Day: August 23, 2021

Ho Chi Minh City entered a strict lockdown on Monday, with troops carrying AK-47 rifles stationed around Vietnam’s biggest city to restrict people’s movements and residents complaining online about intimidation, sources say.

Thousands of official troops and as many as 35,000 army reservists are now being deployed to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in the city, formerly called Saigon, Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense said last week.

City residents have expressed concern over the move, though, with some comparing the sight of armed soldiers on the streets to the April 30, 1975 capture of the city by North Vietnamese troops that ended the Vietnam War.

“It’s frightening to see them carrying AK-47 rifles because now it looks like they’re intimidating people instead of just protecting them,” one resident told RFA on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The virus isn’t scared of AK-47s, so this creates an image more of violent repression than of protection,” he said.

“Are they there to shoot the pandemic or the people?” asked a netizen named Tran Quyen, writing in a comment posted to RFA’s Vietnamese Service Facebook page, one of at least 640 comments posted by contributors on Monday, with another source saying the scene reminded him of curfews imposed in wartime.

Others wrote that government authorities alarmed by recent protests in Cuba may have posted troops across the city to prevent unrest caused by the harsh conditions imposed on those living under lockdown.

Also on Monday, Deputy Minister Vu Duc Dam—head of the government’s COVID-19 task force—ordered that all homeless people in Vietnam be rounded up and held in facilities managed by the military.

Vietnam has now recorded 354,355 cases of COVID-19 dating from April 27, the first day of the fourth wave of coronavirus outbreak in the country, to Aug. 23. A total of 8,666 deaths due to COVID-19 have now been reported in Vietnam.

Thousands each day

Vietnam’s southern province of Binh Duong is now overwhelmed with COVID patients, with the number of new cases soaring to thousands of people a day and officials calling for an additional 6,000 health workers to handle the continued climb in infections.

More than 70,000 cases and 570 deaths have been recorded to date in Binh Duong, provincial health department director Nguyen Hong Chuong reported on Monday.

With quarantine centers in the province filled beyond capacity, local authorities are instructing patients not yet showing symptoms, designated FO, to quarantine at home, with more serious cases designated F1 and F2.

Unrest broke out in a provincial quarantine center at Tan Uyen village last week because of poor living conditions amid rumors that a pregnant woman in failing health had died at the center after her transfer to a hospital was delayed, according to Facebook videos posted on Saturday and Monday,

Some center residents were then transferred to another facility with better conditions, and village health department director Nguyen Van Dang was suspended from his job on Aug. 22, sources said.

“I don’t dare say anything now, because I’m scared,” one resident at the Tan Uyen center told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

Cases in Laos, Cambodia

Vietnam’s neighbors Laos and Cambodia also saw climbing numbers of infections this week, with Laos reporting 152 new cases in the 24-hour-period ending Aug. 23 in addition to 411 new infections reported on Saturday and 305 reported on Sunday.

At least 95 prison inmates in the southern province of Savannakhet were reported infected, many of them by infected guards, in the period from Aug. 17 to Aug. 19, while in Champassak province, also in the country’s south, authorities canceled a lockdown but kept other restrictions in place including a ban on large gatherings.

Out of 377,692 persons examined for signs of infection since the pandemic began, 12,621 have now been found to be infected, 11 have died, 8,305 have recovered, and 4,305 are still receiving treatment in hospitals, Lao sources said.

In Cambodia, at least1,808 have now died from COVID-19 after 16 new deaths were reported on Monday, with a total of 89,641 infections also reported after 400 new cases were added to the list, according to Cambodian Health Ministry sources.

At least 132 of the new cases of infection were imported from abroad, the Ministry said, adding that at least 85,618 previously infected Cambodians have now recovered.

On Sunday, the Ministry announced it can now vaccinate nearly 9,000, or 90 percent, of the 10,000 people still eligible for vaccinations. Nearly 2 million people have already been injected, mostly with Chinese vaccines.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese, Lao, and Khmer Services. Translated by Viet Ha, Sidney Khotpanya, and Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Richard Finney.

A leading Uyghur entrepreneur who returned from a visit to the United States in 2016 and vanished without a trace has been confirmed detained by authorities in an internment camp in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China, sources familiar with the case told RFA.

Mahmutjan Memetjan, 35, was picked up by authorities in 2017, the year authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) launched a vast network of internment camps that has incarcerated some 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas, RFA has learned from a source in the region.

The real estate investor, also known as Mehetjan Alqut, had lived in in Yengisheher (in Chinese, Shule) county, in Kashgar (Kashi) prefecture, where he ran the Kashgar Alqut Property Company.

Chinese authorities have targeted and arrested numerous Uyghur businessmen, intellectuals, and cultural and religious figures in the XUAR for years as part of a campaign to monitor, control, and assimilate members of the minority group purportedly to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities.

Mahmutjan and other entrepreneurs went on a group business trip to the U.S. on April 8-22, 2016, according to the source inside the XUAR. During the visit, his then-pregnant wife, Parida Ilgar, gave birth to the couple’s fourth daughter, who became a U.S. citizen and received a passport.

In May 2017, not quite a year after the delegation returned home, Yengisheher county police detained Mahmutjan and questioned him about his travels to the U.S., said the source, who declined to be named in order to speak freely.

A police officer in Yengisheher county told RFA that Mahmutjan’s case had been handled by Yu Tiantian, a Han Chinese police officer from the same work unit.

The police officer from a station near a 16-storey apartment and retail building called Alkut owned by Mahmutjan said he knew that the businessman had been taken into custody and detained four years ago, but did not know the reason for his arrest.

Since his detention and disappearance, Mahmutjan has been held in a “reeducation” or “training center,” China’s euphemistic terms for the XUAR internment camps, said the officer, who did not provide his name.

He also said he was unaware of the situation of Mahmutjan’s wife and children, including their U.S.-born daughter.

Asked about the state of Mahmutjan’s businesses, the police officer said: “Some are open, some are closed” following the businessman’s detention.

In addition to his holdings in Yengisheher, Mahmutjan also reportedly opened and operated an organic food market called Iztap in the Dawan neighborhood of the XUAR’s capital Urumqi (Wulumuqi), and a home interior company on the city’s Yan’an Road.

The organic food market and the home interior company may have been shut down by the authorities following Mahmutjan’s disappearance in 2017, said the first source.

Mahmutjan’s wife is currently living in Urumqi, where she has faced great difficulties since her husband’s detention, the source said.

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by the Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

A  Tibetan poet known for publishing works critical of Chinese policies in Tibet died last week from health problems tied to alcohol consumption following periods of arrest and interrogation by Chinese police, according to a source in Tibet.

Tsepak, who wrote under the name Chenbang, died on Aug. 19 at the Chigdril County Hospital in Sichuan’s Golog (in Chinese, Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“He had been detained and questioned earlier by the Chinese government for writing about Tibetan issues,” the source said.

Born in 1992 in Chigdril, Tsepak was a graduate of Gansu province’s Northwest University for Nationalities and had written at least five books, along with poetry published on creative-writing websites online, RFA’s source said, adding that Tsepak wrote his poems in a “unique style.”

“He was also interested in other subjects, and while he was studying at the Northwest University for Nationalities he wrote articles that criticized the Chinese government, for which he was arrested and interrogated many times,” he said.

Tibetan scholars and poets inside Tibet are now widely sharing Tsepak’s poems, and are praising him for his contributions to Tibet’s culture and the Tibetan language, the source added.

Writers, singers, and artists promoting Tibetan national identity have frequently been arrested and handed long jail terms by Chinese authorities, with informally organized courses promoting the study of the Tibetan language now typically deemed “illegal associations,” sources say.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Reported by Sangyal Kunchok for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Richard Finney.

A lawyer standing for election to a Hong Kong professional body reported intimidation and withdrew his candidacy, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party stepped up pressure on civil society groups in the city.

Law Society president Melissa Pang said in a statement on Saturday that a candidate had withdrawn from the election, citing threatening messages.

“Fairness and transparency must be safeguarded in any election. The Law Society takes a very serious view of the alleged act of intimidation and has advised the candidate to report the matter to the police immediately,” the statement said.

Candidate Jonathan Ross said he was pulling out of the forthcoming election for the society’s governing body over concern for his safety and that of his family.

“I fail to understand the level of fear that our candidacies have engendered in certain quarters,” he wrote in a letter announcing his decision.

“It is a shameful and sad day for Hong Kong that an election for council of our honorable institution has sunk to this level.”

The Society will hold its annual general meeting on Aug. 24, and elect a new board.

Ross, who was campaigning for re-election, described himself in his campaign material as an “independent and moderate voice.”

He said his withdrawal had nothing to do with a five-minute conversation he held with China’s Supreme People’s Court judge Gao Xiaoli during a trip to Beijing in 2018, during which he said a case his company was involved in had taken more than a year to come to trial. 

A complaint, the reason for which remains unknown, was filed with the Law Society in 2019, and no evidence of impropriety was found, he said.

Warned against politics

Ross’ withdrawal came days after Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam warned lawyers to stay out of politics, and after his denunciation in state-controlled Chinese media.

Lam warned on Aug. 17 that if any professional body got too political, the city’s government would consider “terminating the relationship.”

Earlier, the CCP’s official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, referred to the Law Society as a “running rat,” warning it not to allow itself to get “politicized” ahead of Aug. 24 leadership elections.

The paper warned the Law Society in an editorial that it should “draw a clear line” between itself and “anti-China elements” to avoid meeting the same fate as the Professional Teachers’ Union (PTU), which disbanded last week after being criticized in CCP-backed media.

In April, Lam also targeted the Bar Association, whose chairman Paul Harris has been labeled “anti-China” by Beijing officials for criticizing jail terms handed down to opposition politicians.

The Law Society said it is, and continues to be, politically neutral.

Professional bodies pressured

China has been stepping up pressure on civil and professional bodies in recent weeks, with Hong Kong’s biggest teaching union, the Professional Teachers’ Union (PTU), disbanding on Aug. 10, after being described as a “malignant tumor” in need of eradication by the People’s Daily.

At the weekend, the Hong Kong Educators’ Alliance said it was also disbanding.

“The Alliance was dissolved by a vote of extraordinary general meeting in accordance with its charter,” the group said in an Aug. 21 post to its Facebook page.

“All assets will be divided equally among members after liabilities are discharged,” it said.

The group was relatively small, having been set up in January 2020 in the hope of protecting teachers from dismissal during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

It claimed around 1,000 members in May 2020.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Young people in China are increasingly ruling marriage out of their plans for the future, putting further pressure on the government’s attempts to get them to have more children, according to recent official figures.

The country recorded a total of 8.13 million marriage registrations for the whole of 2020, falling for the seventh year in a row, state news agency Xinhua said in a recent report.

According to sample survey data released by the China Statistical Yearbook, the proportion of one-person households in China has increased year by year, from 13.15 percent in 2015 to 18.45 percent in 2019.

The civil affairs ministry reported that there are currently around 170 million young people born after 1990, with a male-to-female ratio of 54:46, yet only 20 million are currently married, meaning that the marriage rate in that generation is a little over 10 percent.

If the generation had reproduced the preferences of the preceding generations, that would translate into a total of between 35 and 40 million married couples, rather than 10 million.

Bi Xin, a sociologist who studies youth issues in mainland China, said there have been seismic changes in the way young Chinese people regard marriage in recent years.

“If their incomes aren’t stable, then the cost of getting married and having children will be too high,” Bi told RFA. “Some young people have no desire to get married, let alone have kids.”

“Now, the government wants to encourage people to have three or four kids, but it’s not going to be as simple as that,” he said. “And right now, you’re not allowed to have kids outside of marriage.”

A new norm

Sociologically, more and more young people born after 1980 seem to regard their single status as the norm.

The average age of first marriage for women of childbearing age in China shifted from 21.4 in 1990 to 25.7 in 2017, according to the state statistics bureau, and that figure looks set to increase in future.

A person who works with young people, who gave only his surname Hu, said social pressures are simply too great on many people in China.

“The economic situation has put a huge amount of pressure on young people,” he said. “It’s not easy to find a job, so they can’t raise kids and have no confidence in the future.”

“A marriage contract has no value to them,” Hu said.

Fears for the future

According to Bi Xin, low marriage rates could also reflect deep anxieties about the state of the nation.

“When marriage rates are high, then social stability will also be high: when marriage rates are low and divorce rates high, then the crime rate will definitely increase,” Bi said.

“There could be even more factors leading to social instability in future, and there are dangers in an ageing population, too,” he said.

Late marriage, late childbirth, and non-marriage have increased the burden of China’s elderly care, seriously dragging down the country’s finances and restricting economic vitality, according to a February 2021 article on the finance pages of the state-controlled Sina.com.

According to the article, China is on track for one of the heaviest pension burdens in the world.

“While giving young people the right to choose freely, [we should] reduce the numbers who marry late or not at all by addressing the fact that some can’t afford to marry or have children,” the article said.

It called for secure jobs and social assistance for married couples, with better access to housing, education, and healthcare.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Jailed Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan has lost half her bodyweight since her detention in 2019, when she began an intermittent hunger strike in protest at her jailing.

Zhang, 37, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment by Shanghai’s Pudong District People’s Court on Dec. 28, 2020.

One of a group of citizen journalists detained, jailed or “disappeared” after they went to the central city of Wuhan to cover the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zhang is eating very little food, rather than refusing it entirely, to avoid force-feeding by tube.

Zhang was sent for medical treatment at the end of July for malnutrition following several months of hunger strike in a Shanghai prison.

A friend of Zhang’s mother surnamed Zhou said her mother is extremely worried about her health.

“She has been on a hunger strike since June 2020,” Zhou said. “She used to weigh 150 pounds at a height of 1.78 meters, and now she weighs less than 80 pounds.”

“That is half her bodyweight, so she could be in serious trouble,” he said. “Zhang Zhan’s mother is worried that her organs could start to fail, which could mean she won’t survive.”

Zhou said Zhang’s refusal of food was out of protest at her illegal treatment at the hands of the authorities.

“She said while she was still in the detention center that she would continue her hunger strike, then she was transferred from prison to a hospital, where they tied her to a bed … we think they may have force-fed her, along with other treatments; it can’t be ruled out.”

Zhang requested a discharge back to prison, and refused treatment, Zhou said.

“She left the hospital on Aug. 11, 2021, and went back to prison,” he said.

Zhang’s former defense attorney Ren Quanniu confirmed that Zhang is in very poor health, but that the authorities have denied repeated requests from her family for her release on medical parole.

“The government won’t release her unless she makes a concession [to their demand for a forced confession],” Ren told RFA. “They don’t proceed from a humanitarian standpoint … that’s their logic.”

Zhang pleaded not guilty at her trial, where she appeared in court in a wheelchair. A guilty plea is typically a prerequisite for more lenient treatment in China’s judicial system under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia said he had had repeated applications for medical parole turned down while serving his three-and-a-half year jail term for “subversion,” starting in 2008.

He said medical parole is treated differently in political cases.

“The authorities take a transactional view of parole in political cases,” Hu told RFA. “I made continual applications for medical parole … but was turned down.”

He called on the international community to continue to raise concerns over Zhang’s situation, as well as that of other Chinese political prisoners.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.