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Category: Middle East

After jailbreak in Myanmar, prison guards sentenced to 3-6 months

Editor07 mins

A Myanmar junta court handed down sentences of three to six months to seven prison employees, including a warden, after a jailbreak in May in which 10 prisoners overpowered guards, seized their guns and escaped, said three sources with knowledge of the situation.  Ten inmates, including nine fighters with the anti-junta People’s Defense Force, escaped from Taungoo Prison in central Myanmar’s Bago region on May 18 as they were being taken from their cells to a small prison courtroom for their trials. Among them was a woman and two inmates sentenced to death.  The warden, Kyi Oo, officially the deputy director of the town’s prison department, was on Monday given three months in jail, while Than Tun and Tun Tun Oo, the two prison chiefs, Lt. Than Zin Win, Lt. Oo Toe, and staffers Khant Si Thu and Pho Kauk received sentences of six months each, said the sources close to Taungoo Prison.  In addition to being sentenced to jail, they were expected to be fired, said the sources, who declined to be named so they could speak freely. The move comes as the military, which overthrew the democratically elected civilian government in a February 2021 coup d’etat, cracks down on prison staff to ensure they do not help or let political prisoners escape. Nyo Tun, a former political prisoner who was recently released, said the ruling military junta is taking more stringent action against correctional employees to suppress lower-ranking officials. “In the past, I have only seen actions taken against the prison authorities, such as removing them from duty or demoting them in positions,” he told Radio Free Asia. “It’s not like that now [because] they are even being imprisoned.” “By doing so, the junta hopes that the prison authorities and staff in other prisons will be pressured to continue to oppress our political prisoners with stricter rules and stricter methods,” he said. The prison staffers’ trial was held at the Taungoo township courthouse, said one source, though he did not know the specific charges for each. Afterwards, they were taken back to the prison. A person close to the family members of political prisoners serving time in Taungoo Prison also told RFA about the staffers’ sentences. “The warden was accused of having connections to the PDF, and they said they had a lot of proof,” the person said.  “They were also going to be removed from their official positions along with their prison terms,” the source added. Security boosted Since the escape, security at the prison has been tightened, with the installation of new closed-circuit video cameras, watchtowers and outdoor bunkers, the source said, as well as an increase in military forces there. RFA could not reach Naing Win, deputy director general and spokesman of the Prisons Department, for comment. Similar action has been taken against prison staff elsewhere in the country. At Daik-U Prison, also in Bago region, eight prison employees, including Yan Naing Tun, the deputy director, were arrested and have been under investigation since late June on charges of helping political inmates communicate with PDFs, sources close to the detention center said. On July 4, Sgt. Nay Myo Thein and a deputy sergeant who worked at Myingyan Prison in central Myanmar’s Mandalay region were fired and each sentenced to six months in jail for allegedly helping inmates, according to people close to the detention facility. Following the Taungoo jailbreak, authorities interrogated and beat some political prisoners in jails in Myingyan, Daik-U and Tharyarwaddy, killing some and putting others in life-threatening situations, prisoner relatives and sources close to the prisons told RFA in an earlier report. More than 60 such inmates were sentenced to three additional years in prison each on July 6 for their alleged involvement in a riot that took place in Pathein Prison in Ayeyarwady region. In May and June, 15 inmates died of torture during interrogation or for other reasons, including shootings for trying to escape during jail transfer, according to an RFA tally.  The military junta has detained more than 19,500 people, of whom roughly 6,850 have served prison terms, since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights group based in Thailand. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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Conflict in Myanmar’s Kayah state traps hundreds in town

Editor03 mins

A three-week battle has left six people dead and around 600 civilians trapped in Kayah state’s Ywathit township, local aid groups told RFA Tuesday. Banyar, director of the Karenni Human Rights Organization, told RFA that junta troops detained some villagers in a monastery and wouldn’t let them leave. “According to the list we received, there are more than 1,200 people in Ywathit town,” said Banyar, who goes by one name.  “Because of the battle, more than 600 people were able to flee. “There are still roughly 600 people. No one is allowed to leave the town. Six people were shot dead,” said Banyar, adding that the killings happened on June 27. He said Ywathit had been under junta control since June 27 and the town’s exit roads had been closed.  A member of the aid group told RFA that the victims were killed after being turned back at the Thai border. “A woman was killed. The rest were men from … Hpasaung township and Ywathit township who escaped to the Thai border during the fighting,” said the aid worker, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. “However, the Thai side rejected them.  Many of them were detained and killed while they were returning. Some people are also missing.” Junta media have not mentioned the three-week battle and Kayah state’s  junta spokesperson Aung Win Oo didn’t return RFA’s calls. The combined Karenni National People’s Liberation Front and Karenni People’s Defense Forces said on June 13 they captured a junta outpost on the Thai border. However, the junta announced on June 27 that the military base had been taken back. According to Banyar, there are about 2,000 people seeking shelter near the border and another 9,000 people who have fled to Thailand as a result of the ongoing conflict. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Facing abuse, teenage Uyghur girls are forced to work in a Xinjiang garment factory

Editor013 mins

About 90 Uyghur teenage girls are locked up in a Chinese-run garment factory in Xinjiang, where they are forced to toil 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and routinely face verbal and physical abuse, an investigation by Radio Free Asia has found. The Wanhe Garment Co. Ltd. in Maralbeshi county has a secret agreement with the nearby Yarkant 2nd Vocational High School under which female students aged 16 to 18 are sent to work at the factory against their will, according to four sources, including a village chief and the factory’s security chief, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely. Local authorities have pressured parents not to object to sending their children to work at the factory, said the village chief, a woman who was responsible for coaxing the parents to let the girls go. Workers at the plant, which also employs about a dozen women in their 30s and 40s as well as some men, are prevented from leaving. They sleep in dormitories on the factory compound. Most are Uyghurs, but about 15 are Chinese who came from elsewhere to work. The girls are kept in line by a middle-aged Uyghur woman named Tursungul Memtimin – called “teacher” by the workers – who regularly insults and criticizes them, and sometimes hits them with a bat, said the village official. “The ‘teacher’ is known to have a very bad temper. She physically assaults the workers using a bat as a means of inflicting harm,” she said. “The workers live in fear of her, and due to this intimidating environment, no one dares to make an escape,” the official told RFA. Forced labor in supply chains The revelation comes amid mounting evidence of Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang and allegations that forced labor is used in the supply chains of major companies.  Inditex, owner of the Zara clothing chain, and Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing, as well as carmakers Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have all come under increased scrutiny to ensure that they aren’t using Uyghur forced labor. In the United States, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, signed into law in December 2021, requires American companies that import goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been manufactured with Uyghur forced labor at any stage of production.   Repeated requests by RFA to Wanhe factory officials for an interview have been ignored. A Uyghur woman drives a scooter past a billboard showing China’s President Xi Jinping joining hands with a group of Uyghur elders at the Unity New Village in Hotan, northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, Sept. 20, 2018. Credit: Andy Wong/AP Despite the intense security around the factory, some workers have managed to escape – but not for long. Last April, during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, four girls slipped out of the compound and returned to their families in the village of Charibagh in Yarkant county, the village chief and factory security guard said. Within a few days, Memtimin and some other factory officials went to the village to forcibly bring the girls back. They threatened to send their parents to “re-education” camps if they didn’t turn over their daughters, the village official said. The village chief said she proposed to Memtimin that the girls work at a larger factory in Charibagh, but the manager refused. “So we packed their belongings and took them to the train station,” she told RFA. “Their parents were scared that Tursungul would send them for re-education, so they handed over their daughters.” Once back inside the factory, the girls underwent “criticism and education,” the security chief said. Long hours, meager pay The garment factory employs residents who mostly hail from Maralbeshi, or Bachu in Chinese, in Kashgar province, the largest cotton-producing county in Xinjiang.  Ranging in age from 16 to 45, the workers toil from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. in three shifts, with hour-long breaks for lunch and dinner, the security chief said. They are paid monthly salaries of roughly 300 yuan (US$42) or 400 yuan (US$56) at best, the guard and village chief said. “The government forcefully brought those workers to the factory to work, and they could not leave the factory of their own will,” said the guard. A Chinese husband-and-wife team oversees the factory, and gives orders to Memtimin and to the security chief, who jointly manage the workers, the village chief said. Secret agreement The village official said that about 90 students were first transferred from Yarkant 2nd Vocational High School – for students ages 15 to 18 – to the factory in February 2017 based on a private contract. She said she saw a contract that was signed by Wanhe officials and the school’s two principals, surnamed Qurbanjan and Abdurusul. Neither the workers nor their families were aware of the agreement’s content, she said. “Tursungul Memtimin speaks Chinese, so the Vocational High School invited her to work for them. She does not teach at the school, but she manages the workers at the factory,” the village official said.  “Her monthly salary is 6,500 yuan (US$910). The school gives her 3,000 yuan, and the factory gives her 3,500 yuan,” she said.  “I saw the signatures of Qurbanjan and Abdurusul on the contract,” she said. “They are the presidents of the 2nd Vocational High School.” Attempts to reach school administrators were unsuccessful.  But two officials at the Yarkant County Education Bureau described the contract’s content as “a state secret,” and that they were aware of the workers’ situation. “I know the contract between the Vocational High School and Wanhe clothes factory,” said the education bureau chief, insisting he not be named for security purposes. “But it is considered a state secret, so we cannot say anything about it hastily.” The factory security guard also confirmed the existence of a secret contract. “The workers complained about Tursungul because she has a terrible mouth and curses them,” he said. “We cannot say Tursungul has a right to condemn and beat the workers, but she…

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Two days of junta attacks in Myanmar’s Sagaing region leave 4 dead

Editor05 mins

Junta forces targeted three Sagaing townships this week, killing four civilians and injuring 17, as they continued to try to impose martial law in the region, locals told RFA Friday. On Wednesday the army turned its heavy artillery on Shwebo township, bombarding Tet Tu village twice, killing a man and injuring 11 people including a four-year-old child. “The child was hit in the abdomen and another seven people were critically injured,” said a local, who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “The other three were slightly injured.” On Thursday the guns turned on Kale township, killing two people and injuring six. “A heavy artillery shell hit a house in See San village, killing a couple in that house,” said a local, who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “A child and a woman near her house were also injured.” The other locals were injured in attacks on two neighboring villages. Locals said troops shell their villages nearly every day, and mine explosions are also common. A house in See San village, Kale township, Sagaing region, destroyed by heavy artillery fire on July 13, 2023. Credit: Chin National Organization The junta also sent ground troops into Wetlet township Thursday, burning around 100 homes. Locals said an elderly man died in his home in Thone Sint Kan village. “The column spent the night in Thone Sint Kan village Wednesday night and troops torched the houses when they left on Thursday morning,” said a local, who also requested anonymity for safety reasons. “An old man who was paralyzed died in the fire.” Around 40 homes are still standing but residents have fled the village and say they are afraid to return home until troops have left. The junta has released no statement on the incidents and junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Saw Naing, did not return RFA’s calls. The junta placed Shwebo and Wetlet under martial law last February but has struggled to seize control of the townships. Junta leader Senior Gen.Min Aung Hlaing told a military council meeting in Naypyidaw Thursday that he needed to step up security due to serious violence in Sagaing region, Chin and Kayah states. The continuing violence has brought widespread international condemnation and calls on this year’s Association of Southeast Nations chair Indonesia to put more pressure on ASEAN member Myanmar to end the fighting and restore democracy. The latest came from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Speaking on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta Friday, he said Myanmar’s military rulers must be pushed to stop violence and implement the “five-point consensus” peace plan they agreed with the rest of the 10-member grouping two years ago. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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More than 2 dozen bodies of Uyghur inmates released in Kashgar prefecture

Editor07 mins

Authorities at a prison in the Xinjiang region released the bodies of at least 26 Uyghur inmates before the Eid al-Fitr holiday in late April, police in various towns have told us. We contacted 10 police stations in Kashgar prefecture’s Maralbeshi county to confirm that authorities at Tumshuq Prison had released the bodies.  Five of the inmates were elderly and died of heart and lung diseases, while one other died of diabetes, sources said.  A Maralbeshi resident said many of them died of starvation because the inmates fasted in secret during Ramadan and couldn’t eat during breakfast or after sunset because of jail rules. Officials contacted by us did not comment on the matter. In June, a source told us that authorities at the prison had released the bodies of dozens of individuals, including that of his brother, just before the Islamic holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. To obtain more information, we followed up by contacting police in the 10 towns, including speaking to officials in Sériqbuya, Awat and Chongqurchaq.  When we contacted the police station in Awat, a Maralbeshi market town, to inquire about the body distribution on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, one officer said he was aware of the distribution of 18 bodies of dead prisoners, but he declined to disclose any information regarding the identities or their respective family members. “We have knowledge of the events and circumstances surrounding their deaths as they were under our supervision, but I am unable to share further information,” he said. “I believe the overall count of deceased individuals amounts to 18,” he said. “However, I am unable to disclose their identities.” The police officer did not say whether prison authorities took the bodies directly to family members of the decedents, to the police station, or to a mortuary. We previously reported that other bodies were taken to a police station before being handed over to families. The process took place under the supervision of county, village, and people’s committee officials and police. Additionally, authorities monitored the families for several weeks. Tumshuq Prison housed locals arbitrarily arrested during the 2017 crackdown on prominent and ordinary Uyghurs alike, jailing them in “re-education” camps and prisons for alleged extremist behavior, such as previous trips or contacts abroad or religious activities.  China has come under harsh international criticism for its severe rights abuses of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, including forced labor. The U.S. government and several Western parliaments have declared that the abuses amount to genocide or crimes against humanity. A police officer from Seriqbuya told us in April that prison authorities delivered five bodies to his police station, and that most of them had been in their 70s or 80s and had been ill.  “It appears that most of them passed away due to ineffective medical treatments,” he said. The police officer also confirmed that one of the corpses was that of Abdugheni Qadir. A person familiar with the situation told us that Abdugheni Qadir from Seriqbuya was the son of Qadir Toxti, principal of Sériqbuya Primary School. Authorities arrested him in 2017 while he was doing business in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The other three dead prisoners were Memettursun Metniyaz, Haji’ahun and his wife Mehpiremhan. Metniyaz was a Uyghur motorcycle repairman jailed in early 2017 for completing the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, years before. He died of diabetes in jail and his body was delivered to his family, a local residential committee member who oversaw the return of his corpse told us in a May report.   Haji’ahun, a hatmaker, and his spouse Mehpiremhan, residents of Maralbeshi county, were each sentenced to 10 years in Tumshuq Prison in 2019 for “illegal” religious activities, people with knowledge of the couple’s situation told us in a June report. Translated by us Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.

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Jet attack kills 3 civilians in Myanmar’s Chin state

Editor03 mins

Junta jets dropped bombs on a village in Chin state, in the west of Myanmar, killing three people including a nine-year-old girl, the Mindat township People’s Administration Group told RFA Monday. Group spokesman Yaw Man said jets attacked Vung Khung village repeatedly on Saturday morning. “They shot three times with fighter jets, dropped two 500-pound bombs, and fired with other weapons, sending the villagers running like the world was about to end,” he said.  “There was a nursing mother who had left her baby behind and fled to another place. She was killed by a bomb that was dropped on the place where she was sheltering on the way home to pick up her baby. Her neighbor’s nine-year-old child died next to her.  “The locals don’t dare to live in the village anymore, so they are fleeing to their hill farms and other villages.” Yaw Man said a 65-year-old woman was also killed and a 50-year-old man injured in the attacks. Locals said there was no reason for the raids because the junta had not been fighting with the Chinland Defense Force. As well as attacking by air, infantry regiment 274, based in Mindat, fired long-range artillery at the village destroying the school and damaging 10 homes. The junta has released no statement on the attack and junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun did not answer his phone when called by RFA on Monday. Last month air attacks on Mindat and Thantiang townships destroyed a monastery and four houses. RFA data show that 44 civilians have been killed by junta air attacks in Chin state since the February 2021 military coup. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Chinese authorities monitor Tibetans to prevent communication with outside world

Editor04 mins

Chinese authorities in Tibet have intensified monitoring of Tibetans, and continue to interrogate them in the regional capital Lhasa to prevent communication with people outside of Tibet, RFA has learned. The Chinese government has been intensifying its monitoring of Tibetans and maintained their interrogations of Tibetans living in Lhasa to determine if they have contacted people outside Tibet and stepped up surveillance measures to prevent such communication. Now the Chinese authorities are interrogating Tibetans in Lhasa specifically targeting and warning them to stop communication.  In March, two major anniversaries prompted police to step up surveillance. The month marked the 15th anniversary of a 2008 riot, and the 64th anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese troops that had invaded the region a decade earlier. But the heightened security from March has continued well into June, and police have continued closely monitoring residents in Lhasa and random searches of their cell phone and online communications to discover whether they had communicated abroad. A police officer searches a Tibetan woman’s cell phone on a street in Lhasa, capital of western China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, March 11, 2023. Chinese authorities in Tibet have intensified monitoring of Tibetans, and continue to interrogate them in the regional capital Lhasa to prevent communication with people outside of Tibet, RFA has learned. Credit: Chinese State Media The police were particularly concerned that the Lhasa residents might be in contact with journalists or researchers outside of Tibet, a Tibetan resident told RFA’s Tibetan Service.  “Tibetans are warned not to contact people outside and those who have, have been summoned and interrogated,” the source said. “Their cell phones are confiscated and they are under constant scrutiny.” The source was among those who had contacted people outside of Tibet, and was summoned for interrogation along with some friends. “They gave us warning to not ever contact people on the outside, especially researchers on Tibet and journalists,” said the source. “I also know that so many other Tibetans who contacted people outside Tibet were interrogated by the Chinese authorities too.” Another resident said that people could be summoned even for casual conversations with outsiders. “I was summoned two times already this year for interrogation and one of my friends had to bribe the authorities to release me the second time around,” the second resident said. “My name is now listed amongst those interrogated, therefore I have to get permission from the local police if I need to travel outside Lhasa.”  Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Eugene Whong.

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Myanmar junta uses Telegram as ‘military intelligence’ to arrest online critics

Editor010 mins

Telegram is becoming the messaging platform of choice for fans of Myanmar’s junta, who are using it to report on critics – some of whom have gotten arrested or even killed. For example, actress Poe Kyar Phyu Khin recently posted a video entitled “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Our True Leader)” to the TikTok social media platform ahead of the jailed former state counselor’s June 19 birthday, prompting several users to post photos of themselves bedecked in flowers and express their best wishes. Incensed by the post, supporters of the military junta – which took control of the country in a February 2021 coup – took toTelegram to demand that Phyu Khin and those who responded to her be arrested. On the night of Suu Kyi’s birthday, junta security personnel showed up at the door of Phyu Khin’s home in Yangon and took her into custody. Pro-junta media reported the arrest and said that some 50 people had been detained that week alone for “sedition and incitement.” This is the new reality in post-coup Myanmar, where backers of the military regime regularly scour the internet for any posts they deem critical of the junta before using Telegram to report them to the authorities, activists say. Telegram has become a “form of military intelligence,” said Yangon-based protest leader Nang Lin. “It may look like ordinary citizens are reporting people who oppose the military, but that’s not true,” he said. “It’s the work of their informers. It’s one of the junta’s intelligence mechanisms. In other words, it’s just one of many attempts designed to instill fear in the people.” ‘Online weapon’ In a similar incident, rapper Byu Har was arrested on May 24, just days after being featured on pro-military Telegram channels for a video he published on social media in which he complained about electricity shortages and said that life was better under the democratically elected government that the military toppled. Pro-junta Telegram channels published a photo of hip hop singer Byu Har in handcuffs after he was arrested and allegedly beaten by military authorities on May 25, 2023, Credit: Myanmar Hard Talk Telegram Additionally, authorities arrested journalist Kyaw Min Swe, actress May Pa Chi, and other well-known personalities after pro-junta Telegram channels posted information about them changing their Facebook profiles to black to mourn the more than 170 people – including women and children – killed in a military airstrike on Sagaing region’s Pazi Gyi village in April. “Military lobbyists and informers go through these comments and … report the owners of the accounts to Han Nyein Oo, who is a major pro-junta informer on Telegram,” said an activist in Yangon, who declined to be named out of fear of reprisal. “Then, because of a small comment, the poster and their families are in trouble.” London-based rights group Fortify Rights also recently reported on the junta’s use of Telegram as an “online weapon” against its critics. “We can say that they are increasingly using Telegram channels as an online weapon as one of various ways of instilling fear in the people so that they dare not speak out,” the group said in a statement. RFA sought comment from Telegram’s press team but was forwarded to an automated answering system, which said that the company “respects users’ personal information and freedom of speech, and protects human rights, such as the right to assembly.” The answering system noted that Telegram “plays an important role in democratic movements around the world,” including in Iran, Russia, Belarus, Hong Kong and Myanmar. The founder of the Telegram channel is Russian-born Pavel Durov. In 2014, he was forced to leave the country and move to Saint Kitts and Nevis, a small Caribbean island nation, because he refused to hand over the personal information of Ukrainian users to Russian security services during the Crimea crisis in Ukraine.  Myanmar authorities arrested journalist Kyaw Min Swe [left] and actress May Pa Chi after pro-junta Telegram channels posted information about them changing their Facebook profiles to black to mourn Pazi Gyi victims in April. Credit: RFA and Facebook Telegram headquarters is located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun regarding the regime’s use of pro-military Telegram accounts to arrest people went unanswered Wednesday. Arrests violate constitution Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute of Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, told RFA that claims the junta uses Telegram to track down its critics are “delusional.” “If you feel insecure about Telegram, just don’t use it,” he said, adding that “such problems” are part of the risk of using the app. But a lawyer in Yangon, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns, told RFA that even if the junta isn’t gathering information about its opponents on Telegram, arresting and prosecuting someone for posting their opinions on social media is a blatant violation of the law in Myanmar. “It’s not a crime to post birthday wishes for someone on Facebook, whether it’s for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or anyone else,” he said. “These arrests are in violation of provisions protecting citizens’ rights in the [military-drafted] 2008 constitution.” Pro-junta newspapers often state that action will be taken against anyone who knowingly or unknowingly promotes or supports Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw made up of deposed lawmakers, and any related organization under the country’s Counter-terrorism Act, Electronic Communications Law, and other legislation. According to a list compiled by RFA based on junta reports, at least 1,100 people have been arrested and prosecuted for voicing criticism of the junta on social media or sharing such posts by others since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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Monk killed in Myanmar junta air raid on Sagaing region monastery

Editor03 mins

Junta air raids on two Sagaing region villages killed 12 civilians including a monk, locals told RFA Wednesday. They said 11 people from Pale township’s Nyaung Kone and one from Pi Tauk Kone village died in Tuesday’s attack. A school teacher from Nyaung Kone, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA the air force dropped three 500-pound bombs around the village monastery, killing one monk and 10 locals. “It happened when I was teaching children at school,” the teacher said. “I used to hear the plane approaching but this time I didn’t hear it until the bomb exploded. The bomb’s fragments and dust flew towards our school. Some people were already dead when I arrived at the scene of the explosions. Some are injured and receiving emergency medical treatment.” The monk was named as 55-year-old Kay Mar. Six men and two women, aged between 41 and 70, died on the spot. Four of the dead were relatives of the monk. An 18-year-old woman and a 48-year-old man were critically injured and died in Pale Township Hospital on Tuesday night. All the bodies were cremated on Tuesday night. Residents said six more people were injured and receiving treatment in the village. The aftermath of a junta airstrike on Nyaung Kone village, Pale township, Sagaing region Jun 27, 2023. Credit: Pale township People’s Defense Force A member of the People’s Administration Group of Pale township said that the junta attacked the village with Russian-made Yakovlev Yak-130 jet, destroying the monastery and 13 houses. Locals said a woman died and another was injured in a separate air raid on Pi Tauk Kone village on Tuesday night. The names and the ages of the dead and injured are not yet known because it is difficult to contact Pi Tauk Kone by phone. RFA called Sagaing region junta spokesperson Aye Hlaing on Wednesday but nobody answered. There were 454 airstrikes across Myanmar between January and April 2023, according to independent research group Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica, resulting in 292 deaths. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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‘I will never forget the pain of being beaten’

Editor08 mins

She knew she was being sought by authorities for reporting on anti-junta protests.  In the seven months since the military had carried out a coup d’etat in February 2021, Myanmar had descended into chaos, Her husband, a former journalist, had been detained for four days before being released. Fearing for her safety, Thuzar San decided to buy a bus ticket from Yangon for the Thai border town of Mae Sot, due to depart on Sept. 2, 2021. But two days before she was to leave, she was arrested by police while her taxi was stopped at a traffic light by plain clothes police officers. “We were asked to put our hands on our heads on the side of the road while they searched the car and then they handcuffed us, forced us to get into a truck at gunpoint, and blindfolded us,” she told Radio Free Asia.  Thuzar was one of the locally-hired reporters at RFA Burmese Service’s Yangon office from 2013-2014. “There was another woman with us. When we arrived at the [interrogation] center, they said, ‘Let the lady exit first,’ so I asked if it was me they were talking about. All of a sudden, they slapped me in the face.” During that first night, Thuzar’s interrogators subjected her to brutal mental and physical abuse in a bid to learn what she knew about the junta opposition and other journalists who had covered the protests. “Four guys circled me and whipped me with a bundle of three [bamboo] canes bound together,” she said. “They asked me the names of the two young men I met during the protest. I was friends with them on Facebook, but I didn’t know much about them.” Her captors beat her five times with a bamboo sapling that evening and said the wounds on her thighs took “more than a year” to heal. “I will never forget the pain of being beaten with the bamboo sapling,” she said. Ruthlessly whipped Later, she was taken from her cell, blindfolded and led outside, where she was made to kneel on the pavement. Again, her captors beat her, demanding to know how she planned to travel to Thailand, which organizations she had ties to and which reporters planned to flee along with her. “Three guys circled me and whipped me with canes – it was so painful,” she said. “This time, they pierced my flesh with the [sharpened] tip of the bamboo sapling and it was agonizing.” Myanmar freelance journalist Thuzar San was tortured after being arrested. Credit: A Hla Lay Thuzar Facebook When Thuzar told the men that she had nothing to divulge about her fellow reporters, they threatened to videotape her forced confession as “evidence” that she was a junta informant and hold her daughter hostage. “They told me that they could make me talk and said, ‘We’ll bring in your daughter and beat her in front of you,” she said. “After that, I couldn’t stop crying. Finally, they sent me back to my cell.” Over the course of several days, Thuzar was interrogated by several people.  On the ninth day of her detention, her captors took her fingerprints and sent a statement to the local police station, saying that she took part in anti-junta protests while covering the event as a reporter. To Insein Prison She was kept in police custody for nearly a month on charges of reporting fake news and inciting the public against the government. On Nov. 22, 2021, she was sentenced to two years in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison with hard labor. Thuzar described life at Insein Prison as a constant violation of her human rights. “I stayed in Female Ward No. 9, which was like a hall with closed circuit cameras installed in it,” she said. “We had to change our clothes and use the toilet there [in front of the cameras]. The prison officials regularly scolded us and used harsh words. Our rights were severely violated.” Thuzar was released as part of a general amnesty on Jan. 4, 2023, after spending 15 months in prison.  As she was no longer safe in Myanmar, she fled to Thailand along with her family in March. While she feels unmoored as a refugee in a foreign country, Thuzar said she stays strong thinking about the sacrifices of those who have given their lives in opposition to junta rule. She vowed to return to Myanmar as soon as possible so that she can join together with those fighting for democracy and a better future in her home country. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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Investigative Journalism Reportika © March 2022 by Ij-Reportika is licensed under CC BY 4.0