online Chinese military network. The Hainan is the second- largest type of vessel in the Chinese Navy, after its two aircraft carriers. The latest photos show People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) personnel carrying out coordinated training, supply maneuvres and ammunition firing at an unspecified location in the South China Sea. Helicopters were seen rehearsing taking off and landing on the ship’s dock. The drills were said to aim at “consolidating the basic skills of officers and soldiers, optimizing the ship deployment and command process, and effectively improving the comprehensive combat capability.” The Hainan, named after the Chinese island in the South China Sea, is China’s first Type 075 amphibious assault ship, commissioned into service only a year ago. It was built in Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai and listed under the Southern Theater Command which is responsible for the South China Sea. It has a total displacement of 40,000 tons. The Hainan’s deck layout is similar to that of China’s Liaoning and Shandong aircraft carriers. As tall as a 15-storey building, it can carry a number of helicopters, amphibious hovercrafts, tanks and armored vehicles. The vessel is equipped with weapon systems including missiles and ship guns but its main task is transporting helicopters and amphibious vehicles to conduct amphibious operations. Type 075 vessels A day before the Hainan’s exercise, on April 21, the PLAN also announced the commissioning of its second Type 075 amphibious assault ship, the Guangxi. The Chinese Navy only officially started development work on the Type 075 in 2011 but has already launched three ships, two of which are fully operational and the third is on sea trials. A total of eight vessels are said to be on order for the PLAN, reported the Naval News portal. Chinese state media said the Type 075 “will play vital roles in possible operations on the island of Taiwan, as well as islands and reefs in the South China Sea.” Experts said that the commissioning of the three ships will place China in the second rank in terms of global amphibious capabilities, second only to the United States. A U.S. Defense Department report released last November said China has the biggest maritime force on the globe with 355 vessels. The number is projected to increase to 420 ships within the next four years and 460 by 2030. The state media report about the live-fire drill with the Hainan emerged days after a Chinese navy flotilla led by the Liaoning aircraft carrier was spotted sailing from the East China Sea towards the Pacific Ocean. Both the Japanese and Taiwanese militaries said they were monitoring the flotilla.
Little to celebrate on Press Freedom Day amid worsening media crackdown in Myanmar
There was little to celebrate on World Press Freedom Day in Myanmar, where the junta has jailed 135 journalists since it seized power last year and reporters routinely face harassment, arrest and even death for doing their jobs, members of the media and watchdog groups said Tuesday. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that in the 15 months since its Feb. 1, 2021, coup, the junta had “obliterated” a decade of moderate press reforms in Myanmar, prompting it to name the country the world’s fifth worst abuser of the media freedom in its annual global index. Speaking to RFA’s Myanmar Service on Tuesday, Han Zaw of the Detained Journalists’ Information said his group had documented the arrest of 135 journalists in Myanmar since the coup, adding that nearly half of them remain in detention. “Eighty-three of them — 13 women and 70 men — have been released so far, some on amnesty, some after completing their sentences and some after serving a short-term detention,” he said. “More than 80 journalists have been charged. There are currently 51 detained journalists — 13 women and 38 men.” Myanmar is recognized by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists as the world’s worst jailer of journalists after China. Since the coup, authorities have arrested and sentenced outspoken members of the press on vaguely worded criminal charges that include “publishing false information” and “defamation,” as well as on charges of “terrorism.” Freelance journalist Soe Yar Zar Tun was detained on Feb. 28, 2021, while covering anti-coup protests and is being held in Yangon’s Insein Prison facing a trial for violating the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law. His brother, Zar Ni Tun, told RFA that the junta has no right to arrest members of the media for reporting the news. “It’s completely hypocritical,” he said. “They have harassed and arrested and tortured people in the past and are still doing it.” An editor from the Shwe Phi Myay News Agency, which is based in Shan state, said that in addition to the threat of arrest, journalists are now regularly in danger of losing their lives while doing their jobs. “We know that once a person is arrested, it is very difficult for them to be released. At worst, they could be arrested, tortured or even killed,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “It’s not just the army in this area. There are many ethnic armed groups too. And so, we could get arrested and detained at any time and face a life-threatening situation.” Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi raises his hands as he is escorted by police upon arrival at the Myaynigone police station in Sanchaung township in Yangon, Feb. 26, 2021. Credit: AP Photo Risking death Veteran journalist Myint Kyaw said journalists in the country now find themselves in the worst situation they have faced since the military coup. “We had the case of the first journalist to be killed while covering an armed conflict last January,” he said, referring website editor Pu Tuidim, who was abducted by junta troops while reporting on military clashes with armed ethnic soldiers in Chin state and later shot dead by his captors. “Armed conflicts have escalated in cities as well as in rural areas. Journalists will be killed even more, as there are now death threats to journalists and their family members. And so there might be more bad news for us.” According to RSF, Pu Tidim was the third journalist to be killed in less than a month in Myanmar. His murder followed the Dec. 25, 2021, death of Federal News Journal editor Sai Win Aung from gunfire during a clash between the military and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries in Kaiyn state. Freelance photographer Soe Naing became the first journalist to die at the junta’s hands under torture on Dec. 14, four days after being arrested while covering a protest in Yangon. Journalists are also increasingly facing death threats for reporting news that portrays the junta in a bad light. Last week, the pro-junta Thway Thauk, or “Blood Comrades,” militia called for the deaths of reporters and editors working for news outlets in Myanmar including The Irrawaddy, Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and The Irrawaddy Times — as well as their family members. Observers say groups like the Thway Thauk have been emboldened by the military regime’s open disdain for the media, which was again demonstrated — days ahead of World Press Freedom Day — by junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, when he accused several news outlets of being “destructive elements” in Myanmar during an April 27 press conference in the capital Naypyidaw. When asked by RFA for comment on the number of reporters currently detained or in prison, Zaw Min Tun responded that the junta had “not arrested anyone for working in the media.” “They were arrested for inciting people and for having contacts with terrorist organizations,” he said. “All media outlets, with the exception of those that have been declared illegal, are working freely here,” he added. In this image made from video taken on Feb. 27, 2021, Associated Press journalist Thein Zaw is arrested by police in Yangon, Myanmar. Credit: AP Photo Plummeting index rank Global media watchdog RSF disagreed with that assessment Tuesday when it dropped Myanmar to 175th out of 180 countries in its 2022 World Press Freedom Index from 140th a year earlier. The group said that in the 15 months since seizing power, the junta had “obliterated” a decade’s worth of modest media reforms that began when the country’s last military regime disbanded in 2011. The new ranking put Myanmar behind only North Korea, Eritrea, Iran and Turkmenistan as the worst place in the world to be a journalist. RSF said that after seizing power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government on Feb. 1, 2021, the junta immediately banned a number of outspoken media outlets, leaving a handful to continue the work…
Factory in China tests North Korean workers for COVID after 20 show symptoms
Around 800 North Korean workers in the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong spent their May Day holiday getting tested for COVID-19 after about 20 of their coworkers began showing symptoms for the disease and were quarantined, sources in China told RFA. The North Korean women are employed by a clothing company in the city’s Zhenan district. They are among the 80,000 to 100,000 North Koreans dispatched to China’s three northeastern provinces to earn foreign currency for their cash-strapped government. Dandong has been locked down as part of China’s zero-COVID policy since last week. Workers would typically have off for May Day, an annual celebration of the fight for labor rights and an important holiday in communist countries. But workers were instead called into the factory for testing, a source in the city told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The factory where the 800 women work is an important one in the battle against COVID-19, as it produces protective medical gowns, the source said. On April 27, about 20 suspected cases of COVID-19 were detected among North Korean workers at the company and the factory closed, the source said. The COVID-19 Pulmonary Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Command in Dandong diagnosed the suspected symptoms as laryngitis instead of COVID-19. “The 20 or so North Koreans who appear to have symptoms of COVID-19 are currently being treated in isolation inside the factory,” the source said. “It is absurd to say that it is laryngitis when there are hundreds of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Dandong and the municipal government and disease control authorities are blocking roads and alleys and restricting the movement of people.” COVID-19 has swept through companies employing North Korean workers before, but it was always kept a secret, the source said. “Perhaps if it was confirmed that North Korean workers had COVID-19 there would be considerable ramifications if it became known to the public. I know that the North Korean consulate in Dandong and the Chinese government are fabricating information to cover it up,” he said. “Even though it is a holiday for workers around the world, the North Korean workers are locked up in their company and taking nucleic acid tests.” A health official from Zhenan district told RFA’s Mandarin Service on Tuesday said that there were confirmed coronavirus cases in the factory, but she could not say whether it was North Korean or Chinese workers who were infected. She said that information would not be released. RFA Mandarin attempted to contact the factory but received no response. Another source in Dandong told RFA’s Korean Service that because the company is making protective gear, the factory had to continue operations on the holiday. “They don’t have time to enjoy the day because they are too busy producing COVID-19 protective suits and isolation gowns,” he said on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “They are working while wearing what they make.” “There was a recent scare after North Korean women working in restaurants, hostess bars and public baths had a few suspected cases,” he said. The source spoke of another case where four young North Korean women working at a hotel in Dandong were suspected cases. “I heard from an acquaintance who works with them that they were immediately placed into quarantine because they were showing symptoms,” the second source said. “As COVID-19 spreads here in Dandong, production rates at companies with North Korean workers fell dramatically. Companies that bought materials in advance, before things got so bad, are still forcing the North Koreans to come to work, even with the lockdown,” he said. Millions of residents of major Chinese cities are facing rigid lockdowns and strict testing regimens as the country tries to stop the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 under the Communist Party’s zero-COVID policy. RFA reported last week that Dandong, which lies across the Sino-Korean border from North Korea’s Sinuiju, started shutting down on April 25 and stopped all rail freight on May 1, just months after it resumed after an almost two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. North Korean labor exports were supposed to have stopped when United Nations nuclear sanctions froze the issuance of work visas and mandated the repatriation of North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019. But Pyongyang sometimes dispatches workers to China and Russia on short-term student or visitor visas to get around sanctions. Translated by Claire Lee and RFA’s Mandarin Service. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Hong Kong falls to a new low in global press freedom index as Jimmy Lai stands trial
Hong Kong has plummeted to 148th on a global press freedom index, as authorities in the city took the now-shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper to court for “fraud.” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the city’s fall down the index by 68 places was the biggest of the year, and comes amid an ongoing crackdown on the pro-democracy media under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing from July 1, 2020. “It is the biggest downfall of the year, but it is fully deserved due to the consistent attacks on freedom of the press and the slow disappearance of the rule of law in Hong Kong,” Agence France-Presse quoted RSF’s East Asia bureau chief Cedric Alviani as saying. “In the past year we have seen a drastic, drastic move against journalists,” he added. The national security law was initially used to target the government’s political opponents, but later turned its power onto independent media organizations, forcing the closure of Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily, parent company Next Media and Stand News. “Once a bastion of press freedom, [Hong Kong] has seen an unprecedented setback since 2020 when Beijing adopted a National Security Law aimed at silencing independent voices,” RSF’s entry on Hong Kong reads. “Since the 1997 handover to China, most media have fallen under the control of the government or pro-China groups,” it said. “In 2021, two major independent news outlets, Apple Daily and Stand News, were forcefully shut down while numerous smaller-scale media outlets ceased operations, citing legal risks.” It said the Hong Kong government now takes orders directly from the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing, and openly supports its propaganda effort. “Public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), previously renowned for its fearless investigations, has been placed under a pro-government management which does not hesitate to censor the programmes it dislikes,” RSF said. Despite promises of freedom of speech, press and publication made under the terms of the handover to Chinese rule, the national security law could be used to target any journalist reporting on Hong Kong from anywhere in the world, it warned. Jailed media mogul As the RSF index was published on World Press Freedom Day, Lai — who is currently serving time in jail for taking part in peaceful protests and awaiting trial under the national security law for “collusion with a foreign power” — and former Next Media administrative director Wong Wai-keung were in court facing two charges of “fraud” linked to the use of the Next Media headquarters by a consultancy firm. Lai stands accused of violating the terms of the building’s lease and concealing the breach from the landlord, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, over two decades. Lai, 74, appeared in court on the first day of the trial wearing headphones, leaning back with his eyes closed, appearing in good spirits as he blew a kiss to his wife. Lai’s legal team led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher at Doughty Street Chambers filed an urgent appeal at the United Nations over “legal harassment” against him in April, saying he has been jailed simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly and the right to peaceful protest. His lawyers say he has been repeatedly targeted by the Hong Kong authorities with a “barrage” of legal cases, including four separate criminal prosecutions arising from his attendance at and participation in various protests in Hong Kong between 2019-2020, including most recently in relation to his participation in a vigil marking the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Beijing, for which he received a 13-month prison sentence. He is currently serving concurrent prison sentences in relation to all four protest cases, while awaiting trial for “collusion with foreign powers” and “sedition” in relation to editorials published in Apple Daily. New host of press award Meanwhile, a U.S. university has said it will take over the hosting of the Human Rights Press Awards after the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) withdrew from the event, citing legal risks under the national security law. The awards will now be run by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. “Recognizing exceptional reporting on human-rights issues is more important today than ever before, due to the many – and growing – threats to press freedom around the world,” dean Battinto Batts said in a statement on the school’s website. A former reporter for Stand News, who gave only the pseudonym Miss Chan, said she had been notified she would win an award this year. She said the relocation of the awards overseas didn’t necessary help journalists in Hong Kong, however. “If the awards are able to go ahead overseas, I think Hong Kong journalists will be more worried about whether to participate in the competition or serve as judges, because they may be accused of colluding with foreign forces or incitement and so on,” Chan said. “The situation in Hong Kong is changing too fast and it may be getting worse, so I don’t know if I still have the guts to take part,” she said. A former winner who gave only the pseudonym Mr. Cheung said the relocation was better than nothing. “Naturally, something is better than nothing, and there is some encouragement in that,” Cheung said. “But the Human Rights Press Award can no longer exist in Hong Kong before of the huge retrograde steps being made there regarding human rights.” “Hong Kong journalists used to know they could report on human rights issues in Hong Kong, China or elsewhere in the region,” he said. “Now there’s no room [for that].” Former Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) journalist professor To Yiu-ming said the awards had served as a bellwether for press freedom in the city. “[They] served as a benchmark for the freeom of the press in Hong Kong, and also as a bulwark protecting some press freedoms,” To told RFA. “Their disintegration is also the disintegration of another pillar of Hong Kong’s [former]…
Shanghai-based Ji Xiaolong joins ranks of COVID-19 dissidents in China
Shanghai-based rights activist Ji Xiaolong, who was recently released on bail by police, vowed on Tuesday to keep speaking out against rights abuses in the city, much of which remains under tight restrictions amid renewed rounds of mass testing. Ji, who was incommunicado for two days after tweeting “The police are here looking for me” on Saturday. He told RFA late on Monday that he had been taken to the local police station for questioning. Police clad in full PPE started knocking on the door of his apartment in Yanlord Riverside City, Pudong New District at 3.00 p.m. on April 30, before breaking down the door and grabbing him and his wife. They gave no indication of their identity or purpose, but seized one of his laptops and two cell phones, as well as some letters he had exchanged with his wife in prison, Ji said. They were “disinfected” and subjected to PCR tests before being taken to Meiyuan New Village police station and interrogated separately. “I felt that something was up, because there were 10 of them this time, including two or three regular police officers from the local police station, some state security police from Pudong and also from the Shanghai municipal police department,” Ji said. “There were maybe four or five high-ranking officers.” Repeated calls to the Meiyuan New Village police station rang unanswered on Monday. Ji, who has already served a three-and-a-half year jail term for writing political graffiti in a Shanghai public toilet, has been a vocal critic of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s zero-COVID policy of stringent lockdowns, mass isolation and quarantine facilities and wave upon wave of PCR testing that has sparked public anger over the “total chaos” of their implementation. People in Shanghai have repeatedly complained of shortages of food and essential supplies and lack of access to life-saving medical treatment for those sick with something other than COVID-19, during the lockdown. Policemen wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) stand on a street during a Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown in the Jing’an district in Shanghai, May 3, 2022. Credit: AFP Out on bond Ji was detained alongside his wife, who was released after a few hours, while he was released the following day on payment of a 1,000 yuan bond. “They confiscated by ID card, my passport and my cell phone, which has my Alipay account,” Ji said. “I can’t get a new SIM card because they took my ID,” Ji said. “So now I can’t go anywhere because you have to scan the [COVID-19] health code app to go anywhere.” “I can’t go to the mall, I can’t ride the subway, and I can’t take the bus,” he said. His questioning came after he posted a petition to several social media platforms calling on the central government in Beijing and the municipal authorities in Shanghai to suspend the “zero-COVID” policy, and compensate Chinese citizens and businesses for the economic losses it incurred. Ji had also posted a number of video clips and posts about Shanghai under lockdown. During the interview, police confronted him with various comments he had made to overseas media organizations including RFA, the Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty TV, as well as the petition he started, some video clips he reposted and some social media posts he made. Ji said he had admitted to giving the interviews, and told them he had taken steps to verify the video clips before forwarding them. His bail notice says he is currently under suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the government. He said none of his interrogators had identified themselves to him, nor had they signed a transcript of the interview. “I firmly believe that I am innocent,” Ji said. “I won’t sit idly by and watch the people of Shanghai suffer, and I will continue [to speak out].” An undated photo of award-winning citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced in December 2020 to four years’ imprisonment by the Shanghai Pudong New District People’s Court after she reported from the front lines of the covid lockdown in Wuhan. Credit: Zhang Zhan. Citizen journalists in jail Ji isn’t the first to be targeted by the authorities anxious to prevent news from the front line of the zero-COVID policy reaching the internet. Award-winning citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, whose family has said she is close to death in Shanghai Women’s Prison, was sentenced in December 2020 to four years’ imprisonment by the Shanghai Pudong New District People’s Court, which found her guilty of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” after she reported from the front lines of the lockdown in Wuhan. Meanwhile, private businessman Fang Bin has been incommunicado for more than two years after he reported as a citizen journalist from the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan. He is believed to be in Wuhan’s Jiang’an Detention Center pending a trial at the Jiang’an District People’s Court, according to an unconfirmed account shared with RFA in recent months. U.S.-based constitutional scholar Wang Tiancheng said more pandemic dissidents will likely follow in Zhang, Fang and Ji’s footsteps. “The situation will get worse and worse, and more people will be arrested for different reasons … some for criticizing the government, or accused by the authorities of spreading rumors when they were just telling the truth,” Wang told RFA. Six districts and five towns in Pudong were declared COVID-free by the Shanghai authorities on Sunday, but stringent lockdown conditions remain across nine other districts of the city. Ji was initially jailed for scribbling “Down with the Communist Party!” in a Shanghai public toilet as well as some satirical graffiti taking aim at CCP leader Xi Jinping’s removal of the two-term limit for China’s highest-ranking leaders. He was detained in July 2018 after calling on rights activists and democracy campaigners to respond to Xi’s call for a “toilet revolution” by penning political slogans on the walls of toilets in universities and hospitals that could be seen by thousands. Ji was sentenced to three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment…
