Month: August 2021

As economic conditions worsen in North Korea, some desperate citizens have turned to kidnapping, with at least two children snatched in separate incidents in an attempt to extract ransom money from their families, sources in the country told RFA.

An economy already hindered by international nuclear sanctions got worse when the coronavirus pandemic started and Beijing and Pyongyang closed their border and suspended all trade in Jan. 2020. With much of North Korea’s economy based on trading goods from China, commerce in entire towns dried up and chronic food shortages got worse.

The prolonged pandemic has made people increasingly desperate to try to make a living. Some are targeting children that they can hold for ransom.

“A six-year-old girl disappeared in Songchon county while playing by the river in front of her house in the middle of this month,” a resident of South Pyongan province, North of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service Sunday.

“She was kidnapped and taken hostage by a man in his 30s living in a faraway village from hers. The kidnapper knew that her family was well-off and even got her parents’ cellphone number before he took her to get ransom money,” said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

According to the source, the kidnapper locked the girl up in a storage area in his house and called her parents to demand 500,000 won (about U.S. $75).

“Police were able to track down the cellphone and arrest the kidnapper, and they returned the child to her parents. The kidnapper is in a detention center at the police department,” the source said.

“Once the investigation is complete, he will be sentenced and sent to a correctional facility,” said the source.

Another resident of the province told RFA that another kidnapper took a 10-year-old boy at around the same time.

“In the middle of the month, a 10-year-old boy was walking along a mountain road in Yangdok county when a man in his 40s rode up on his motorcycle to offer the child a ride home,” said the second source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

The man was caught after the boy reported what happened to a police officer after he managed to escape and return home on his own,” the second source said.

According to the second source, the second kidnapper got the idea for his crime from the movies.

“He confessed during the police investigation that he borrowed his friend’s motorcycle to copy a scene from a foreign movie in which actors took a hostage for ransom. He said he had no food to eat and was suffering from hunger,” the second source said.

“Residents are very anxious about what will happen in the future, and they are blaming the authorities for turning a blind eye to people’s living difficulties, yet still focus on controlling every aspect of their lives,” said the second source.

Hwagyo informers

Conditions in North Korea are much worse than the outside world knows, according to ethnic Chinese residents who traveled to China in mid-July.

Called Hwagyo in Korean, the PRC citizens who come from families who have lived in North Korea for generations have fewer travel restrictions than their North Korean citizen neighbors.

While in China in mid-July, several Hwagyo visitors relayed how dire the situation was to their contacts in China.

“A Hwagyo friend of who returned from Yangdok, South Pyongan province a few days ago confessed that it had been difficult to eat even three meals a day back in North Korea,” a Hwagyo in Dandong, Liaoning province, China told RFA Aug. 26.

“As he was not able to keep his business going due to the coronavirus pandemic, he barely survived each day by borrowing money from acquaintances,” the Dandong source said, adding that the visitor told him the situation was much worse what outsiders are aware of.

Another Hwagyo source in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China, told RFA that a Hwagyo visitor explained that food has become extremely expensive in North Korea.

“A Hwagyo who returned from Pyongsong county, South Pyongan province last month said that he had not even seen white rice for a while, because food prices in North Korea have skyrocketed,” the Shenyang source said.

“Shedding tears, he said that he had been off the seed money for his business for a while, but when that ran out, he had to continually borrow money to survive.”

RFA reported in July that three Hwagyo in different parts of North Korea had starved to death after the border closure ruined their businesses and they had no access to food.

The news was shocking to their communities because Hwagyo are usually among the most well-off residents because they are able to run lucrative import-export businesses because they can more freely travel to China.

A quarter century after famine killed as many as a tenth of North Korea’s 23 million people, the food situation in North Korea is again dire.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in a recent report that North Korea would be short about 860,000 tons of food this year, about two months of normal demand.

The forecast followed a warning from U.N Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights Tomás Ojea Quintana in March that the closure of the Sino-Korean border had led to reported “deaths by starvation” and growing ranks of children and elderly who have resorted to begging.

Reported by Hyemin Son and Jeong Yon Park for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Jinha Shin. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

A group of about 20 prisoners escaped on Sunday from a provincial prison in southern Laos out of fear they would become infected with COVID-19 behind bars, but were quickly recaptured by authorities, Lao sources said.

The prisoners broke out of the Savannakhet Provincial Detention Center at 1:00 a.m., but pursuing guards fired warning shots, and all escapees were back in custody around 40 minutes later, a provincial administrative official said Tuesday.

“The situation is now under control,” the official told RFA’s Lao Service.

“They said they were afraid of becoming infected with COVID-19 in the prison because two inmates had recently died from the virus,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The prison is too crowded,” he said, adding, “It has a total of 1,500 inmates, and about 700 of them are infected now. The prison has become a makeshift hospital.”

The prisoners trying to escape were serving long sentences and knew when security at the prison would be light and where and how to escape, the official said.

Also speaking to RFA, a resident of the provincial capital Kaysone Phomivanh City who lives near the prison said he heard gunshots fired at around 1:00 a.m.

“I didn’t go out to see what had happened, but later in the morning I heard people say that a score of prisoners had escaped. They must have been afraid of becoming infected with COVID-19, and that’s why they tried to get away,” he said.

A member of Savannakhet’s Taskforce for COVID-19 Control and Prevention announced on Monday that two inmates at the prison had recently died—the first, 35 years old, dying on Aug. 24 and the other, aged 25, dying on Sunday.

“The situation in the jail is OK now, though,” an official of the province’s Health Department said. “The authorities are separating the infected from those who are healthy, and the infected are staying at a makeshift hospital inside the prison while those who are seriously ill are being sent to a hospital outside.”

Brought in by prison guard

COVID-19 was first brought into the prison by an infected guard, Lingthong Sentavanh—Deputy Governor of Savannakhet Province—told a press conference on Aug. 23, saying that 129 cases of infection were then recorded at the prison from August 17 to August. 23.

“At first, a prison security guard contracted COVID-19 outside the prison, and he must have then transferred the virus to the prisoners.”

“The Provincial Taskforce for COVID-19 Control and Prevention built a treatment facility inside the prison right away and then separated the infected from the rest of the prisoners,” he said.

Cases of infection continue to climb in Laos, with Soutsavath Soutthanylaxay—Deputy Director General of the Communicable Disease Control Department—telling a press conference on Tuesday that 0f 3,521 samples recently tested, 199 had tested positive.

“Among these cases, 64 were locally infected, with the rest imported [from Thailand]. Up to 68 are from Savannakhet Province,” he said.

A total of 15,015 cases of COVID-19 infection have been recorded in Laos as of Tuesday, with a death toll of 14, according to government figures. Around 1.7 million Lao residents have now been fully vaccinated, and 2.5 million partially vaccinated, out of a total population of 7 million.

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested a journalist outside Prince Edward MTR station, as many in and outside the city marked the second anniversary of attacks on train passengers by riot police at the height of the 2019 protest movement.

The journalist for the news website Egg Egg Club, was arrested for “disorderly conduct in a public place” after shouting insults at police officers.

The man had been standing outside an exit from the subway station, when he was told by police officers at the scene to step back into the press area, the Hong Kong Standard newspaper reported.

Police also questioned a number of people who wanted to leave flowers and other offerings outside the exit as a mark of respect for anyone who may have died in the incident, the paper said.

Hong Kong residents have repeatedly left flowers outside the subway station to commemorate one or more people whom many believed died when riot police attacked unarmed train passengers on a train and on the subway platforms.

Authorities in Hong Kong have repeatedly hit out at ‘malicious rumors’ that someone died when riot police stormed the Prince Edward MTR station on Aug. 31, but the selective release of stills from surveillance footage from cameras inside the station has done little to assuage public mistrust in the official narrative.

Zhang Xiaoming, who heads China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO), has warned that people who express the belief that anyone died in the incident could be breaking a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020 as a response to a wave of mass, popular protests over the erosion of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms.

Meanwhile, Hongkongers in exile spoke out more freely about the anniversary.

“Never forget how the Hong Kong police terrorized and assaulted citizens two years ago,” former lawmaker Nathan Law, now in exile in the United Kingdom, said via Twitter on Tuesday.

“Full-geared special force rushed to the station and attacked passengers indiscriminately,” Law said. “Many were severely injured, yet no officers are held accountable.”

Rewriting history

Wong Mau-chun, who was named as mysteriously missing, believed killed, in early rumors about the attacks, and who later turned up in the U.K., said people should resist the government’s attempts to make people forget about the events of Aug. 31, 2019.

Wong, also known as Jim Wong, faces eight charges including rioting, should he return to Hong Kong, and has applied for political asylum in the U.K.

“I think everyone has a duty to find out the truth and never to forget what happened,” he told RFA. “[The authorities] are constantly trying to revise the details and rewrite history.”

“It’s now been two years … and the biggest issue we face now is forgetfulness,” Wong said.

“People in Hong Kong may think that nothing is going to happen, because there aren’t any more protests now, and everyone is in jail,” he said. “But a lot of people are still suffering because of what happened … we are talking about people’s lives.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, some Uyghurs were among the sea of people at Kabul’s airport desperate to flee the country. A Uyghur woman from Kabul, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA that many of the estimated 2,000 Uyghurs in Afghanistan were fearful that they would face repression under Taliban rule or be deported to China because of their legal status as “Chinese migrants.”

The woman and her family boarded a flight for Italy on August 25, one day before a suicide bomber attack on the airport that killed at least 182 people, including 169 Afghan civilians and 13 members of the U.S. military.

The woman and her family have arrived safely in Italy, where they have relatives and are currently in the process of establishing legal status. RFA Uyghur Service’s Gulchera Hoja interviewed the woman by telephone hours after she landed in Italy, following an earlier interview before she fled. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

RFA: Where are you currently?

Uyghur woman: I’m in Italy. I’ve been here for two hours. They’re testing me for coronavirus. I have to quarantine for 15 days.

RFA: From what I remember, you were unable to leave on the first day you tried, correct? How were you able to make it out?

Uyghur woman: Yes. On the first day we were unable to pass through the first gate the Taliban put up into the airport, and so we spent the night waiting out on the street. Later we fled. My home was left behind. Everything was left behind. To be alive is everything. Nothing else matters when you’re talking about saving your own life.

RFA: Are you feeling freedom now that you’ve made it to Italy? Are you feeling as though you’ve been saved from the threat of danger?

Uyghur woman: When I looked over at my husband just a moment ago, he was dancing. He’s different from before. How could we not feel like we’ve been saved? But because I’m Uyghur, even though I myself have been saved, I feel like I would be able to sleep more peacefully at night if even one more Uyghur were able to get out of there.

RFA: You got to the airport on Sunday

Uyghur woman: Yes, we made it to Baran Gate in the evening on Sunday.

RFA: You barely made it out. If you’d shown up one day later, you would have been exactly where the explosion took place.

Uyghur woman: Yes, the explosion was at that same gate. That explosion happened at the same gate. Our family was nearly destroyed. There are two gates there. We were able to move a distance of 200 or 300 meters in 26 or 27 hours before we were passed into the hands of the Americans. Oh, the ugliness of the Taliban members there, the ugly way they looked. They hit people hard with the backs of their weapons, the tips, they struck them in the shoulders, on the hands, on the back. The people they struck got sick, their faces went pale.

RFA: Did they strike you too?

Uyghur woman: My family members were afraid they would hit us and wanted to sit down, but I told them to get up so we could keep moving forward. I decided to go out in front just in case they tried to hit us, and so I just kept pulling my family forward. That’s how we made it through.

RFA: So you were only able to approach the airport as part of a sea of people?

Uyghur woman: Yes, you had to use what little time and bravery you had to walk just two or three steps forward at a time. You had to endure the fighting, too. I kept saying, “Let’s go forward even if they hit us, we won’t die from being hit.” They’re so horrible. They had these rubber pipes, like pipes for water, and they were beating people so hard with them. I saw it with my own eyes, the way they were hitting people who were on the road to get into the airport. They’re such terrifying, dangerous people. They’re so terrifying when you look them in the face. The religious leaders and scholars in our homeland had such light radiating from their faces. They were so polite, so beautiful. We had such respect for them. But these people are terrifying.

RFA: These are the things that happened before you made it into U.S. custody?

Uyghur woman: Yes, yes. There were Americans there after we made it through two gates. The Taliban had no more power over us once we made it through. We made it to the square around 8:00 at night and were able to get through the first gate around 10:00 the next day. I went through first. The men weren’t able to get in. I begged the Taliban members there to let my husband pass through the gate, but they paid me no attention. I noticed that the Taliban weren’t stopping children selling water from passing through. There was a child carrying water in a cart, and I ran after him screaming, “Water boy! Water boy!” He stopped. I told him my children were back behind me and that I would give him U.S. $100 for each child he could get through the gate, and then seven or eight kids appeared saying they would take my kids through. I gave them money and told them to call for my kids to come after them. My husband went through with one of the kids, too. There was a big commotion at one point, and the Taliban were beating some people. The sun was so hot. We sat in the heat for an entire day. When we’d gotten a bit closer, they started hitting people again, driving them out, making them get up. I’ll never forget it, not even after I die. 

We had taken a blanket with us, we spread it out and lay on it. Even if you want to sit up all night and not sleep, it’s impossible to stand it when you’re exhausted. There’s no strength left in your hands and feet. And then Italian soldiers came to take us away. They put us in a car and took us to another camp. It was accommodations for people they were going to take abroad.

RFA: You said that your husband has relatives in Italy with whom you’d been in touch. Did the people who saved you and sent you to Italy bring you in because of the familial connection?

Uyghur woman: They invited us to Italy because we had no choice but to flee. Whatever country someone applies to, people from that country will come and find you amid the mess. They took us into a place because we were so-and-so’s family members. I had the thought that there would be no people left in Afghanistan in the immediate future because there were so many people fleeing. All of them were people who had been invited by relatives abroad. It appears as though they handle the matters there as soon as people send letters to offices of the foreign ministry. Turkey and the United States have set up their own tents there. They have large air conditioners in them.

RFA: Was this a separate Italian camp?

Uyghur woman: Yes, each country put their own country’s flag and the old Afghanistan flag, the one without a seal, on their tents. We spent one night there and then on Wednesday, the 24th, we got on an airplane. They took us away at no cost to us.

RFA: And so finally, today, the story of how you fled the Taliban is complete.

Uyghur woman: It’s over. It’s all done. They took our passports. They’re going to give us a place to live, and after a period they will give us residency.

Authorities in China are cracking down on widespread gaming among minors, limiting anyone under 18 to just three hours’ online gaming per week, the country’s press, publications, and gaming censor said in a statement.

Gaming companies have been ordered to impose strict time limits on online gaming for minors, in order to prevent them from overindulging and to protect their physical and mental health, the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) said in an Aug. 30 directive on its official website.

“Online gaming companies may only provide minors with one-hour online gaming slots from 20 to 21:00 on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and statutory holidays,” the order said.

The move is a drastic cut in permitted gaming time, which was set at one-and-a-half hours on all weekdays and three hours at weekends, with no gaming allowed after 10.00 p.m.

Service providers Tencent and NetEase have already set up real-name identification systems to identify minors, as well as facial recognition technology that can tell if an underage player is using an adult login.

Now, all underage users in China will be required to register with their real names, while all online games must be integrated with the GAPP’s anti-addiction verification system, it said.

No users will be allowed to access online games unless they have logged in according to the new rules, it said.

GAPP officials at all levels of government have also been ordered to step up supervision and inspection of online gaming companies’ performance regarding the new rules, which take effect from Sept. 1, 2021.

About 62.5 percent of Chinese minors often play games online, while 13.2 percent of underage mobile game users play mobile games for more than two hours a day on weekdays, according to state media.

Complaints of addiction

In 2017, Tencent Holdings said it would limit play time for some young users of its flagship mobile game “Honor of Kings,” a response to complaints from parents and teachers that children were becoming addicted.

The authorities have also become increasingly concerned over rising rates of myopia among young people.

On Aug. 3, state media denounced online gaming as “mental opium” and “electronic drugs,” naming “the Honor of Kings” as a key example.

Primary school teacher and keen gamer Yuan Changquan said the rules are somewhat draconian, however.

“It’s a bit heavy-handed and simplistic to use such methods to supervise children, who should have the freedom to make their own choices,” Yuan told RFA.

“Also, a lot of young people play games now because there aren’t many jobs.”

Crackdown success uncertain

Chongqing-based educator Meng Xing said it wasn’t entirely clear whether the government would be able to implement the new rules.

“Underage people will still be able to use their parents’ ID to log on,” Meng said. “They tried to bring out new rules forbidding minors from logging onto live streams in the past, but hundreds of thousands of them are doing it.”

“Of course they will crack down hardest on the better-known games like ‘Honor of Kings,” Meng said. “Whether or not they will succeed in implementing this with the lesser-known games is another matter.”

Meng said the anti-gaming policy for minors was part and parcel of recent moves to abolish primary school examinations and out-of-school tutoring schools, in a bid to take the pressure off children and parents to excel, and to encourage couples to consider having more children.

“Xi Jinping has in mind a utopian ideal of the Chinese dream,” U.S.-based political commentator Wang Juntao told RFA in a recent interview.

“The cream of this society are men like him and women like [his wife] Peng Liyuan,” Wang said. “Everyone else is just supposed to do whatever the party tells them to do.”

“Ordinary people are just cogs in the machine. They’re not to play video games, but should spend the day working hard and study the party constitution in the evenings,” he said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.