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Category: World

Vietnamese Facebook activist’s family speak out about his ‘secret trial’

Editor07 mins

Facebook activist Nguyen Duc Hung’s family say he was denied visitors and they only found out about his five-and-a-half-year sentence from state media the day after it was handed down. Hung’s posts aimed to raise awareness of an environmental disaster in his hometown of Ky Anh. The Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh steel factory discharged chemical waste into the sea and environmentalists say the effects are still being felt by the residents. His social media posts did not focus solely on the disaster in his home town. He told his 9,000-plus followers about cases of social injustice and human rights abuses. He also focused on religious freedom, posting comments about the case of Thien An Monastery in which the provincial government of Thua Thien Hue “borrowed” land from the religious facility. Hung was convicted of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the criminal code. The indictment said Hung’s actions directly affected the implementation of the Party’s guidelines and policies, the State’s laws, and the strength of the people’s government, divided national unity, reduced the people’s trust in the Party and State, and potentially caused national insecurity and disorder. While the court claimed it was a public criminal trial Hung’s family said they heard nothing from the police or the court. “When they carried out the trial, my family did not know,” Hung’s father Nguyen Van Sen told RFA. “I phoned the detention center and was told that the trial had been carried out the day before. When I asked why they didn’t notify my family, the police said the family was not involved.” Sen got the same response when the called the provincial police’s investigative department. According to a lawyer who has defended many similar trials Hung’s case is not uncommon. Ha Huy Son said the court does not have to notify the family or invite them to the trial. He said Criminal Procedure Code 2015 only stipulates telling the family the person is in custody, or has been arrested in the case of an urgent arrest. It is only necessary to tell the defense lawyer, the victim and any other parties involved at least 10 days before the trial. Hung is the sixth Facebooker this year to be convicted of “conducting propaganda against the state.” The others received sentences of between five and eight years. Hung, 31, was arrested on Jan. 6 this year and has been held incommunicado since then. His father said, despite repeated trips to the detention center, the family was not allowed to see him. The family did not hire a defense lawyer and Sen said he did not know if one was present at the trial. Sen did not want to comment on the sentence, other than saying he hoped it would be reduced because Hung’s wife had left him to raise their two primary school children. State media did not mention whether Hung had a lawyer, only saying he had pleaded guilty and asked for leniency. RFA called the People’s Court of Ha Tinh province but no-one replied Communist Party paranoia  “Given the worsening situation for activists and human rights defenders in Vietnam, it was sadly just a matter of time before Nguyen Duc Hung got arrested,” said Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson. “It’s become obvious that the Vietnam Communist Party is so paranoid about dissenting views that it considers mere writing of words online to be a threat to state security. By giving out a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for just writing criticism of the government on Facebook, the government has committed an outrageous and unacceptable violation of Nguyen Duc Thung’s rights.  In reality, he did nothing that would have been considered wrong, or even out of the ordinary, if he was in a democratic society, but of course he is stuck living under a single party dictatorship.” Roberts said Vietnam’s crackdown on freedom of expression means no peaceful activist can spread his views via social media without facing what he called “bogus state security charges” and many years in prison. “Quite clearly, Vietnam has become one of the worst rights abusing and dictatorial governments in Southeast Asia and now it wants to control the Internet as strictly as China. Any government donor or international business investor should think twice about investing in a country like Vietnam where freedom of expression and access to information is so strictly controlled,” Robertson said.

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Global heating, human development could drive future waves of disease in east Asia

Editor010 mins

Global heating is leading dozens of bat species to migrate to southern China and southeast Asian countries, amid growing concerns that the climate crisis could fuel more zoonotic disease and further deadly pandemics, experts told RFA. A 2021 University of Cambridge study found that climate change may already have played a role in the emergence of the current pandemic, after researchers tracked large-scale changes in vegetation patterns across southwestern Yunnan province and neighboring Myanmar and Laos. “Increases in temperature, sunlight, and atmospheric carbon dioxide – which affect the growth of plants and trees – have changed natural habitats from tropical shrubland to tropical savannah and deciduous woodland,” the study said. “This created a suitable environment for many bat species that predominantly live in forests.” It said the number of coronaviruses in a given area is closely linked to the number of different bat species present, with an additional 40 bat species moving into Yunnan during the past 100 years, bringing with them around 100 new coronaviruses. Genetic data suggests SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may also have come from this region, according to study first author Robert Beyer, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “Climate change over the last century has made the habitat in the southern Chinese Yunnan province suitable for more bat species,” Beyer said. “As climate change altered habitats, species left some areas and moved into others – taking their viruses with them,” he said. “This … most likely allowed for new interactions between animals and viruses, causing more harmful viruses to be transmitted or evolve,” said Beyer. The world’s bats carry around 3,000 different types of coronavirus, with each bat species harboring an average of 2.7 coronaviruses – most without showing symptoms. While most coronaviruses carried by bats can’t jump into humans, several coronaviruses known to infect humans are very likely to have originated in bats, the study said. The area of Yunnan covered by the study is also home to pangolins, which are a likely intermediary host for SARS-CoV-2, experts said. “The virus is likely to have jumped from bats to these animals, which were then sold at a wildlife market in Wuhan – where the initial human outbreak occurred,” a press release accompanying the study said. Another study published by researchers at Georgetown University in the journal Nature also warned that the climate crisis may increase the risk of cross-species transmission of viruses — and could even trigger the next pandemic, citing bats as a likely source species. Dobson’s horseshoe bat. Credit: India Biodiversity Portal Increased risk of disease Chen Chen-chih, associate professor of wildlife conservation at Taiwan’s Pingtung University of Science and Technology, said both studies showed similar findings, warning that migratory shifts could bring bats into closer contact with humans. He cited an outbreak of Hendra virus in Australia in 1994, which caused deaths in humans and horses, and originated in fruit bats. “When their habitats are destroyed or reduced, fruit bats will of course find another way to live,” Chen told RFA. “There are parks in the city, so the likelihood of finding food is very high, added to the fact that people in Australia don’t actively kill bats.” “So they find an urban environment that they can adapt to.” Li Lingling, professor of ecology and evolutionary Biology at National Taiwan University, said humans have already interfered with natural habitats. “Bats are nocturnal and do not [normally] come into contact with humans,” Li said. “When we increase opportunities for bats to come into contact with other animals, the risk of humans being exposed [viruses] also increases.” Chen agreed. “Many studies have found that when habitat of wild animals is stable and undisturbed, the pathogens they carry are less likely to spread,” he said. “When protected animal habitats are well managed and biodiversity taken care of, a single highly lethal pathogen is less likely to emerge,” he said. According to the Georgetown study, there are at least 10,000 viruses currently existent in wild mammals that could be transmitted to humans. Prediction models show that under different carbon emission scenarios, more than 300,000 first contacts between species will occur, some of them in the next 50 years, potentially resulting in more than 15,000 new cross-species virus transmissions. “The vast majority of prediction models believe that the virus will spread across species, particular cross-species transmission from wild animals will become more and more serious under climate change,” Chen said. “These pathogens may jump the species barrier, infect livestock animals, and then infect humans from there, or even directly from wild animals to humans,” he said. “All of these routes are possible [but] whether transmission happens or not depends on the frequency of contact, or the immune status of the potential host,” Chen said. Li said the overall risk had definitely increased, however. “There are some key factors in between, but the risk of disease is indeed increased,” Li said. A greater horseshoe bat. Credit: Marie Jullion/Wikimedia Commons Managing biodiversity Chen said the key lies in the management of biodiversity, particularly in tropical and subtropics regions of east and southeast Asia. “The more species there are, the more potential virus species there are, but when wild animals live in a natural habitat, there are few opportunities for contact, and therefore everyone can coexist peacefully,” he said. Li said areas of high population density and ongoing development are most at risk. “Humans invade nature, transform their environment, or make use of wild animals … and then the risk of coming into contact with viruses carried by wild animals is relatively high,” she said. “Once an epidemic occurs in a densely populated place, then of course there’s a much higher chance of it spreading,” Li said. Chen cited the hunting of wild animals for food, and the trading of different species in the same markets as high-risk behavior. Wild animals that are trapped alive and held in cages in close proximity have weakened immune systems, making transmission more likely among them…

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Belt and Road becomes ball and chain for Chinese construction workers

Editor025 mins

They signed up at job fairs to work as carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers and painters at a housing project in the North African country of Algeria and were promised round-trip air fare, room and board, and better wages than they’d earned in China. They thought working for companies serving China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was a safe bet. When the migrant workers from Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, and Hebei–China’s relatively poorer inland provinces–arrived in the country, however, they soon found themselves living in sheds without air conditioning in desert heat and facing a nightmare of withheld wages, mysterious extra fees, confiscated passports, and dismal food. Many are trapped in Algeria. Chinese labor lawyers say their treatment not only besmirches China’s reputation, undermining the goals of the nearly 10-year-old Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of infrastructure projects aimed at boosting Beijing’s global profile, but also constitutes human trafficking under international conventions China has signed. The BRI is seen as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature international policy. Following up on tips received from workers who’ve been stranded some 6,000 miles (9,200 km) from home, RFA Mandarin interviewed numerous workers employed in Algeria’s Souk Ahras Province, Chinese diplomats, labor lawyers and an executive of Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd, the eastern China-based company the laborers accuse of luring them to Algeria under false pretenses. “When I came here through an agent, I realized the situation is not good. It is worse than in China,” said Worker A, whose name has been withheld to protect him and his family from retaliation. “The contract is good for two years, and the pay listed on the contract is more than 10,000 yuan ($1,480) per month––between 15,000 ($2,220) and 20,000 yuan ($2,960). After landing here, I made less than 10,000 yuan ($1,480) a month,” he told RFA. “The pay is far from what was promised,” said a second man, identified as Worker B.  “It is worse than what we earned in China. Here the monthly pay on average is 3,000 yuan ($444).” When he and fellow workers “arrived here and found out that the situation was far from ideal, we wanted to go home,” said Worker A. “We spoke with the company, and the company said ‘no.’ They said ‘Because you already signed the contract, if you go home now, that is a breach of contract.’” According to Worker A, Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd. told the workers to “ask your family to wire 28,000 yuan ($4,145) over to pay for the penalty. After you pay the penalty, then you can go home.” He told RFA wages were only paid every six months, with 70 percent paid, and the other 30 percent withheld until the workers fulfilled their two-year contracts. That pay arrangement meant the workers “usually have no money to live on” and had to borrow advances against their wages. “In the process, the workers were ripped off by other costs,” added Worker A, who said the company profited by loaning money to them at an exchange rate to the local Algerian Dinar currency that was about half the actual rate. A Chinese worker walks by a building at a construction site in Algeria’s Souk Ahras province. Credit: A Chinese worker. ‘Pig food’ and hot sheds Worker B said it took a strike by workers in September 2021 to get the company to pay the 70 percent they were due in the middle of that year. He said the workers were told by the company: “Feel free to sue. We’re not afraid. Just sue us, go back to China to sue us.” But a third worker involved in the dispute said that path was impossible for poor workers to take “The lawsuit costs money. To hire someone costs money. If you file a complaint in China, you’re dragging your family in too. Who can afford to sue? said Worker C. A chief reason the workers had to borrow money was to cook their own meals because the three daily meals they were promised under their contracts was inedible. “To say it bluntly, the food was worse than those given to pigs. Sometimes the food was just impossible to eat,” said Worker B. “In the winter, they gave you marinated cucumber salad or marinated tomatoes, plus two eggs per person. That’s it. Or two eggplants each person,” he said. “The food we ate was mixed with sand and gravel. The noodles were black,” added Worker B. “Workers in many construction sites that this company operates received the same treatment. Why? The company does not want to cook the food well, because if it’s delicious, you’d eat more. By offering lousy food, you’d pay out of pocket to buy your own food and cook your own meals,” Worker A surmised.  The make matters worse, Worker A said, the workforce had to “live in regular sheds, with no air-conditioning, no matter how hot it is.” “In the summer, the temperature goes as high as 41 or 42 Celsius (105 or 107 Fahrenheit),” he added. Food provided to workers by Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd. ay its construction site in Algeria. Credit: A worker Overpriced plane tickets, improper visas Another grievance shared by the workers in Algeria who spoke to RFA in recent months was the failure to provide return airfare to China as promised. After checking with the Chinese Embassy in Algiers, workers who were trying to go home were told that tickets to China ran about 22,000 yuan. “The boss has told them that a flight ticket costs ¥42,000 yuan, and we have to pay our own ticket. He wanted us to pay by ourselves,” said Worker D. “It seemed that the ticket was around ¥22,000 yuan, and he charged you more than ¥30,000, said Worker E. “’Immigration clearance fee,’ they said,” he added. Worker D explained that because the company applied for business visas for the workers, when the workers return to China, they have to go through departure procedures at the…

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Indonesia: Unity among G20 needed to avoid ‘catastrophic’ crisis in developing world

Editor05 mins

Indonesia’s finance minister said Friday it is imperative that G20 countries are united in dealing with a looming food crisis caused by the conflict between breadbaskets Russia and Ukraine, or the world’s most vulnerable countries will face disastrous consequences. During a meeting in Bali, Sri Mulyani Indrawati also told the top finance and economic diplomats from the Group of Twenty counties to schedule a forum of members’ finance and agriculture chiefs to devise a plan to deal with food and fertilizer shortages. “The unresolved COVID-19 pandemic as well as the unfolding war in Ukraine are likely to exacerbate the already severe 2022 acute food security that we are all already seeing. In addition to that, a looming fertilizer crisis also has the potential to further exacerbate and extend the food crisis even in 2023 and beyond,” said the finance minister of Indonesia, this year’s holder of the G20’s rotating chair and host of the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting. “We are acutely aware that the cost of our failure to work together is more than we can afford. The humanitarian consequences for the world and especially for many low-income countries would be catastrophic,” Sri said. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, it has blocked all of the latter’s Black Sea ports and cut off access to almost all of that country’s exports, especially of grain. Those moves sparked fears of a global food crisis. In its April report, the Global Crisis Response Group, set up by the United Nations secretary general, said Ukraine and Russia provide 30 percent of the world’s wheat and barley, a fifth of its maize and more than half of its sunflower oil. Russia also is the world’s largest natural gas exporter and second largest oil exporter. Sri said it was essential to deploy all available financing mechanisms to save lives and strengthen financial as well as social stability. “The G20 could urgently convene a joint G20 finance and agriculture ministers meeting to improve coordination between finance and agriculture ministers and explore actions to address the growing food insecurity and related issues,” she said. “This is exactly like we did or what we are doing with joint finance and health ministers when we were dealing with COVID-19 and preparing a pandemic preparedness mechanism.” Sri kept her comments about G20 unity general, but it’s no secret that the group is split between the West, which has condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and others including China, Indonesia and India, which have refused to do so and continue to maintain ties with Moscow, analysts have said. So sharp have the divisions been that in April, U.S., British and Canadian finance chiefs walked out of the last G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Washington when the Russian minister rose to speak. The Russian foreign minister reciprocated at last week’s G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali during the top U.S. diplomat’s address. Media reports said no one walked out on Friday, day one of the two-day meeting, but it remains to be seen whether the forum will produce a communiqué on Saturday. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

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Auto parts are a hot commodity in a North Korea cut off from new supplies

Editor06 mins

Thieves in North Korea are scouring the city for cars to strip, as a severe parts shortage grips the country due to a ban on imports in response to the coronavirus pandemic, sources in the country told RFA. Most North Koreans do not own vehicles, but most of those who do drive cars made in China.  Imports of Chinese auto parts stopped when Beijing and Pyongyang shut down the border and suspended all trade at the beginning of the pandemic in January 2020.  As supplies inside North Korea dwindled, parts available for purchase have become rarer and rarer. Opportunistic thieves are looking to cash in on the shortage. In some cases, car owners have to steal parts just to keep their own vehicles running, a resident of Chongjin in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Thievery of auto parts is rampant downtown,” said the source. “New parts are almost impossible to find, and even used ones are hard to get, so the thieves steal other people’s auto parts to repair their own cars.”  Sometimes the thieves steal the entire car. “Last week in Sunam district, a car owner parked his car in front of his house. A short while later, while he was eating dinner, his car disappeared,” the source said. “The next day, the car was found … only the shell remained, with all the main components torn off.” A black market of stolen auto parts has developed as the parts become more and more valuable, the source said. “Car parts are as precious as food, and they can be sold to make money at any time. There are many cases where cars that are parked at night on the roadside or in villages are hauled to a remote place so the thieves can steal the parts,” he said.  “The vicious cycle continues when the victims of theft steal parts from others to fix their own cars,” the source said. A car drives past residential buildings in Pyongyang, North Korea in a file photo. Photo: Reuters Businesses have begun to ramp up security to protect the vehicles they depend on to make money, he said. “This can disrupt production and business operations, so drivers are sleeping in their cars to protect them when they travel to other regions.” Protecting cars has become a struggle in South Hamgyong province, a resident there told RFA, on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Most companies that own cars do not have dedicated garages and they park their cars outside,” he said.  “There are two security guards on a shift at night in my company. Even though the car was parked in front of the well-lit security office, auto parts were still stolen multiple times,” the second source said. The second source’s company is holding drivers responsible for all vehicle expenses, so the drivers are getting creative to deter thieves. “One driver built a garage out of plastic film in his yard at his own high-fenced house. He guards the car by sleeping in it at night with two ferocious dogs,” he said.  “Due to the (COVID-19) pandemic, many thieves are active because there is not enough food to eat and clothes to wear. Nevertheless, the Workers’ Party has no interest in resolving the suffering of the people, and they are telling us to overcome economic difficulties, armed only with ideological training,” he said, referring to propaganda lessons that tell the people to solve their own problems in line with the country’s founding Juche ideology of self-reliance.  Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Lao fishermen return to Malaysia, despite risks

Editor08 mins

Thousands of Laotians are once again leaving their home country to work in the Malaysian fishing industry, where they are susceptible to abuse from employers due to their illegal status, the fishermen told RFA. The Lao Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare estimated that about 2,000 Laotians had recently traveled illegally to Malaysia for fishing jobs. During the pandemic, 700 Lao migrants had returned home from Malaysia, but most have since gone back as economic conditions in their home country worsen due in part to high inflation. Though the pay is sometimes better there than what they could earn in Laos, illegal migrants are often exploited by their employers, a Lao fisherman who has been working in Malaysia’s Pahang state told RFA’s Lao Service, on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “There’s no fairness,” he said. “The main drawback is that we, as fishermen, don’t know the total weight of the fish we catch and we don’t know how much money our employers make. We just get whatever they give us. The information about the total catch and revenue is not known to us.”  To ensure their rights are protected, the Lao government is working on finding ways for more migrants to go to Malaysia legally. “We recently sent about 70 Lao workers to Malaysia, legally, for a pilot project. We are requesting that the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs send more workers to Malaysia, as we know many Laotians are going there to work illegally,” an official of the ministry’s Department of Labor Skill Development and Employment Service told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. Despite the risks, Malaysia is attractive to migrants because it is a relatively easy country to work in, the fisherman said. “The main reason so many choose to come here is because we don’t have money. Most of us don’t even have enough to make a passport,” he said. “In my case, the employer sent some money to me in Laos to apply for a passport and pay for all my documents. If I had gone to, say, South Korea instead, I would have had to pay for everything myself. I’d have to borrow money to fly over there,” he said. The fisherman said that he came to Malaysia via a land route through Thailand. The trip cost 100,000 baht (U.S. $2,800), which he repays through deductions from his paycheck.  “More than one thousand Lao fishermen are working here …, about 60 percent more than there were last year. Most of these new fishermen, who have never even been on the sea, come from the Vientiane suburbs or from nearby Borikhamxay province,” he said. Another Lao fisherman told RFA how he came to work in Malaysia. “Nobody told me to come here, but I came because in Laos, there are no jobs and labor is cheap,” he told RFA.  “I didn’t come here via the Lao Labor Department. At first, I came to Malaysia as a tourist. I took a bus to the town of Nong Khai in Thailand, then I traveled by bus to Pattani Province in southern Thailand where my employer’s bus was waiting to take me to Malaysia. Then, in Malaysia, my employer obtained all the necessary documents including a work permit for me, so I can work,” the second fisherman said. A third fisherman told RFA that the pay was good. “We make at least 3,700 ringit, or about 30,000 baht [$836] per month, but in some months when the catch is big, we can earn up to 7,000 ringit, or 50,000 baht [$1,581],” he said. “There are about 100 Lao fishermen working here … That’s not a lot. There are also Thais, Burmese and Cambodians too and we mingle together,” he said. The Lao government is making efforts to protect the migrants by making it easier for them to go to Malaysia legally, thereby making them harder to exploit. Authorities are collecting information in hopes of entering into an agreement with Malaysia to allow Laos to send more workers, Anousone Khamsingsavath, the director of the Department of Labor Skill Development and Employment Service, said at an August 2021 meeting that discussed workers’ rights in Southeast Asia. He acknowledged widespread exploitation in Malaysia’s fishing and seafood processing industries. Lao fishermen in Malaysia support the effort between the countries to reach an agreement, because it would increase the likelihood that their rights would be protected, a fourth Lao fisherman told RFA. BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news source, sent inquiries on this issue to the Malaysian government but received no response. BN reached out to MY govt officials for comment but didn’t receive an answer. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Concerns remain over the health of journalists, writers jailed in China: RSF

Editor06 mins

Five years after the death of Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo from advanced liver cancer during an 11-year prison sentence for subversion, concerns remain for the health of many other free speech advocates who remain behind bars in China, a Paris-based press freedom group has said. “In China, detained journalists are almost systematically subjected to mistreatment and denied medical care,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement on the fifth anniversary of Liu’s death. The statement cited the case of political commentator Yang Tongyan who died from an untreated cancer while in detention, and that of Kunchok Jinpa, a leading source of information about Tibet for journalists, who died in 2021 as a result of ill-treatment in prison. “Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the international community to finally step up pressure on the regime for it to put an end to its policy of censorship and media surveillance,” the group said. Liu’s sentence came after he co-authored Charter 08, a document calling for sweeping changes to China’s political system that was signed by more than 300 fellow activists on Dec. 10, 2008. “Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom to choose where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others,” the document demanded. “Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.” Humanitarian China director Wang Jianhong, who founded the Zhang Zhan Concern Group in support of jailed citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, said Zhang’s health is a matter of grave concern. “We have no news about Zhang Zhan in nearly six months, and we are actually very worried about her health there in prison,” Wang told RFA. “While her family saw Zhang Zhan in a video call at the end of January, and said they saw her condition had improved and she could walk by herself, but there was no exact indicator [provided to them], such as her weight,” Wang said. Zhang is currently serving a four-year jail term for “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” after she turned up in the central city of Wuhan and started reporting from the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, then in its early stages. At one point, campaigners said she was on the verge of dying after months of partial hunger strike and forced feeding. Her family have been denied permission for another video call or an in-person meeting, Wang said. Jewher Ilham, daughter of jailed Uyghur professor Ilham Tohti, says she fears her father could share Liu Xiaobo’s fate. “I always feel that my father and Liu Xiaobo were soulmates,” she told RFA. “They have very similar views and expectations, that is, peaceful coexistence; and their experiences are also very similar in that they have been jailed. The experiences of the two of them are also very similar, that is, they were both controlled and detained by the Chinese government.” “On the anniversary of Mr. Liu Xiaobo’s death, I am not only heartbroken for Liu Xiaobo and his family, but also very worried about my father,” she said. “I didn’t know what happened to Mr. Liu Xiaobo. And what happened to my father?” “In a Xinjiang prison, with such a high-pressure environment and very poor hygiene, it is really hard to predict what will happen to my father’s health,” Jewher Ilham said. “I honestly don’t think he will be in very good health in there.” RSF published a list of 15 free speech defenders currently behind bars whose health is worsening, including China Rights Observer founder Qin Yongmin, dissident Yang Hengjun and Zhang Haitao, Swedish Hong Kong-based bookseller Gui Minhai and Huang Qi, founder of the 64 Tianwang rights website. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Thousands forced to flee Sagaing airstrikes that killed one and injured two

Editor03 mins

Around 4,000 locals were forced to flee junta airstrikes on around 15 villages in Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing region on Thursday. The attacks are part of a three-day scorched-earth campaign that continued Friday. It involved around 100 troops, targeting residents of a township that has fiercely resisted military rule. Four helicopters carried out raids on the villages in Depayin township, killing a man, identified as Khin Maung San, and injuring another man and a woman. “Khin Maung San died on the spot and the injured woman was critically wounded in the bladder. She was treated by military council forces,” a local told RFA on condition of anonymity. “The residents fled and didn’t return until the military left. The conditions on the ground are very bad.” The local said around 100 residents who could not flee were interrogated and had the contents of their mobile phones searched by the military to check whether they had contacted People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). These are not the first air strikes on Depayin this month. Residents said two military helicopters fired on three villages on July 2. Township residents have fiercely resisted the junta that have been ruling the country since the Feb.1, 2021 coup, offering support to local PDFs. The junta has tried to control opposition by cutting off mobile phone and internet access. More than 100 residents of Sagaing region were killed by junta forces in the first 15 months after the coup. Casualties across Myanmar have risen above 2,000. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA to ask about the raids on Depayin went unanswered on Friday.

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Vietnamese police try to stamp out religious sect

Editor07 mins

The police have been working for the past year to eliminate a religious sect based in northern Vietnam, according to a police newspaper.  On Tuesday the Cong an Nhan dan, which is the mouthpiece of the Ministry of Public Security, published an article about “Project 78”. It said its goal is to “fight, prevent, and proceed to eliminate the illegal Duong Van Minh organization,” in Bac Kan province. There are roughly 8,000 ethnic Hmong practitioners of the Duong Van Minh religion in four provinces in the northern mountains. The religion is not officially registered and the police article said the government believes the sect is conspiring to “establish an independent Hmong state” and break away from Vietnam. “The illegal sect Duong Van Minh, which has existed for more than 33 years, is an organization hiding in the shadow of beliefs and religions, propagandizing, gathering mass forces, enticing the Hmong ethnic people, plotting to establish an ‘independent Hmong state,’ seeking the support of hostile forces, and forming political opposition,” the article said. Followers of the sect have repeatedly denied claims they want independence. Duong Van Minh was founded in 1989 with the stated goal of promoting the elimination of outdated, expensive and unhygienic funeral customs. Hmong funeral services can last as long as a week before the body is buried. All family members are expected to attend the ceremonies, sacrifice animals and prepare feasts for the guests. Last December hundreds of police raided the funeral of founder Duong Van Minh, in Tuyen Quang province, citing Coronavirus concerns, despite the official cause of his death being lymphoma. Police arrested around 35 people, smashed windows in the family home and threatened the family with electric batons. Nine more people were arrested when they went to the police to protest and another four were later charged with assaulting police officers. On May 18 this year, a court in Tuyen Quang province convicted 12 followers of “resistance against on-duty state officials,” and sentenced them to between two and four years in prison. Over the years Vietnamese authorities have imprisoned many sect members for “abusing freedom and democratic rights” and have destroyed dozens of religious structures used as funeral homes. The police newspaper said the abolition of the Duong Van Minh religion must be turned into a political goal. It urged Bac Kan province set a “road map to eliminate” the sect by next year. Another northern province, Cao Bang, has already included the goal of “preventing and eliminating” the sect in its resolution on socioeconomic development for 2020-2025. A human rights lawyer, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said the government’s plan to abolish the Duong Van Minh sect “is a serious violation of the people’s right to freedom of belief and religion. It shows that this State does not respect its Constitution and the laws that it promulgates.” “Article 24 of Vietnam’s constitution stipulates that everyone has the right to freedom of belief and religion, to follow or not to follow a religion. The State respects and protects the right to freedom of belief and religion,” the lawyer said. He added that Project 78 proved that the State had decided to destroy the lives of Duong Van Minh followers. “If it is a state that knows how to take care and think for the people the government must be responsible for helping and guiding people,” he said. “They set up such a project obviously to erase [the religion], not to acknowledge the Duong Van Minh sect.” The Vietnamese government has always insisted that it does not suppress religion, and calls Duong Van Minh’s sect an “illegal organization”. However, international organizations and foreign governments, including the U.S., have refused to accept the claim and regularly accuse the Vietnamese government of violating the right to religious freedom. According to the Report on Religious Freedom 2022, released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on April 25, the situation of religious freedom in Vietnam is still assessed as negative due to government’s religious persecution. The organization suggested that the US Government place Vietnam on the list of countries of special concern because of its systematic, persistent and serious violations of religious freedom.

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China’s Xi Jinping makes unannounced visit to Xinjiang

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Chinese President Xi Jinping made an unannounced visit to the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi this week, state media reported Thursday, marking his second trip in eight years to the region where rights groups and several Western nations accuse him of carrying out a genocide against Uyghur Muslims. The official Xinhua news agency said Xi inspected Xinjiang University, an international land port area, a residential community, and a museum during his visit, which lasted from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. “Xi learned about the work in nurturing talent, coordinating COVID-19 response with economic and social development, promoting ethnic unity and progress and consolidating the sense of community for the Chinese nation, among others,” the report said. Other state media reports included images of Xi leading exuberant locals through the streets of the capital, receiving applause during his inspections, and observing ethnic dance performances. Xi’s visit marked only his second in eight years to the region where Chinese authorities have ramped up their repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities since 2017, detaining up to 1.8 million people in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor as well as the eradication of linguistic, cultural and religious traditions. Credible reports by rights groups and the media documenting the widespread abuse and repression in the XUAR have led the United States and some parliaments in Western countries to declare that the Chinese government’s action amount to a genocide and crimes against humanity. Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and expert on the Xinjiang region told RFA Uyghur that Xi’s visit was likely a bid by Beijing to repudiate allegations of rights abuses and “project an image of stability … in terms of ethnic policy and economic development” to a global and domestic audience. He noted the symbolism behind Xi’s return to Urumqi where, during his last visit in April 2014, the Chinese leader delivered an internal speech changing the direction of Beijing’s policy in the region to one in which the central government runs Xinjiang as a virtual police state. Prior to the directive, Uyghurs were permitted a tightly-controlled version of “autonomy” in the region, but regularly faced discrimination and other forms of repression that prompted members of the ethnic group to carry out sporadic, violent attacks against Chinese rule. “It certainly is a symbol that Beijing feels firmly in control of the region. That there isn’t a concern about any attack or instability,” said Zenz, who in May published a trove of classified documents detailing the detention of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the region, known as the Xinjiang Police Files. “On the one hand, it’s a message to his domestic constituencies – the Han – that Xinjiang is part of China. Policies are going well. And a very similar message, I think, is being portrayed to the international audience, to the U.S. and others. But also … to countries who’ve been supporting Beijing’s Xinjiang policy or at least been silent on criticism. Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a political analyst based in the U.S. and vice chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress, told RFA that Xi’s visit was meant to send a message that “he doesn’t care about the serious concerns of the international community regarding China’s ongoing genocide of Uyghurs.” “The ruthlessness of his regime is clear from the orchestrated meetings, singings and dancings of the very people who are facing genocide under his watch,” he said. Kokbore added that he believes Xi’s visit was also meant to reinforce his authority to the people of Xinjiang and to show solidarity with the Chinese officials who are implementing his policies in the region. Xi’s visit to Xinjiang marked the first time he had been seen in public for nearly two weeks – his longest absence of the year. Earlier this month, he had traveled to Hong Kong to appoint a new leader there on his first trip outside the Chinese mainland since January 2020 at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. It was not immediately clear why Xi’s trip to Xinjiang was not announced ahead of time, although public appearances by the leader are often made public days after the event. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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