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Category: Middle East

Three die in raid on Sagaing region village

Editor05 mins

The bodies of a woman and two men have been found after junta troops set fire to Lat Pu Kan village in Myanmar’s Sagaing region on Monday. The three had been tied up and killed before troops torched the village in Pale township. The bodies of the woman, Daw Aye Man, and a man U Kyaung Maung, both in their 70s, were found along with U Paw, a man in his 80s, a local resident told RFA. “The victims were arrested and killed,” said the resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “Daw Aye Man, the woman, could not go anywhere as she was old and had no one who could carry her to help her flee. She was killed in her bed. U Paw, who was over 80, had poor vision. He was tied up and killed. The other man, U Kyaung Maung, was deaf. Their bodies were found after the military left the village.”  It was not clear why the three were killed when they were unable to take up arms to resist the junta forces. Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA on Tuesday morning went unanswered. In addition to the three murdered villagers, a 30-year-old local, Ko Naing, is missing according to local residents. A 53-year-old man, U Paw San, was shot and injured on Monday when troops fired heavy artillery and live rounds on nearby Kokko Gone village, locals told RFA. Three cattle were also killed. The military council has not issued a statement on either incident. The local People’s Defense Force (PDF) militia said that local PDFs have been able to defeat the junta’s troops because locals led them around landmines. It said that was why troops targeted the villages. Local militia member, Saya Poe Thar from the Kya Thit Nat group (Leopard Squad) said the troops who burned Lat Pu Kan and Kokko Gone villages on Monday also went to Pon Taung Nat Htake village in Pale Township on June 10, sending 107 military trucks, carrying around 170 soldiers. The troops included a landmine clearance team.  He said about 10 soldiers were killed on Sunday by landmines laid by the Kya Thit Nat militia group. Two local fighters also died. The military then set fire to nearby villages thought to support the PDFs, killing civilians and destroying their homes, Saya Poe Thar said. Sagaing has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting between military troops and opposition PDFs since the junta seized power in February last year. Data for Myanmar says 103 people were killed and 192 injured in the region between February 1, 2021 and April 28 this year. Fighting and arson attacks have forced an estimated 336,600 people to flee their homes in Sagaing since the coup, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Independent think-tank Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar said this month that around 15,530 homes and other buildings had been burned or destroyed in the northwest region from the start of military rule until May 26 this year, representing nearly 70% of all the buildings damaged in Myanmar.

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Thousands rally to mark 3rd anniversary of 2019 anti-extradition protest in Hong Kong

Editor011 mins

Thousands of exiled Hongkongers and allies marked the 3rd anniversary of the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement in cities around the world at the weekend, with a large crowd gathering on Parliament Square in London to mark the first anniversary of mass public protests on June 12, 2019. Some 4,000 protesters gathered in London gathered at Marble Arch, marching to Parliament Square to chant slogans including “Free Hong Kong! Revolution now!”, which has been banned under a draconian national security law in Hong Kong. Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law said people’s goals weren’t all the same, but that Hongkongers in exile would still work together. “Some people want an armed revolution, the liberation of Hong Kong, and independence for Hong Kong,” Law said. “We have also heard how we might use culture to change a society.” “We imagine different paths to reach the goal, but we all share the same values,” he said. “We are diverse, we don’t have only one voice, and we don’t have only one way to express what we want.” “This diversity can be complementary, and coexist without any of us being subordinate to each other or telling each other what to do, but with the community responding to everyone when needed,” he said. In Liverpool, drone footage showed a line of dozens of people along a busy shopping street, dressed in the black of the 2019 protest movement, and carrying the yellow umbrellas of the democracy movement. At the London rally, participants were asked to remember the 10,277 people arrested and the 2,800 prosecuted under the national security law, which was imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020, ushering in an ongoing crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public dissent. The rally marked the mass protest that blockaded Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (LegCo) on June 12, preventing lawmakers from getting into the chamber to pass a hugely unpopular legal amendment that would have allowed the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China. The protest was the first of many to be quelled that year by widespread police violence that saw the firing of tear gas and rubber bullets on an unarmed and peaceful crowd, many of whom were unable to flee, as well as mass arrests and physical beatings of mostly young people. Teargas memories A young man who was there at the time, and who now lives in the U.K., said he still has vivid memories of the day. “When I got there, all I could smell was the harsh and pungent smell of tear gas,” the man, who gave only the nickname Karson, told RFA at the London rally. “The people were surrounded by [police firing] tear gas, and there was no way for us to leave.” “I remember the police saying at the time that they wanted the crowd to disperse, but they also tear gassed protests that had [police approval], and … prevented people from leaving,” he said. “That sort of action in a crowded place caused people to trample each other.” Karson, who is in the difficult process of applying for political asylum, said others shouldn’t be discouraged, as there are organizations set up to help asylum-seekers from Hong Kong. A Hongkonger who arrived in the U.K. with his family over a year ago, who gave only the surname Chan, was also in Parliament Square, joining in with a mass rendition of the Les Miserables hit “Do You Hear The People Sing?”, which was often sung during the 2019 protests. Chan said his family had agreed the night before that they should all attend to support Hong Kong, now that they live overseas. “I want to tell our brothers and sisters in Hong Kong prisons that we have not forgotten you or given up on you,” Chan told RFA. “We are still very worried about you and care about you, and hope you are safe and well.” Mrs Chan said she is keen not to forget the protest movement, and the subsequent crackdown imposed by Beijing. “I felt that I needed to keep the momentum going, so that I don’t forget what happened,” she said. “This isn’t over, and I want to see it through.” The Chans’ 11-year-old daughter Kimmy said she is in the process of explaining to her classmates what has befallen Hong Kong in recent years. “I will tell them the story of the Hong Kong people, from the Umbrella Revolution [of 2014] to the present and try to take the fight to the international front,” Kimmy said. “Maybe, if more people know about it, Hong Kong can be restored [to the way it was], I hope.” Speak up when being bullied An older woman, also surnamed Chan, said she had come to the rally after living in the U.K. for decades. “I think it’s very important to deliver on one’s promises and not just to talk big,” she said. “As you can see from my slogan, we just want to get back what we deserve: it’s that simple.” “I think if people are bullying you, and you are unhappy about it, you have to speak up.” Similar rallies were held across the U.K. on Sunday, including Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham. Manchester police took away a man in a red shirt who started playing the Chinese national anthem during the rally in the city. Hongkongers and their supporters also rallied on the democratic island of Taiwan. Some 700 people set off from Elephant Park in Taipei, many of them wearing black clothing and shouting 2019 protest slogans, as well as slogans calling on the authorities to defend Taiwan against CCP infiltration and aggression. “There’s nothing that people in Hong Kong can do right now [because of the national security crackdown], so we who are overseas should do a bit more,” a protester surnamed Chan told RFA. “It’s important to keep these memories going now that we are in a place of relative safety.” Another protester surnamed Chow said he had…

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Chinese rubber company detains Laos farmer trying to sell crop outside province

Editor07 mins

Employees of a Chinese-owned rubber company in rural Laos illegally stopped a local rubber tree farmer trying to sell his harvest to another buyer for a higher price, sources in the Southeast Asian country told RFA. Zhongtian Luye operates a rubber processing factory in Khua district in the northern province of Phongsaly along the border with China. The company created a contract farming system with rubber tree farmers in the area to maintain supply. It pays farmers U.S. $0.56 per kilogram ($0.25 per pound) of natural rubber. Though it has contracts with local farmers for certain quantities of their yield, nothing is stopping them from selling the rest of their crop in nearby Oudomxay province, where prices are around 25% higher. Employees of the rubber company blocked a road to prevent a car packed with raw rubber from leaving town, a villager told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They thought that the driver was shipping his output to sell in Oudomxay province [in breach of contract.] They also thought that he was trying to buy output from other villagers who have contracts with the company,” the villager said. “That is why they stopped his car and took it to their camp area. Normally if a car is stopped and there is any kind of wrongdoing, it should be taken to the district police station,” he said. Police showed up at the work camp to investigate, later ordering the company to release the driver. Zhongtian Luye did not have a contract with the man who was stopped, and the rubber was all from his own farm, the villager said. Police fined the employees for blocking the road without permission. A second villager said the company may feel justified in buying rubber at below market prices from local farmers because of the money it has invested in the area, including for road construction and to help farmers start producing rubber. There also have been cases where the farmers broke their agreements with Zhongtian Luye to try to make more money elsewhere, the second villager said. “They already signed agreements, but some farmers are not satisfied with the price set by the Chinese company,” the second source said. “The company has a concession and the right to buy from the farmers as stated in the memorandum of understanding. However, when the trees are mature for harvesting, some farmers don’t want to sell for so low.” A woman who used to do business with Zhongtian Luye told RFA that the company feels entitled to all the rubber produced in the area, even from farmers who are not under contract. “They want them to sell it to their company only, even though they can get a higher price in Oudomxay,” she said. RFA was able to contact Zhongtian Luye’s interpreter but he declined to comment on the issue. Under the most common contract farming system in Laos, referred to as “3+2 contract farming,” companies provide funding, training and marketing services to producers, in addition to buying the product, while farmers provide land and labor. The central or local government is usually responsible for ensuring that neither party is taken advantage of. An official from the Phongsaly province’s Department of Agriculture and Forests told RFA that Zhongtian Luye, the province and the farmers have signed production agreements. The company can decide to block roads to prevent the farmers from selling elsewhere, the official said. “It is to up the provincial and district level authorities to consider how to solve this kind of problem and the district deputy governor will hold a meeting to find a solution,” the official said. “But the agreement states that the rubber farmers who signed a contract-farming agreement cannot sell to other companies, but only this company,” he said, without explaining why the company has a right to prevent the farmers not under contract from selling elsewhere. The official said the company does not tell his department the prices it pays, but said the department would meet with the company to double check that the contracts are fair. Zhongtian Luye has been operating in Khua district since 2006. It is unknown how many farmers have contracts to produce rubber for the company. According to the report from the Phongsaly province People’s Assembly, there are two Chinese rubber companies in the district. Translated by Phouvong. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Four villagers hurt as hundreds protest over cemetery project in central Vietnam

Editor03 mins

Four people were hurt in clashes with police as hundreds of mostly female protesters wrapped themselves in Vietnamese flags to rally against a cemetery and crematorium project in central Vietnam, villagers said Friday. The protest on Thursday targeted Vinh Hang Eco-park and Cemetery, an 80-ha, 500 billion dong ($21.8 million) project in the Hung Nguyen district of central Nghe An province. Approved by local authorities in 2017, the cemetery has encounterd strong objection by local residents due to environmental and water resource concerns. “There was a clash among the police and local residents. One woman was seriously injured and was sent to Nghe An provincial hospital for emergency care. Two others were sent to a district hospital with less serious injuries,” local resident Phan Van Khuong told RFA Vietnamese. “They arrested three or four people but released them on the same day,” he added. A Facebook page titled “Hạt lúa Kẻ Gai” showed ozens of police officers in uniform knocking down protesters’ tents. “The Commune People’s Committee sent some people to plant markers on a road where local residents put up tents [to block the project] and we all rushed up there to stop them,” Nguyen Van Ky, a resident from Phuc Dien village, told RFA. “In response, district and commune police officers were deployed and they removed the tents and shoved us down, injuring four people,” said Ky. The injuries were caused when police officers kicked and stomped on protesters. A fourth protester had a leg injury that did not require hospital treatment. RFA called authorities from Nghe An province and Hung Tay commune to seek comments but no one answered the phone. While all land in Communist-run Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation. Translated by Anna Vu. Written by Paul Eckert.

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Myanmar’s junta uses identity documents as tools of genocide against Rohingya: report

Editor09 mins

Myanmar’s junta is using identity documents to carry out a genocide of the ethnic Rohingya community, much like the perpetrators of the Holocaust and Rwandan genocide, according to a new report, which calls on the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The 63-page report entitled “Genocide by Attrition: The Role of Identity Documents in the Holocaust and the Genocides of Rwanda and Myanmar” and published Tuesday by the Southeast Asian rights group Fortify Rights, details how the junta is forcing Rohingya to obtain National Verification Cards (NVCs) that its authors say effectively strip them of access to full citizenship rights and protections. It also draws on case studies from the Holocaust and Rwandan genocides to demonstrate how authoritarian regimes use such documents to “systematically identify, persecute, and kill targeted populations on a widespread and massive scale.” “Perpetrators have long used identification documents in the commission of genocide,” said Ken MacLean, co-author of the report, senior advisor to Fortify Rights, and Clark University Professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, in a statement accompanying the release of the report. “Evidence from the Holocaust and Rwandan genocides show striking similarities with the ongoing erasure of the Rohingya identity in Myanmar by the junta.” The report found that identification cards such as those used during the Holocaust and Rwandan genocides contributed to “genocide by attrition,” which it defined as “the gradual destruction of a protected group by reducing their strength through sustained, indirect methods of destruction.” Such policies have long been in use in Myanmar and continue to play a role in the ongoing genocide of the Rohingyas, the report said, citing interviews with more than 20 Rohingya-genocide survivors, leaked junta documents, and a media analysis of junta-backed news outlets since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup. It said that Rohingya in Western Myanmar’s Rakhine state described how the junta forces them to carry NVCs to prevent them from identifying as “Rohingya,” restrict their movement, and curtail their ability to earn a living, “creating conditions of life designed to be destructive.” Instead, they are made to identify as “Bengali” immigrants from Bangladesh in what the report said is a bid by authorities to exclude them from citizenship and ethnicity within Myanmar. The report cited the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention’s findings that increased politicization of identity and discriminatory measures targeting protected groups are indicators in creating “an environment conducive to the commission of atrocity crimes,” noting that similar legal and administrative tools were used to facilitate the destruction of the Jewish and Tutsi populations, and are now being used against the Rohingya. “Rohingya continue to face existential threats under the military junta, an illegitimate regime responsible for far-reaching atrocities,” said John Quinley, senior human rights specialist at Fortify Rights and co-author of the report. “The ongoing denial of Rohingya ethnicity and citizenship are indicators of genocide. The [shadow] National Unity Government has committed to ensuring Rohingya citizenship and inclusion. The junta, however, is still using coercive measures to force Rohingya to identify as foreigners, erasing records of their existence.” Myanmar immigration officials hand over an identification document to a Rohingya woman at the Taungpyoletwei town repatriation camp in Rakhine state’s Maungdaw township, near the Bangladesh border, in a file photo. Credit: AFP Holding the junta accountable Fortify Rights said that while the connection between identification documents and international crimes is well-recognized, some U.N. officials, embassies, and others in Myanmar have failed to condemn the use of NVCs in targeting Rohingya. In some cases, the group said, they have even endorsed the documents as a solution to the group’s “statelessness.” The report’s findings demonstrate links between the NVC process and acts of genocide and should be a focus of investigations and legal proceedings, Fortify Rights said. The violations documented in Genocide by Attrition demonstrate links between the NVC process and genocidal acts and should be a focus of ongoing investigations and legal proceedings, said Fortify Rights. It called on U.N. member states to cut Myanmar’s junta off from access to arms, finances, and political legitimacy, and urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court (ICC). “The Myanmar military junta poses an undeniable threat to international peace and security,” said Fortify’s Quinley. “U.N. member states must wake up and act now to deny the junta the resources it craves and to hold it accountable for all of its crimes including genocide.” In 2016, a military crackdown forced some 90,000 Rohingya to flee Rakhine state and cross into neighboring Bangladesh, while a larger one in 2017 in response to insurgent attacks, killed thousands of members of the ethnic minority and led to an exodus of more than 740,000 across the border.  Human rights groups have produced a trove of credible reports based on commercial satellite imagery and extensive interviews with Rohingya about the operations in Rakhine state in 2017, including arbitrary killings, torture, and mass rape. Gambia has accused Myanmar’s military leadership of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention in Rohingya areas in a case it brought to the Hague-based International Court of Justice. The court is holding hearings to determine whether it has jurisdiction to judge if atrocities committed there constituted a genocide.

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Cantopop singer Tommy Yuen in court accused of ‘incitement’ under security law

Editor07 mins

Hong Kong police on Tuesday charged Cantopop singer and activist Tommy Yuen with “inciting hatred against the government” and “fraud” after he spoke out on social media against COVID-19 restrictions, and tried to raise money to assist a 19-year-old woman accused of “rioting.” Yuen, 41, appeared in court on Tuesday after police froze some H.K.$140,000 of his assets, charged with one count of “one or more acts of incitement” and one count of “fraud.” He had no defense lawyer present, and confirmed that he had withdrawn his application for legal aid, and would hire a private attorney instead. Yuen appeared in court with hair grown out to shoulder length, wearing a blue denim jacket, in apparently good spirits, waving to onlookers at the end of the hearing. He made no bail application, and will be remanded in custody until July 26. The charges against Yuen are based on posts he made to Facebook and Instagram between Sept. 26, 2021 and Jan. 21, 2022, which the prosecution alleged were “intended to provoke hatred or contempt for the government … or cause resentment or rebellion among Hong Kong residents.” He is also accused of using fraudulent means to raise funds for a 19-year-old defendant charged with “rioting,” a charge often used to target those present during the 2019 protest movement, or even its absent supporters. Meanwhile, secondary schools in Hong Kong are removing books deemed in breach of the national security law, the city’s Ming Pao newspaper reported. A list of books removed from the shelves of three school libraries obtained by the paper showed that more than 200 titles have disappeared from libraries because of fears they could breach the law. Targeting books Education bureau director Kevin Yeung said schools are responsible for ensuring that they don’t break the law. “Books are as important as textbooks and can influence the minds of young students,” Yeung told reporters. “The choice of books isn’t the sole responsibility of librarians; subject director, and even principals — the whole school — needs to get involved in this work,” he said. Bao Pu, publisher of the memoirs of late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, one of the books on the list, said the book has little to do with national security. “When this book was published, I didn’t think it violated the laws of Hong Kong, nor did I think this book had anything to do with China’s national security,” Bao told RFA. “I believe that the books I published were all beneficial to readers and to China,” he said. But he added: “How they choose to self-censor is not my business and has nothing to do with me.” Bookburning Sociologist Chung Kim-wah described the removal of books as the modern version of book-burning. “The government doesn’t dare to actually draw up a list of banned books, so they are leaving the schools, teachers and library staff to try to guess what their superiors would think about them,” Chung told RFA. “This means that any works that might be regarded as objectionable or unfriendly by the government will be removed from the shelves,” he said. “It’s the safest way of controlling them, through intimidation,” he said. “It’s no different from burning books … it’s basically about control over the freedom of speech and expression.” Under guidelines published by the Education Bureau in February, schools are required to “establish/ strengthen the monitoring mechanism for regular review of learning and teaching resources (including their content and quality).” “Schools should ensure that the display of words or objects within the campus (including school buildings, classrooms and bulletin boards, etc.), such as books (including library collections), publications and leaflets does not involve contents that endanger national security,” the guidelines state. “Schools should also prohibit anyone from bringing objects to schools in contravention of the rules.” The national security law criminalizes speech and actions deemed to amount to secession, subversion, terrorism, or collusion with foreign powers, and enabled the setting up of a national security office under the direct control of Beijing to oversee the implementation of the law, as well as a Hong Kong headquarters for China’s feared state security police, to handle “special cases” deemed important by Beijing. It also bans speech or actions anywhere in the world deemed to incite hatred or dissatisfaction with the CCP or the Hong Kong government. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Yangon blasts injure three people, including a child

Editor03 mins

Two suspected bombings in Hlaing Tharyar Township’s No. 5 Ward this morning injured three people, including a child. The first blast, at around 6 a.m. in a garbage dump on Narawat Road, injured a 30-year-old man walking along the road. Hlaing Tharyar resident Ko Lwin Oo told RFA a second explosion took place while police and soldiers were investigating the first. It injured a middle-aged woman and a young child. “The first bomb blast hit the man who was walking at 6 a.m. in the morning. The second bomb exploded when the troops arrived at 7 a.m.,” he said. “A woman and a child in a house close to the blast were hit and the woman has been critically injured, wounding her left arm.” The local said the three injured were picked up immediately by an ambulance but it was still not known which hospital they were taken to. Ko Lwin Oo said he believed the child to be over 5-years-old. He said he could not tell whether the child was a boy or girl because he only saw the head and the child’s red shirt during the immediate evacuation of the injured. It is also unclear if the woman was the child’s mother or a relative. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the blasts. Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA throughout the day went unanswered. Residents of Hlaing Tharyar Township staging street protests in March. CREDIT: RFA The suspected bombings are the second in a week. On May 31, a bomb blast near the Bar Street bus stop on Anawrahtar Road in Kyauktada Township killed a man and injured nine others. A military spokesman said the dead man was secretly carrying the bomb and was a member of a local People’s Defense Force (PDF). The shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and members of PDFs in Yangon denied carrying out last week’s bombing. They accused the military junta and military-affiliated groups of manipulating the incident to mislead the public.

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Police arrest six on banned Tiananmen massacre anniversary in Hong Kong

Editor08 mins

Police in Hong Kong have arrested six people on public order offenses around the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre near Victoria Park, commemoration of which has been banned under a draconian national security law for the third year in a row. Police said they had arrested five men and one woman aged 19-80 by 11.30 p.m. on June 4 after stepping up patrols around Causeway Bay and Victoria Park and warning people not to try to stage their own personal memorials. The six arrestees were taken away on charges that included “inciting others to take part in an illegal assembly,” “possessing an offensive weapon” and “obstructing police officers in the course of the duties.” The soccer pitches, basketball courts and central lawn areas — where mass candlelight vigils had taken place for three decades since the June 4, 1989 massacre by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Beijing — were reopened on Sunday after being closed to the public. Police remained at the park on Sunday, stopping passers-by for questioning, but otherwise allowing people in and out again. Large numbers of Hongkongers in exile turned out to mark the massacre in London at the weekend, lighting candles and writing messages of commemoration, including outside the Chinese Embassy, where protesters mock-charged the building with paper effigies of tanks, only to be pushed back by police. Protesters held up photos of political prisoners jailed in Hong Kong under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, which called for universal suffrage and greater official accountability, as well as opposing plans to allow extradition to mainland China. A former Hong Kong teacher who gave only the English name Jeremy said he had emigrated to the U.K. with his family, and had continued his annual attendance at the vigil in London, this time bringing his daughter along too. “The regime did something wrong, and we are here as proof of that, and to tell the next generation that justice should be done, and that someone should admit responsibility for that wrongdoing,” he said. “It’s that simple.” “The people of Hong Kong see you, and we haven’t forgotten the June 4 massacre,” he said. Hongkongers in exile in Britain join mainland democracy activists to mark the 33rd anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre in London at the weekend, lighting candles and writing messages of commemoration outside the Chinese Embassy, in London, June 2, 2022. Credit: RFA Danger to families A participant who gave only the surname Liew said Hongkongers are beginning to have similar fears to mainland Chinese in exile, namely that their friends and families back home could be targeted if they speak out overseas. “Of course I’m scared too, but my view is that if we do nothing, they’ll be even more contemptuous of our rights,” she said. “They won’t go any easier on us if we do nothing; the abuse of our rights will only intensify.” Around 2,000 people turned out to mark the anniversary on the democratic island of Taiwan, many of them chanting now-banned slogans from the 2019 protest movement including “Free Hong Kong! Revolution now!” A replica of the now-demolished Pillar of Shame sculpture that once stood on the University of Hong Kong campus formed a focal point for the event, as Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen wrote on her Facebook page that the authorities in Hong Kong are currently working to erase collective memory of the massacre. The country’s foreign affairs ministry sent an open letter to the people of China in the simplified Chinese used in China, calling on them to research the massacre for themselves, beyond the Great Firewall of internet censorship. A replica of the now-demolished Pillar of Shame sculpture that once stood on the University of Hong Kong campus is displayed in Taiwan, where some 2,000 people turned out to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, June 4, 2022. Credit: RFA Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong, now in exile in Taiwan, gave a speech to the crowd, saying the CCP fears such events because of how many people they killed. “Friends looked for friends in piles of corpses, wives looked for husbands in piles of corpses, parents looked for their sons and daughters among the blood and corpses,” Wong said. “The Chinese Communist Party is very afraid of passing on [that knowledge] from generation to generation, but that’s exactly what we want.” “Make sure everyone knows they killed those people … fight for freedom and democracy, and then their deaths will have made sense.” Back in Hong Kong, national security judge Peter Law handed over the “subversion” cases of 47 former opposition lawmakers and democracy activists to the High Court, paving the way for potential life imprisonment under the national security law for organizing a democratic primary in 2020. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Five people killed in Sagaing region township blazes

Editor03 mins

The charred bodies of a 79-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy were among five people discovered after military forces set fire to two villages in Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region, locals told RFA. The elderly woman was from Thargara village in Khin Oo township. The boy and three men came from Than Se Chaung village in Kani township. Residents told RFA the elderly woman may have been trapped after suffering a stroke when junta troops burned down houses on June 4. They say the blaze also killed cattle and destroyed 70 houses, agricultural machinery, motorbikes and 10,000 baskets of rice, being stored for food. Agricultural equipment and food supplies were also destroyed in the blaze. CREDIT: citizen jounalist. The bodies of four Than Se Chaung residents were found close to their village, near Nat Sin Gone at Nga Pyat village. They had been detained by the military a few days earlier. A local resident told RFA the four villagers, aged between 14 and 45, were killed after being taken hostage by troops. “They were sent to the frontline and were then killed as they did not do what the junta troops asked and commanded,” said the resident, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity. It was still not known how the four were killed. Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA on Monday morning went unanswered. Most of Sagaing’s townships and villages have been affected by fierce fighting between junta forces and members of the People’s Defense Forces since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. RFA reported last month that nearly 6,300 homes in 19 townships had been burned down in the northwestern region over the previous two months. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun blamed the PDFs for starting the fires. RFA figures show that 414 people were killed in Sagaing region between Feb. 1 and Dec. 1 last year, 309 by the junta and 105 by PDFs.

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Jailed Uyghurs’ relatives forced to attend study sessions in Ghulja during UN visit

Editor07 mins

Chinese authorities forced the relatives of detained Uyghurs in the town of Ghulja in Xinjiang to attend political study sessions while monitoring their contact with others during a recent visit to the region by the U.N. human rights chief, a local officer police said. Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, visited China on May 23-28 with stops in the coastal city of Guangzhou and in Urumqi (Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi) in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). It was the first visit to the country by a U.N. rights chief since 2005. Before her trip, China’s state security police warned Uyghurs living in Xinjiang that they could suffer consequences if their relatives abroad spoke out about internment camps in the region, a reflection of the government’s sensitivity to bad press about its forced assimilation campaign that has incarcerated as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the name of “vocational training.” Bachelet’s itinerary didn’t include a stop in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining), the third-largest city in the XUAR and the site of a protest by Uyghurs against religious repression 25 years ago that left as many as 200 hundred people dead. But, given the city’s history, Chinese authorities there are sensitive to signs of popular unrest, and they redoubled the surveillance and indoctrination programs imposed on the 12 million Uyghurs across Xinjiang, a territory the size of Alaska or Iran. A village police officer said the “political study session” for the family members of detainees began in mid-April, and that authorities kept a tight rein on their work and social lives. As a result, those residents have been incommunicado with others in their community. “The ones whose fathers or mothers or other relatives were detained, came to the sessions and spoke at the political and legal meetings organized by the village,” he told RFA. During the sessions, the Chinese government enforced a rule for Uyghurs to immediately attend sessions whenever a bell sounded and to leave them when the bell sounded a second time, the police officer said. The attendees gathered in the morning on street corners or at residents’ committees to wait for the signal. “They come with a sound of a bell and leave with another sound of a bell,” he said. “We hold these meetings from 8 a.m. in the morning.” Organized by the village’s 10 family leaders or police, the attendees had to express their gratitude to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government and had to promise that they would help protect national security by not sharing any sensitive information with outsiders. The family members of detained Uyghurs were warned against accepting international calls to ensure that no “state secrets” — meaning in this case the detention of Uyghurs or other measures to repress them — were released. “We told them not to make phone calls or take phone calls from abroad,” the police officer said. “We told them not to directly tell [people] if they asked on the phone about their detained relatives. We warned them to first ask where they are calling from and why they need to ask for the information. We told them not take those phone calls from abroad in order to keep state secrets.” The residents were instructed as to how not to expose information on their detained relatives to the outside world and were told how to give “standard answers” to questions raised by anyone visiting from outside China, he said. Furthermore, if the residents were visited by relatives or friend from other cities, they would be summoned to the police station and asked about what they had discussed with their guests, he said. “If anyone came to [see] their family for a visit from other cities such as Kashgar, we would take them to the police station and investigate who the visitors were, why are they were here and what they talked about,” the policeman said. The mandatory political study sessions ended when Bachelet and her team left the region, he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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