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Three weeks of fighting in eastern Myanmar leaves nearly 3 dozen civilians dead

Editor07 mins

Three weeks of fierce fighting between junta troops and ethnic Karenni forces in eastern Myanmar has killed at least 35 civilians, including three children, a domestic human rights group and local residents said.  Karenni militias have been battling the military for decades in their campaign for greater autonomy in Kayah and Shan states, but the conflict has worsened in recent months as the Burmese army targets People’s Defense Force fighters who have taken up arms against the military since the 2021 coup. The two sides have been engaged in armed conflict in Moebye – also known as Mongpai – township in southern Shan state since May 25. Among those who died were more than 20 men and 10 ten women, as well as three minors aged eight, 13 and 18, according to Karenni Human Rights Group. Banyar, executive director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said that the victims were killed by heavy artillery or because they caught fire as they were trapped in the middle of the fighting.  “They were either killed in the town of Moebye, hit by heavy artillery or shot to death, Banyar, the group’s executive director, told Radio Free Asia on Monday. “Some of them were arrested before being killed. Some were shot at. Some were killed as heavy artillery shelling hit them.” The organization collected 12 dead bodies and buried them during the first week of June, though some corpses still cannot be collected on account of security issues, Banyar said. The latest round of civilian deaths comes as the military steps up attacks on its adversaries in the southern Shan and Kayah state townships of Moebye, Pinlaung and Pekon.  Junta forces have conducted airstrikes and heavy artillery assaults on areas where fighters from the Progressive Karenni People’s Force, or PKPF – a local offshoot of the anti-regime People’s Defense Forces – are believed to be, killing civilians in the process.   Relief workers have had difficulties helping the injured and collecting dead bodies because junta troops are everywhere in Moebye, arresting and killing locals, said aid worker Nwe Oo said. “I’ve heard that there are injured people in Si Kar and Done Tu Htan wards in town, but because we haven’t had a chance to go in, we haven’t been able to bring them out,” she said. “We have to be very vigilant as the fighting has been intense and complicated.”  A civilian who sustained injuries during shelling by Myanmar soldiers is treated in Moebye township, southeastern Myanmar’s Kayah state, Jul. 26, 2022. Credit: Mobye PDF Rescue Team Artillery fire To make matters worse, junta forces have blocked some roads in Moebye and have kept open a main road for pedestrian use, she said.  A Moebye resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said military troops fired heavy artillery into residential areas. “We heard gunshot exchanges and artillery fire non-stop last night,” he said, estimating that about 450 junta soldiers have been stationed in high-rise buildings, schools and residential homes. The resident said three members of a friend’s family were killed on the spot with heavy artillery as they hid in a bomb shelter.  “Because telephone communication has not been reliable, there is no way we will be able to leave the town,” he said. The junta has not yet issued any statements about the situation in Moebye. RFA could not reach Khun Thein Maung, Shan state’s economic minister and junta spokesman, for comment.  A PKPF official told RFA there have been casualties on both sides in the fighting, and some civilians are still caught up in it. There have been many casualties among members of the People’s Defense Forces and the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, an armed insurgent group formed after the 2021 military coup, and among junta troops who have been firing heavy artillery non-stop, the official said.   “Some civilians have been trapped in town,” he said. “Some people have taken refuge in the monastery because they thought they would be safe there. We heard that some of them managed to sneak out of town, but we don’t know how exactly they escaped.” More than 50 civilians, including 13 children under the age of 18, died in Moebye between February 2021, when the military seized power from the elected government, and this June 12, according to PKPF figures.  Moebye has a population of about 30,000 people. Some residents remain in about three of the township’s 10 wards, while the rest have fled the fighting. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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Myanmar policeman killed in Naypyidaw grenade attack

Editor02 mins

A policeman was killed in a grenade attack on a police station in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw, residents of Lewe township told RFA Tuesday. Several more officers were injured in Monday night’s attack, which took place despite tight security outside the building. “There are barbed wire fences on the road,” said a Lewe resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. “Now the place is closed and people haven’t come out since 8pm.” Unknown attackers also threw a grenade at a security gate outside the Myanmar International Convention Center-2 (MICC-2) in Naypyitaw’s Za Bu Thi Ri township on Monday night, locals told RFA. They said there were some injuries but RFA was unable to confirm the details. The junta said it was working to catch those responsible for the grenade attack on Lewe Police Station, but did not mention the death of a policeman. It said nothing about the reported attack on the convention center. RFA called junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun Tuesday but nobody answered. Security has been tight in Naypyidaw following a May 3 grenade attack on a security checkpoint in Oke Ta Ra Thi Ri  township. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Myanmar’s junta met jailed NLD chief Suu Kyi twice to discuss peace

Editor011 mins

Myanmar’s junta has met at least twice with Aung San Suu Kyi, the jailed head of the deposed National League for Democracy, to enlist her help in peace negotiations with the armed resistance, only to be rebuffed by the former state counselor, Radio Free Asia has learned. Suu Kyi was visited on May 27 and June 4 in Naypyidaw Prison by three military officers – Lieutenant Gen. So Htut, the junta’s home affairs minister, Lieutenant Gen. Yar Pyae, who has led the military’s negotiation teams for peace talks with ethnic rebel groups, and retired Lieutenant Gen. Khin Zaw Oo, a source in the capital with close connections to the facility told RFA Burmese on Monday. “As much as we can confirm, the generals met her two times,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.  “We heard that the generals urged her to help the junta in its peacemaking process amid the current political situation and help stop the violence,” he said. “We’ve heard that [Aung San Suu Kyi] did not respond.” The junta has been embroiled in a protracted conflict with Myanmar’s increasingly formidable armed resistance groups and ethnic armed organizations since the military detained Aung San Suu Kyi and other top leaders of the NLD in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. Junta courts found the 78-year-old Suu Kyi guilty of corruption charges and the violation of election and state secrets laws in December 2022. She faces a total of 33 years in jail for 19 cases, and is being held in solitary confinement in Naypyidaw. Suu Kyi’s supporters say the charges were politically motivated. The source in Naypyidaw told RFA that while the three generals may have met with Suu Kyi in prison more than twice, they hadn’t been able to confirm the visits. The junta has not made any official announcement about the meetings and RFA has been unable to independently confirm that they took place. Sources close to Suu Kyi’s legal team, including within the NLD, said that they were unaware of the meetings. Attempts by RFA to contact Naing Win, the junta’s deputy director general of the Department of Prisons, went unanswered Monday. Sources told RFA that Ottama Thara, the Buddhist abbot of Thabarwa Sanctuary in Thanlyin township, a port city located across the Bago River from the commercial capital Yangon, met with senior NLD party patron Thura Tin Oo on June 8 and advised that Suu Kyi should “retire from politics and participate in peacemaking efforts.” The monk, who reportedly met several times with top military leaders in Naypyidaw before the meeting with Thura Tin Oo, said that the junta generals hope that by doing so, Suu Kyi can facilitate an end to the country’s political deadlock. Suu Kyi ‘vital’ to Myanmar politics RFA spoke with NLD Central Working Committee member Kyaw Htwe, who said the party had heard that the generals met with Suu Kyi in prison, but couldn’t confirm the visit. “In Myanmar’s political world, the role of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is vital,” he said, using an honorific to refer to the veteran politician and party chief. “There will never be practical political change without her. Meeting with her and holding discussions is very important.” Kyaw Htwe said that the military had violated Myanmar’s constitution by seizing power and is “entirely responsible” for the country’s current problems. “Only after all political prisoners, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, are freed will the path to a resolution be implemented,” he said. Myanmar’s detained civilian leader San Suu Kyi, presides at a meeting in Naypyidaw with then military chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and chairman of the Karen National Union Gen. Saw Mutu Say Poe to commemorate the third anniversary of signing of Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement on Oct. 15, 2018. Credit: Myanmar State Counselor Office via AFP Nay Phone Latt, the spokesman for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, said he had been unable to confirm the generals’ visits to Suu Kyi, adding that “it is too early for us to comment.” RFA contacted Thein Tun Oo, the head of the Thayninga Institute of Strategic Studies, a pro-military think tank founded by retired military officers in Naypyidaw, who said he was “surprised to hear that the generals visited her in prison.” “Some may think the generals met her as the [armed resistance] has become stronger,” he said. “But in my opinion, it’s almost impossible that the generals actually went to meet her … That may be the reason why it has not been publicly announced.” Violence ‘cannot be left unaddressed’ Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, told RFA that enlisting Suu Kyi to lead a peacemaking process between the junta and the armed resistance would “contradict her position and her beliefs.” “I believe that she will never accept such an offer from the junta because the violence … happening in Myanmar is the direct consequence of the military junta’s seizure of power,” he said. “Their offer to restrict her from the political arena and only allow her to participate in the peacemaking process may sound appealing, but it is complete nonsense as they did not discuss the political problems or the violence happening in the country.” Than Soe Naing said he could only envision Suu Kyi accepting such an offer “if the junta admits wrongdoing with the coup and reinstates the results of the 2020 election,” which saw the NLD secure victory in a landslide. The junta has since accused the NLD of election fraud, but has yet to provide evidence of its claims. “Additionally, the violence and crimes that the junta has committed against the people during the two years of the coup has to be discussed – it cannot be left unaddressed,” he said. “That’s why I believe that the junta’s offer, despite its sugar-coated words, is very cowardly and cunning. I don’t think Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will accept such an offer.” Since…

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More than 5,000 people flee villages in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region

Editor04 mins

More than 5,000 people have fled their homes in Myanmar’s southernmost Tanintharyi region, locals told RFA Monday. The mass exodus follows the capture of 30 residents of villages in Thayetchaung township during junta raids between Thursday and Sunday. Locals said at least six villages are empty after residents fled in heavy rains. One woman, who didn’t wish to be named for safety reasons, told RFA a convoy of around 100 soldiers entered Ka Net Thi Ri village on Thursday, only to be ambushed by members of a local People’s Defense Force. A junta ship arrived by sea and reinforcements opened fire with heavy artillery. The local defense force surrounded the village, leading junta troops to seize residents to use as human shields, the woman said. “The first day the junta column arrived, they arrested about 30 people camped at the monastery at the top of the village,” she said. “The next day, they used the people as human shields and moved them to the safety of Hpa Yar Koe Su mountain. The captured include the elderly and children. Those who can escape have fled.” Another resident of a nearby village, who also requested anonymity, told RFA locals fled to other villagers or left in boats. “They brought nothing when they fled … in  heavy rain”,” she said.  “They need clothes and accommodation urgently. Food is provided by our village. A member of the Thayetchaung People’s Defense Force said junta troops have only one escape route, which the PDF has blocked. “The battle may take a long time. It is still very difficult for them to get out by the way we have blocked,” said the man, who declined to be named.  “We prepared as much as possible in advance.” The Thayetchaung People’s Defense Force was aware of the possibility of junta attacks as early as June 8, warning civilians to travel along the local roads only between 6am and 9pm  The junta has not released a statement on the current fighting and calls to the local junta spokesperson, Yin Htwe, went unanswered Monday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Witty folk rant on the dark side of the news goes missing from China’s internet

Editor09 mins

A song by veteran Chinese folk-rock act Slap referring to numerous darker news events has disappeared from Chinese social media amid an ongoing crackdown on public performances and growing controls on cultural content. Slap, a prominent part of the festival circuit in recent year, released “Red Boy’s 18 Wins” in January 2023, with lyrics detailing the exploits of a fictitious hero – Red Boy – and a series of challenges he encounters. It refers to a woman found chained by the neck, the breakout by employees at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory during the COVID-19 restrictions, the death of high-schooler Hu Xinyu and attacks on women eating at a restaurant  in the northern city of Tangshan. “A mother of eight children with a chain around her neck,” the lyrics read. “Vicious scum who burned his wife is sentenced to death.” “Don’t tell me Tangshan is just like Gotham City, which at least had Batman,” the song says, picking up on several scandals of the three-year “zero-COVID” policy, where “everyone is obsessed with negative and positive [tests].” Huge following among youth The band has generally operated on the fringes of mainstream culture in mainland China, and has a huge following among young people today due to their songs’ criticism of the political system, and of society as a whole. Delivered in the style of a Chinese folk opera ballad, the 14-minute banned song has a laid-back accompaniment from a regular rock band, with Red Boy generally understood to represent the Chinese Communist Party. The lyrics and saga-like quality of the track, which is still available on YouTube, recall a classic of Chinese literature as Red Boy goes to war against Sun Wukong the Monkey King from “Journey to the West,” yet their gritty and often horrific content is drawn straight from recent headlines. A screenshot from surveillance video shows four women being attacked by a group of men at a late-night barbecue restaurant in Tangshan, China, in the early hours of June 10, 2022. Credit: RFA “We’re lucky to be born in the New Era,” it concludes in a reference to the political ideology of President Xi Jinping, after commenting that “everyone’s got Stockholm Syndrome.” “Hard work will win out in the end,” says the last line, referencing a 1980s TV theme tune from the now-democratic island of Taiwan, which was under the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang and its hereditary leader Chiang Ching-kuo at the time the song was released. It was unclear whether the band has been caught up in a recent clampdown on public performances by government officials across China. A May 26 Weibo post from the band listed several June gigs in different cities, with the comment: “Let’s wait and see.” ‘Boldy crossed’ lines Akio Yaita, Taipei bureau chief for Japan’s Sankei Shimbun and an expert on China, paid tribute to the band in a recent Facebook post, saying it had “boldly crossed into restricted areas,” and became hugely popular online as a result. “A lot of people online commented that they feared for the safety of the band,” he wrote. “This is the first time I heard of them … Founded in Baoding, Hebei in 1998, they have five members and … use very down-to-earth language to comment on the topics of the day.” While the band may have flown under the radar until now, “Red Boys 18 Wins” had overstepped a red line, he said. “I think there will be a ban on performances coming soon, and maybe someone will go to jail,” Yaita wrote. People with suitcases and bags leave a Foxconn compound in Zhengzhou in central China’s Henan province on Oct. 29, 2022, in this photo taken from video footage and released by Hangpai Xingyang. Credit: Hangpai Xingyang via AP Taiwan-based Chinese feminist author Shangguan Luan told Radio Free Asia, who has seen the band perform live in the southwestern city of Chengdu, said they are well-known for their stinging social criticism. “They have been doing songs with the same kind of social criticism in them for years,” she said. “Every time they do a gig, they’ll have a song summarizing recent events, based on a familiar tune.” “They go for the hot topics – it’s kind of a tradition for them – integrating all of the news from the past few months or the past year,” she said. “Bands in China have always been somewhat underground, and many have been banned over the years,” Shangguan Luan said. “Basically, all the bands I like have been banned, so they can’t perform in mainstream venues.” One of few channels Ren Ruiting, who fled to the United States with her family following the banning of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, said Slap’s songs could actually be the first place that many young Chinese people encounter such biting commentary on current events. “They’re very critical and very gutsy,” Ren said. “There aren’t that many channels through which the younger generation can learn the truth, because they don’t read books any more.” “But they love music and talk shows, so it’s a good way to get them to think [differently],” she said. Blogger YYQ described the band’s lead singer Zhao Yuepeng, who pens the songs, as “an observer who uses postmodernism to deconstruct reality.” “Rock music that isn’t critical is itself in need of criticism,” the blogger wrote in a recent post on the band. “Borrowing the narrative structure of traditional folk … it offers open-minded and insolent accusations and humble words, without shame,” the post said.  “The deliberate structures and rhythms enhance the weight of what is being said, but also give a sense of absurdity.” Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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The 1989 Tiananmen massacre – as seen by a new generation of watchful eyes

Editor012 mins

On the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre last weekend, a group of protesters gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square to pay their respects to the victims of the military crackdown by the Chinese army on peaceful pro-democracy protests.  These protesters were of a similar age to the students they commemorated.  After decades of political brainwashing under the Chinese Communist Party, which bans any public discussion of the 1989 events, many observers had started to believe that China’s young people had lost touch with the kind of political fervor that gave rise to the student movements of the 1980s.  Then, the “white paper” protests came, spreading across China in late 2022 in the wake of a fatal fire in Urumqi and after three years of COVID-19 lockdowns, quarantine camps and compulsory daily testing.  The result was to light up the pro-democracy movement in the diaspora, with young people once more taking to the streets of cities around the world to demand better for China, and to remember those who had gone before them.   Wang Han, 26, currently studying at the University of Southern California  Wang told us in a recent interview that the Tiananmen massacre occupies a similar place in his mind to the three years of stringent lockdowns and travel bans of the zero-COVID policy under President Xi Jinping. Wang, who described himself as deeply involved in the “white paper” movement, said the two are similar because they were the products of the same authoritarian government. “It’s what I’ve been saying to so many people,” he said. “I think everyone needs to stand together in the face of totalitarian tyranny.” “Everyone needs to stand together in the face of totalitarian tyranny,” says Wang Han. Credit: Screenshot from Wang Han video  Wang’s politics have evolved since Xi took power in 2012, and amended the constitution in 2018 to allow himself to rule indefinitely. Before Xi consolidated power in his own hands, Wang had allowed himself to hope that China might one day relinquish its authoritarian government peacefully, the way Taiwan did in the 1990s, to become a fully functioning democracy. “Under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, I didn’t support the Chinese Communist Party, but at that time I naively believed that this country would get better, a bit like Taiwan, with everyone moving forward step by step until finally, (Taiwan’s) Democratic Progressive Party was in power,” he said. “But when Xi Jinping amended the constitution in 2018, that really shocked me,” Wang said. “Then there was the pandemic emerging in Wuhan, and social movements started to inspire me even more.” Since then, Wang has dropped the belief that China will follow Taiwan’s path to democratization. “The Communist Party has done a more complete job of destroying grassroots social organizations in China, and it is more totalitarian” than the authoritarian Kuomintang government that once ruled Taiwan, he said. “I don’t think it is going to evolve away from tyranny through normal demands for reform,” Wang said. “That will only happen through a more determined kind of resistance.” Looking back, Wang sees scant signs of any political evolution at all in the past 73 years of Communist Party rule in China. “It doesn’t matter how different the ideas of Xi Jinping and Deng Xiaoping are,” he said. “The Communist Party and Marxism are totalitarian systems, and the totalitarian consciousness is deeply ingrained in them, and in their ideas.”   Xiao Yajie, 23, mainland Chinese who grew up in Hong Kong Xiao, who is working in Los Angeles, grew up hearing about the Tiananmen massacre in Hong Kong, which still had the freedom to hold annual candlelight gatherings every June 4, in Victoria Park. But smaller events were also taking place in the city’s schools, away from the eye of the international media. “Hong Kong’s political direction was still very liberal, and every school would hold June 4 commemorative activities,” she said. “During those years that I was studying in Hong Kong, our school would have spontaneous activities every year, and everyone would go to the auditorium to mourn the students.” “We would have candlelight evenings all through my elementary and high school years,” Xiao said.  Xiao Yajie takes part in a rally for the Los Angeles “white paper” movement. Credit: Provided by Xiao Yajie  Back then, Xiao didn’t give it much thought — until 2016, when her parents ran into some tourists from mainland China at a vigil in Victoria Park who denied the massacre had ever happened. “My parents told me about this, and I realized how much people in mainland China had been deceived,” she said. “This left a deep impression on me.” When the 2019 protest movement kicked off in Hong Kong, in response to plans to allow extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China, Xiao went back to take part, getting tear gassed by the Hong Kong police, and watching supporters of the Chinese Communist Party throw things at protesters on the street. Xiao continues to take part in local activism, including during the “white paper” movement, which she found inspiring. “This is a democratic movement that is better than the 1989 movement because this group of brave people stood up under huge political pressure [not to],” she said. “Although some of the people who launched the white paper movement may not even have known about June 4, it carried forward what the university students left undone [in 1989],” Xiao said. “That yearning for freedom and democracy from the past — it’s actually in our bones.” Ji Xin, a U.S.-based student from Shanghai in his early 20s Ji was among the few young people to find out what happened on the night of June 3-4 when the People’s Liberation Army entered Beijing in columns of tanks, firing machine guns at unarmed civilians on the streets and putting a bloody end to weeks of student-led protests on Tiananmen Square. He first heard adults talking about it when he was just eight years old. “I was playing…

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Blinken to travel to China next week: Reports

Editor02 mins

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Beijing next week, Reuters and the Associated Press reported Friday, as the United States seeks to shore up strained ties with China. Both Reuters and AP said Blinken would be in Beijing on June 18, next Sunday, citing anonymous American officials. AP said he would meet with Foreign Minister Qin Gang and possibly President Xi Jinping. State Department officials would not confirm the reported plans. In February, Blinken abruptly canceled a trip to Beijing just hours before he was set to depart Washington after officials said a Chinese spy balloon was found floating over the United States. China insisted it was a weather balloon that strayed off course. Since then, an unofficial trip by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to New York and Los Angeles in March has further inflamed ties. Relations between the world’s two major powers have been tense since August, when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan to the protests of Beijing, which regards the democratic island as a renegade province and has vowed to reunite it with the mainland. There has also been an uptick in near-miss accidents between the two countries’ militaries in the past two weeks in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, with the Pentagon accusing China’s navy and air force of dangerous maneuvering in front of American vessels.

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Unknown group kills brother of National Unity Government human rights advisor

Editor03 mins

Than Myint, the elder brother of the shadow National Unity Government’s human rights advisor, has been stabbed to death in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, according to his brother Aung Kyaw Moe. He said a gang attacked his brother near the Nwe Aye Mosque on Wednesday and escaped before the police arrived. “We are blood [relatives] and I am working on human rights,”Aung Kyaw Moe told RFA Friday. “I sent facts about this to relevant colleagues and the international community. When the relatives of those involved in the revolution are targeted and killed we must bring justice to those cases.” Pro-junta activists took to social media to claim responsibility but it is still not clear which group was behind the killing. Than Myint was from a Rohingya family that used to live in Rakhine state. He and his family members fled Rakhine separately after the Muslim group suffered persecution in 2012 and 2017. Of the 1 million Rohingya who lived in Rakhine state, three quarters have fled to Bangladesh, while many of the rest live in Internally Displaced Persons camps with inadequate food and shelter. The National Unity Government’s human rights ministry released a message of condolence for Than Myint’s killing on Friday. On Thursday, pro-junta Telegram channels called on supporters to release the names of people opposed to the February 2021 military coup and the names of family members of those who have gone into exile. The killing of Than Myint follows the murder of the mother and sister of one of the men accused of killing pro-junta singer and actor Lily Naing Kyaw in Yangon. Furious pro-junta groups called for revenge, identifying the alleged killer and giving his address on social media. Kaung Zarni Hein’s family were shot dead in their home the same night. More than 3,600 civilians, including pro-democracy activists, have been killed since the coup according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Jailed Vietnamese climate activist to start hunger strike on Friday

Editor09 mins

A Vietnamese climate activist serving a five-year prison sentence for tax evasion will begin a hunger strike on Friday unless he is immediately and unconditionally released, his wife told Radio Free Asia. Lawyer and environmentalist Dang Dinh Bach, 44, who had campaigned to reduce Vietnam’s reliance on coal, was arrested in June 2021 and then sentenced to five years in jail.  Bach was director of the Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Center, which works with communities affected by development, poor industrial practices and environmental degradation to help them understand and enforce their rights. Authorities accused him of not paying taxes for sponsorships his organization received from foreign donors. He is one of several Vietnamese activists sentenced for tax evasion—a charge that rights groups say is politically motivated.  In a conversation with RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Thursday, Bach’s wife, Tran Phuong Thao, said he planned to start a hunger strike the next day. She said he had already been skipping meals and had only been eating one meal a day since March 17. “He wants to send his sincere love to all species and people,” said Thao. “The hunger strike is for the environment, justice, and climate. He wants to take action to awaken everyone’s love to protect Mother Nature and combat climate change.” Bach also told his wife that the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese government should reconsider their stance on environmental activists, as they are not a threat to political security. “[They should] stop ungrounded arrests and wrongful convictions,” said Thao. “Also, [Vietnam] must implement its commitments against climate change in a responsible and substantive manner.” Thao said that it would be her husband’s fourth hunger strike, which could last for many days and be dangerous. Bach asked his family to stop sending food to him in prison except for hydration and electrolyte replenishment packs for emergency use. Bach said he would regularly send two letters to his family each month, she said, and if no letters arrived, that meant he was in danger in prison. Rights dialogue The news from Bach’s wife comes on the eve of a bilateral human rights dialogue with the European Union.  The regional bloc should add cases like Bach’s to the agenda for discussion, New York-based Human Rights Watch, or HRW, said in a statement Thursday. “The EU claimed its 2020 Free Trade Agreement would encourage Vietnam to improve its human rights record, but just the opposite has happened,” said Phil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director.  “Hanoi’s disregard for rights has already made it clear that the EU needs to consider actions that go beyond simply issuing statements and hoping for the best.” HRW recalled that the expectation for the establishment of the a EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement Domestic Advisory Group was to promote Vietnamese independent civil society groups’ participation in monitoring the implementation of the EVFTA trade and sustainable development provisions, but cited the tax related arrests of Bach, and another activist Mai Phan Loi, as evidence to the contrary. HRW also urged the EU to press the Vietnamese government to amend or repeal several vague penal code articles which the authorities frequently use to repress civil and political rights, as well as two constitutional articles which allow for restrictions on human rights for reasons of national security that go beyond what is permissible under international human rights law. “The EU should get serious about pressing the Vietnamese government to convert rights pledges into genuine reform,” Robertson said. “It’s not much of a rights dialogue if Vietnam officials are just going through the motions, expressing platitudes, and waiting for the meeting to end.” Political prisoners In May 2023, HRW made a submission to the EU on the human rights situation in Vietnam, and urged the bloc to press the Vietnamese authorities to immediately release all political prisoners and detainees. Among the hundreds of cases raised in the submission was that of  “Onion Bae” Bui Tuan Lam, who is serving a 5½-year sentence on propaganda charges. Lam, 39, who ran a beef noodle stall in Danang, achieved notoriety in 2021 after posting an online video mimicking the Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe, known as “Salt Bae.” The video was widely seen as a mockery of Vietnam’s minister of public security, To Lam, who was caught on film being hand-fed one of Salt Bae’s gold-encrusted steaks by the chef at his London restaurant at a cost of 1,450 pounds (US$1,790).  In a conversation with RFA about Lam’s recent trial in May, his lengthy sentence, and the upcoming EU-Vietnam human rights dialogue, his wife, Le Thanh Lam said that rights organizations in the EU and UN understand how Vietnamese authorities have done many wrongful things the family.  “My kids lost their right to have a father next to them while their father did not do anything unlawful. Everything my husband did is[allowed] under Vietnam’s Constitution and laws,” she said. “He only exercised freedom of speech and other human rights enshrined in the U.N. documents that Vietnam signed.” Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

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Myanmar military kills 6 people in raid on Sagaing region village

Editor04 mins

Junta troops have shot dead six people in a raid on a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, residents and People’s Defense Force officials told RFA Thursday. They entered Monywa’s Yae Kan Su village on Wednesday morning, killing four anti-regime soldiers, two of them still in their teens. Troops then shot dead two civilians as they tried to run away, according to locals. Soe Gyi, acting battalion commander of Monywa District Defense Force Battalion-27 identified the dead members of his group as 20-year-old Khin Yadanar Oo, 18-year-old Zin Zin Soe, 17-year-old Ah Thay Lay, and a 24-year old known by the initials B.E. He said a junta column with about 80 soldiers suddenly arrived in the village at dawn, taking his troops by surprise. “[The camp] was raided when the patrol had withdrawn for physical training,” he said. “Four PDF [People’s Defense Force] members were arrested, shot dead on the spot and burned.” Defense force members fired back but then had to retreat due to lack of support and weapons, he said, adding that troops seized hand-made guns, bullets, communication equipment, uniforms and nine motorbikes. Residents said troops killed a 50-year-old and an 18-year-old who tried to flee during the raid. They didn’t name the two men. Pro-junta social media channels said troops killed five People’s Defense Force members, not four, and didn’t mention the civilians. They said the three men and two women were hiding in a village school. The Telegram channels also confirmed reports that junta troops seized weapons and ammunition. Locals said junta troops have raided five villages near Monywa in recent days, forcing around 2,000 people to flee Yae Kan Su village. The number driven out of the other four villages is not yet known. Nearly 750,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes in Sagaing due to fighting since the Feb. 2021 coup, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). RFA’s calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson and social affairs minister, Aing Hlang, went unanswered Thursday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.  

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