Category: South Asia

Public satisfaction with the media in Hong Kong has hit rock bottom, according to a recent public opinion survey. Satisfaction with the performance of the news media in general hit an all-time low since records began in 1993, according to a survey of 1,004 Cantonese-speaking adults carried out by the Hong Kong Public Institute Research Institute (PORI). Meanwhile, satisfaction with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong fell by 23 percentage points … its lowest point since records began after the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, PORI said in a report published on Friday. Just 28 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with the level of press freedom in Hong Kong, a new low since this question was first asked in September 1997, while 51 percent said they were dissatisfied, the highest level since October 2020. In addition, a record 46 percent felt that the Hong Kong news media didn’t make full use of what freedom of speech it did have, while 63 percent said the media held back on criticisms of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while 51 percent said it avoided criticizing the Hong Kong authorities. Senior journalist Chris Yeung said the figures were a reflection of an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under the CCP’s draconian national security law, which has seen several pro-democracy news outlets forced to close and senior journalists arrested under the law. “The trend is obvious,” Yeung told journalists on Friday. “At the very least, it’s very clear that the public believes the media has reservations and self-censors when dealing with matters relating to the central government.” “Many Hong Kong matters now include the point of view of the central government, from the national security law to COVID-19 policy and even the recent [China Eastern] air crash,” Yeung said. “The media are also careful how they handle other news that isn’t ostensibly political, like the case of Peng Shuai,” he said. Yeung said the poll results were “absolutely” related to the closure of a number of media outlets including the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper and Stand News, Yeung said. “Diversity of media voices is an very important element of press freedom,” he said, adding that there is really only room for pro-government voices in the Hong Kong media now. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Following North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch last week, its first since 2017, the country’s media has been lauding it as evidence of Kim Jong Un’s leadership and bravery, sources in the country told RFA. But citizens and soldiers alike are beginning to resent the use of missile launches to praise Kim Jong Un, who is reverently referred to as the “Highest Dignity,” and would rather the government pay more attention to issues like food and supply shortages. Though it was initially believed that North Korea launched the Hwasong-17 ICBM on March 24, South Korean military authorities reported Tuesday that it was in fact the older Hwasong-15. The Hwasong-17 was involved in a failed launch on March 16 and exploded over Pyongyang, they said. “Today, while I was reading the news report in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper app on my smartphone, there was a report saying the Highest Dignity signed an order to launch an ICBM and I was skeptical whether our leader is the right person,” an official of Ryongchon county, in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, told RFA’s Korean Service. “This year, the authorities insist that the food problem should be solved by decisively increasing agricultural production. Cooperative farms are struggling because they do not have fertilizer and other materials that are desperately needed for farming preparations, but the authorities do not provide any funds,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons. He said that the money the government is using for nuclear and missile development could be better used to boost the agricultural sector, but the government keeps launching missiles, so farm officials are angry. In the city of Chongju in the south of the province, government loudspeakers have been broadcasting propaganda about the missile test. “It says the Highest Dignity directly guided the launch of an ICBM that could stand up to a long-term confrontation with the United States,” a resident of the city told RFA. “This is the 13th missile they launched this year alone. They are acting like kids playing war games. Is this something we should be proud of? “The authorities’ propagandize that the launch of the ICBM was carried by the handwritten order of the Highest Dignity, which said to ‘launch bravely for the great dignity and honor of the country and people’. The residents find it absurd … expressing anger at authorities who turn a blind eye to their livelihoods,” the second source said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Soldiers in the military also see through the propaganda, griping that authorities are telling to sacrifice their lives for the nation, just as the soldiers who launched the missile are somehow sacrificing themselves to fulfill the orders of Kim Jong Un. The soldiers and officers have been attending daily “mental education classes” where they learn that the Red Flag Company, which launched the ICBM, are elite fighters who follow through on Kim Jong Un’s orders. “The ideological education emphasizes that the Red Flag Company is a family that shares joy and suffering with the Supreme Leader. They say the Red Flag Company are dedicating themselves to defending him,” the military source said. “They are told the Red Flag Company are warriors prepared to sacrifice their lives for the Supreme Commander by following the spirit of defending the leader. “However, the soldiers who listened to the instructor’s lecture continued to have expressionless faces as if they did not know what they were willing to sacrifice their lives for. The soldiers griped about the military authorities, who were forcing them to listen to this propaganda when they needed time to rest after their grueling winter training,” the third source said. Another military source, in North Pyongan, told RFA that the officers there are not buying the propaganda. “They know that another intercontinental ballistic missile launch failed on the 16th, so they are wondering how much money was wasted again for this launch,” the fourth source said. “Rather than focusing on the development of missiles, officers believe that it is urgent for the authorities to improve the poor supply situation in order to increase the morale of the soldiers. This would also increase the actual combat power of the military,” he said. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Police in China’s far-western Xinjiang region ranked first in the country in 2021 for solving all homicide cases, while the region’s High People’s Court was hailed as a model for concluding the greatest number of cases last year, according to a Chinese state media report that prompted political and legal analysts outside the country to raise questions about the results. Xinjiang’s Public Security Bureau achieved a 100% resolution rate in current murder cases for six consecutive years, ranking first in the country, while the region’s High People’s Court handled 17,600 cases related to people’s livelihoods in 2021, the highest number in all of China, said the March 25 report by the China News Service in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), Xinjiang’s capital. “For six consecutive years, the police detection of number of homicides in Xinjiang has increased to 100%, with the number of homicides in Xinjiang falling to its lowest level in history, with the highest number of homicides detected in the history,” the report said. The Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (PSB) has in recent years launched a mechanism of average people “collectively assisting the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region [XUAR] public security bureau’s criminal investigation team in investigating major cases,” it said. The report also stated that the PSB had implemented a “one file per case” standard, and through gathering complete past records of crimes, were able to find murderers from cases dating back 20 years. Xinjiang police have been using a “one tactic per person, one plan per person, one measure per person” system for detecting criminals by using advanced technology and information, and identifying and analyzing suspicious activities, the report said. Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a political analyst based in U.S., said that such Chinese reports are unreliable because the Chinese police’s handling of cases is “completely obscure.” “We cannot just trust the numbers provided by the Chinese government in their reports,” he told RFA. “This is always the case because Chinese police statistics or figures are unreliable.” “Second, they don’t disclose their records,” said Kokbore, who is also vice chairman of the Executive Committee of the World Uyghur Congress. “They always keep it all the evidence undisclosed. No one can question the credibility of their findings or evidence. To sum up they detect their cases in the dark, not in the open.” Chinese human rights activist and lawyer Teng Biao said that while the Chinese police in Xinjiang did not disclose the number of cases they have detected, the fact that they ranked first in the country is concerning. “[Xinjiang police] saying that in six years they have raised the case clearance rate to 100% and reduced the crime rate to its historic low has a scary reality behind it,” he told RFA. Setting up internment camps and installing high-tech surveillance cameras everywhere has helped in authorities’ efforts to expose “crimes” and to reduce the crime rate, Teng said. “In the Chinese judiciary, on the other hand, the power of the police is greater than the power of the judge and the prosecutor,” he said. “If the police suspect someone, the judge and prosecutor will also convict him.” Teng noted that the Xinjiang police were able to report a 100% case clearance rate and rank first in China because police routinely use torture to obtain confessions, which then are included in court verdicts. “In China, the law enforcement agencies have a lot of power, the judiciary is not independent, and there are a lot of wrongdoing and murder cases that have been suppressed because of the lack of freedom of the press,” Teng said. ‘Justice in today’s world’ Speaking about the Xinjiang High People’s Court’s achievement, Teng told RFA that judicial standards should be fair, and pursuing speedy outcomes should not be priority. “Chasing speed is a sign that China has turned its own judicial system into something else. It is incompatible with the idea of justice in today’s world,” he said. Officials have conducted a major shakeup of judges and prosecutors who work in the Xinjiang judiciary, according to a March 28 report by the Bingtuan News Network, run by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). A state-owned economic and paramilitary organization, the XPCC, also known as the Bingtuan, has been sanctioned by the U.S. for its involvement in human rights violations against Uyghurs. On Monday, the Standing Committee of the XUAR’s People’s Congress issued a list of more than 120 officials who have been dismissed or appointed to serve in the region’s courts. Experts say that it is rare for so many judges and prosecutors to be replaced in Xinjiang at the same time, but that the Chinese government is likely refreshing the judiciary and prosecutors as it prepares for an upcoming visit by a U.N. delegation led by Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, to Xinjiang. Bachelet announced earlier in March that she had reached an agreement with the Chinese government for a visit “foreseen to take place in May” to China, including the turbulent Xinjiang region. Her office is under pressure from rights activists to issue an overdue report on serious rights violations by Chinese authorities targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the XUAR. Up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others have been held in a vast network of internment camps operated by the Chinese government under the pretext of preventing religious extremism and terrorism among the mostly Muslim groups. “In preparation for the U.N. rights chief visit in the region, the Chinese government may have removed the politically unreliable judges and prosecutors and replaced them with judges and prosecutors loyal to the Chinese Communist Party,” Teng said. Reported and Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

A Tibetan man set himself on fire near a police station in a Tibetan region of northwestern China’s Qinghai province and was immediately taken away by authorities with no word on his condition, sources in India said Thursday, a day after the incident. The man, known only as Tsering Samdup, or Tsering, self-immolated on Wednesday afternoon in front of a Chinese police station near a Buddhist monastery in Kyegudo (in Chinese, Jiegu), in Yushul (Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai, a Tibetan exile source in India told RFA’s Tibetan Service. “The Tibetan who self-immolated is a very well-educated person. He was immediately taken away by the Chinese police and no one is allowed to meet or inquire about the self-immolator,” the source told RFA. “There are no particular restrictions in place in Kyegudo at the moment by the Chinese authorities, in order to present a very normal ambience,” the source added. A report by the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India, confirmed the time and place of the incident, but added: “verifiable information on the name and background detail of the self-immolator is not available.” With Wednesday’s incident, 159 Tibetans are confirmed to have set themselves on fire since 2009, mostly to protest Chinese rule in Tibetan areas, and another eight have taken their lives in Nepal and India, home to large exile populations. The previous known self-immolation took place on Feb. 25, when popular contemporary singer Tsewang Norbu, 25, shouted slogans and set himself on fire in a protest in front of the iconic Potala Palace in the Tibet regional capital Lhasa. Tsering’s attempt is the first one in Yushul since a spate of six self-immolations by men aged 22 to 62 in 2012. A region of nomads and monasteries that was part of Tibet’s traditional Kham province, Yushul lies at an altitude of 3,700 m (12,100 ft) in the mountainous eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule over what was an independent nation until China’s invasion in 1950 have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. High-technology controls on phone and online communications in Tibetan areas often prevent news of Tibetan protests and arrests from reaching the outside world, and sharing news of self-immolations outside China can lead to jail sentences. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the Himalayan region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.