• ijrepjournalism@gmail.com
  • contact@ij-reportika.com
Ij reportika Logo

Category: World

Chinese medical team returns home after training North Korea on COVID response

Editor05 mins

A Chinese delegation of medical experts who last month traveled to North Korea to advise on COVID-19 containment strategies has returned to China, sources in both countries told RFA. RFA reported last month that the 13 doctors and medical technicians were in Pyongyang to help train North Korean medical personnel. “The Chinese medical experts left Pyongyang by train on the morning of May 29 and arrived in Dandong in the afternoon,” a North Korea related source, in the city on the Chinese side of the border, told RFA Wednesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They passed on the experience and technology that China has gained about quarantine and response to the coronavirus to North Korea,” the source said. The Chinese health experts conducted training on the use of vaccines and testing at a bio-research center in Pyongyang, and discussed their clinical experience with staff at four Pyongyang hospitals, according to the source. “The North Korean quarantine authorities expressed their gratitude for their help in containing the spread of coronavirus in Pyongyang. Cooperation between the two countries regarding the COVID-19 quarantine will continue in the future,” the source said. State-run media this week reported that the COVID situation had “improved” in North Korea, after the country declared a maximum emergency last month due to a wave of outbreaks. The World Health Organization disagreed with that assessment, saying on Wednesday that the coronavirus situation in North Korea is getting worse, not better. Authorities still say an ongoing quarantine should continue, a source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Currently, they are doing a project to raise the skill level of hospital doctors in provincial areas,” the second source said. “In Pyongyang, technical training has already been conducted for medical staff at central hospitals. … Now in the provincial areas, preparation for receiving clinical education on coronavirus testing, medicines and treatment methods are in full swing through an online education system operated by Pyongyang Medical University,” the second source said. “Doctors in all areas are working really hard.  Doctors have always been respected by the residents, but the popularity of doctors is increasing due to the recent Omicron outbreak,” the source said. North Korean authorities said on Thursday that the number of new suspected coronavirus cases remained below 100,000 for three consecutive days. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that from 6 p.m. on May 31 to 6 p.m. on June 1, there were about 96,610 new fever cases and about 108,990 patients had recovered, while no deaths were recorded. About 3.8 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 70 of whom have died, according to data based on the most recent reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North. Around 3.7 million are reported to have made recoveries, while around 165,390 are undergoing treatment. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Read More

Cambodian woman says police assault during strike led to miscarriage

Editor07 mins

A Cambodian woman said a physical assault she suffered at the hands of police officers during a labor protest outside the NagaWorld Casino may have led to the death of her unborn child. Sok Ratana told RFA’s Khmer Service that she had been pregnant when she joined the ongoing strike outside the casino’s offices on May 11. The police pushed and shoved her during the protest, she said. Fearing they may have hurt her baby in utero, she went to her doctor, who told her that the baby only had a 50% chance to live. Sok Ratana said that she miscarried on May 28. The doctor told her that the baby had likely died two days before he removed it from her womb, she said. “Losing my beloved baby has caused me an unbelievable pain that I will feel the rest of my life,” said Sok Ratana. “This experience has shown me the brutality of the authorities and it has deeply hurt my family.” Sok Ratana is one of thousands of NagaWorld workers who walked off their jobs in mid-December, demanding higher wages and the reinstatement of eight jailed union leaders, three other jailed workers and 365 others they say were unjustly fired from the hotel and casino. The business is owned by a Hong Kong-based company believed to have connections to family members of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The strikers began holding regular protest rallies in front of the casino. Cambodian authorities have said their gatherings were “illegal” and alleged that they are part of a plot to topple the government, backed by foreign donors. Authorities began mass detentions of the protesters, claiming that they were violating coronavirus restrictions. They often resorted to violence to force hundreds of workers onto buses. “The labor dispute has turned to a dispute with authorities because they constantly crack down on us without any clemency,” Sok Ratana said. “I never thought that Cambodia has a law saying that when workers demand rights … authorities can crack down on us.” She said that authorities worked with the company to pressure workers to stop the strike. She urged the government to better train its security forces to not become violent. Kata Orn, spokesperson of the government-aligned Cambodia Human Rights Committee, expressed sympathy with Sok Ratana’s circumstance but said that it was too early to say whether the authorities were at fault. He urged Sok Ratana to file a complaint with the court. “We can’t prejudge the loss due to the authorities. Only medical experts can tell,” he said. “We can [only] implement the law. It is applied equally to the workers and the authorities.” Sok Ratana said she is working on collecting evidence to file a complaint, but she wasn’t confident a court will adjudicate the case fairly. “I don’t have much hope because my union leader was jailed unjustly for nine weeks. Her changes have not been dropped yet,” she said. “To me, I don’t hope to get justice. From who? I want to ask, who can give me justice?” Police violence is a serious human rights violation, Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights told RFA. He urged relevant institutions to investigate the miscarriage and bring those responsible to justice. “Labor disputes can’t be settled by violence and crackdowns. This will lead to even more disputes and the workers and authorities will try to get revenge,” he said. The Labor Ministry has attempted to mediate the dispute between the casino and the union leaders, who have been released on bail, but no progress has been made after more than 10 meetings. Am Sam Ath said the difficulty in resolving the labor dispute might push the government to crack down harder on the holdouts and make more arrests. RFA attempted to contact Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs spokeswoman Man Chenda, but neither were available for comment.  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Read More

US report on international religious freedom cites genocides in China and Myanmar

Editor07 mins

China and Myanmar feature prominently in the U.S.’s latest report on global restrictions on religious rights and practices, which singles out the two countries for their repression of mostly Muslim Uyghurs and Rohingya. “We have seen to genocides of religious minority communities in recent years in China and Burma,” said U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Rashad Hussain of the Office of International Religious Freedom during a press conference Thursday to release the report. The State Department is required to submit its assessment of religious freedom across the globe to Congress each year. Witnesses and experts provided grim testimony in the report about torture, rape and other human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). “It comes as no surprise that the People’s Republic of China is a glaring example” of a government that represses citizens who practice certain religions, said Hussain, who serves as an advisor to the President Joe Biden on religious freedom conditions and policy. “The PRC government continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs who are predominantly Muslim and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,” he said. Hussain noted China’s continued use of technologies, including artificial intelligence and facial recognition, “to surveil and maintain control of its open-air prison in Xinjiang.” Human rights groups and Uyghur advocacy organizations have amassed credible evidence of the severe abuse Uyghurs in Xinjiang have suffered, from mass incarcerations and the destruction of mosques to torture, rape and forced sterilizations. Beijing has angrily denied the accusations, calling them the “lie of the century.” “China continues its genocide of predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other religious minority groups,” said U.S. Secretary of State Blinken at the press conference. “Since April 2017, more than 1 million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kirghiz and others have been detained internment camps in Xinjiang.” RFA has reported that up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have been detained in China’s vast network of hundreds of internment camps throughout Xinjiang. Chinese officials have said that the camps are vocational training centers designed to offer an alternative path away from terrorism and religious extremism. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress in Germany, said the comments by Hussain and Blinken show that the U.S. stands with Uyghur Muslims and will hold China to account for the Uyghur genocide. “Their powerful words should encourage the international community to act to end the Uyghur genocide,” he said. “China wants to eradicate Islam because it believes Islam is a cancer. China is committing genocide against Uyghur people precisely because we are Muslims.” Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, said she was pleased that Blinken called out China’s gross violations of human rights, genocide and crimes against humanity. “Blinken’s words reveal to the world that China is like the emperor’s new clothes, hiding behind lies,” she said. There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government about the U.S. report. The report also noted Myanmar’s repressive treatment of members of the Rohingya ethnic and religious minority group.  Violent clearance operations of Rohingya communities in western Myanmar by the country’s military in 2017, including arbitrary killings, torture and mass rape, drove more than 740,000 people to neighboring Bangladesh, where they now living in sprawling refugee camps.  “In March, based on extensive legal review of the evidence, I made the determination that Burma’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity with the intent to destroy predominantly Muslim Rohingya in 2017,” Blinken said, citing evidence of attacks on mosques, use of religious and ethnic slurs, and the desecration of Korans. The military junta that seized power from the democratically elected government in February 2021 had confined 144,000 Rohingya in internal displacement camps in Rakhine state by the end of 2021, the report says, citing information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  The junta also continues to restrict where Rohingya are allowed to travel in Myanmar and has made no efforts to initiate the return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh, the report says.

Read More

Enrollment up as new academic year begins in Myanmar, despite turmoil

Editor06 mins

Myanmar’s junta reopened basic education schools across the country for the 2022-2023 academic year on Thursday with student enrollment levels surpassing those from a year earlier, when the pandemic and a teacher boycott of the military regime kept kids at home, according to parents and residents. In the commercial capital Yangon, the number of students attending primary schools saw a noticeable uptick, residents said, while security at the city’s educational centers was tighter than the previous year. Yangon taxi driver Than Win estimated that “around 50% of the children” went to school on the first day of classes, based on what he had seen driving through five of the city’s townships Thursday morning. “Very few were in school uniforms — maybe 20% or so,” he told RFA’s Burmese Service, suggesting they didn’t want to be seen as supporting junta rule. “I didn’t see security guards in the morning but in the afternoon, there were five or six security guards posted at some of the more prominent schools.” Parents said more children are attending school this year than last. Schools were closed in 2021 due to coronavirus restrictions and the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, which prompted many teachers to leave their jobs and join the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement. Wai Wai, a mother from Yangon’s Twante township, told RFA that her 7-year-old daughter attended her first day of kindergarten classes on Thursday. “I thought there’d be no one at school but many people came — all the kids were wearing their white and green school uniforms. Last year, the children did not dare to wear white and green,” she said. “One teacher told me she had only three students in her class last year, but today she had 30.” The junta announced that 5.6 million students had enrolled nationwide for the current academic year, most of whom are based in Yangon region, the capital Naypyidaw and Mon state. An anti-coup protester splashes red paint on student uniforms hung outside a school during a demonstration against the re-opening of the school by the junta in Yangon, April 27, 2021. Credit: AP Photo NUG-run classes Despite the increase in enrollment, many parents said they would continue to boycott junta-run schools. The country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) recently said it is working to provide classes for school-age children of parents led by CDM teachers. Mon Mon, a resident of Magway region’s Yezagyo township, told RFA her 7-year-old son will attend NUG-run classes this spring instead of school. “There’s no school for my son this year because we don’t want to support the junta’s education system,” she said. “I plan to send my son to classes run by the Spring Revolution NUG. We will find a school where CDM teachers teach. Another reason [he won’t attend] is that we feel sorry for children in war-torn areas who cannot go to school and sympathize with them.” The junta invited CDM teachers to return to work with no repercussions by May 31 and recently extended its offer to June 7. Kyaw Min Khant, an official with the All Myanmar Teachers’ Federation, confirmed to RFA that enrollment in schools in many of the country’s regions and states is around 50% higher than last year. “We have seen a significant increase in enrollment over the past year,” he said. “Many parents have realized that they need to keep their children in school. … They know that their kids will be much older if they wait for the country’s political stalemate to be solved before they return, so they are willing to separate their politics from their children’s education.” According to Kyaw Min Khant, 11 million children were eligible to attend school nationwide in 2021, while the number had increased to around 13 million this year, with some 80% in attendance. Translation by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Read More

Democracy in China won’t come without a ‘huge crisis’ for ruling party: analysts

Editor010 mins

Democracy is unlikely to come to China unless a number of circumstances fall into place at just the right time under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), exiled dissidents told RFA ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. Wang Dan, a former leader of the 1989 student-led democracy movement in China and the founder of the Dialogue China think-tank, warned that people shouldn’t harbor illusions about deliberate political reform under the CCP. He said there was likely a less than 0.1 percent chance that the ruling party would willingly reform itself in a democratic transition seen under the Kuomintang government in Taiwan. Instead, internal divisions over how to deal with a crisis are more likely to weaken the CCP’s hold on power, Wang Dan told RFA. “Perhaps if there is a huge crisis and challenge [facing China], generating a certain level of internal disagreement, and the government misjudges and makes the wrong response are wrong, then maybe history will turn,” he said. “Without the combination of these factors, I advise everyone to drop any remaining illusions they hold about the CCP,” he said. Exiled dissident and political commentator Wang Juntao said CCP leader Xi Jinping’s insistence on a zero-COVID policy in response to the pandemic could prove to be just such a crisis, however. “Now that the enforcement methods used to implement zero-COVID disease control and prevention measures have brought disaster to the people, more and more people agree that Xi Jinping is going against the opinions of experts from all over the world, and yet there is no way to make him correct his course,” Wang Juntao said. He said that Mao Zedong’s initiation of the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) had prompted calls for democracy from within CCP ranks after the late supreme leader’s death. Those people understood the need to prevent the emergence of another strongman like Mao, and tried to make power less concentrated, so that the entire party and country were subject to the rule of a single person ever again. But it seems that a similar pattern has emerged under Xi Jinping, he said. Students gather at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, April 22, 1989.AFP The new generation Wang said the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen protests was to be expected under such a repressive system, and that crackdowns on dissent had been ongoing since then. But he said he wasn’t pessimistic, because different generations make different meanings out of history. “You have to believe that democratization is the overall trend,” he said. “You have to believe that constitutional human rights are based on the basic aspirations of human nature, and you have to believe that the political demands of 1989 are the inevitable destination of human beings and the Chinese nation.” “This generation may not have been through the Tiananmen massacre, but they will have experienced their own events, and will soon start connecting their destiny with the events of the past,” he said. “When that happens, the Tiananmen protests and massacre will take on a fresh meaning, like a stele [stone carved with a commemorative inscription],” he said. “As long as China remains undemocratized, there will come a time when the next generation shares the same fate we do, unless those in power stop suppressing their struggle for democracy,” Wang Juntao said. Wang Dan said most young people in China had heard of the Tiananmen massacre, but were unlikely to understand what took place in detail. “Most people know about June 4th, but they don’t know the cause, the outcome, or the ins and outs,” Wang Dan said. “But they do know that June 4, 1989 is a sensitive date.” “There are actually very few young people who don’t know this huge things happened in China,” he said, adding that current events could trigger their curiosity. He said that Chinese people often do their own research once they go overseas to study, and are free of government censorship or surveillance. “As long as the wheel of democracy is rolling forward, I’m not worried at all,” he said. “From a historical perspective, it’s fairly irrelevant whether young people know about June 4, 1989 right now or not.” View of a residential building during a COVID-19 lockdown in the Jing’an district in Shanghai, April 8, 2022. Credit: AFP Protests over lockdown In recent days, protests involving hundreds of students have sprung up at university campuses in Beijing and Tianjin, over draconian COVID-19 restrictions imposed on higher education. The scenes at Tianjin University, Beijing International Studies University and Beijing Normal University were eerily reminiscent of the early stages of the 1989 student movement, which later took over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for weeks on end with demands for democratic reforms and the rule of law. Those protests culminated in a bloody massacre of civilians by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the night of June 3-4, with an unknown number of casualties. In Shanghai, an open letter from entrepreneurs dated May 30 called for the release of all political prisoners and for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to begin a process of political reform at the 20th Party Congress later in the year, warning of mass capital flight and a widespread loss of public confidence in Xi Jinping’s leadership. It urged the industrial sector not to act like “sheep fattened for slaughter” by returning to full production in the wake of the weeks-long Shanghai lockdown. It said the “rule of law” had been reduced to “rule by man”, while the economy had been hijacked by politics, leaving millions of COVID-19 “graduates” unemployed, calling on people to “take back their civil rights and rebuild the country.” The letter also called on the government to overturn the guilty verdicts against entrepreneurs Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu, as well as punishing officials responsible for “violating the law and disregarding public opinion” as part of the zero-COVID policy and loosening CCP controls on the media. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Read More

Jailed Changsha NGO worker subjected to physical abuse, mistreatment in jail: wife

Editor05 mins

The wife of one of the Changsha Funeng NGO workers jailed in the central Chinese province of Hunan says he is being subjected to physical abuse and mistreatment in Chishan Prison. Changsha Funeng co-founder Yang Zhanqing, who now lives in the U.S., has previously said that the three men were targeted because their rights work had received overseas funding, which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards as “collusion with hostile foreign forces,” and a threat to its national security. Changsha Funeng sought to prevent discrimination and ensure equality in line with Chinese law by using the courts to strengthen protections for individuals living with disabilities and with HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. Shi Minglei, wife of Cheng Yuan, recently received a handwritten letter form her husband detailing his treatment while serving a sentence for “subversion of state power” handed down by the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court in August 2020. She spoke to RFA about the contents of the letter: The letter said that as soon as he got out of the van, he was taken to the high-security wing, where he was detained for three months until April 18. Anyone who has been in a high-security prison area knows that it forms part of a correctional center, also called a strict management center, with poor food and substandard living conditions. There were hourly roll calls taken through the night, and there was a lot of physical abuse, like forced duck-walks, and many other kinds of psychological and physical abuse. The treatment in high-security prisons is tantamount to torture. What I heard is that they learned from the experience of the concentration camps in Xinjiang. He [included one quotation, a couple lines of poetry] written in pain by [Chinese historian] Sima Qian after being tortured, very severely. What this means is that Cheng Yuan has never confessed or pleaded guilty, so they sent him to a high-security jail to try to force him to ‘confess.’ He also used a couple lines of poetry to express in a very cryptic way … that he is getting up before daylight to do forced labor and getting back very late from the workshop. He only has two hours to himself in which he has to wash himself and his clothes, so he’s also not getting enough time to rest. For example, the molding workshop contains chemicals and harmful gases, and there isn’t even any basic protection. They only get regular masks or even fabric masks. Washing frequently doesn’t have any protective effect. They distribute disposable medical masks only when the prison leaders come round on a tour of inspection. [Taiwan political activist and former inmate] Lee Ming-cheh told me that most prisoners are taken straight to prison, and even maybe to study centers for study, but not to the high-security wing. High-security prisons are places meant for punishing existing inmates. Cheng Yuan had done nothing wrong when he went to Chishan Prison, but he was taken to the high-security wing, which is standard practice for torture. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Read More

Warships arrive in Kyauk Phyu township as tensions rise in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

Editor06 mins

Myanmar’s military is sending more troops into Rakhine state amid fears that an informal ceasefire with the Arakan Army (AA) is about to collapse. A submarine arrived at Kyauk Phyu township on May 31, after sailing through the Bay of Bengal and traveling up the Than Zit river, according to locals. They said a warship arrived the following day. A resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA’s Burmese Srrvice the ship was equipped with heavy artillery and helicopter landing pads. “The warship is huge,” the resident said. “It docked at Number Three Port in Kyauk Phyu and I saw soldiers disembark. I don’t know how many there were but I estimate that hundreds of soldiers were on board.” The two vessels moved to Number 15 Port at the Thit Pote Taung Naval Base in Kyauk Phyu after the troops disembarked. The township is home to one of China’s largest infrastructure projects in Myanmar, including the Kyauk Phyu Deep Sea Port. The resident speculated that the troop reinforcements were sent to protect China’s business interests amid fears of further clashes between the military and the AA. “There are a lot of Chinese projects here,” the local said. “The construction of deep-sea ports for docking submarines was also done by Chinese companies. So if the fighting intensifies I think the military is being deployed to protect China’s economic projects.” Some locals told RFA they were concerned about being able to get hold of basic supplies such as rice, cooking oil and salt as a result of the military reinforcement. When contacted by RFA, a junta spokesman denied that more troops had arrived on May 31. At a news conference on May 19 he said that the military could not be blamed if fighting breaks out in Rakhine state. Military tensions between the military council and the AA have been high since early May, with locals and Rakhine politicians concerned that fighting will soon intensify. An NGO which is monitoring the crisis released a report on Wednesday urging both sides to refrain from fighting. International Crisis Group (ICG) said people in Rakhine state would suffer if the war between the army and the AA breaks out again. Renewed clashes could impact 3 million Rakhine residents The AA began as a resistance group in 2009 and grew into a powerful ethnic army. It fought a two-year war with Myanmar’s military, which ended with an informal ceasefire in November 2020. The ceasefire has still not been formalized and the AA says it remains committed to establishing an independent state for ethnic Rakhines. Clashes between AA fighters and the military in two villages near Paletwa township on May 26 have raised fears the uneasy truce is about to crumble. The resumption of full-scale conflict between the military and the Arakan Army could put the lives of millions of ethnic minority residents of Rakhine State at risk, according to ICG. It said AA moves to gain territory in the north are likely to affect the lives of as many as 3 million ethnic Rakhines and Rohingyas. ICG senior adviser on Myanmar Tom Kean told RFA the humanitarian consequences would probably be worse than during the two-year war. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) has invited the AA to join an alliance of regional armies to fight the military, which IGC said could also lead to an escalation in violence in Rakhine state.

Read More

Canada protests after aircraft ‘buzzed’ by Chinese jets

Editor05 mins

China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) fighter jets have repeatedly “buzzed” a Canadian reconnaissance aircraft on a U.N. mission in East Asia, with over two dozen intercepts deemed dangerous, a media outlet in Canada reported. “Buzzing” means flying extremely close and fast. On these occasions the Chinese jets came as close as 20 to 100 feet (six to 30 meters) to the Canadian plane, according to a report Wednesday in Canada’s Global News. The network quoted anonymous sources in the Canadian government and military as saying the government lodged “multiple” diplomatic complaints with Beijing for what they called the “unsafe and unprofessional conduct” of the Chinese pilots. The Canadian maritime patrol aircraft CP-140 Aurora, manned by rotating crews, is currently taking part in U.N. Operation NEON to monitor sanctions against North Korea. A spokesperson for the Canadian Department of National Defence was quoted as saying that the incidents are “of concern and of increasing frequency.”   There have been around 60 such incidents since December with the planes sometimes coming so close the pilots could make eye contact with each other, risking a mid-air collision, the report said. The Chinese government is believed not to have responded to Canada’s complaints, the report said. The Lockheed CP-140 Aurora is similar to the Lockheed P-3C Orion which is used by the U.S. Navy for anti-submarine and maritime surveillance.  The Aurora is “Canada’s primary airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft,” according to the Canadian government website. It “provides a full range of maritime, littoral and overland surveillance capabilities for domestic and deployed missions.” It is unclear which type of Chinese aircraft were involved in the “buzzing” incidents.  Close encounters continue There have been a number of close encounters between Chinese and foreign military airplanes in recent years.  The latest incident took place in March when U.S. Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters had at least one close contact with China’s J-20 stealth fighters over the East China Sea. A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft and a Chinese military surveillance aircraft came within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of each other in the skies over the South China Sea in 2017. The worst incident occurred in April 2001 when a Chinese F-8 fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries II surveillance plane over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot. The U.S. airplane had to make an emergency landing on China’s Hainan island and its 24 crew members were detained for 11 days before being released.  Strained relationship Canada-China relations have been strained after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive at the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei in 2018 at the request of the U.S. China retaliated by arresting two Canadian citizens, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.  The two Canadians were released last September after Meng was allowed to return to China. Relations between the two countries soured again last month after Canada banned Huawei and another Chinese telecom company, ZTE, from taking part in its 5G network development.

Read More

Tiananmen massacre vigil organizer says Hongkongers ‘refuse to forget’ despite ban

Editor04 mins

Chiu Yan-loy, a community officer in Hong Kong’s Tsuen Wan district and former leading member of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, won’t be lighting candles in Victoria Park this year. The once-annual vigil commemorating those who died at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as it crushed a weeks-long peaceful protest on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square has been effectively banned for the third year running. Chiu has already served eight months in prison for taking part in an unauthorized vigil in 2020. Instead, Hongkongers will be remembering the dead in private, amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent under a draconian national security law. Chiu Yan-loy: I have no regrets. It was an honor for me to be sentenced as a dissident-in-mourning on June 4. Commemorating the massacre in itself is not a crime, and making it one is political suppression and nothing more. I choose to stay in Hong Kong to endure this situation. More than 10,000 other people in Victoria Park at the same time of me also risked such charges. If I can carry the can for them, then that’s what I’ll do. RFA: Will there be other events in Hong Kong? Chiu Yan-loy: It’s a luxury to hold a ceremony like that in today‘s Hong Kong. June 4 commemorations and candlelight vigils are a way of gathering a kind of strength. We won’t see June 4 rallies again in Hong Kong, nor any [public] mourning. RFA: What can be done instead? Chiu Yan-loy: When I was in prison, I realized that the most unbearable thing was the feeling of loneliness; a sense that nobody cared about me. Visiting inmates is similar to the spirit of mourning June 4. Spiritual support makes them understand that they are not alone … that there are still people who care about them. Helping them overcome their loneliness is the most important thing. RFA: How are your former colleagues doing? Chiu Yan-loy: I’m very sad that every one of them has wound up in jail or been suppressed in some way. However, I respect their choices. [Alliance leader Chow Hang-tung] had previously talked with me about her choices before [her prison sentences] and why she made them. I hope she has enough will-power to hang in there. I wish her well. RFA: How are you doing? Chiu Yan-loy: After I got out, I went back to the community to serve my residents through crowdfunding. There are many unknowns in the future, but I will keep up hope and perseverance. Hongkongers should have hope, and keep moving forwards. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Read More

Resumption of conflict would put millions at risk in Myanmar’s Rakhine state: report

Editor010 mins

A resumption of a full-scale conflict between Myanmar’s military and Arakan Army (AA) insurgents could result in the worst violence Rakhine state has seen in years and put the lives of millions of ethnic minorities in the region at risk, according to a new report by an international NGO. In a report released Wednesday, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said AA moves to gain territory in central and northern Rakhine state since it agreed to an informal ceasefire with the military in the latter part of 2020 are likely to prompt intense fighting in the region. It warned that up to 3 million ethnic Rakhines and Rohingyas would be severely affected by the violence and called for the ceasefire to be formalized, despite the AA’s declared goal of establishing an independent state for ethnic Rakhines and a bid by Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) to have the AA join a coalition of anti-junta armed groups. “A resumption of war in Rakhine state would have significant impacts for the 2-3 million people in the state, both Rakhine and Rohingya, who have so far been spared the post-coup violence that has engulfed the rest of Myanmar,” the ICG’s senior adviser on Myanmar, Tom Kean, told RFA’s Burmese Service in an email prior to the release of the report. “The humanitarian consequences would likely be devastating — almost certainly worse than during the two-year war from December 2018 to November 2020, which the state has still not recovered from.” Kean said that in researching the ICG’s report, both Rakhine and Rohingya interviewees expressed fear of conflict resuming, adding that while many believed such a conflict is inevitable, it is something they neither wanted nor supported. And while many in Myanmar would welcome a partnership against the junta between the AA and the NUG-led opposition, the report suggested that such an arrangement could spark violence that would significantly worsen the living situation for civilians in Rakhine state, which is already reeling from a battered economy and years of communal violence. Instead, Kean urged the AA to secure a formal ceasefire with the military, adding that while the insurgent army must decide for itself how best to achieve its political goals, a renewed war is “not the best option.” However, he suggested that the AA “work closely” with the NUG to choose a way to avoid the risk of a recurrence of conflict in Rakhine state. Refugees at a camp in Rakhine state’s Ponnagyun township, Jan. 21, 2022. Credit: RFA ‘The view of the people’ The ICG report follows a recent uptick in tensions between the two sides after the Arakan Army commander-in-chief, Gen. Tun Myat Naing, issued a warning to the military’s Western Commander Htin Latt Oo on Twitter. On May 26, the military and AA fighters clashed near the villages of Abaung-thar and Yote-wa, about six miles from the center of Rakhine’s Paletwa township, and residents have told RFA they are worried that the two-year-old ceasefire had been broken. Nyo Aye, the chairwoman of the Rakhine Women’s Network, called for calm between the two sides in an interview with RFA, noting that it is largely civilians who bear the brunt of armed conflict. “When tensions grow, there is a likelihood for more fighting,” she said. “We find this very worrying. It is our people who suffer because of the fighting. Tensions need to be reduced and I’m not talking about one side. I mean both sides need to compromise. That’s the view of the people.” An ethnic Rohingya Muslim from a village in northern Rakhine’s Buthidaung township told RFA that people there do not want fighting to resume. “Our only desire is to live in peace,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “If there is fighting, there will be hardship. I am worried about the lives of refugees. We just want the fighting to stop.” He said fighting appears likely to resume as the military is regularly entering Muslim villages in Buthidaung, watching for AA movements. Attempts by RFA to reach AA spokesman Khaing Thukha for comment went unanswered Wednesday, but the junta’s deputy information minister, Maj. Gen Zaw Min Tun, responded to inquiries saying that the military is not deploying troops to Rakhine state and is trying to maintain peace in the region. “We only have local security forces who were there [from the previous conflict],” he said, adding that the AA claims the military is sending reinforcements to the area “to frighten the people.” “We are committed to the development of Rakhine state, and we are continuing to work for peace and stability. … If they want to say the [military] is expanding its presence or launching an operation, they should provide some evidence.” Military ‘directly responsible’ for violence Meanwhile, the ICG’s Kean said that if the junta truly hopes to establish peace in Rakhine state and other parts of Myanmar, it must stop oppressing its own people. “The military regime is directly responsible for the violence in Myanmar because it launched the [Feb. 1, 2021] coup and refuses to respect the will of the vast majority of Myanmar people,” Kean said. “Instead, it is using extreme violence to try and cower them into submission,” he said of the junta’s ensuing crackdown that rights groups say has led to the deaths of at least 1,878 civilians and the arrest of 13,915 more, mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests. Kean noted that despite the military’s brutal tactics, resistance to its rule — both armed and non-violent — “remains strong across much of the country.” “The military should of course stop abusing its own people, but this alone is unlikely to end the conflict because most people in Myanmar do not seem willing to accept any form of military government,” he said. “The path to stability is to hand back power to a civilian administration that has the support of the people.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Read More

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