• contact@ij-reportika.com
Ij reportika Logo

Category: South Asia

More than 130 journalists arrested in Myanmar, media group says

Editor07 mins

A total of 135 journalists have been arrested in Myanmar since the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup that overthrew civilian rule in that country, according to a local press freedoms group. Among those arrested, 109 were men and 26 were women, while three other journalists were killed in the course of their work, said Han Zaw, a spokesman for Detained Journalists Information Myanmar, speaking to RFA. “Right now, 55 journalists — 42 men and 13 women — are being held in detention, 22 of whom have now been convicted, and another six were given jail sentences in March,” Han Zaw said. The detentions and arrests of journalists in Myanmar are still ongoing, he added. Jailed in March were Han Thar Nyein, managing editor of Kamaryut Media; Than Htkine Aung, editor of Mizzima News; Neyin Chan Wai, a correspondent for the Bago Weekly Journal; Aung Zaw Zaw, editor-in-chief of the Mandalay Free Press; Ye Yint Tun, a correspondent for the Myanmar Herald; and freelance journalist Naung Yoe. All were charged with defamation and obstruction of the country’s military and were given sentences ranging from one-and-a-half years to 11 years in jail, with Han Thar Thein also charged with violations of Myanmar’s Electronic Communications Act. Conditions in Myanmar are now unsafe for journalists working for independent media groups, said veteran reporter Myint Kyaw, speaking to RFA from Myanmar’s commercial center and former capital Yangon. “There have been cases of torture,” Myint Kyaw said. “Not for everyone arrested, but there have been victims, and Myanmar has the second highest number of arrests after China, which means the second largest number of journalists arrested around the world,” he said. “It’s dangerous now to work for independent media, and it’s dangerous to report on any of the incidents now happening in the ongoing conflict,” he said. Veteran lawyer Khin Maung Myint told RFA that journalists arrested before June 2021 were charged only with defamation. But since June 30, charges under anti-terrorism and explosives statutes that allow for as long as 20 years have also been added, he said. And though most of the journalists arrested were able to prove in court that they were simply carrying out their professional work when detained, none were released following their conviction at trial, he said. ‘Enemies of the country’ Speaking to RFA, junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said however that no journalists were arrested in Myanmar for doing their work but only for instigating violence. “On Armed Forces Day [March 27], more than 40 local media outlets and 26 local reporters working for overseas media attended the event, and they were able to work and write freely. Even RFA has reporters in Myanmar,” Zaw Min Tun said. “If a journalist is doing the work of a journalist, we have no reason to arrest him. But if a journalist commits crimes and incites others to violence, we will arrest him not as a journalist but as a supporter of terrorism and a source of false news,” he said. Also speaking to RFA, Aung Kyaw — a senior correspondent for the Democratic Voice of Burma who was arrested and released in March last year — said that Myanmar’s military members hate the journalists held in interrogation camps and treat them as enemies of the country. “While I was being questioned, they would read news reports, and if they found something they didn’t like, they’d hit me and torture me, even though those reports were published by other media,” he said. “I told them that we were not a foreign news agency, that our news agency was officially registered in Myanmar, that we paid taxes to the country, and that we were paid only in kyats, not in dollars. But they wouldn’t listen.” Soe Ya, editor-in-chief of the Delta News Agency, said that journalists are now fleeing Myanmar due to junta suppression, causing a loss of human resources in the country’s media. “Many journalists are leaving and moving to other countries to pursue their livelihood and because of the lack of security in Myanmar,” he said. “Our media world is now suffering a big loss because experienced people have to leave, as they cannot continue to survive in the present situation.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Read More

Philippine, Chinese foreign ministers hold talks amid South China Sea tensions

Editor04 mins

The top diplomats of the Philippines and China met over the weekend in a Chinese district and exchanged views on the South China Sea, Beijing said, amid fresh accusations from Manila over alleged Chinese aggression in the disputed waterway. Filipino Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi held talks on Sunday in Tunxi, Anhui province, days after Manila and Washington launched one of their biggest joint military exercises in years that observers described as a show of force. “On April 3, 2022, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with visiting Philippine Foreign Minister Teodoro Locsin in Tunxi, Anhui province,” said a statement on the meeting posted on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website. The two sides believe “that maritime issues should be put in a proper place in bilateral relations,” the statement added, without giving details. Also without naming any nations or parties, Wang said Manila and Beijing “should eliminate interference, and calmly and properly manage differences, so as to prevent the overall China-Philippines relations from being affected.” Wang added that China was willing to fast track key infrastructure projects in the Philippines and continue providing COVID-19 vaccine assistance, the Chinese foreign ministry statement said. Attempts by the RFA-affiliated Benar News service to contact Locsin’s office for comment on the meeting went unanswered Monday. The talks came amid this year’s joint Balikatan military exercises between the Philippines and the United States that involve about 9,000 troops from both sides. The exercises in the Philippines will go till April 8. Wang and Locsin’s meeting comes after the Philippines in late March lodged a new diplomatic protest against China alleging that a Chinese coast guard ship maneuvered dangerously close to a Filipino vessel in the contested Scarborough Shoal earlier last month. China’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, insisted that it was within its rights when its ship allegedly engaged in what the Philippine Coast Guard described as “close distance maneuvering” in South China Sea waters. China’s envoy to Manila, Huang Xilian, did not say whether the issue of the Chinese coast guard ship was discussed at Sunday’s talks, but noted that the meeting of the two nations’ top diplomats produced “fruitful results.” “The talks included China’s reaffirmation of its priority neighborhood diplomacy with the Philippines, the maintenance of amicable policies for continued and stable bilateral relations, and the peaceful and proper resolution of differences,” Huang said. “China also reiterated its readiness to streamline key infrastructure projects’ construction with the Philippines.”

Read More

North Korea tries to cover up failed ICBM launch

Editor010 mins

North Korea is attempting to discredit reports of a failed intercontinental ballistic missile launch, dismissing the accounts as hearsay even though many people in Pyongyang saw the rocket explode over the city, sources in the capital told RFA. North Korean media reported on March 24 that it successfully completed tests of the new Hwasong-17 ICBM, attributing its success to leader Kim Jong Un’s bravery. South Korean military authorities, however, reported Tuesday that the Hwasong-17 was involved in an earlier failed test launch on March 16. The March 24 launch was actually the older Hwasong-15 missile, they said. The North Korean government is now denying “rumors” of loud sounds and flashes that could be heard and seen over Pyongyang on March 16. “I have heard on various occasions through meetings and gatherings that there have been baseless rumors circulating about missile explosions. These rumors undermine the defense technology of our republic,” a Pyongyang city official told RFA’s Korean Service March 30. “There is an emphasis from higher ups that we should not believe or get involved in these false rumors spread by hostile forces, and evil people who hold a grudge against our way of life,” said the official, who requested anonymity for security reasons. The official admitted that the so-called rumors were in fact true. “On the morning of March 16th, people in the districts of Sunan, Hyongjesan and Ryongsong heard a loud roar that seemed to pierce the sky and a ‘bang’ sound and witnessed pieces of debris falling and smoking,” he said. “I heard from a friend in the same department who has a house in Sunan … that his wife went outside to hang clothes and heard a big airplane passing by and heard a ‘bang.’ After a while, she saw small pieces of shards falling nearby while smoking,” the official said. The official said that others in Ryongsong and Hyongjesan districts saw similar events unfold. “I even heard from a friend who lives in Ryongsong district that two people in Chungi-dong were struck by large pieces of debris falling,” he said. “About a week after these testimonies, there was a report that the launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile ‘Hwasong-17’ on March 24th was a great success under the direct guidance of Kim Jong Un,” said the official. Pyongyang has not only been trying to pass off the launch on the 24th as the Hwasong-17, it is also trying to use the event to lionize Kim. “People say that Kim Jong Un seems like an actor in a well-produced music video on the TV reports he appears in. The missile launch failed, but I don’t understand the government’s effort to hide it,” he said. North Korea has sent agents into the provinces for damage control, a resident of South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA. “Last week, an executive appeared at the morning assembly at my company, saying there were rumors that a missile launch failed. He emphasized that we were not to believe the false rumors spread by evil forces intent on internally breaking us down,” said the resident, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “But people are acknowledging the missile explosion as a fact. In Pyongyang as well as here, people saw flashing lights and smoke from the sky, and small fragments of debris fell here and there,” she said. The resident said others, including her cousin who lives in another South Pyongan town, saw flashing lights and heard bangs in the sky. “Although the incident has been witnessed by many, the authorities are dismissing it as a rumor spread by evildoers. There are many citizens who directly witnessed the explosion in the air, but I don’t know what the authorities are afraid of that they would hide the truth,” she said. More sanctions The U.S. Treasury Department Friday sanctioned five North Korean entities for their involvement in ballistic missile development programs in violation of several United Nations Security Council resolutions. In a statement, the Treasury Department said the sanctions target a North Korean organization that conducts research and development of weapons of mass destruction and four of its revenue-generating subsidiaries. “The DPRK’s provocative ballistic missile tests represent a clear threat to regional and global security and are in blatant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in the statement. “The United States is committed to using our sanctions authorities to respond to the DPRK’s continued development of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. I also commend Japan for their actions today against the DPRK, and stand ready to continue to work together to counter the DPRK’s continued threatening behavior,” she said. Analysts applauded the move. “It’s a positive sign, in that the U.S. is taking action against North Korea’s weapons development and testing,” Soo Kim of the RAND Corporation told RFA. “But I would underscore that the latest designations are subsidiaries of organizations that should probably have been designated. So it’s unclear whether this will have teeth in terms of impact,” she said.  Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation, a group that promotes free enterprise and limited government, that there are any remaining North Korean entities to sanction, given its long and expansive history of violations of U.N. resolutions and U.S. laws. “It raises the question as to why Washington chose not to [sanction them] until now and how many other North Korean and other country entities the US could sanction but has not done so,” Klingner told RFA. “Each U.S. administration has claimed to be tough on North Korea and other violators but chose not to fully enforce U.S. laws. Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ was never maximum. Indeed, he announced he was not sanctioning 300 North Korean entities and 12 Chinese banks that had violated US laws. Sanctions, like diplomacy, are a tool that should be used in conjunction with other tools of international power,” he said.  Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Read More

81-year-old Tibet man dies after self-immolation protest at Kirti Monastery

Editor05 mins

An 81-year-old Tibetan man has died after a self-immolation protest over Chinese rule, setting himself on fire last week at a police station in front of a major monastery in the western Chinese province of Sichuan, a source from the monastery’s branch in India told RFA late Saturday. The burning death on March 27 of a man identified as Taphun raises to 160 the number of Tibetans confirmed to have set themselves on fire since 2009, nearly all to protest Chinese rule in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, as well as historically Tibetan areas of Sichuan and Qinghai provinces. “On the 27th of March, around 5 o’clock in the morning, 81-year-old Taphun self-immolated in front of a police station near Kirti Monastery in a protest against the Chinese government’s oppression,” said Kanyak Tsering, a spokesman at the monastery’s branch in Dharamsala, India, home to the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama. “He was immediately taken away by the Chinese police. Though it’s been a few days since we learned about this incident, now it is confirmed that he has passed away,” the spokesman told RFA’s Tibetan Service. The 550-year-old Kirti Monastery lies in Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, part of what was formerly the Amdo region of Tibet before it was absorbed by China. “The place where Taphun self-immolated is in front of the police station that is right outside Kirti Monastery’s entrance,” said Tsering. “March is usually a very sensitive month for Tibetans and we have often seen many Tibetans in Ngaba self-immolate in the past,” the exile Kirti spokesman noted. “There are more restrictions and police presence around this time than usual and Tibetans are often arbitrarily interrogated by the Chinese police,” he added. March 10 is Tibetan Uprising Day, the date in 1959 of a failed armed rebellion against Chinese rule that resulted in a violent crackdown on Tibetans that drove the Dalai Lama across the Himalayas into exile in India. Although disclosed on April 2, the Kirti incident took place three days before the most recent known self-immolation–that of a man, known only as Tsering, who set himself ablaze in front of a Chinese police station near a Buddhist monastery in Kyegudo (in Chinese, Jiegu), in Yushul (Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai. His fate and other details remain unknown. 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 has led 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.

Read More

Family of slain Rohingya leader leaves Bangladesh for Canada

Editor08 mins

Canada has agreed to give refuge to 11 family members of a Rohingya rights activist who was gunned down at a refugee camp in Bangladesh last September, officials in Dhaka and a human rights group said Friday. Nasima Khatun, the widow of Muhib Ullah, their nine children and the husband of one of their daughters departed the South Asian country on a flight from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Thursday night, human rights advocate Nur Khan Liton confirmed to BenarNews. “They are scheduled to arrive in Canada by Saturday,” Liton said. “They left with the aim of having a safe life.” On Friday, Bangladesh foreign ministry official Miah Md. Mainul Kabir credited the Canadian government for accepting Ullah’s survivors. “The government of Bangladesh gave more importance to the Canadian government’s interest in this regard than the application of Muhib Ullah’s family,” he told BenarNews. “As a shelter-providing country, Canada has done everything needed,” Mainul Kabir said, adding that Canada was the only country offering to shelter the family. Thursday’s flight was out of the ordinary, he said, because groups that large normally are sent to another country in phases. ‘Serious fear for their security’ In October, an immigration and refugee affairs analyst said it was not unusual for Bangladesh to send Rohingya to a third country in the past. More than 900 Rohingya were sent to countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Sweden in 2009 and 2010, said Asif Munir, a former official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This transfer is different because Ullah’s family left the country over a “serious fear for their security,” said Liton, general secretary of Ain-O-Salish Kendra (ASK), a local human rights organization. The IOM, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, and Canadian High Commission had arranged the family’s exit from Bangladesh, he said. Gunmen killed Ullah, chairman of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), in his office at the Kutupalong refugee camp in southeastern Cox’s Bazar district on Sept. 29, 2021.  Last month, Bangladeshi police said four of 15 people arrested over alleged ties to the killing had confessed to their roles in it and that those in custody said they belonged to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Rohingya insurgent group. “UNHCR does not comment on individual cases,” Mostafa Mohammad Sazzad Hossain, an official at the U.N. agency’s office in Dhaka, told BenarNews. In addition, IOM and Canadian officials did not immediately respond to separate requests for comment. Before leaving the country, the family asked Bangladesh officials to reopen the recently closed Myanmar curriculum school established by Ullah, Liton said. About 1 million Rohingya, including 740,000 who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state following a military crackdown in 2017, have settled in refugee camps in and around Cox’s Bazar, close to the border with Rakhine. Nasima Khatun, the widow of Rohingya activist Muhib Ullah, speaks to reporters at her home in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Sept. 30, 2021. Credit: BenarNews In his role as ARSPH chairman, Ullah had represented the stateless Rohingya community before the United Nations and at the White House in Washington, where he expressed concerns about his fellow refugees to then-President Donald Trump in 2019. Two weeks after Ullah was killed, Bangladesh authorities cited security concerns when they moved his family to an undisclosed location. Police also moved the families of 10 other ARSPH leaders. At the time, Md. Rashid Ullah, ARSPH spokesman and Ullah’s nephew, told BenarNews that those families wanted to leave Bangladesh over their own safety concerns. Millions of dollars for Rohingya Ullah’s family left Bangladesh days after American Ambassador Peter Haas announced on March 29 that the United States was providing U.S. $152 million (13 billion taka) in new humanitarian assistance for the Rohingya and their host communities in Bangladesh. Haas made the announcement after his first visit to Cox’s Bazar earlier in the week, according to a news release from the U.S. Embassy. “This brings the total we’ve provided since August 2017 to $1.7 billion (145.5 billion taka),” Haas said in the news release. “Of this new funding, $125 million (10.7 billion taka) is for programs inside Bangladesh – for Rohingya refugees and affected Bangladeshi communities,” it said. In Fiscal Year 2021 alone, the U.S. government reported spending nearly $302 million (25.9 billion taka) in support of humanitarian assistance programs for Rohingya sheltering in Bangladesh. Also this week, UNHCR launched a 2022 Joint Response Plan to raise more than $881 million (75.7 billion taka) to assist Rohingya. The funding is to support more than 918,000 Rohingya and about 540,000 Bangladeshis in neighboring communities, a UNHCR press release said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Read More

How Russia’s disinformation on Ukraine is spreading to democratic Taiwan, via China

Editor011 mins

Russian and Chinese disinformation about Ukraine, which is ideologically linked to ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda on Taiwan, is breaking through into online discourse on the democratic island, a fact-checking organization based there has said. According to Taiwan’s Information Operations Research Group (IORG), which seeks to “counter authoritarian expansion with scientific research and grassroots organization,” tens of millions of social media posts, articles, videos and comments have deluged the Chinese-language internet since Russian troops began massing on the Ukrainian border in November 2021. Among the CCP narratives, which are often straight echoes of the Kremlin’s own, are the idea that the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is similar to that of an ex-husband and wife, that the war was made inevitable by NATO’s eastward expansions, and that the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion is responsible both for mass murder in Ukraine, and for violently supporting Hong Kong independence. Far-right Ukrainians were spotted at the Hong Kong protest movement of 2019, which also won vocal support from ultra-conservative politicians in the U.S., and were outed on social media by protesters at the time, the majority of whom didn’t welcome their presence in Hong Kong. Other Chinese-language, pro-Russian takes on the Russian invasion include the idea that Ukraine is to Russia what Texas is to the United States, that Ukraine has engaged in a “de-Russification” program that disregards the rights of Russians in the country, and the slogan “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.” These narratives have been recurring in both simplified Chinese from China and traditional Chinese from Taiwan and Hong Kong across Facebook, LINE and Weibo, and represent a large-scale information offensive, IORG codirector Yu Chih-hao told The Reporter. One of the sources for the neo-Nazi claim was traced by IORG and RFA’s partner, The Reporter, to a Nov. 13 post in simplified Chinese posted to the Chinese International Facebook page. The post cited state media Russia Today (RT). A similar article appeared on the Russian news agency Sputnik, which has 11.62 million followers on China’s Weibo platform. By Nov. 15, 2021, the nationalist Global Times was accusing the Ukrainian government of “flirting” with nationalist militants and fascist groups, with the narrative spreading like wildfire through content farms and Facebook pages in the month that followed. A man collects pictures from a school hit by Russian rockets in the southern Ukraine village of Zelenyi Hai between Kherson and Mykolaiv, less than 5 km (3 miles) from the front line, April 1, 2022. Credit: AFP Hong Kong, too In Hong Kong, the CCP-backed Wen Wei Po took up the theme, reporting: “Ukrainian neo-Nazis have extended their black hand to other countries and regions, including participating in the [2019 protest movement] in Hong Kong two years ago,” claiming that they were working with “Hong Kong separatists.” Calls for independence for Hong Kong surfaced relatively late during the protest movement, which began as a mass movement opposing extradition to mainland China, and broadened to include calls for fully democratic elections and official accountability. They were later outlawed under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020. There were also parallels between Russia’s claim on Ukraine, using neo-fascism as an excuse, and the CCP’s threat of military invasion of Taiwan, given the Taiwan authorities’ vocal support for the Hong Kong protests movement. According to You, this oversimplification and and exaggeration of the power and influence of the Azov battalion is deliberate, because it is preparing the ground for a future invasion of Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China. The saying “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow,” is also all over the Taiwanese internet, and is designed to give an air of inevitability both to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and to a putative Chinese invasion of Taiwan, IORG said. Summer Chen, editor-in-chief of the Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC), said the war has once more highlighted Taiwan’s vulnerability to information warfare. She cited a Sputnik News Agency report on Feb. 26 claiming that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had fled Kyiv, which appeared on a number of mainstream Taiwanese media sites. While the article was based on “unconfirmed reports,” the headlines about Zelenskyy’s “escape” from Kyiv gave the impression of legitimacy. Chen said Taiwanese media are particularly vulnerable to manipulation on Ukraine, as they lack their own sources of information on the ground, and rely too easily on Russian media for news of the war. Lu Sibin, a researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the same content is also widely circulating in Chinese state media. “This is a phenomenon that hasn’t happened before,” Lu told RFA. “Not many people are aware of the extent to which Russian media content is being reused and disseminated in Chinese.” “Everyone thinks it’s only there to improve the performance targets of Russian officials.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during his first visit to China since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February, at their meeting in Huangshan in China’s Anhui province, March 30, 2022. Credit: China Central Television (CCTV) via AFPTV. Language facilitates fake news flow A survey of Chinese reports on Ukraine published during the past four month, carried out by IORG and The Reporter, found at least 400 articles that directly cited Russian state media as the main source of information. The majority covered Zelenskyy’s now-debunked “flight from Kyiv,” the erroneous claim that Russia now controls Ukrainian airspace, and disinformation that the U.S. secretly helped Ukraine develop biochemical weapons at a network of laboratories. The ready availability of such content in Chinese makes it that much easier for these items of fake news to penetrate websites in democratic Taiwan, You said. Senior journalists in Taiwan who spoke anonymously to The Reporter and RFA said they are typically expected to write up international news reports under extreme time pressure, and rely on quoting agency reports while attributing them to their source, with no time or resources to perform an independent…

Read More

Press freedom in Hong Kong gets lowest marks from public since handover to China

Editor14 mins

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.

Read More

Italian university probes Chinese professor who singled out student from Taiwan

Editor09 mins

A university in Italy is investigating allegations of bullying by a Chinese lecturer following a classroom dispute about the status of Taiwan, local media reported. Complaints were made after Politecnico di Milano architecture lecturer and Chinese national Chen Zhen admonished a student from the democratic island of Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China, for failing to register as “Chinese.” “I will talk something to Wang, but this is nothing related to the other two Iranian students, so I’m going to speak in Chinese with him, OK?” Chen is seen saying in English at the start of a video clip that he initially posted to his own account on the Chinese social media account WeChat. The clip was later picked up by Australia-based asylum-seeker Wang Lebao and amplified on Twitter. Chen continues in Chinese: “So, Wang, it’s not about your thesis. This has nothing to do with the other two students, so I’m going to say this in Chinese … I gave everyone a thesis template, asking them to fill out which city and which country they’re from. You wrote Taipei, Taiwan.” “The first thing I want to say is, the whole European Union, including Italy, sees Taiwan as a part of China,” he said. “You should know that not a single EU government, nor many others, officially recognizes Taiwan as a country.” “Your government may like to play word games to fool the people, but they’ve never amended the constitution,” he said. Taiwan was part of Japanese territory for the first half of the 20th century, before being handed over the 1911 Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek at the end of World War II. The islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu are still governed as a sovereign state under its constitution. Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy. Credit: Politecnico di Milano ‘Unification’ widely rejected Recent opinion polls have shown that the majority of its 23 million population don’t identify as Chinese, and have no wish to be governed by Beijing, which has threatened to annex Taiwan by military force to achieve its idea of “unification.” The “paternalistic and aggressive tone” of Chen’s comments prompted the university investigate, the Today.it news website reported. Taiwan’s foreign affairs ministry condemned the treatment of Wang as “an abuse of power,” and said it had asked its representative office in Italy to follow up on the matter. University rector Ferruccio Resta confirmed to the office that the university’s disciplinary committee has begun an investigation into the incident to determine whether Chen’s actions had violated the school’s code of ethics and conduct. Lee Hsin-ying, Taiwan’s representative in Italy, told Taiwanese students in the country that what had happened was “very wrong,” and a bid to quash any sense of national identity among them. Article 2 of the code requires the university to “prevent and combat all kinds of discrimination, both direct and indirect,” banning words, actions and procedures that discriminates against people based on gender, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, religion, personal or political views, abilities, social background or age,” the website said. “The Polytechnic should consider it of primary importance not to allow the promotion of the Chinese Communist Party’s world view or propaganda in an Italian university,” the Today.it website said in the commentary article. “Pending further developments, we ask ourselves: will this lecturer continue to teach at the university, and promote [CCP leader] Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era?” the article said. Chinese ‘bullying’ blasted Italian politicians also hit out at the incident, saying it was “bullying.” “The Polytechnic of Milan should suspend this teacher should suspend this teacher who attacks and bullies a Taiwanese student by imposing on him a geopolitical lesson using the worst of Chinese propaganda-speak,” Gianni Vernetti, a former senator and deputy minister from the center-left Democratic Party, said via his Twitter account. And far-right Brothers of Italy senator Lucio Malan accused Chen of trying to “re-educate” the Taiwanese student, saying he would demand an explanation from the relevant government minister. Milan’s il Giornale newspaper also weighed in with an editorial on Monday noting that Taiwan still has formal diplomatic ties with the Vatican, and is for all practical purposes a sovereign state. The row came after the 59th Bologna Children’s Book Fair succumbed to pressure from the Chinese government to change the country of origin of Taiwanese artist Pei-Hsin Cho to “Taiwan, China.” Taiwan’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou condemned the move, and accused China of trying to smear the island for political reasons. Cho had been holding a solo exhibition at the book fair after winning an award there last year. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan reiterates that Taiwan is a sovereign state of the Republic of China and is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China,” Ou said. “The Chinese government has never ruled Taiwan for a day, and naturally has no right to claim to represent Taiwan in the international arena or to devalue the name of the country used by the people of Taiwan to participate in activities.” “Taiwan and Italy share universal values such as democracy, freedom, and human rights; Taiwan solemnly calls on relevant Italian departments to show courage and reject China’s inappropriate bullying,” she said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Read More

With an eye on China, Japan plans 2 + 2 talks with Philippines, India

Editor06 mins

Japan plans to hold so-called “two-plus-two” meetings with the Philippines and India to discuss maritime security including in the South China Sea, a move analysts say could send a message to Beijing about Tokyo’s determination to foster ties with like-minded partners. “Two-plus-two” are ministerial-level meetings that involve both foreign and defense ministers of participating countries. Unnamed diplomatic sources were quoted by Kyodo News Agency as saying that arrangements are being made for Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi to meet with their Philippine counterparts in early April, and their Indian counterparts in mid-April in Tokyo. China’s growing maritime assertiveness is expected to be high on the agenda, and ministers are expected to renew their pledge to promote a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region. Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana are expected to travel to Tokyo for the talks. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to RFA that Japan and the Philippines are considering the launch of a two-plus-two meeting but maintained that “the timing has not been decided yet.” Neither the Philippine nor Indian foreign ministries responded to requests for comment. The talks are being planned amid a complex geopolitical backdrop. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, said Friday that he would meet with his “friend” Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss territorial disputes in the South China Sea on April 8. Duterte has had limited success in forging a more cooperative relationship with Beijing during his six-year term which ends in June. China and the Philippines are both claimants in the South China Sea alongside four other parties: Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. Beijing holds the most expansive claim. While Japan is not a claimant, it is a strategic rival of China, and the two powers have competing claims in the East China Sea. Huynh Tam Sang, an analyst at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Vietnam, said Tokyo’s plans for the two-plus-two talks “could send a nuanced message to Beijing about Japan’s determination to foster security ties with like-minded partners.” “If Japan could bring the Philippines and India on board for maritime deterrence, it will be a big deal,” said Sang. The Philippines filed a diplomatic protest this week over a Chinese Coast Guard vessel’s dangerous “maneuvering” in the South China Sea. Beijing rejected the accusation saying China has “sovereign rights and jurisdiction” over the waters. Japanese and Philippine ministers are expected to discuss arms exports to the Philippines, Kyodo’s sources said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ahead of their meeting at Hyderabad House, in New Delhi, India, March 19, 2022. Credit: Reuters Quad members When Japanese Prime Minister Kishida visited India last month, Japan and India also agreed to hold what would be their second two-plus-two meeting “at an early date.” But the timing of the meeting has not been decided, either, Japan says. Both Japan and India are members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and important players in the Indo-Pacific so “it is only natural for India to also interact with Japan for two-plus-two,” said Sana Hashmi, visiting fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation. “Two-plus-two talks demonstrate the level of engagement and the willingness to strengthen the partnership by both sides,” Hashmi said, adding: “Of course, China’s aggression is a factor in countries’ willingness to advance ties, but India-Japan relations are multifaceted and two-plus-two dialogue is a part of this multifaceted engagement.” Besides the Philippines and India, Japan has held two-plus-two security talks with the United States, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Indonesia and Russia.

Read More

Indonesian foreign minister calls on Russia to stop war with Ukraine

Editor08 mins

During a meeting with her Russian counterpart in China this week, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said she pressed Moscow to end its war with Ukraine, citing the urgent humanitarian situation and the conflict’s ripple effects on the world economy.  Her Wednesday talk with Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of an international meeting to discuss the situation in another country scarred by war – Afghanistan – focused on the war in Ukraine, Retno told reporters on Thursday. “Indonesia conveyed the importance of ending the war immediately because of its tremendous humanitarian impact, not to mention its impact on global economic recovery,” Retno told a virtual news conference from China. “I reiterated Indonesia’s consistent position, including respect for international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter such as sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she said. Retno said that, during a separate meeting on Wednesday, she also asked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to support efforts to end the Russian invasion. “I conveyed the importance of all parties, including China, to push for an immediate end to the war so that the humanitarian crisis does not get worse,” Retno said of her meeting with Wang. Retno talked with Lavrov and Wang on the sidelines of a dialogue between Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and its neighboring Chinese district of Tunxi. The dialogue sought to stabilize Afghanistan, which is known today as an Islamic emirate after the Taliban took over following the withdrawal of U.S. forces last year. Regarding Ukraine, Indonesian officials hope negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv could be positive, she said. “Flexibility is needed so that negotiations can produce good results. And all parties must strive to end the war immediately to avoid the worsening of the humanitarian situation,” she said. During peace talks in Istanbul on Tuesday, Russian negotiators agreed to “fundamentally” cut back operations near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv, news agencies reported. Alexander Fomin, Russia’s deputy defense minister, said the move was meant “to increase trust and create conditions for further negotiations.” Despite those statements, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday dismissed Russia’s pledge, saying his army was getting ready for clashes in the east, Agence France-Presse reported. “We don’t believe anyone, not a single beautiful phrase,” Zelenskyy said in a video address to his nation. “We will not give anything away. We will fight for every meter of our territory.”   Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, more than 4 million Ukrainians have fled their country, according to a United Nations report. Shuttle diplomacy Hikmahanto Juwana, an international law professor at the University of Indonesia, said Jakarta should maintain communication with all parties in the Ukraine conflict. “Indonesia can also send its foreign ministers or a special envoy to engage in shuttle diplomacy to discuss solutions [on ending the war],” he told BenarNews. He noted that Indonesia will be hosting the G-20 summit of the world’s leading economies in October, and that could be spurring the nation’s interest in seeing fighting end in Ukraine. “Indonesia through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must act immediately to make the G-20 summit a success and ensure that all heads of government and heads of state are present,” he said. Indonesia has sent invitations to all member countries, including Russia, foreign ministry official Dian Triansyah Djani said earlier. Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia has said that Putin planned to attend G-20 summit in Bali despite attempts by Western governments to oust Moscow from the grouping. Ukraine, which is not a G-20 member, had previously urged Indonesia to include discussions on the invasion during the summit. But Teuku Faizasyah, spokesman for Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had said Jakarta’s stance was “that the G-20 summit should focus on global economic issues.” Afghanistan While attending the gathering of Afghanistan and other countries during the China dialogue, Retno said she stressed the need for the ruling Taliban to open education to all children. In his own message to dialogue attendees, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged his nation’s support for Afghanistan but without mentioning the Taliban’s alleged human rights abuses, the Associated Press reported. Meanwhile on March 26, Indonesian and Qatari officials signed a letter of intent to provide scholarships and skills training for teen girls in Afghanistan, Retno said. “I expressed my hope that the ban on schooling for Afghan girls at the secondary school level can be reviewed,” she said of her statement at the dialogue. “As the largest Muslim country, Indonesia is ready to contribute to helping the people of Afghanistan, including in the field of education,” she said. The Taliban, which returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, had planned to allow teen girls to attend secondary schools, but dropped the plan last week over concerns about uniforms and the dress-code for schoolgirls. Girls can attend school up to grade six. She said it was important that the Taliban make good on its promises. “The Taliban needs to prepare a road map with concrete steps and timelines for fulfilling promises,” Retno said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Read More

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