Day: July 8, 2021

North Korea has labeled counterfeiters of the country’s currency as “traitors who are aligned with external enemies” as starving citizens forge notes worth less than a dollar to buy food and other necessities, sources told RFA.

The coronavirus pandemic added to the economic squeeze of U.S. and UN nuclear sanctions, making an already bad economy even worse. The closure of the Sino-Korean border in January 2020 and the suspension of trade with China has made it harder for North Koreans who rely on the country’s nascent market economy to support themselves.

Now with food prices skyrocketing and no way to make money by trading smuggled goods from China, many citizens are resorting to small-time counterfeiting to make ends meet.

The North Korean won has an official exchange rate of about 900 to the U.S. dollar, but it is actually worth a fraction of that.

The black-market exchange rate for the currency as of Thursday is about 5,800 won per dollar according to the Osaka-based Asia Press outlet that specializes in North Korean news. The price of a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of rice in North Korea was about 6,300 won ($1.08).

Sources told RFA’s Korean Service that the government discovered hundreds of counterfeit 5,000-won ($0.86) notes, the country’s largest denomination.

“Counterfeit bills copied by a computer printer have been discovered among local market merchants since the middle of last month and have been reported to the authorities,” a resident of the capital Pyongyang told RFA’s Korean Service.

“The central government ordered law enforcement agencies to regard making counterfeit bills as an anti-socialist crime against the government system and says strong measures should be taken against such crimes,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

According to the source, the Pyongyang counterfeiting cases are among dozens of others nationwide.

“There are many cases of the counterfeit bills being used at marketplaces or at street food vendors during the late-night hours,” said the source.

RFA reported in September that authorities arrested two people for using fake money in local markets. In one of those arrests, the counterfeiter made purchases with the fake bills from elderly merchants at nighttime, when the notes were harder to detect.

The Pyongyang source said thousands of counterfeit bills were discovered in June at national banks after collecting money from factories and businesses, including over 100 counterfeit 5,000 won notes and 70 fake 2,000 won.

“The central government has been saying that when the public sentiment is at an all-time low due to economic difficulties, using the counterfeit bills is an unforgivable act of making public sentiment even worse, thereby helping our enemies,” said the source.

“And they emphasized that those who make or use counterfeit bills are traitors who are aligned with external enemies, so they should be tracked down and rooted out,” the source said.

Authorities in North Hamgyong province in the country’s northeast have also declared an emergency over counterfeiting, a resident told RFA.

“It is difficult to catch counterfeit bill users because they mainly target vendors who sell food on the streets near the market rather than the merchants at market stands,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

“People are using counterfeit money more these days because the economic situation is getting more difficult each day because of the coronavirus and the border closure. As the number of starving houses who cannot even afford food for the day goes up, some are making and using counterfeit bills as a last resort, even though they know it is a felony.”

Though North Korea is now trying to punish citizens for their small-scale counterfeiting during dire economic times, not long ago the government was notorious for forging foreign currency on a massive scale. For decades under a sophisticated counterfeiting program, Pyongyang printed almost perfect $100 bills which U.S. officials classified as “supernotes.”

Experts believe that North Korea at times printed $25 million in supernotes per year since the 1970s, but after a string of arrests in the mid-2000s, counterfeiting of notes sharply decreased.

But in 2017, AFP reported that a new supernote had been found by forgery experts in Seoul, who suspected that the notes were North Korean in origin.

Reported by Myung Chul Lee for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Jinha Shin. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

China on Thursday closed the last two of its 10 border crossings with Myanmar amid a recent surge in cases of COVID-19 infection, suspending cross-border trade and leaving more than 1,300 trucks stranded on the Myanmar side, sources in Myanmar said.

The gates at the Muse-Wanding-Qing Xian Jiao and Wanding-Pansai border crossings closed at 1:00 p.m., a Myanmar border official named Maung Maung told RFA on July 8.

“We closed both gates, and trucks have not been able to get across now for a long time,” the official said. “The trucks had been moving before under a shunting system where the drivers were held on this side of the crossing, but now these trucks can’t move either and have been stranded.”

Around 1,300 trucks carrying rice, beans, onions, and dried fish are now stuck at Qing Xian Jao, a rice merchant on the Muse border said.

Recent outbreaks of COVID-19 in Muse on the Myanmar side had led to a rise in the number of cases of infection in the Chinese border towns of Ruili and Jiegao, and traders said that a 21-day lockdown was already in force in those towns.

Than Gyaw, joint secretary of the Myanmar Eels Entrepreneurs Association, said that Myanmar fishermen are now facing huge losses as China had given no advance warning that the gates on the border would be closed.

“It was about two days ago that some of the highways from Ruili to the [Chinese] mainland were locked down, and now with Qing Xian Giao closed, the goods from this side can’t get to the mainland at all,” he said.

“All the trucks that went up yesterday had to come back today and will now have to go back to Mandalay.”

Fishermen had already suffered losses before the last gates closed, with the more than 50 tons of eels exported each day to China before 2019 cut back to only 40 tons a day after the start of the pandemic, Than Gyaw said.

Apart from the five crossing points on the border in Muse—three of which had been shut down earlier—Myanmar has two border gates in Kachin state, and two in Kokang and another in Mong-ko in northern Shan state. The frontier between the two countries is 2,130 km (1,320 miles) long.

Following Wednesday’s shutdowns, all those gates are now closed, traders said.

Trade had already dropped

Cross-border trade had already slowed, almost coming to a halt in recent days as the border gates shut down one by one, Min Thein—vice chairman of the Muse Rice Commodity Exchange—said, adding that the closing of several trading posts in early July had reduced trade volume to 80 percent of what it had been in previous months.

“Now, almost the entire flow of goods has come to a standstill,” he said.

The Chin Shwe Haw-Laukkai border crossing connecting China to Kokang—and used mainly for exports of rice, green peas, rubber, and other commodities—had already been closed since the beginning of the year due to COVID-19 outbreaks.

Before the gate was closed, between 200 and 300 12-wheeler trucks carrying peanuts and seafood crossed into China each day, a Myanmar trader named Ma Moe said.

The Muse trade zone on the Chinese border accounts for around 70 percent of Myanmar’s total trade revenue, with Myanmar newspapers now controlled by the military junta saying cross-border trade with China had reached U.S. $3 billion in fiscal year 2020-21, up from the previous year.

Attempts to reach Muse border trade officials for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Dozens of democratically elected district council members in Hong Kong are resigning amid government plans to screen and disqualify them through a new political vetting system and compulsory oaths of allegiance.

The government will likely tell members of the District Council this month that they will be required to take a pledge of allegiance to the government, and up to 230 pro-democracy members elected in a post-protest movement landslide in 2019 could lose their seats, according to local media reports.

While the pro-democracy camp took control of all but one of the city’s 18 councils in November 2019, 49 councilors resigned this week, citing a law requiring them to take oaths that was passed in May.

Some also face “subversion” charges under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020, for taking part in a democratic primary in the same summer.

Shatin district councilor Yau Man-chun was among those to resign on Thursday, telling reporters that they were “frustrated” at constant obstruction by government officials.

“The main reason is that I am disappointed, and I need to take some time to calm down and rest,” Yau told reporters. “We have experienced this sense of powerlessness actually since the very start of the current term of the District Council.”

“It has made it very hard to follow up on issues affecting my district.”

Yau’s colleague and deputy chairman of Tai Po District Council, Lau Yung Wai, said he would hang on a while longer, to see if he can make some difference.

“I respect my colleagues’ [decision to quit] but I hope that those who do choose to stay on will keep trying [to make a difference],” Yau said.

But he added: “I don’t yet know if I can keep going … we can’t predict what will happen about the reported lists of members to be disqualified.”

‘No fake patriots’

The uncertainty over the last pro-democracy politicians to remain in post in Hong Kong comes as chief secretary for the administration John Lee warned that no “fake patriots” would be allowed to run in elections in the city.

A vetting body for would-be election candidates set up under the national security law, which will be supervised by the national security apparatus, will aim to screen out people who are only pretending to be patriots, Lee told reporters on Wednesday.

“We will be considering individual cases on their own merits, taking into consideration all the factors and the information that is available to hand,” Lee said in comments reported by government broadcaster RTHK.

The vetting body also includes former police chief Chris Tang.

Tang also warned on Wednesday that the authorities investigate claims that the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has long been outlawed in mainland China as an “evil cult,” broke the national security law.

Pro-CCP lawmakers have asked why the group hasn’t already been banned in Hong Kong.

“Law enforcement agencies will definitely be looking into this matter more closely,” Tang said.

“Any acts that may endanger national security and any such organisation engaging in such acts would face the full force of the law, including rigorous investigation, gathering of evidence, and if needs be, enforcement action will be taken,” he said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Six years after Beijing police raided the offices and key members of the now-defunct Beijing Fengrui law firm, rights attorneys Wang Yu and Wang Quanzhang say their profession no longer really exists in the wake of a prolonged crackdown by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The July 9, 2015 raid on Fengrui and the arrests of Wang Yu, Wang Quanzhang, and dozens of other rights attorneys, law firm staff, and associated activists launched a nationwide operation targeting the profession on an unprecedented scale.

Less than a decade later, attorneys who continue to take on cases deemed politically sensitive by the CCP can expect to lose their business licenses, which are subject to annual review, or are themselves detained, harassed, or sentenced to jail.

Wang Yu, who was honored by the U.S. as an International Woman of Courage (IWOC) this year, was once again held incommunicado in March after failing to attend an online award ceremony.

The award came as she and her husband Bao Longjun were assisting in the case of Niu Tengyu, who is currently serving a 14-year jail term for allegedly posting a photo of Xi Mingze, daughter of CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, to meme site Zhina Wiki, an act that was later blamed by police on Niu’s Vulgar Wiki.

She says there are still multiple restrictions on her daily life, despite having been released in the wake of the 2015 crackdown.

“I don’t have a passport nor can I apply for one,” Wang told RFA in a recent interview. “My ability to travel, even in China, is often subject to restrictions.”

“For example, when I went to Guangdong, the Guangdong state security police put me under surveillance, and I was detained by state security police when I went to Shanghai,” she said.

“It’s hard for me to get back to living a normal life,” Wang said. “This is not just a question of unfairness; their behavior is completely illegal.”

Threats from authorities

When Wang Yu, who has been stripped of her license to practice law, tries to help defendants in the capacity of personal agent, instead of as their lawyer, the authorities impose far more requirements on her than they would on a regular member of the public, she said.

She has also tried to assist detained Chongqing billionaire Li Huaiqing, who is being held on suspicion of “incitement to subvert state power.”

But doing so comes at a high cost, including threats from the authorities that she could be jailed herself if she doesn’t stop getting involved in human rights cases.

“When we assisted in these two cases, we used the law to fight for the rights of the parties, but in the process, we just kept running into a brick wall and couldn’t get justice at all,” she said.

“We have also been personally threatened and suppressed, and other lawyers [who work with us] have been warned that they will lose their licenses if they don’t withdraw from the cases,” Wang Yu said.

“Chinese laws are useless, and just there to look pretty,” she said. “They are never used to curb the government or anyone in a position of power: they are there to rein in anyone who disobeys.”

She added: “We lawyers are struggling to survive, and to work, but there is less and less room to do that, and we can barely keep our heads above water.”

‘More effective action’

Fellow rights attorney Wang Quanzhang, who was held incommunicado for around three years following the 2015 crackdown and later sentenced to jail, said he hasn’t given up trying to help people battling China’s legal system, which remains in the stranglehold of the ruling CCP.

“When I share my experience with new victims, I will talk about how to respond if they are arrested, how to communicate with a powerful department, and if their relatives are arrested, to support them from outside,” he said.

“That way, they can take more effective action, and make those who have been detained safer,” Wang Quanzhang said.

“They consider my experience, and the fact that I am a tenacious human rights defender, and they also need my support and encouragement.”

But Wang Quanzhang has run into impassable obstacles when trying to pursue justice on his own account, in the form of appeals and complaints about his treatment during his incommunicado detention.

“I wrote some petitions and complaints, but when I went to the court to file a civil case, they said I couldn’t file a lawsuit because I was blacklisted,” he said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have formally arrested rights activist Wang Aizhong on charges of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” RFA has learned.

Wang, 45, was detained at his home in Guangdong’s provincial capital Guangzhou at the end of May, while his apartment was searched by police, who confiscated reading materials and computer devices.

“They told me very clearly that Wang Aizhong has been formally arrested,”  Wang’s wife Wang Henan told RFA after a meeting with two state security police officers earlier this week.

“They told me the notification document had been mailed to me by the procuratorate and that I should have received it already,” she said. “They said they had come to see me to gauge my attitude.”

“I told them that I won’t be quiet until he is released,” Wang Henan said. “They said they weren’t trying to get me to stay quiet, almost as if they didn’t care any more.”

Wang was a key activist during protests in Guangzhou in January 2013 that were sparked by the rewriting of a New Year’s Day Southern Media Group editorial calling for constitutional government.

Activists, journalists, and academics faced off with the authorities for several days after the Southern Weekend newspaper was forced to change a New Year editorial calling for political reform into a tribute praising the CCP.

The protest was one of the first overt calls by members of the public for political freedom since large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed in a military crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

He was later detained in 2014 on suspicion of the same charge, shortly before the 25th anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Wang said she hadn’t received the notice of formal arrest at the time of her meeting with the state security police.

“They told me face-to-face, but I hadn’t gotten the notice yet, so I was still in suspense,” she said. “I felt as if they were trying to torture his family members.”

Another rights activist detained

Fellow rights activist Ou Biaofeng has been detained in Hunan province for seven months on suspicion of “incitement to subvert state power,” his wife told RFA.

He is currently being held in the Zhuzhou Detention Center, and his case has yet to be referred to the state prosecutor for trial, Wei Huanhuan said following a similar meeting with Zhuzhou municipal state security police.

She said they had claimed that her husband had asked the government to appoint a lawyer for him.

“They claimed that Ou Biaofeng did this on his own initiative,” Wei said. “They said if the family was cooperative, and if he showed a good attitude, then the case could be resolved very quickly.”

The acceptance of state-appointed lawyers, a video “confession,” and family silence in the face of media inquiries are often mandated by police and prosecutors if defendants in political cases wish to get a more lenient sentence.

“I asked them if they wouldn’t just let us hire him a lawyer, and [the leader] said ‘what’s the point of doing that if this way he gets a lighter sentence?’,” Wei said. “He said it was up to us.”

“Even if [Ou Biaofeng] actually did write something like that, it would only be because he has been held there in isolation for a long period of time, and brainwashed and threatened by them,” Wei said.

“It’s not really compatible with his legal rights, and in that sense can’t really be considered a choice on his part,” she said.

Wei said the authorities don’t want genuine human rights attorneys involved in political cases, because they make the process harder at every step.

“Once the case goes to the procuratorate, the defender can get involved and read the case files,” she said. “But if it’s all under their control, they can do the whole thing behind closed doors.”

She said she wouldn’t accept the police claim that Ou had asked them to find him a lawyer.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.