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Junta announces deaths of 5 people accused of attacking police station

Editor03 mins

Junta authorities have announced the deaths of four men and a woman, arrested in connection with an attack on a police station in Myanmar’s central Bago region, a local People’s Defense Force militia group told RFA this week. They were among 34 locals arrested on suspicion of involvement in the April 27 attack on the police station in Waw township’s Nyaung Khar Shey village. On Monday, an official of the Waw township People Defense Force told RFA that families had been notified of the deaths of 53-year old Tin Myo Khaing; 52-year-old Win Zaw Htay; 45-year-old San Shey; 60-year-old Mya Thein; and 35-year-old Kyaw Myint Thein, all from villages in the township.  They were told to hold funerals but did not receive the bodies. “Family members were called to see the body of Myint Thein from Kyon Par village last month,” said the official, who declined to be named for security reasons.  “He was shot and caught as he tried to flee from the roof of his house … We don’t know when the other people arrested died and did not see their bodies.” The official added that two other men, San Shey and Kyaw Myint Thein, were shot before their arrests. RFA tried to contact the families but they didn’t want to talk because of safety concerns. Calls to the junta spokesperson for Bago region, Tin Oo, seeking information on the deaths went unanswered. People’s Defense Joint Forces attacked the police station in April, leading to a police roundup of locals over several days. They took in 20 people for questioning on April 27 and 28 and another 14 on May 1. Locals said they don’t know if those arrested will be charged or released and RFA has been unable to contact the local police. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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China’s president meets top US diplomat in Beijing

Editor014 mins

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square in Beijing late Monday afternoon in a climax of high-stakes diplomacy. Xi said he hoped the U.S. diplomat’s visit would stabilize ties, adding that state-to-state interactions should be based on mutual respect, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, who was present in the meeting, wrote in a tweet. Blinken had earlier met with China’s top foreign policy official Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang.  Achieving a meeting with Xi, who is also China’s General Party Secretary, was widely perceived as the key measure of the success of Blinken’s visit as the two nations’ relations plumbed depths not seen since the countries diplomatically recognized each other in 1978.  President Joe Biden said he hoped to see Xi in several months.  Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit China in five years, amid China’s strict COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and strains over China’s claims on the self-governing island of Taiwan, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing’s human rights record, assertive Chinese military moves in the South China Sea and technology trade. “This visit was basically a means of re-establishing the normal process of contacts between the U.S. and China that was supposed to follow the Bali Xi-Biden meeting but then got derailed by the spy balloon,” Andrew Small, a senior transatlantic fellow with the U.S. German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific Program told RFA. “It is intended to pave the way for other visits to China … and ultimately an expected visit from Xi Jinping for the APEC meeting in San Francisco.”  The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will be held in the Californian city on November 12 this year.  Small described China-U.S. relations as essentially “frozen” prior to the trip, adding, “​​The US side anticipated that, assuming meetings with Wang Yi and Qin Gang proceeded according to plan, Blinken would see Xi Jinping, and it was understood to be important that various messages could be delivered directly to him.” ‘Candid, substantive, and constructive’ On Sunday Blinken began the two days of meetings with 7½  hours of direct talks and a dinner meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, discussing a host of topics and agreeing to work together on increasing the number of flights between the U.S. and China, a senior state department official said. Blinken invited Qin to continue the discussions in the U.S, and the spokesperson said the pair agreed to schedule a visit at a “mutually suitable time.”  A senior official said, under the condition of anonymity, that the meeting between Blinken and Qin was not about reading talking points to one another, describing the exchange of views as a substantive conversation. The PRC readout on the meeting said, “China is committed to building a stable, predictable and constructive China-U.S. relationship,” which Bonnie Glazer, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program and nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, described in a tweet thread as “important.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken walks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Sunday, June 18, 2023. Credit: Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP Blinken’s talks with Qin were “candid, substantive, and constructive,” said State department spokesperson Matthew Miller. “The Secretary emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” Miller said in a written statement late Sunday. Blinken, the spokesperson added, “raised a number of issues of concern, as well as opportunities to explore cooperation on shared transnational issues with the PRC where our interests align.” Chinese state media described the talks as “candid, in-depth and constructive communication on the overall relationship between China and the United States and related important issues.” A report by China’s foreign ministry quoted Qin as saying that “Sino-US relations are at the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations. This does not conform to the fundamental interests of the two peoples, nor does it meet the common expectations of the international community.” ‘Crucial juncture’ On Monday morning, amid much suspense as to whether Xi would agree to meet him, Blinken met with China’s top foreign policy official Wang Yi to discuss re-forging diplomatic channels of communication between the powers. Observers in Beijing described the meeting as “frosty” but free of acrimony, unlike their last meeting, in Munich in March this year, when the two traded barbs in their first meeting since the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon on February 4. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (second from left without mask) meets with China’s Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi (second from right without mask) at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023.  Credit: Reuters/Leah Millis/Pool The Chinese readout described the meeting as coming at a “crucial juncture” in U.S.-China relations and that choices needed to be made between dialog or confrontation, cooperation or conflict, while blaming the downturn in relations on the “U.S. sides erroneous understanding of China.” Wang asked the U.S. to stop “hyping up the China threat,” lift its “illegal sanctions,” stop hindering China’s technological progress and said that on the subject of Taiwan, which he described as “core of China’s core interests,” there was “no room for compromise.” Little progress on key issues The two sides appeared to have made no progress on key issues such as Taiwan, trade, human rights and stemming the flow of chemicals used in the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. “Despite very low expectations for any breakthroughs made during Blinken’s visit to China, there is still hope that both sides can maintain their ‘bottom line’ in the relationship,” state tabloid Global Times said in an editorial on Monday. It added, “It is normal for any country to have low expectations after being continuously suppressed by the US.” Derek Grossman, a former daily intelligence briefer to the director of…

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High stakes, low expectations as top US diplomat opens China visit

Editor010 mins

UPDATED AT 02:00 pm EDT on 2023-06-18 U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken opened a high-stakes visit to China on Sunday with lengthy talks with top Chinese officials that both countries described as “candid” and “constructive” and called for more stable ties after years of rising tensions. Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit China in five years, amid China’s strict coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and strains over the self-governing island of Taiwan, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing’s human rights record, assertive Chinese military moves in the South China Sea and technology trade. The top U.S. diplomat began two days of meetings with extended talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and other officials and a working dinner at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Neither Blinken nor Qin made any substantive public comments during their meetings. Blinken’s talks with Qin were “candid, substantive, and constructive,” said State department spokesperson Matthew Miller. “The Secretary emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” Miller said in written statement late Sunday. Blinken, the spokesperson added “raised a number of issues of concern, as well as opportunities to explore cooperation on shared transnational issues with the PRC where our interests align.” Chinese state media described the talks as “candid, in-depth and constructive communication on the overall relationship between China and the United States and related important issues.” The report quoted Qin as saying that “Sino-US relations are at the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations. This does not conform to the fundamental interests of the two peoples, nor does it meet the common expectations of the international community.” “China is committed to building a stable, predictable and constructive Sino-US relationship,” the Chinese-language report quoted Qin as saying. “It is hoped that the U.S. side will uphold an objective and rational understanding of China, meet China halfway, maintain the political foundation of Sino-U.S. relations, and handle unexpected incidents calmly, professionally and rationally,” the Chinese foreign minister added. As he had in a blunt pre-meeting phone call with Blinken on Wednesday, however, Qin said China would not budge on its “core interests,” including that the self-governing island of Taiwan will be reunited with the mainland. Qin called Taiwan “the core of China’s core interests, the most important issue in Sino-US relations, and the most prominent risk,” Sunday’s readout said. Blinken is slated to have further talks with Qin, as well as China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office, on Monday. Observers see a possible meeting with President Xi Jinping as a barometer of Beijing’s willingness to re-engage with Washington after years of frosty ties. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, left, walks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, center right, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Sunday, June 18, 2023. (Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP) The visit comes after almost a year of strained relations between the Biden administration and Beijing, which began with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in August. Other irritants include China’s diplomatic and propaganda support for Russia for its war against Ukraine, and U.S. allegations that Beijing is attempting to boost its worldwide surveillance capabilities. Blinken postponed a planned February trip to China after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over U.S. airspace and was shot down. This visit went ahead despite the revelations early this month of a multibillion-dollar Chinese spy base in Cuba. He told reporters before leaving Friday that Washington wants to improve communications “precisely so that we can make sure we are communicating as clearly as possible to avoid possible misunderstandings and miscommunications.” ‘Legitimate differences’ President Joe Biden told White House reporters Saturday he was “hoping that over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have, but also how … to get along.” U.S. defense officials say Chinese officials have refused phone calls since Blinken canceled a planned trip to Beijing in February due to the Chinese spy balloon. Beijing asserts it was a weather balloon. Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu also declined to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier at the start of the month, with Li instead using the forum to accuse the United States of “double standards.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (2nd R) and China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang (2nd L) meet at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on June 18, 2023. Credit: Leah Millis / POOL / AFP There have been recent high-level contacts, including a trip to China by CIA chief William Burns in May, a visit to the U.S. by China’s commerce minister, and a meeting in Vienna Austria between Wang and Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Reuters news agency quoted a senior State Department official as telling reporters during a refueling stop in Tokyo that Washington and Beijing understand they need to communicate more. “There’s a recognition on both sides that we do need to have senior-level channels of communication,” the official said. “That we are at an important point in the relationship where I think reducing the risk of miscalculation, or as our Chinese friends often say, stopping the downward spiral in the relationship, is something that’s important,” the official said. “Hope this meeting can help steer China-U.S. relations back to what the two Presidents agreed upon in Bali,” tweeted Chinese assistant foreign minister Hua Chunying. Biden and Xi met face-to-face on the sidelines of a summit of the Group of 20 big economies in November and agreed to try to restore dialogue despite sharp differences. The two leaders have opportunities to meet later this year, including at the Group of 20 leaders’ gathering in September in New Delhi and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November in San Francisco. Updated with statements from the U.S. and China after Sunday’s meetings.

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Cambodia charges two Chinese with the murder of South Korean influencer

Editor04 mins

A Cambodian court has charged two Chinese nationals with the torture and murder of a South Korean social media influencer whose body was found on the outskirts of Phnom Penh earlier this month. Byun Ah-yeong, also known as BJ Ahyeong, was an influencer for popular South Korean streaming service AfreecaTV, and that she had more than 250,000 Instagram followers, Agence France-Presse reported. Media reports say she was 33. Two Chinese, Lai Wenshao, 30, and Cai Huijuan, 39 were charged with murder, court spokesman Plang Sophal told local media. Lai and Cai testified that Byun had gone into seizures and died while receiving treatment at their clinic on June 4, and they had abandoned her body, AFP said, citing a police report. If they are convicted, they could face life in prison. Lai and Cai’s clinic had been operating without a license, Sok Sambath, the governor of Phnom Penh’s Boeung Keng Kang district, told RFA’s Khmer Service. “We shut the clinic down,”  he said, but declined to answer questions inquiring as to how they could have been allowed to open without a license, only saying that they had started before he took office.  Police Chief Sar Thet told RFA that according to the police investigation, “the couple injected [something] into a South Korean lady and she died.” The incident may have happened because of improperly administered anesthesia, Quach Mengly, a Cambodian physician, told RFA. The Ministry of Health hasn’t effectively taken action against unlicensed medical clinics and this has caused several patient deaths as of late, Yong Kim Eng, president of the local PDP-Center NGO, told RFA. He said that the incident could scare off foreigners who want to seek medical treatment in Cambodia.  “[Cambodians] are [also] afraid of using local clinics,” said Yong Kim Eng. “They seek treatment outside of the country, so we are giving money to foreign countries.”  Soeung Sengkaruna, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association urged the authorities to conduct a thorough investigation to find the real cause of death to restore public trust in Cambodia’s medical services. “The related authorities and the ministry of health need to investigate this case,” he said. “We want to find out whether it was a malpractice or the providers’ lack of skill.” Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. 

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Vietnamese police arrest more than 50 in attacks on commune offices

Editor08 mins

Vietnamese security forces have arrested more than 50 people accused of being involved in last weekend’s deadly attacks on two commune offices in central Dak Lak province, a Ministry of Public Security spokesman told state media on Friday.  The June 11 attack left nine people dead. Those involved in the attacks were young people who harbored delusions and extremist attitudes and had been incited and abetted by the ringleaders via the internet, according to the ministry.   But officials didn’t say who or which organizations had incited or assisted the attackers. The attacks occurred in an area that is home to about 30 tribes of indigenous peoples known collectively as Montagnards.  Vietnamese state media have reported that the attackers were Montagnards, but the ministry did not identify those arrested as such.  Religious and civil organizations advocating for the Montagnard people told Radio Free Asia in an earlier report that they weren’t involved in the armed attacks and condemned the violence. Anger and frustration in the Central Highlands has built up after decades of government surveillance, land disputes and economic hardship, RFA reported earlier. In recent months, there have been a number of land revocation incidents by local authorities, police and military forces. Sought to steal weapons In the ministry’s description of what transpired, about 40 people wearing camouflage vests and equipped with knives and guns split into two groups for a dawn attack on the offices in Ea Tieu and Ea Ktur communes. Members of the two groups also had broken into Special Forces Brigade No. 198’s barracks in Hoa Dong commune in Dak Lak province to steal weapons, but failed, the ministry told state media.    Those arrested said they sought to steal weapons so as to make news headlines, which they hoped would give them the opportunity to immigrate to other countries, according to the ministry. In their preliminary statements, those arrested said they had been incited by others to kill police officers. Four police officers, two commune officials and three civilians were killed. The attackers also kidnapped three civilians, though one of them managed to escape, and the others were rescued later, the ministry said.  The ministry said it would “use all necessary measures” to hunt down and arrest all suspects still in hiding and seize their weapons and explosives.  Vietnamese police officers escort a suspect arrested in Dak Lak province. Credit: Vietnamese State media Vietnam’s one-party government has strictly controlled news about the shootings, heightening people’s curiosity about the incident, but Channel VTV1 of Vietnam Television and many newspapers have published the statements and photos of some of those arrested. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hun Sen of neighboring Cambodia ordered armed forces in Mondulkiri, Ratanakiri and Kratie provinces to increase security along the border to prevent fugitives involved in the attacks from crossing the border illegally, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.  Hun Sen said that anyone arrested would be returned to Vietnam if discovered.  Slapping social media In the past days, police have fined people who share news about Dak Lak shootings via social media.  At least five Facebook users have been slapped with administrative fines for sharing the news and their comments, deemed to be harmful to the state.  Police in Dak Lak as well as authorities in Kontum and Binh Phuoc — two other provinces in the country’s Central Highlands — have fined businesses that sell imitation camouflage military outfits.    Two human rights lawyers told RFA on Thursday that state media should not have publicly disclosed information from the suspects’ statements to police or their photos, though authorities often take advantage of their power and privilege to provide news organizations with unappealing photos of suspects. “Publishing citizens’ photos without their permission or without blurring their faces, even if they are suspects or defendants, is a violation of their rights in terms of their image and could cause many consequences, especially when they are in high positions or are influential people,” said one attorney from Ho Chi Minh City, who asked not to be identified. A human rights lawyer from Hanoi said the Penal Code or the Criminal Procedure Code clearly states that statements from suspects should be kept secret. Attorney Ha Huy Son, a member of the Hanoi Bar Association, said the country’s 2015 Civil Code contains a provision on the rights of an individual with respect to his image, stipulating that he must give his consent for its public use.  But he also pointed to another article stating that a person’s photo can be used without consent from the individual or his legal representative in cases where it serves national or public interest.   The attorneys also said those arrested should be given immediate access to lawyers to ensure fairness and avoid injustice. Neither the Ministry of Public Security nor Dak Lak provincial police have opened cases against the suspects, or provided information about their charges. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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Junta pilot and trainee killed in Myanmar military helicopter crash

Editor03 mins

A junta helicopter crashed near an air force base in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw, killing the pilot and a trainee, local media reported Friday. The military confirmed Thursday’s crash, thought to have been caused by sudden engine failure, but did not give the names and ranks of the dead. Local news reports, quoting anonymous military sources, named the pilot/instructor as Maj. Min Thu Aung but only said the trainee was a woman without naming her. One local told RFA the army sent an investigation team to the site of the helicopter crash on the Bago mountain range. “It crashed on the Bago Plateau on the edge of Lewe township [in Naypyidaw] and bordering Taungdwingyi township [in Magway region],” said the resident who didn’t want to be named for security reasons.  “Military vehicles came to the area but could not reach the crash site. We saw a lot of helicopter traffic.” The junta said in a statement that they were working to transport the bodies to the nearest military hospital. In March last year, a military helicopter crashed during bad weather in a forest in Chin state’s  Hakha township, injuring some military council air force officers and some education workers. That helicopter was Russian-made and Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank group made up of former military officers, said at the time it was a durable design but probably crashed due to bad weather. The make of the helicopter that crashed this week is not yet known. Russia is the biggest arms supplier to Myanmar, selling U.S.$406 million worth of military equipment to the junta since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to a report last month by Tom Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar on May 17. China, Singapore and India sold at least a combined $600 million-worth of weapons to Myanmar over the same period, he said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Banned protest anthem ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ pulled from global streaming services

Editor06 mins

A banned Hong Kong protest anthem has disappeared from music streaming services around the world after the city’s government applied for a court injunction banning its dissemination. “Glory to Hong Kong,” which has sparked a police investigation after organizers played it instead of China’s national anthem at recent overseas sports events, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 pro-democracy and anti-extradition movement. It is still sung at rallies and protests by Hong Kongers in exile around the world, but has been targeted by an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under a draconian national security law since 2020. Last week, the Hong Kong government applied for a High Court injunction banning it from being disseminated in any way, prompting mass downloads of the song that propelled it to the top of local music charts. The hearing has been postponed to July 21, yet many versions of the song have already been removed from Spotify, Apple’s iTunes and other music platforms. The song’s creators said they were having “technical issues.” “Working on some technical issues not related to the streaming platform, sorry for the temporary impact,” they said in a post on their Facebook page. “Thank you to all our listeners.” ‘Live on in everyone’s hearts’ Comments under the announcement were sad but defiant. “Really sad! It’s been taken down from Apple Music regardless of country,” wrote one user, while another said: “Even if it’s banned, this song will live on in everyone’s hearts. Go Hong Kong!” Another added: “The most important thing is that you are safe.” Spotify said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press and Reuters that the song had been pulled by its distributor and not the platform itself, while Facebook, Instagram, and Apple Music did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of the current crackdown on dissent. The high court has set the hearing date for the injunction at July 21. If granted, the injunction will ban “broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing [the song] in any way including on the internet,” according to a police statement on the injunction. Francis Fong, president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said there are two possible reasons for the song’s disappearance from music platforms. “It could be that the creators are worried about violating the national security law, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they removed it themselves,” Fong said. “It’s not the same as uploading to YouTube, where anyone can create an account and upload something.” “You can’t just do that on iTunes, where you have to apply for an account so as to receive money, which means that [the authorities] have a way to track down whoever the author is,” he said. “If they feel that things could be getting dangerous, they could have removed it themselves.” Fong said many global platforms are also pretty responsive to government takedown requests, particularly relating to defamation, pornography and violent content, either with or without court orders. “They will remove certain things if the police ask them to,” he said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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Myanmar military burns houses, captures villagers in Sagaing region

Editor03 mins

A woman was burned to death in her home when junta troops raided her village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, residents told RFA Thursday. The 60-year-old was unable to flee when soldiers torched around 700 houses in Sagaing township’s Thar Zin village on Tuesday, they said. Troops captured residents of Thar Zin and nearby villages in a series of raids this week, although it was unclear whether they were being used as human shields or suspected of aiding anti-junta militia. “Some 25 people were arrested in Thar Zin village, and more were arrested in other villages,” said a local who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “So far, about 40 people have been arrested and all were taken along with the military column. No one has been released.” The local said nearly three quarters of Thar Zin’s buildings had been burned down, leaving more than 3,000 people homeless. After Tuesday’s raid on Thar Zin, residents said troops torched 10 houses in Aing Dan Ma village the following day and burned homes in Pauk Ma on Thursday. The burned shells of homes in Thar Zin village seen in an aerial photograph taken on June 15, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist On June 6, junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that junta troops do not set fire to civilians’ homes. RFA called the junta’s Sagaing region spokesperson, Aye Hlaing, Thursday but nobody answered. More than 53,800 homes have been burned down by junta troops and affiliated militias since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to independent research group Data for Myanmar. A total of 765,200 people have been forced to flee their homes in Sagaing region due to fighting and arson attacks since the coup, according to a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) report on Tuesday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Chinese police target prominent rights lawyers with harassment, travel bans

Editor08 mins

Police in China are keeping up their harassment of prominent rights lawyers, putting pressure on recently evicted Wang Quanzhang and his family, slapping a travel ban on Li Heping and his family, while denying rights attorney Xie Yang a phone call with his sick father. A police officer from the Beijing suburb of Changping pushed his way into the Wang family home on Wednesday, refusing to show ID and demanding to read the couple’s lease agreement, according to a video clip posted by Wang’s wife Li Wenzu on Twitter. “Comrade Policeman, please would you leave – this is our home,” Li tells the officer, who is identified as Wang Kaiguo in her tweet. “You can’t just go into people’s residences,” Li tells the officer in a heated discussion. “You didn’t produce any identification.” “I’m wearing a police uniform, so I can come in here,” he says. Police were claiming to have received a tip-off that the home had been illegally rented, according to the couple. ‘Stability Maintenance’ The renewed harassment is the latest in a slew of “stability maintenance” actions by Beijing police and other Chinese officials, who have targeted the families of prominent rights attorneys and other activists who were previously jailed in a 2015 crackdown on rights lawyers and public interest law firms. In a video of an earlier conversation on June 12, Wang calls on a police officer via an entryphone to show some evidence backing up the claim that his family is living in the apartment illegally. He later tweeted a photo of the lease agreement with the landlord. Screen shot of the policeman identified as Wang Kaiguo by Wang’s wife Li Wenzu. Tweeter/ @709liwenzu “Police and corporate security personnel in Shunyi tracked us down to our new residence and reported us to the local police station,” Wang said. “They continued to follow us as we were apartment-hunting, and they accused us of ‘trespassing.’” “It’s not just us — a lot of Christian families across the country have been evicted and persecuted,” he said. “It’s very hard to live a stable life.” Wang’s family was forced to leave their last apartment in Beijing’s Shunyi district after the authorities cut off their utilities. “The content of the contract is true, legal, and valid, and should be protected by law,” Wang said via Twitter. “I hereby declare that I will not unilaterally terminate this contract within its validity period.” “We moved into this rented accommodation legally, yet police said they had been told that we moved in illegally,” Li Wenzu also tweeted on Tuesday. Can’t leave country Meanwhile, the family of Li Heping is now banned from leaving China, after their landlord smashed a window at their rented apartment in a bid to get them to leave last month, Radio Free Asia has learned. Police at Chengdu’s international airport prevented the family from boarding a flight to Thailand last week, as Li and his wife Wang Qiaoling are considered to be “a danger to national security,” Wang Qiaoling said. “He told us, ‘You aren’t allowed to leave the country … I’m going to read this notice out to you — Li Heping and Wang Qiaoling aren’t allowed to leave the country due to factors endangering national security.’” she said. And a court in the central city of Changsha recently denied detained rights lawyer Xie Yang a video meeting with his ailing 90-year-old father, who is terminally ill with COVID-19. “The lawyer asked angrily whether the judges of the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court were raised by their parents,” the China Rights Lawyers Twitter account said of the June 7 hearing. Xie’s U.S.-based ex-wife Chen Guiqiu told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview that her father-in-law Xie Huicheng had been in hospital with a high fever for days at the time of the request. “Xie Yang is a very filial son, and the old man really wanted to see him before he dies,” Chen said. “The court just came up with various excuses to refuse.” Xie is currently being held in the Changsha No. 1 Detention Center, awaiting trial for “incitement to subvert state power,” and recently told his visiting attorney that he has been tortured while in detention. Chen said the court’s decision not to allow him to video call his dying father could be a form of retaliation, or a way to silence Xie. U.S.-based rights lawyer Wu Shaoping said that while there was no good legal reason to deny such a request, the ruling Chinese Communist Party is the ultimate arbiter of its citizens’ rights, not the law. “There was no reason to reject a humanitarian request of this kind,” Wu said. “They use [such requests] as a way of controlling suspects [to elicit a ‘confession’].” Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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Junta cracks down on residents of Myanmar’s Kale township

Editor03 mins

A junta slipknot is tightening in Sagaing region’s Kale township, as troops guard every intersection, conducting door-to-door searches and arresting people suspected of being involved in pro-democracy politics, locals told RFA Burmese Wednesday. Five people were arrested between June 1 and June 14, said residents who didn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisals. At night troops go from home to home, checking household registration lists, they said. They also stop motorcycles and question riders and passengers. As a result of the searches they arrested Pau Suan Khual, Su Su Win, Thiri Lin, Mary San and Naing Htwe. “The junta council troops conduct casual checks in Kale city every day, targeting young people who are on motorbikes and checking  their phones,” said a Kale resident who declined to be named.  “People are arrested if they are suspected of being involved in politics.” The five people, believed to be in their twenties, were taken to the Military Regional Command Headquarters interrogation center in Kale township. Residents said police and soldiers also threaten passers-by and demand money from them. RFA called Sagaing region junta spokesperson Aye Hlaing Wednesday but nobody answered. One man died during interrogation after being arrested on May 19.  Salai Ram Lian Pan, 29, was detained at a junta checkpoint as he tried to ride his motorbike across the township. On June 7, junta authorities told the family to pick up his dead body. The National League for Democracy, a party ostensibly dissolved by the government this year even though it won a landslide victory in elections before the Feb. 2021 coup, said Tuesday that 3,818 civilians, including 93 NLD members have been killed since the military takeover. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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