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Category: Middle East

Junta air strike in Myanmar’s Magway kills 3, injures 12

Editor04 mins

A junta airstrike in Myanmar’s central Magway region killed three people and injured 12, residents told RFA.  Thursday’s attack destroyed a National Unity Government administrative building in Tilin township’s Laung Bo Lay village, the second deadly attack on an NUG village office this month. “The Public Administration Office was bombed,” said a resident who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “Three People’s Defense Force comrades died on the spot and about 12 other people were injured.” The two men and a woman who died were members of the Yaw Revolutionary Army, based in Tilin township, according to an official from the local defense force, who also declined to be named. He said four men and eight women were injured, including one person in charge of assisting people left homeless by the conflict in Magway region. The official told RFA a jet fighter flew over Laung Bo Lay village at around noon Thursday, dropping three bombs. He said the junta ordered the air strike after being tipped off about the presence of People’s Defense Force members at the office. It cut telephone lines in Tilin and nearby Gangaw township ahead of the attack. After the air strike, troops stationed at the Shwe Htee Hall in Tilin township and the junta-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee militia staged ground attacks on villages in Tilin, according to locals. They said hundreds of residents from 13 villages were forced to flee. The junta has not issued a statement on the incident and calls to the junta’s Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun by RFA went unanswered. Myanmar’s military is increasingly resorting to air attacks as it meets fierce resistance on the ground from People’s Defense Forces and ethnic armies across the country. On April 18, it carried out an air strike on Ma Gyi Kan village in Magway region’s Myaing township, destroying the hospital. Thursday’s air strike comes 10 days after the junta bombed an NUG office in Sagaing region’s Pa Zi Gyi village, killing around 200 people, the deadliest air strike since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup. The junta bombed the Pa Zi Gyi again Thursday but no one was injured in that attack as most people had fled the village. The National Unity Government was formed shortly after the 2021 coup and serves as a parallel government, campaigning for the restoration of democracy. It also carries out local administrative work in areas not under junta control, while its People’s Defense Forces fight junta troops for control of townships across Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Video of dancer in mosque inflames Uyghur anxieties about China’s attacks on religion

Editor08 mins

A Chinese tourism advertisement portraying a medieval Buddhist fantasy, shot in the prayer hall of Xinjiang’s second-largest mosque, has alarmed diaspora Uyghurs, who call it a desecration.  They say it is particularly incensing during Ramadan, a time when mosques should host prayer and evening fast-breaking.  The promotional video, put out by a local propaganda office, features a bare-armed Uyghur woman as a dancer from “Women’s Kingdom,” a fictional polity whose queen sought to marry the Chinese protagonist of the classic Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West.  She twirls in the otherwise empty Kuchar Grand Mosque. The video, which circulated on Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, emerged amid a tourism campaign to draw Han Chinese to the far-western region of Xinjiang, home to the mostly Muslim Uyghur and other Turkic peoples now that COVID-19 travel restrictions have been lifted. There were 35.2 million individual visits to Xinjiang between January and March of this year, resulting in 2.5 billion yuan in tourism revenue, an increase of 36% on the same period last year, according to state media. But Uyghurs say such videos are both offensive and part of a wider attempt to diminish or erase their religion and culture. The video was shared to Facebook by Uyghur activist and reeducation camp survivor Zumret Dawut. It has since been taken down from Douyin. Radio Free Asia could not identify or contact its creators.  “The message [of the video] to the Uyghurs is that we can suppress and even destroy you by assaulting and breaking your dignity through humiliation – we can do anything we want to do,” said Ilshat Hassan, Deputy Executive Chairman of the World Uyghur Congress. Spurious claim The video begins with a Chinese narrator walking up the steps to the mosque. “[When you] open the heavy door of Kuchar Grand Mosque, a beautiful Qiuci woman, concealed by a veil, steps forward, and shares memories of the Woman’s Kingdom with you,” the video’s narrator relates as the woman dances.  Qiuci is the Chinese name for the medieval Buddhist kingdom of Kusen, near the present site of Kuchar. The Chinese words used in the video for Grand Mosque, Da Si, are also used to refer to large Buddhist temples. Nowhere does the film indicate that the setting is a gathering place for Muslims. The mosque, first built in the 16th century and reconstructed after a fire in the 1930s, has never been a site of Buddhist worship. The Chinese Communist Party ties the legitimacy of its rule in the Uyghur region to the spurious claim that Xinjiang has always been a part of China.  To bolster this claim, it has etched episodes from Chinese fiction and historical annals onto Xinjiang’s landscape by altering the presentation of Uyghur sacred spaces.  The Uyghur region’s most prominent shrine is the mausoleum of Afaq Khoja, a 17th century religious and political leader in Kashgar. It has long been marketed to Chinese tourists as the tomb of the “Fragrant Concubine,” who, according to Chinese legend, was Afaq Khoja’s granddaughter, sent as tribute to the Qianlong Emperor. The transformation of the Uyghur region’s most prominent religious sites into tourist attractions, demolition of other mosques and shrines, criminalization of public expressions of Islamic piety, and pervasive surveillance have left Uyghurs with nowhere to observe Ramadan but home.  Non-event A Chinese travel agent in Urumchi contacted by RFA and asked about visiting Xinjiang mosques during Ramadan depicted Islam’s most sacred month as a non-event. There are no religious events bringing Muslims together to break the daytime fast, for instance. “Normally there won’t be these kinds of collective activities at mosques,” she said.  “Many people in Xinjiang are Sinicized, so there aren’t situations like in the Arab world where lots of people gather in one place and make religious observances together. I’ve lived in Xinjiang for many years, and I’ve never seen minority nationalities engaging in those kinds of collective activities,” she said. Meanwhile, tourists wishing to visit mosques like Kashgar’s Id Kah and Kuchar’s Grand Mosque during Ramadan could freely do so, outside of the calls to prayer, the travel agent said. “People who want to fast must do it at home,” the travel agent said.  Asked whether it was possible to visit mosques in Urumchi, the travel agent had a firm response.  “It isn’t possible to visit those places. Because they’re locked. The mosques near the Grand Bazaar are locked too,” she said. “There’s no requirement to pray at mosques, right? People can pray at home, right? Ask questions like this to the relevant government official.” Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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Woman killed in attack on junta truck in Myanmar’s Kachin state

Editor03 mins

A woman has died after the Kachin Independence Army set off a mine under a truck carrying junta troops in Myanmar’s eastern Kachin state. Along with soldiers the truck was carrying around 50 civilians, who had been seized by the junta in a raid on Hseng Hpa Yar village in Hpakant township on Tuesday. “The woman who was killed was called N-dup Seng Nu Mai. She died on the spot. Four more residents were injured but not seriously,” said a local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “The troops stormed into Hseng Hpa Yar village and took the locals on a 12-wheeled truck along with to serve as human shields.” When RFA contacted Kachin Independence Army Information Officer Col. Naw Bu, he said his  troops did not know that the junta had taken prisoners with them on the truck. “All the junta convoys were covered up with blue waterproof [tarpaulin]. So we detonated the mine as we had prepared in advance,” he told RFA. “Why would we do it if we knew that villagers were in the truck? We never do anything to harm the local people. They [the junta] arrest the locals and force them to go to the front line.” RFA called the junta spokesperson for Kachin state, Win Ye Tun, but there was no response and the junta has not issued a statement on the incident. At least 3,400 civilians have been killed across Myanmar since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Grassroots efforts in border areas address mental anguish for Myanmar refugees

Editor014 mins

Every Tuesday morning, a handful of Myanmar refugees visit her office in the Thai border town of Mae Sot to talk about the terror of fleeing violence and their anxiety about the future. The psychiatrist, who asked not to be identified, is familiar with the trauma her patients share, having fled Myanmar herself.  As the only Burmese-speaking psychiatrist in town, she hears their stories free of charge about their journey to Thailand, where they then face new stresses – risk of arrest by Thai police, the struggle to support themselves and the worry about family members left behind.  Many of them have post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety. Thailand hasn’t ratified the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention and so doesn’t officially recognize refugees, but allows thousands to stay in border camps. Many newcomers from Myanmar try to survive on their own, under the radar – and many don’t seek mental health help, or don’t know it exists. “There is no future, and basic needs are not fulfilled, [not even] security because Thai police are always waiting to arrest people. So sometimes I feel like it is beyond my ability,” she said.  “I can see six to seven people in a morning once a week, but it is totally not enough.” The Mae Tao Clinic’s psychiatric care unit where she works is one of a handful of grassroots efforts that has sprung up in the last year to address the growing need for mental health care for the thousands of displaced peoples along the Thai-Burma border. Rising depression Rates of depression and anxiety within Myanmar have risen since the February 2021 coup, according to one mental health services provider working in counseling that requested anonymity to protect the continuity of their work.  They found that the highest averages came from Karenni state, which borders northern Thailand, where 38 percent of surveyed individuals reported experiencing moderately severe to severe depression.   People take part in a yoga class at the Joy House community center in Mae Sot, Thailand. The center offers 11 classes a week for adults and children in art, music therapy, yoga, and cooking. Credit: RFA Other border regions, such as Mon and Thanintaryi States, also reported higher rates among small surveyed populations. In people under 25 nationwide, 37 percent indicated they had symptoms of moderately severe to severe depression.  The study reports that suggested treatment for a diagnosis of moderately severe depression is treatment with medication, therapy, or both.  But too often, they receive neither.  While data on the diaspora in Thailand is minimal, preliminary research by another anonymous nonprofit supporting Myanmar migrants in Thailand found only 7 percent of those on the border contacted a counselor during periods of stress.  Among the newly arrived political dissidents and refugees, nearly half reported they had no income and a third attributed mental distress to their restricted movement without documentation.  Although the Mae Tao Clinic and other community initiatives are located in Thailand, they say mental distress relating to displacement, migration and trauma are apparent on both sides of the border. The mental health services provider of the initial study told RFA the higher levels of depression in Karenni State and along the Thai border are likely due to the increased violence in the area.   “Due to more violence, there are more refugees and these refugees are more likely to be traumatized or simply feel helpless and hopeless as they had to leave their home and everything behind,” the group said.  Meeting a Need Nyunt Naing Thein, a Myanmar counselor, trainer and technical support provider at Mae Tao Clinic, helped open the psychiatric unit in August. “Even though I wanted to open it, we had no human capacity to do it,” he said, adding that some newly arrived migrants had already been able to access medication. “Psychiatric cases are coming up – actually, they are already in the community.” Before the psychiatrist’s arrival, the clinic had previously been unable to prescribe medication for anxiety and depression and did not stock it.  “I convinced the woman in charge from the Mae Tao Clinic and some responsible persons of the clinic that they should buy some medication,” the psychiatrist explained. She said medication wasn’t necessary in all cases, but it was a healthier alternative to substance abuse problems she sees growing more common. Some come in simply for a sympathetic ear. But she has also seen cases of anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, and less commonly, cases of psychosis that require medication. Participants in the Joy Center yoga class do the child’s pose. Credit: RFA Since the coup began, Nyunt Naing Thein has organized training for hundreds of aid workers and medical professionals on psychological first aid and basic counseling training, focused on empathetic listening, mental health awareness and emergency response to trauma.  They’ve also organized men’s and women’s groups, where people in need of social support can talk about the issues they’re experiencing.  ‘Thriving’ Shortly after the volunteer psychiatrist’s arrival, Nyunt Naing Thain started working as network coordinator for a mental health and psychosocial support alliance among Mae Sot’s civil society organizations on the border.  They dubbed the organization ‘Shin Than Yar’, or “thriving” in Burmese, and use it to share collective resources for training. In addition to this alliance, a recently opened community center, Joy House, has also gained quick popularity in the border town. Catering to the large number of Myanmar residents residing in Mae Sot, the center offers 11 classes a week for adults and children in art, music therapy, yoga, and cooking.  The center says despite only opening three months prior, some 250 adults and children have attended classes, with yoga sometimes spilling out of the main room and onto the porch outside.  “When I just started, people didn’t really know what this therapy is. At the start, it was out of curiosity. Some people confused it with music theory, like teaching music,” said a worker named JJ who holds a biweekly music therapy class at the center.  A…

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Southeast Asia’s water festivals: Hopes and scenes

Editor06 mins

As Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos celebrate their annual New Year’s water festivals, RFA asked readers what they hoped for in the year ahead. For many, the wishes are simple – peace and freedom. Cambodia “As a Cambodian, I wish the country and its people would get a leader who pays attention to people’s living standards so they can live in harmony, democracy (and) the rich and poor have equal rights, the same as those who live in the free world. I also wish people would have mutual unity and would restore Cambodia to the prosperity that our ancestors left us.” Sophie Lok “I want RFA to resume its office in this peaceful country. Losing RFA is losing breaking news!” Mala San “I wish Hun Sen would lose the upcoming election.” Boozz Boy “I wish this current regime wouldn’t wage war against its own people.” Rachana Konpa “Hun Sen’s regime changes to a democratic country.” Phairy Kim Myanmar “We miss the past. We hope for peace.” Yangon youth “We would like to get back the stability and development in Myanmar like under Mother Suu’s administration. We would like to see the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained including Mother Suu and President U Win Myint, and to regain the power by the NLD government, which was elected by the people. I do not want to see people being killed unjustly.” “I wish for the emergence of a federal state which has been desired by all ethnic minorities. I do not want to see the country’s future leaders sacrifice their lives. May the Spring Revolution be successful as soon as possible!” Mandalay woman “As we mark Myanmar’s New Year, may Myanmar be liberated from military dictatorship and end the wars.” Aung Naingtun “I have a sole New Year wish. It is nothing, but down with the military council! I do not want to wish for other things. I know prayer alone is not enough, so I am doing it pragmatically. If I could travel with ‘Time travel,’ I would like to go back to January 31, 2021 and its previous days. I miss those days ruled by Mother (Suu)… I miss my home. I was forced to leave my motherland but I am eager to return to my family.” Salmon “My hope is that people should be involved [in the movement] and they should provide more assistance to the success of the uprising. May Myanmar people possess better lives in the New Year! May the uprising be successful as soon as possible!” Win Ko Ko Oo “I am from Taze township, Sagaing region. In previous years, I used to return to my village during Thingyan holidays. I am so sad that I cannot return to my home this year because I have no home there. Although festivals are held in cities, I cannot enjoy them. I am so sad because I cannot return to my native village and my parents.” Maung Aye Min Htet from a village in Taze township, Sagaing region Laos “I wish I had better health, better living conditions and a higher salary. We can’t go on like this in the current condition in which the cost of living is rising, while the income is staying low.” Grade school teacher in Pakkading district, Borikhamxay province “Yesterday, I went grocery shopping and I bought three cat fish for which I paid 90,000 kip ($5.29), up more than 7% a month ago.” A businesswoman in Vientiane wishes that Laos could get out of the economic and financial troubles sooner than later An owner of a small factory in capital Vientiane wants the war between Ukraine and Russia to be over as soon as possible because the war is the main cause of all the economic and financial woes in the world, including Laos.

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Trafficked teens tell of torture at scam ‘casino’ on Myanmar’s chaotic border

Editor026 mins

It was a clear day when Kham set out from his home in northwestern Laos for what he thought was a chance to make money in the gilded gambling towns of the Golden Triangle, the border region his country shares with Thailand and Myanmar. On that day – a Friday, as he recalled – the teenager had gotten a Facebook note from a stranger: a young woman asking what he was doing and if he wanted to make some cash. He agreed to meet that afternoon. She picked up Kham, 16, along with a friend, and off they went, their parents none the wiser. “I thought to myself I’d work for a month or two then I’d go home,” Kham later said. (RFA has changed the real names of the victims in this story to protect them from possible reprisals.) But instead of a job, Kham ended up trafficked and held captive in a nondescript building on the Burmese-Thai border, some 200 miles south of the Golden Triangle and 400 miles from his home – isolated from the outside world, tortured and forced into a particular kind of labor: to work as a cyber-scammer.  Barbed wire fences are seen outside a shuttered Great Wall Park compound where Cambodian authorities said they had recovered evidence of human trafficking, kidnapping and torture during raids on suspected cybercrime compounds in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, in Sept. 2022. Credit: Reuters In recent years, secret sites like the one where Kham was detained have proliferated throughout the region as the COVID-19 pandemic forced criminal networks to shift their strategies for making money. One popular scheme today involves scammers starting fake romantic online relationships that eventually lead to stealing as-large-as-possible sums of money from targets.  The scammers said that if they fail to do so, they are tortured. Teen victims from Luang Namtha province in Laos who were trafficked to a place they called the “Casino Kosai,” in an isolated development near the city of Myawaddy on Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand, have described their ordeal to RFA.  Chillingly, dozens of teenagers and young people from Luang Namtha are still believed to be trapped at the site, along with victims from other parts of Asia. The case is but the tip of the iceberg in the vast networks of human trafficking that claim over 150,000 victims a year in Southeast Asia.  Yet it encapsulates how greed and political chaos mix to allow crime to operate unchecked, with teenagers like Kham paying the price. This fake Facebook ad for the Sands International is for a receptionist. It lists job benefits of 31,000 baht salary, free accommodation and two days off per month. Qualifications are passport holder, Thai citizen, 20-35 years old and the ability to work in Cambodia. Credit: RFA screenshot The promise of cash Typically, it starts with the lure of a job. In the case of Lao teenagers RFA spoke to, the bait can be as simple as a message over Facebook or a messaging app.  Other scams have involved more elaborate cons, with postings for seemingly legitimate jobs that have ensnared everyone from professionals to laborers to ambitious youths. What they have in common is the promise of high pay in glitzy, if sketchy, casino towns around Southeast Asia – many built with the backing of Chinese criminal syndicates that operate in poorly policed borderlands difficult to reach.  Before 2020, “a lot of these places were involved in two things: gambling, where groups of Thais and Chinese were going for a weekend casino holiday, or online betting,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.  “Then, all of a sudden COVID hits, and these syndicates [that ran the casinos] decided to change their business model. What they came up with was scamming.”  A motorbike drives past a closed casino in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, in Feb. 2020. As travel restrictions bit during the pandemic, syndicates that ran the casinos shifted their focus from gambling to scams, says Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch. Credit: Reuters Today, gambling towns like Sihanoukville, in Cambodia, and the outskirts of Tonpheung, on the Laos side of the Golden Triangle, have become notorious for trapping people looking for work into trafficking.  But besides these places, there are also numerous unregulated developments where scamming “casinos” operate with little outside scrutiny, including on the Thai-Burmese border. Keo, 18, had a legitimate job at a casino in Laos when he was contacted via WhatsApp by a man who said he could make much more – 13 million kip ($766) a month, plus bonuses – by working in Thailand. He could leave whenever he wanted, the person claimed. “I thought about the new job offer for two days, then I said yes on the third day because the offer would pay more salary, plus commission and I can go home anytime,” Keo said.  He quit his job by lying to his boss, saying he was going to visit his family. A few days later, a black Toyota Vigo pick-up truck fetched him, along with two friends, and they took a boat across the Mekong to Thailand.  Scams By that time, Keo realized he was being trafficked – the two men who escorted him and his friends were armed. “While on the boat, one of us … suggested that we return to Laos, but we were afraid to ask,” as the men carried guns and knives. He dared not jump. “Later, one of us suggested we call our parents – but the men said, ‘On the boat, we don’t use the telephone.’ We dared not call our parents because we were afraid of being harmed,” he said. “So, we kept quiet until we reached the Thai side.” Both Keo and Kham told RFA that they were eventually trafficked to Myawaddy Township, an area some 300 miles south of the Golden Triangle.  Kham only remembered parts of the journey, when he was made to walk for miles.  Keo told RFA Laos he was transported by a…

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Sagaing court sentences activists to between 3 and 13 years in prison

Editor02 mins

A court in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region has sentenced nine activists to prison terms ranging from three to 13 years, according to friends of the families. Final year law student and anti-regime strike leader Kyaw Win Sein received a 10-year sentence Friday under the Counter Terrorism Law, and one and a half years for incitement to sedition in the civil service. Kyaw Win Sein is believed to be around 30-years-old. He actively participated in anti-regime protests in Homalin township and boycotted his lessons after the military seized power in a February 2021 coup. Shortly after the coup, the junta issued a warrant for his arrest but he managed to evade capture until August last year. Fellow activists sentenced by the Homalin township court on Friday – seven men and a woman – also received long prison terms. “Nwet Nwet Aung was imprisoned for 10 years; Aung Hein for 10 years; Aung Ko Min for 10 years; Thet Tun Oo for 10 years; Sai Wai Yan for 13 years; Nay Naw for five years; Pyoe Thet Tin for five years; and Aung Myint Oo for three years,” said a family friend who declined to be named for fear of reprisals. “They all are in good health.” According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners the junta arrested more than 21,000 people since seizing power in a February 2021 coup. Of those nearly 17,400 are still being held in prisons across the country. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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INTERVIEW: ‘If I don’t speak up on their behalf, I’ll always be in pain’

Editor022 mins

A Nov. 24 fire in an apartment block in Xinjiang’s regional capital, Urumqi, sparked protests across China, with many people expressing condolences for the victims of the fatal lockdown blaze and others hitting back at ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy. Huang Yicheng was among them, turning up at a spontaneous protest at Shanghai’s Urumqi Road, only to be detained and mistreated by cops, who hung him upside down at one point, as he described in an earlier interview with Radio Free Asia given under the pseudonym Mr.Chen. Now in Germany, Huang spoke to RFA Mandarin about his plans for the future: Huang Yicheng: I’m from Shanghai. I am 26 years old and a graduate of the Chinese department of Peking University. I am currently a postgraduate student at the University of Hamburg, Germany. On Nov. 27, 2022, I was arrested by the police on Urumqi Middle Road, Shanghai, put onto a bus, and then escaped from the bus. Then a white man helped me escape the scene.  RFA: You were interviewed by me on Nov. 27, the weekend when the “white paper” movement took place. You were interviewed anonymously then, so why did you choose to disclose your real name and appearance now? Huang Yicheng: This is because I have now left China. I saw that there were so many people around the same age as me who took part in the white paper movement with me, who have been arrested and imprisoned. So I feel that I will always be in pain and have uncontrollable anxiety if I don’t stand up and speak out on their behalf, even though there are great risks involved in doing so. Protesters shout slogans in Shanghai, China, during a protest Nov. 27, 2022. Credit: AFP screenshot from AFPTV I hope that everyone can call for the release of Cao Zhixin and the other peaceful demonstrators who are now behind bars.  The government should tell us how many people were arrested in each city after the white paper movement, and issue a complete list of names for each city, so the rest of the world knows exactly what is going on. RFA: You just said that you are aware of the great risk of doing so. How would you deal with this risk? Huang Yicheng: This is very hard to think about, because now I have revealed my true identity, educational background and my true appearance. But I want to use this to encourage others in the same boat. But I also think it’s almost impossible to remain entirely anonymous in the current online environment. So instead of talking about how scared we are, we should face up to the risk and the fear. In that way, I hope that the next generation, or our own generation, within the next 10, 20 years or even sooner than that, will get to live in a society without the need for such fear, where we are free to express our thoughts without fear. RFA: Did you decide to study abroad due to safety concerns, or were you planning to do that anyway? Huang Yicheng: I had originally planned to study abroad, but it was very, very difficult to get a visa during the zero-COVID restrictions. I started this application before the Shanghai lockdown [of spring 2022], and it took more than a year to come through. This delay was one of the reasons that I took part in the white paper protests in the first place, as well as the three-month lockdown in Shanghai. It was an experience that changed my life. RFA: Were you worried that you might be prevented from leaving the country because you had taken part in the protest? Huang Yicheng: Yes, yes I was. I think everyone else had similar worries. They had already taken away two busloads of detained protesters from Urumqi Road in Shanghai between the evening of Nov. 26 and the early morning of Nov. 27. The video clips being shot at the time were very worrying. I never thought going into it that I would get detained. That’s why I want to speak out in support of the people who were detained. Hopefully we can put some pressure on [the authorities] and get them released. RFA: When I interviewed you on Nov. 27, when you had gotten back home, you said that you were very worried that the police would come looking for you, so you asked for anonymity. Did they come looking for you? Huang Yicheng: No, they didn’t. My identity was kept well hidden, and they didn’t find me. Cao Zhixin, an editor at the Peking University Publishing House, was arrested after attending a Nov. 2022 protest in Beijing’s Liangmahe district. Credit: Screenshot from video RFA: How did you manage to protect yourself? Huang Yicheng: I just hid at home and cut off all contact with friends at home and abroad. I don’t know if they used facial recognition or anything like that. I also made a video statement to be posted in case I got arrested and gave it to a friend I trust. He would have posted it if I had been detained. RFA: Given that you were actually caught by the police and put on the bus, it’s pretty lucky that you managed to escape – a fluke, wasn’t it? Huang Yicheng: When I think about it now, I can hardly believe it. It was a bit dream-like. When I was detained and put on the bus, it was parked on the southwest side of the intersection between Urumqi Road and Wuyuan Road. I was probably in the second row, near the door. Protesters are taken away by police in a bus on Urumqi Road in Shanghai on Nov. 26, 2022. Credit: Associated Press The policeman got off the bus and went to detain other demonstrators, but he didn’t handcuff us. We could see from the Twitter account “Mr Li is not your teacher” that there was…

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Junta court sentences 4 people to life for ‘funding terrorism’

Editor03 mins

A military court in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region has sentenced four people to life imprisonment under the junta’s anti-terrorism laws, locals told RFA. They were all arrested by troops in their homes in Indaw township on March 5 this year. Residents identified them as Thein Hla, a civil disobedience movement teacher in her 40s; two other women, Khin Pyae Pyae Tun and Aye Aye; and a 24-year-old man, Aye Min Tun. “The 24-year-old man was sentenced on April 1,” an Indaw resident told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Three other women were also sentenced [on April 3]. All received life time imprisonment under Sections 50 (j) and 52(a)”, a local man told RFA. Section 50 (j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law relates to funding terrorism, while 52 (a) covers the organization of or participation in terrorist acts along with harboring terrorists or hosting meetings. The four were among 22 people arrested and accused of donating money to the Indaw People’s Defense Force. The other 18 were released on bail. “A PDF member was arrested first. Then [more] people were arrested and accused of having their names on the donor list [to the PDF]. But there is no evidence,” said a woman who also declined to be named for fear of reprisals.  “The arrest of the teacher Thein Hla also has no evidence. She was accused of providing 100,000 to 200,000 [kyat or U.S.$48-96] in that list and was arrested. She has committed no serious crime. It’s only because she participated in the anti-regime civil disobedience movement. The other three are ordinary people.” Locals say another man from Indaw was sentenced to life imprisonment under the same terrorism financing law on Feb. 27 this year. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) more than 21,200 civilians have been arrested nationwide during the more than two years since the junta seized power in a coup, of which over 17,300 are still behind bars. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Cambodia sells research monkeys to the world. It’s not all legal, US says.

Editor022 mins

Visitors are not welcome at the monkey farm co-owned by the sister of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The farm is ringed by moat-like canals, 6-foot-6-inch-high (2 meters) earthworks and a brick wall topped with razor wire.  A former employee told RFA that guards with Kalashnikov assault rifles patrol the grounds inside the farm in rural Kampong Speu province, which is two hours’ drive from the capital Phnom Penh. So, what’s there to secure behind the walls?  The answer is the captive animals within: long-tailed macaques, a breed of primate favored for medical research.  Cages of monkeys are seen on the grounds of a farm co-owned by the sister of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in rural Kampong Speu province, March 2023. Credit: RFA Once an unremarkable player in the business of providing the animals for a global research industry, Cambodia has become a hub for exports of long-tails – a lucrative but shadowy business tied to the nation’s political elite.  Growing demand from the COVID-19 pandemic meant primate farms like the one owned by the prime minister’s sister exported about a quarter of a billion dollars worth of research macaques in 2022, according to U.N. trade data. But as the business booms, questions are emerging about the origin of the monkeys Cambodia ships around the world. Allegations of illicit trade are at the core of a high-profile legal case brought by U.S. wildlife prosecutors against senior Cambodian government officials.  Two officials have been charged with issuing fraudulent export permits certifying poached monkeys as captive-bred animals to circumvent U.S. import restrictions and international treaties governing the trade in endangered species. Cambodia’s wildlife and diversity director, Kry Masphal, was arrested in New York in November while traveling to a conservation conference in Panama. His boss, Forestry Administration Director General Keo Omaliss, was also indicted but remains at large in Cambodia. A permit issued by the Cambodian government for the export of monkeys. Credit: Handout Kry is currently under house arrest near Washington, D.C., and set to face a court proceeding in Miami in June. Yet with so much money to be made in Cambodia, experts fear there is little incentive for reform in the country. “It’s kind of like the realization of our worst fears,” said Ed Newcomer, a recently retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent who spent 20 years investigating wildlife crimes around the world. “When government officials, and relatives of high-powered officials, are involved in the wildlife trade, how are the Cambodian regulatory and enforcement agencies supposed to effectively enforce the law?”   The monkey business Long-tailed macaques, which are native to Southeast Asia, are so-named because their tails are usually longer than the length of their bodies. Other distinguishing characteristics include tufts of hair atop their heads and whiskers around their mouths.  An engineer takes samples of monkey kidney cells at a lab in China. Credit: AFP file photo Also known as “crab-eating” monkeys, they are highly prized by biomedical researchers for their similarity to humans. Testing on the animals helped lead to a vaccine for yellow fever. More recently, they’ve been used to test treatments for issues ranging from reproduction to obesity and addiction. Demand for their species soared with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, as macaques were critical in the development of the mRNA vaccines for COVID.  Until recently, China was the world’s top supplier. But in a bid to protect its own vaccine development, Beijing banned exports of research monkeys, leaving Cambodia as the number-one source for a global research industry that was suddenly facing a severe shortfall. In 2019, Cambodia exported the most primates it had ever shipped in a single year, sending 14,931 overseas for $34 million – an average cost of just over $2,271 per monkey, according to the U.N. trade data. The number of macaques being exported and the average cost per monkey continued to rise. Countries reported importing around $250 million worth of monkey shipments from Cambodia in 2022 alone, according to the data.  Questions of origin But experts say it would be impossible for all of them to have been legitimately raised and sourced according to rules that govern the use of research primates. Partly to protect dwindling wild populations, but also to reduce potential contamination of experiments, only captive-bred macaques are allowed in medical research. However, they are also slow-breeding, with infants taking three years to reach maturity. So, captive-bred stocks frequently struggle to meet researchers’ needs, and suppliers are often incentivized to pass off wild-caught monkeys as farm-reared. Although a black-market trade in the monkeys has long blighted the industry, the COVID-driven supply shortage has sent illicit poaching into overdrive, conservationists say.  “There’s just too much money in this business now for these macaques to stand a chance,” said Lisa Jones-Engel, a primatologist who now advises the animal rights group Peta. A study published last month in One Health, a peer-reviewed veterinary science journal, found that Cambodian breeders would have needed to more than quadruple production rates – from 81,926 over a four-year period to at least 98,000 in a single year – to have legitimately exported the number of macaques shipped during the pandemic. As Cambodia has never reported importing long-tailed macaques, such an increase would have to have been driven entirely by an increase in domestic supply. Yet “Cambodia has historically been incapable of producing second generation offspring macaques, therefore increasing their production capacity legally seems unlikely,” the researchers wrote. The sister The farm owned by the prime minister’s sister Hun Sengny sits at the end of a dusty road on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Damnak Trach.  It is registered under a Cambodian firm, Rong De Group, for which she serves as chairwoman. The uniforms of the security guards who wield the assault rifles bear the insignia of her private security firm, Garuda Security Co.  Locals who spoke to RFA all described the “boss” of the farm as being Chinese expatriate, Dong Wan De, who Commerce Ministry records identify as the…

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