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Category: Middle East

Mystery fences spring up blocking Shanghai streets overnight amid ongoing lockdown

Editor07 mins

Mysterious fences have begun appearing overnight blocking city thoroughfares in Shanghai amid a grueling COVID-19 lockdown affecting some 26 million people, residents told RFA. Photos from a number of different locations across the city were visible on social media on Thursday, showing wire netting fences with steel posts driven deep into the ground, blocking all traffic on the street. “The posts supporting the wire fencing have all been driven into the ground,” Minhang district resident Feng Enhao told RFA. “It has been a unified move across the whole city, including Minhang, Putuo and Jiading districts, completed overnight.” “The sections left unblocked are around party and government buildings,” Feng said. “It’s very strange, because even police vehicles can’t get through, and the military and police can’t move around.” The move came as vice premier Sun Chunlan and Shanghai municipal government officials promised that the end of COVID-19 “dynamic clearance” restrictions in Shanghai is just around the corner, with cases in the city beginning to dip. Wu Ganyu of the Shanghai municipal health commission told a news conference on Wednesday that community transmission of the virus had been “effectively curbed,” after newly confirmed cases fell for three days straight. Road blockages have been reported in more than a dozen districts of Shanghai, including Changning, Huangpu and Xuhui. One resident said there is no sign of COVID-19 measures being lifted any time soon, despite official promises. Transferring negative tests The move comes after large numbers of residents from Huangpu district were transported out of the city to Hangzhou on Wednesday, following a directive from the Pingwangjie neighborhood committee to residents of Nanjing East Road. At the start of lockdown, anyone testing positive during mass, compulsory COVID-19 testing was sent to mass isolation facilities in the city. When those filled up, then were bused out to neighboring provinces, including Zhejiang. More recently, however, those testing negative have been bused out of town, leaving those who tested positive to isolate in Shanghai, with some residential communities requisitioned as isolation facilities. A Huangpu resident told RFA on Wednesday: “They are transferring the people test negative because too many people are testing positive in the community,” the resident said. “So they are turning it around and sending those who tested negative to Hangzhou today.” “There are very few negatives in the community, so they only need two buses to transport them,” she said. Those testing negative will remain in Hangzhou for seven days before being sent back home for a further seven days of quarantine, the Pingwangjie directive said. Anger over restrictions Public anger and despair over the restrictions continues to bubble over onto social media despite the best efforts of government-backed censors to delete such accounts. In one video, a woman is shown about to jump from a building while onlookers try to dissuade her. “Someone from the [temporary] cabin hospital is about to jump off the building,” the person shooting the video says. “Some people can’t bear being held in those conditions.” “Fierce types like me make trouble, but those who don’t dare to do that and can’t bear it any longer do this instead.” “They fooled people into coming [to the temporary facility] and then gave them nothing,” the person says. “There are no sanitary towels for the women and no toilet paper for the men.” Another video clip showed a woman in a residential community berating a police officer over supplies that were ordered but hadn’t arrived. “Our pandemic supplies are being left to rot in the civic center, and nobody is distributing them,” the woman asks loudly. “What happened to our pandemic supplies?” In another, a man shoots video from inside a compulsory isolation center where people are shown crammed in to a large hall on camp beds, with no measures taken to avoid infection. “First day in the isolation center, and I’ve got a cough. I didn’t have a cough before I went into isolation, but I have one now,” the man says. “Look at this — so many people isolating together. No measures to limit transmission, no masks … no members of staff come here. What’s the point of isolating if it’s like this?” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Chinese police order residents to hand over passports ‘until after the pandemic’

Editor08 mins

Police in the central Chinese province of Hunan have ordered local residents to hand over their passports to police, promising to return them “when the pandemic is over,” amid a massive surge in people looking for ways to leave China or obtain overseas immigration status. A March 31 notice from the Baisha police department in the central province of Hunan posted to social media ordered employers to hand over the passports of all employees and family members to police, “to be returned after the pandemic.” An officer who answered the phone at the Baisha police department confirmed the report, and said the measure is being rolled out nationwide. “According to official requirements, [passports] must be handed over because of the pandemic,” the officer said. “It’s everywhere, not just Hunan. It’s across the whole country,” they said. “Anyone with a passport has to hand it over, not just people who have an employer.” “If people don’t hand them over … then they have to expect to be investigated,” the officer said. China’s zero-COVID policy of mass compulsory testing, stringent lockdowns and digital health codes has sparked an emigration wave fueled by “shocked” middle-classes fed up with food shortages, confinement at home, and amid broader safety concerns. The number of keyword searches on social media platform WeChat and search engine Baidu for “criteria for emigrating to Canada” has skyrocketed by nearly 3,000 percent in the past month, with most queries clustered in cities and provinces under tough, zero-COVID restrictions, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Beijing. Immigration consultancies in Shanghai confirmed they have also been seeing a huge spike in emigration inquiries in recent weeks. Many clients are now looking for “a green card from a big country and a passport from a small country” to supplement their Chinese passports, a consultant who gave only the surname Liu told RFA. “Some clients also need a favorable exchange rate [with their destination country],” he said. “We have had nearly four times as many inquiries this year as this time last year.” He said most people are looking for a one-step process to achieve permanent residency, and don’t mind spending more of their savings to achieve it. “There are many who are applying to Turkey, because [you need to] buy a house for at least U.S. $250,000, which is between one and two million yuan,” Liu said. “There are rumors this will go up to U.S. $400,000 in May, so a lot of people are trying jump aboard the last bus before the price hike.” A Shanghai-based immigration consultant surnamed Shen said more and more people are applying now, as there is scant sign that the government will ease up on the zero-COVID policy. “You could maybe start by applying for permanent residency of another country, in case this escalates in future,” Shen said, referring to the order to hand over passports. Mao Runzhi The wave of interest in leaving the country has sparked memes around the Chinese characters “runzhi,” a satirical reference both to late supreme leader Mao Zedong and the English word “run.” “Mao Zedong’s [birth] name was Mao Runzhi, and he ran away at the most critical moment,” Xia Ming, professor of political science at New York’s City University, told RFA. “There is also the word run in English, as in run away.” Xia sees the current exodus as the peak of a wave of migration that began around five years ago, and cited recent news events like the woman found chained by the neck in the eastern province of Jiangsu as catalysts, along with the pandemic. “There are constantly cases of abduction and trafficking and missing persons,” Xia said. “Anyone could become that chained woman; it’s so random.” “Women and children are kidnapped and sold as sex slaves or for organ donations, and this has had a big impact on China’s middle classes,” he said. He said the Shanghai lockdown had also come as a huge shock to some of the most privileged people in Chinese society. “These people who used to live more comfortable lives than everyone else suddenly found themselves facing starvation overnight, and lost any sense of personal dignity,” Xia said. “This was a huge shock to the quietly successful middle class.” Taiwan-based Hong Kong commentator Sang Pu said people from Shanghai aren’t fleeing COVID-19 so much as their government’s draconian disease control restrictions. “Emigration is being driven by the CCP’s authoritarian approach to disease control and prevention, not by the virus,” Sang said. “The reason is a political one.” “But do their politics accord with those of the countries they are moving to? Not necessarily,” he said. “These people aren’t just refugees; they are looking for some kind of paradise where they can live freely, but they bring with them the legacy of authoritarian rule. We should stay vigilant.” He said if rich Chinese businesspeople and senior officials are allowed to flee overseas with money, this would effectively set up a tried-and-tested channel for money-laundering, as well as providing the CCP with a growing foothold overseas. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Impoverished Laos has lost more than $760 million to corruption since 2016: report

Editor011 mins

The Lao government has lost U.S. $767 million to corruption since 2016, with government development and investment projects such as road and bridge construction the leading source of the widespread graft, according to the country’s State Inspection Authority. The SIA reported on April 11 that nearly 3,700 members of the communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party had been disciplined, with 2,019 expelled and 154 people charged. According to the inspection authority, 1,119 people, including 127 government employees, were involved in illegal logging and wood trade. In a country where illegal natural resource trade drives much of the graft, authorities seized 300,000 cubic meters of wood worth U.S. $127 million since 2016, according to the report. The government has vowed to address corrupt practices that are pervasive in politics and every sector of the economy society, and put off potential foreign investors from pumping money into much-needed infrastructure and development in the landlocked nation of 7.5 million people. However, despite the enactment of an anticorruption law that criminalizes the abuse of power, public sector fraud, embezzlement and bribery, Laos’ judiciary is weak and inefficient, and officials are rarely prosecuted. A Lao environmentalist, who like other sources in the report requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA that Lao authorities recently said they exported 1 million cubic meters of wood to Vietnam. Vietnamese authorities reported, however, that they imported 3 million cubic meters of wood from Laos during the same time period. “The difference, which is 2 million cubic meters, means that the Lao authorities are not transparent and are corrupt, and that there must be some kind of complicity between wood traders and Lao officials,” he said. A small business owner in capital Vientiane said the inspection authority should name officials involved in abusing their power for private gain. “Every year, they report the corruption and the losses in general,” he told RFA. “We don’t know who they are, names, position, where they work, on in which ministry, department or province they are.” A corruption inspector told RFA that officials can name officials caught engaging the most egregious cases of graft. “It depends on the case,” he said. “In serious cases of corruption, the agency can reveal names and positions, but because most of the cases are concealed, this will remain a state secret. It can’t be revealed.” Khamphanh Phommathat, president of the State Inspection Authority, delivers a report on corruption to the National Assembly in Vientiane, Laos, November 2021. Credit: Lao National Television screen shot ‘We can’t say anything’ State Inspection Authority President Khamphanh Phommathat has pledged to tackle the problem, saying that inspections are one of the most important tasks of the government and the Party. Laos’ vice president, Bounthong Chitmany, has called on the inspection authority and officials in other sectors to expose corruption and punish those responsible. “Our party considers corruption to be a major threat to the existence and development of our new regime,” he was quoted as saying by the Vientiane Times on April 11. “Not only that, it creates social injustice and affects the trust of people in the government and party.” But a resident of Champassak province in southern Laos said he was not surprised about the country’s massive financial losses due to corruption. “All nice and luxury cars on the road in this country belong the officials,” he said. “That’s not right, because their salary is only 3 million kip (U.S. $250) a month. How can they have that much money to buy those expensive cars for personal use? They still have a lot of money to spend on other things, too. “We, the people, just watch and can’t say anything,” he added. A volunteer teacher in Savannakhet province said that graft is so widespread in Laos that she and her colleagues have had to bribe officials to be hired for jobs with the government. “My friend paid $1,500 last year to pass an exam and to be hired as permanent teacher,” said the women who declined to be named so she could speak freely. “He could do that because he knew and paid somebody up there.” A young resident of Savannakhet province said Laotians have no way to report corruption without endangering their safety in the one-party country. “In Thailand, there is a multiparty system, so the Thais can expose wrongdoings,” he said. “But here in Laos, we can’t say anything, even though we know there is a lot of corruption. In Thailand, there is corruption too, but much less so than there is in Laos.” Lao inspectors acknowledged the problem of pervasive corruption and said they, too, are at a loss as to how to address it. One official who said he worked as an inspector in Vientiane for a decade said that he and his colleagues review the finances of government offices and departments but not those of individual officials who are powerful members of the party and the government. “Nobody would dare inspect them,” he said. A woman holds a wad of Lao kip at an open market in Laos, March 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist ‘That’s how it works’ An inspector in Luang Prabang province told RFA that the odds are stacked against the anti-graft campaign. “When we receive an order from the central government to investigate individuals, most of the time the individuals will know this before we do, so that the person can get away with it,” he said. “That’s how it works.” Berlin-based Transparency International 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Laos at 128 of 180 countries in the world. Laos received a score of 30 on a scale of 0-100, on which 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean. Government officials who are caught engaging in graft usually face little or no punishment, officials said. A low-ranking government worker in Saravan province said that an official in his department was disciplined in 2021 for embezzling money from a government development project. “Then he was just transferred to another position, not even fined or…

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Owners facing COVID-19 isolation in Shanghai scramble to save pets from ‘disposal’

Editor08 mins

Residents of Shanghai are banding together to save each other’s pets from being killed as the COVID-19 lockdown in the city drags on, RFA has learned. More than 1,000 listings have been made to an online document listing people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the past few weeks, and are looking for people to take care of their pets while they are in compulsory isolation facilities. “I basically have tested positive … but they haven’t notified me when I will be sent to isolation,” a woman surnamed Wang from Shanghai’s Putuo district wrote on the page on April 12. “I have a five-month-old kitty at home.” Wang was told by her neighborhood committee that her cat would need to be “disposed of,” she told RFA. “I wanted to see if … I could get it sent to a friend’s house, but I don’t know if the neighborhood committee will accept this or not, or whether they will agree to have the cat stay in my home,” she said. “They told me that, strictly speaking, the cat should be disposed of, and that I shouldn’t tell anyone about this,” Wang said. “[They told me] if I can move the cat away, or give it to a friend, before I get sent to isolation, it would be safer [for the cat],” she said. Wang said she was at her wits’ end to know what to do. The mutual assistance page for pet owners suggests she is far from alone. “I’m worried that [will also test] positive, and my pet’s life will be in danger,” another Shanghai resident wrote. “The neighborhood committee won’t allow the cat to leave, should I want to hand it over to a friend.” “If I go into isolation, I fear the consequences of leaving my pet at home will be unimaginable. Please help!” they said. Another wrote: “My family members are all … contacts [of an infected person], and they could all test positive. I’m afraid our dog will be disposed of by the neighborhood committee.” “Please take my dog to a foster home, with dog food, litter tray and toys.” Seeking foster homes The majority of posts were labeled as being from Pudong New District, with hundreds of distraught pet owners requesting help. A volunteer from Shanghai surnamed Lin said she helped to arrange foster homes for three cats. “They are very anxious to send their cats and dogs [to a foster home], but some neighborhood committees won’t help them with that, so they have to figure out what to do by themselves,” Lin said. “Sometimes, volunteers from their community can come to their door [and take the pet] and send it to me,” she said. “It’s very hard for them to send their pets away, because they’re not allowed out themselves.” She said there had been a surge in requests for pet foster homes after a video surfaced on social media showing a corgi being beaten to death by neighborhood committee members with a shovel, amid loud screams from the animal and shocked comments from the person shooting the video. Once pets have been successfully removed from the residential community, then logistics personnel must be hired to deliver them to the foster home, Lin said, which is very expensive. Some pet owners have sent their pets to pet hospitals, but places are hard to secure. An employee who answered the phone at the Sanlin branch of the Shanghai Hanghou Pet Clinic chain said most of the pet hospitals are now full. “We are all full, right now; the hospital is overcrowded,” the employee said. “There have been a couple of cases in Shanghai of pets being killed, this is true.” Shenzhen shelters Meanwhile, authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen have set up two pet shelters, where pets of people sent into isolation are housed for free. There are places available for up to 300 pets, and the facility is the first of its kind in China. Peter Li, head of China affairs at the Humane Society International, said the humane disposal of pets isn’t official policy in Shanghai. “The few cases we have seen in Shanghai are the result of grassroots government workers not following Shanghai government policy,” Li told RFA.  “This failure, in addition to incompetence and lack of empathy, may also be due to the fact that they are handling situations they have never experienced before, resulting in huge psychological pressure.” Li, whose organization is also working to save pets beleaguered by war in Ukraine, called on Chinese officials to formulate policies for pets in the event of an emergency or disaster. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Former Myanmar army officer calls Rohingya crackdown ‘genocide,’ offers to testify

Editor08 mins

Captain Nay Myo Thet served in Myanmar’s military for nearly six years in Rakhine state but defected in December and relocated to an area under the control of anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) forces. 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 around 700,000 across the border. The former transportation officer told RFA’s Myanmar Service in an interview that the military’s clearance operations amounted to “a genocide” and said he is willing testify as a prosecution witness in a case that was brought against the military to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. RFA: Can you first tell us about your background? Nay Myo Thet: I first attended the Pyin-Oo-Lwin Defense Services Academy in 2006. I finished training in 2008 and served with units in the Division 5 and Division 6 areas in Kayin and Kachin states, as well as northern Shan state. I was sent to Rakhine state in 2015 to serve with the No. 233 Infantry Battalion in Buthidaung and was stationed there until I joined the CDM in November 2021. RFA: Can you tell us more about the operations that drove the Rohingya people out of Rakhine State? Nay Myo Thet: I was a captain in the Supply and Transport Battalion in 2015, serving with the No. 1 Border Police Force Strategic Command. A clearance operation was launched for the first time in 2016 following a terror attack in Kyi-Gan-Byin and another one in 2017 after the [Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgent] raid on three Border Police posts in the same area. When we went there the second time, we noticed there was nothing much left behind. The locals had taken away almost everything. RFA: Did the troops really commit the atrocities against the Rohingya people as accused by international rights groups? What’s your take?  Nay Myo Thet: I can tell you only some things I’d learned about the units I served with. There was one officer who wanted to make a search for deadly weapons, like knives, and he asked the girls in the village to go into one room, lined them up and stripped them naked. And then, I heard from one soldier who was talking about his colleague who had raped a Rohingya woman. I cannot remember his name. Another incident I remember was about a young boy being thrown into a well. These incidents happened while I was serving with the No. 233 Infantry. And then, there were incidents that were spread by word of mouth about some soldiers committing brutal acts. Villagers were driven out of their houses and those who ran away were shot to death. Most of the bodies were buried in the fields beside the villages. As you may have seen in the photos, people left their villages in hordes – some carrying elderly people who could not walk in makeshift stretchers. Many who couldn’t cross the border were forced to live in the jungle and mountains. ‘This amounted to a genocide’ All these things should not have happened. Everything that happened was unacceptable. I tried to sound out my colleagues. Most of them had the idea that these people must be driven out – that they could not stay – because the [insurgents] who raided and attacked the police posts were of their same ethnicity. These villagers were giving support to the [insurgents] and they believed there would be no peace unless they were got rid of. These were their views. So, this wasn’t even like an ordinary military operation which would never be so brutal. They just wanted to get rid of the entire community without bothering to find out who [the insurgents that attacked the police posts] were. I agree with the international charges that all of this amounted to a genocide. RFA: What do you think of [deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) leader] Aung San Suu Kyi going to The Hague [in 2019] to defend the military against the charges made in the case brought by The Gambia? Nay Myo Thet: It seems like the military was waiting for a scapegoat, waiting for the NLD to come into power, to defend them because they could have done this [themselves] a long time ago and they didn’t … I think she went there with two goals – to defend the country’s integrity with a nationalist spirit as well as to defend the military. She seemed to feel responsible for the military. But I think it was wrong for her to do that. She shouldn’t have gone there. She wasn’t responsible at all for what happened and she didn’t commit the crimes. The military was responsible [for the crimes] … for creating the division between the [ethnic] Rakhines and the Rohingyas. Even for sowing hatred between the Rakhines and the [majority ethnic] Bamar. If I were to be summoned [to the ICJ], I’d surely go and disclose all I know. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane.

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Emigration inquiries spike in China amid grueling COVID-19 lockdowns, restrictions

Editor012 mins

As a citywide lockdown continued in Shanghai and around 100 cities imposed more limited COVID-19 curbs, immigration consultancies said they are receiving a record number of inquiries from people hoping to get out of China for good. Keyword searches relating to emigration spiked more than 100-fold in recent days, according to publicly available data from the Baidu search engine for the week from March 28 to April 3. Canada, the United States and Australia were the top three countries shown in such searches, with searches for immigration to Canada showing a 28-fold increase compared with the previous week. “The number of immigration consultations has skyrocketed in the past few days,” an employee who answered the phone at the Beijing-based immigration consultancy Qiaowai told RFA on Wednesday.  “We are very busy every day, and waiting times are relatively long, because we don’t have enough consultants.” “This is likely the case for every other company [in the sector],” the employee said. “There are more coming from Shanghai because the pandemic is pretty bad in Shanghai right now.” An employee who answered the phone at the Immigration 11 agency gave a similar response. “There are quite a lot of people inquiring,” the employee said. “I need to hurry up [with this call].” “Is it the pandemic? We’ve had a lot of people consulting us from Shanghai in Guangdong, and also a lot from Beijing,” the employee said. Senior journalist Chen Hongtao said the figures could be an indication that high-ranking officials in the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their families are voting with their feet. “Anyone who has the option to leave may be thinking about how to get out,” Chen said. “Those who work for the regime don’t believe [propaganda], and they have access to a lot more information [than regular people].” “Most middle and working-class people don’t have the wherewithal to get hold of comprehensive information,” he said. “They’re the ones who believe what the little pinks [pro-CCP commentators] tell them.” A woman who identified herself by the pseudonym Zhang Li said she and her friends are in the process of trying to leave China. “I don’t think this is weird at all,” Zhang said. “It’s normal … because the pandemic disease control measures aren’t based on scientific decisions.” “I know a woman, a medical student, who is currently submitting her application to emigrate to the U.S.,” she said. “She plans to study [English] first, then become a nurse.” However, it looks likely that the majority of people will have trouble leaving, in the absence of political clout or existing immigration channels. An employee who answered the phone at the Shanghai police department’s exit and entry administration said the office, which issues passports and exit permits, is currently closed. “You can’t apply for passports, and entry-exit offices are all closed around here because of the pandemic,” the employee said. “There are some cases where on-site review of materials is happening for emergency circumstances, for example, to visit the critically ill overseas, or to go and study overseas,” they said. Meanwhile, residents of Shanghai said they are still struggling to source enough food and other daily necessities, with strict stay-at-home orders still in place across the city. “I went to the neighborhood committee to order food,” a resident surnamed Xu told RFA. “It’s been 20 days, and I still haven’t gotten the rice I ordered. I am out of oil and soy sauce for cooking at home, and I haven’t been able to buy more.” “I have to try to get food sent from online… we have been locked down here since March 8,” she said. A resident of Baoshan district surnamed Zheng said people who test positive are now being “sealed” inside their own apartments or buildings, as isolation and quarantine facilities are full. “If you test positive, the entire building will be sealed off with barbed wire, and nobody will be allowed in or out,” Zheng told RFA. “The disease control people set up a hut outside to guard it.” “Last week, they would take you away in a vehicle immediately if you tested positive,” he said. “That’s not the way they’re doing it now.” A resident of Xuhui district surnamed Liu said the supplies delivered to people’s homes during the lockdown were nowhere near enough to last the entire length of lockdown. “In the first stage, some people had no food,” she said. “In the second stage, Pudong was closed for four days, and then Puxi was closed for another four days, but I didn’t expect the city to be locked down forever.” “They government sent a batch of groceries, but … the food they have distributed was far from enough,” Liu said. A resident surnamed Zhao gave a similar account. “We have been locked down for more than a month, and we had food for four days,” he said. “There’s not enough for such a long time… all the stores are closed.” The Shanghai municipal health commission reported a total of 27,719 newly confirmed cases on Thursday, with rapidly constructed and converted field hospitals and quarantine facilities unable to meet demand for beds. “You can’t get into the Fangcang cabin hospitals, and a lot of people can’t even get an ambulance if they call 120,” Zheng said. “We have no idea how many people have died of COVID-19.” However, reports have also emerged of people being forcibly dragged from their homes to isolation facilities, even with a negative PCR test. One audio recording features a young couple who have tested negative arguing with enforcement personnel. “Our tests were negative,” one person says, while a police officer answers: “The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says you are positive.” “No way,” the person replies. “I have a negative test result. If I go to the cabin hospital I will wind up positive.” The ongoing lockdown comes after CCP leader Xi Jinping urged local governments on Wednesday to stick to his zero-COVID policy, with a slew of reports and commentaries in state media defending the…

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Myanmar’s largest cities empty amid call to boycott Thingyan festivities

Editor010 mins

Yangon and Mandalay were eerily quiet on Wednesday despite the start of the three-day Thingyan holiday in Myanmar, as residents chose to boycott junta-led festivities and heed warnings by armed opposition forces that the cities could become the target of attacks. On the eve of the April 13-16 New Year Water Festival, the main pavilion in front of Yangon’s City Hall — traditionally bustling with revelers on the holiday — was empty. Dozens of police and soldiers were seen guarding the area, and the military blocked off access to the pavilion as well as the mayor’s office. Trucks were seen ferrying people in uniforms to the venue. While the junta has sought to promote this year’s Thingyan as a time to unwind and have fun, members of the public told RFA’s Myanmar Service they have little interest in participating. One resident of Yangon said he would not join celebrations out of respect for those who sacrificed their lives while protesting the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup. “There are many children, young people and adults who have given their lives for the country and for justice. I sympathize with them. I feel sorry for them, and I won’t go out at all,” said the young man, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Also, there have been warnings against participating in the festivities. It’s up to you to take the risks.” A woman from Yangon’s Pazundaung area who gave her name as Rati told RFA she would not attend Thingyan, or any other festivals held under the military regime. One of the few places in Yangon where people congregated on Wednesday was at the city’s holy Shwedagon Pagoda, where religious pilgrims said they hoped to perform good deeds and gain merit during Thingyan, while also praying for those who are in prison or have otherwise suffered under junta rule. Separately, sources told RFA that at least one deliveryman was killed, and others arrested amid heightened security and roadblocks in Yangon. Workers said that three young delivery men from the Food Panda restaurant on Po Sein Road were talking in front of the shop Wednesday morning when junta troops arrived, causing them to panic and flee. They said troops opened fire as the men ran away, killing Hein Htet Naing, while the other two workers, identified as Tin Tun Aung and Kyi Thar, were taken into custody. Other sources said that around eight delivery men were arrested in the city on Wednesday. RFA was not able to independently confirm the incidents. ‘Like a ghost town’ In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, the military tightened security around the Palace Moat, which is traditionally the center of Thingyan celebrations each year, and blocked the entrance to the city’s main pavilion. A resident of Mandalay, who also declined to be named for security reasons, said people “understand the current situation” and would heed the call to boycott the festivities. “Thingyan is a period for us to celebrate. We all know we can only enjoy it once a year. But today, people are all united,” she said. “The city is like a ghost town. No one is celebrating or partying. They obey the requests of the revolutionary forces.” A photo of the Thingyan celebration in Yangon in 2019 shows children spraying water at revelers. Credit: AFP Warnings to the public On Monday, various armed resistance groups told RFA that they had launched a dozen attacks on military-held areas of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon over the weekend as part of a bid to dispel junta claims that the situation in the country had “returned to normal.” Anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups had announced that they plan to launch attacks on the military during Thingyan and warned members of the public to stay away from the brightly colored pandal platforms that the government typically erects as performance stages and water-spraying stations for the holiday. On Tuesday, a body of opposition stakeholders known as the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) called on artists and celebrities to boycott junta-led Thingyan festivities, condemning what it said was a bid by the military regime to make political gains while the nation is embroiled in post-coup violence. In a statement, the NUCC said that authorities are “conducting raids, making arbitrary arrests, and committing murder” around the country, and suggested the junta may take advantage of the festival to “launch more attacks.” “Many, including the urban anti-junta forces and the PDFs, are urging people not to participate in the celebrations sponsored by the junta,” NUCC member Toe Kyaw Hlaing said. “We also condemn the military’s attempt to make political gains, and therefore we have issued this statement in support of both the opposition and the PDFs.” Formed in April last year, the NUCC is one of Myanmar’s most inclusive political dialogue platforms, consisting of a range of stakeholders with varied interests and long-standing grievances. The body includes representatives from Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), the deposed Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CPRH), rights groups, civil society organizations, activist networks, and ethnic parties and armies. Attempts by RFA’s Myanmar Service to contact actors and musicians for comment went mostly unanswered, although well-known singer May Khalar said that she will not be performing at any of this year’s Thingyan pandals. Empty streets in Mandalay on the first day of the Thingyan festival, April 13, 2022. Credit: RFA ‘A cultural tradition’ Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the junta’s deputy minister of information, told RFA on Tuesday that Thingyan festivities will be held “in safe places across the country,” including cities such as Yangon, Mandalay and the capital Naypyidaw. He dismissed the boycott, saying that Thingyan celebrations should not be politicized. “The Thingyan festival is celebrated every year. It has nothing to do with whether you support the government,” he said. “Celebrating Thingyan is a Myanmar cultural tradition. Using threats to stop people from celebrating is an act of terrorism.” Zaw Min Tun noted that armed attacks and bomb blasts had “become more frequent” as Thingyan…

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Hong Kong resident held in southwest China for taking part in protests

Editor09 mins

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese region of Guangxi have detained a resident of Hong Kong for taking part in the city’s pro-democracy protests, RFA has learned. The woman, whose birth name is Tan Qiyuan, but who is widely known by her nickname Nicole, was detained by police in Guangxi’s Liuzhou city in April 2021 when she took a trip to her hometown after many years of living in Hong Kong. Nicole has been incommunicado since April 2, 2021, when she messaged a cousin saying she was flying back to Liuzhou that afternoon. Nicole’s friend, who wanted to be identified only his nickname A Feng, said she was on the way to celebrate her mother’s birthday. He messaged her on April 2, but never got a reply. “I thought she might reply later. I waited and waited but she didn’t reply,” he said. “I started to think something wasn’t right, and she still hasn’t replied to this day and … her phone is switched off.” “She told me she’d be back in Hong Kong by the end of April at the earliest, or maybe in May … she wasn’t going to stay very long in mainland China,” he said. “She knew, and everybody else knew, that it was dangerous.” Activists said little is known of Nicole’s fate, as her family are likely being targeted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s “stability maintenance” teams, which place people under surveillance and prevent them from contacting the outside world in politically sensitive cases. A fellow activist surnamed Duan in the southern city of Shenzhen, who has some knowledge of Nicole’s fate, said the authorities in China have ways to track people arriving across the border. “If you enter the CCP’s jurisdiction with your mobile phone, even if you switch it off, they can track you if you are deemed sensitive,” Duan said. “The CCP also intimidates the relatives and friends of the parties involved, meaning that many of them daren’t speak out,” he said. Hong Kong rights activist Liao Jianhao believes Nicole was detained for her role in recent mass protest movements in Hong Kong. “The whole case is likely about prosecuting her for taking part in the Occupy Central movement of 2014 and the anti-extradition movement of 2019,” he told RFA. Prior to her detention, Nicole was an active citizen journalist, using Twitter to post real-time news about the protests, and resident of Hong Kong, although she was born in Guangxi. Liao said she is currently being held in the Liuzhou Detention Center on charges of “incitement to subvert state power.” “One of her [alleged] crimes was hosting mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong,” he said. “She was also part of the press team and was involved in helping those injured [in clashes with police].” Liao said the authorities may have targeted Nicole in the hope of obtaining the names of mainland Chinese residents who supported the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong. She had earlier taken part in demonstrations in support of the 47 former opposition lawmakers and pro-democracy activists arrested for “subversion” under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing from July 1, 2020. “I took part in a demonstration in Causeway Bay on Sept. 27, 2019, and Nicole gave me first aid when I was hit by a tear gas grenade,” Liao said. “I am very grateful to her.” He said it was illegal under Chinese law to detain someone for a crime committed outside mainland Chinese jurisdiction. “The location was Hong Kong, which has nothing to do with [the authorities] in Liuzhou,” Liao said. “Liuzhou shouldn’t be able to bring a case against Nicole under Chinese law, but everyone knows what kind of country China is.” He said the CCP regards the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement as an attempt by foreign powers to instigate a “color revolution” in the city. “They think it’s a political activity created by hostile factions aimed at overthrowing CCP rule, which is actually pretty absurd,” Liao said. Former Hong Kong University of Science and Technology student Zhu Rui, who was also born in mainland China, said the CCP won’t stop pursuing mainlanders who took part in the Hong Kong protests. “We are facing an unscrupulous and evil regime,” Zhu told RFA. “We have to keep telling ourselves to keep trying to damage the CCP regime for as long as we’re free, because once they catch us, we’ll just be prisoners or hostages.” “Nicole was merely expressing her demands for freedom, democracy and the rule of law peacefully like any other Hongkonger,” Zhu said. “These were freedoms we should have had, but which were taken from us by the CCP.” He said CCP leader Xi Jinping is imposing oppressive controls on Hong Kong along the lines of the oppression of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang. “They’re putting everyone they lay eyes on in jail,” Zhu said. Lydia Wong, a researcher at the Georgetown University Asian Law Center who specializes in Hong Kong, said the Chinese authorities are increasingly keen to pursue dissidents far beyond mainland China, citing the fact that Beijing made Hong Kong National Security Law applicable to anyone of any nationality, anywhere in the world. “You can commit these actions anywhere in the universe, but you can still be arrested wherever police in Hong Kong or mainland China are able to arrest people,” Wong told RFA. “It is entirely plausible that they will use their domestic judicial system to target certain people they think are participating in the anti-China movement in Hong Kong,” she said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Only a few thousand tigers survive in Asia in 2022

Editor04 mins

With the lunar Year of the Tiger well under way, various assessments show that only a few thousand tigers at the most are surviving in South and East Asia. Tigers once ranged from Eastern Turkey and the Caspian Sea to the south of the Tibetan plateau eastward to Manchuria and the Sea of Okhotsk. According to The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), tigers were also found in northern Iran, Afghanistan, the Indus Valley of Pakistan, and the islands of Java and Bali. Today, the Swiss-based WWF says that rampant poaching and unchecked habitat destruction have shrunk the tigers’ range by more than 95 percent. At the beginning of the 20th century, wild tigers are said to have numbered some 100,000. The total number of wild tigers has declined to as few as 3,200, with more than half of them to be found in India. In India, it’s against the law to attempt to kill an endangered tiger except in self-defense or by the special permission granted by a wildlife protection act. Offenders face a minimum of three years in prison unless the tiger was deemed a man-eater by a court. Of the 13 “tiger-range” nations of the world, seven—Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam—are located in Southeast Asia. In 2010, the governments of 13 countries where tigers still roam met for the first time in St. Petersburg. There they committed themselves to a doubling of the population of wild tigers by 2022, the Lunar New Year of the Tiger. Debbie Banks with the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which also has offices in Washington, D.C., says criminal gangs capture wild tigers and sell their bones and pelts, which can be processed into luxury home décor items. The bones are also sometimes used for medicinal purposes despite a lack of scientific evidence that this remedy works as claimed. The largest markets for these items appear to be found in China, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Although the health claims associated with tiger body parts are dubious, the benefits of wild tigers to their surrounding environment are widely accepted by scientists. According to the WWF, wild tigers “play an important role in maintaining the harmony of the planet’s ecosystems.” Tigers prey on “herbivores,” such as cows, deer and sheep, which feed on forest vegetation. They thus help to preserve vegetation that can be consumed by humans. The WWF also notes that tigers are “incredibly adaptable” and “can survive in vastly diverse habitats … under extreme temperatures.” That characteristic gives some cause for optimism. The tenacity of tigers may be enough for the species to avoid extinction, if only humans stop killing them. Dan Southerland is RFA’s founding executive editor.

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US human rights report cites China’s violations in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet

Editor07 mins

China’s abuses targeting Uyghurs, Hongkongers and Tibetans are among some of the worst human rights violations around the world, the U.S. Department of State said Tuesday. “The Chinese government continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs among other minority groups, to erode fundamental freedoms and autonomy in Hong Kong, and to carry out systematic repression in Tibet,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press briefing before the release of the department’s 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The report, which the State Department is required to release each year by law, details the state of human rights and worker rights in 198 countries and territories. The administration of former President Donald Trump officially determined in January 2021 that abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regions (XUAR) amounted to state-sponsored genocide and crimes against humanity. President Biden’s administration has agreed with the designation and has worked with its international allies on measures to hold the Chinese government to account. The 90 pages in the report that are dedicated to China focus on the XUAR and the arbitrary imprisonment of more than 1 million civilians in extrajudicial internment camps and the additional 2 million who are subjected to daytime-only “re-education” training. The report also cited evidence of forced labor, forced sterilizations of women, coerced abortions, more restrictive birth control policies, rape and torture, and draconian restrictions on freedoms of religion and expression. The report cited an Oct. 21, 2021, report by RFA that said more than 170 Uyghurs, including woman and minors, in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) were detained by national security authorities on China’s National Day holiday because they allegedly displaying resistance to the country during flag-raising activities. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, said the State Department’s report is important because it highlights the most urgent crises around the world. “The Uyghur genocide is one of them,” he told RFA. “This reports is important in the sense that it must be used as a reminder that international inaction in the face of Uyghur genocide will lead to the deterioration of human rights around the world.” “The international community must act,” he said. “The Uyghur people have suffered enough in the past five years.”Campaign for Uyghurs also welcomed the human rights report. “Uyghurs are really delighted to see this strong stance to call China out for its crimes of genocide, and standing firmly on the values that ought to be advocated by the United States precisely concerning liberty, respect and freedom for the principles of humanity,” said the organization’s executive director Rushan Abbas in a statement. The report also notes rights violations in Hong Kong, Tibet and other parts of China, includingserious limits on free expression and the media. Journalists, lawyers, writers and bloggers have suffered from physical attacks and criminal prosecution. The U.S. supports human rights by meeting with advocates, journalists and others to document abuses and works with the Treasury Department to apply sanctions and visa restrictions on human rights abusers, Blinken said. It also collects, preserves and analyzes evidence of atrocities. In March, the U.S. government imposed new sanctions against Chinese officials over the repression of Uyghurs in China and elsewhere, prompting an angry response from Beijing and a pledge to respond with sanctions of its own. At the time, Blinken said the U.S. would restrict visas on unnamed individuals he said were involved in repressive acts by China against members of ethnic and religious minority groups inside and outside the country’s borders, including within the U.S. Blinken noted that even though the U.S. has its own human rights shortcomings, the country openly acknowledges them and tries to address them. “Respecting human rights is a fundamental part of upholding the international rules-based order which is crucial to America’s enduring security and prosperity,” he said. “Governments that violate human rights are almost always the same ones that flout other key parts of that order.”

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