Day: December 10, 2021

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday ordered his military to collect and destroy any U.S.-made arms found in Cambodia, lashing out at an arms embargo imposed by Washington as an American diplomat visited Phnom Penh for talks on bilateral and regional issues.

The U.S. imposed an embargo on arms sales to the Southeast Asian country on Wednesday, citing concerns about “deepening Chinese military influence” in the country.

China is backing the refurbishment of a naval base at Reap, near Cambodia’s port of Sihanoukville. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that a secret treaty had been signed granting the Chinese Navy use of the base for 30 years. The Cambodian government called the report “fake news.”

Writing on his Facebook page on Friday, Hun Sen said that U.S.-made weapons and equipment “must be collected to store in warehouses or destroyed.”

Countries that have used U.S. weapons in the past have “mostly lost wars,” Hun Sen said, citing the examples of the U.S.-backed Cambodian government of President Lon Nol, which was overthrown in 1975 by the Khmer Rouge, and more recently of Afghanistan.

Hun Sen in his Facebook post also warned Cambodia’s younger generation not to use U.S.-made weapons if they want to protect their country’s independence.

Hun Sen’s comments came as U.S. diplomat Derek Chollet visited Cambodia for talks with government representatives, civil society groups and journalists on human rights, the political crisis in Myanmar, and Cambodia’s plans for its 2022 chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Human rights were a major focus of discussions, said Chollet, who is the State Department counselor.

“Today, on Human Rights Day, I was honored to meet members of Cambodian civil society to hear their views on human rights, the environment, labor conditions, and press freedom,” Chollet wrote on his Twitter account on Friday.

“Promoting respect for human rights is central to U.S. foreign policy in Cambodia and around the world.”

In a statement Friday, Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, called for U.S. pressure on Hun Sen to “end the rapidly expanding crackdown on his political opponents that’s resulted in widespread arrests, mass show trials, and aggressive pursuit of recognized refugees overseas.”

Writing before Chollet’s meetings, he said: “The worsening onslaught on democratic norms, media freedom, and human rights in Cambodia cannot simply be ignored because Hun Sen enjoys the spotlight as ASEAN chair.”

The announcement of an arms embargo by the Department of Commerce on Wednesday was the latest in a series of measures targeting the kingdom’s growing ties to Beijing.

The move followed the imposition in November of sanctions against two senior Cambodian military officials Washington alleged had conspired to illicitly profit from the Ream refurbishment project.

Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in November 2017 over an alleged plot backed by the United States to topple the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) government of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for over 35 years.

The move to ban the CNRP was part of a wider crackdown by Hun Sen on the political opposition, NGOs, and the independent media. Scores of supporters of the group have since been incarcerated, awaiting a tortuous legal process made slower by COVID-19 restrictions.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa took aim at American social media companies for allowing the “toxic sludge” of disinformation to spread online and impede the work of reporters worldwide, as she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Friday.

The crusading Philippine editor and CEO of the news website Rappler is one of two journalists to receive the rare honor of being named co-winners of the world’s most prestigious peace prize. When she set up the Rappler company almost 10 years ago, Ressa said she tried to put together two sides of a coin that she believes shows all that is wrong in today’s world.

“Journalists, the old gatekeepers, are one side of the coin,” Ressa said during her acceptance speech at Oslo City Hall.

“The other is technology, with its god-like power that has allowed a virus of lies to infect each of us, pitting us against each other, bringing out our fears, anger and hate, and setting the stage for the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world.”

According to Ressa, the need of the hour is to transform hate and violence.

“[T]he toxic sludge that’s coursing through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money by spreading that hate and triggering the worst in us… well, that just means we have to work much harder.”

Press freedom activists said Ressa had been targeted for Rappler’s critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte’s five-year war on illegal drugs, which has left thousands dead. Duterte has accused Ressa of spreading “fake news.”

In June last year, she and a former colleague were convicted of cyber libel. Ressa and her colleague face up to six years in prison – they are currently free on bail pending an appeal.

“In less than 2 years, the Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me. I’ve had to post bail 10 times just to do my job,” she said in her lecture.

“Last year, I and a former colleague were convicted of cyber libel for a story we published 8 years earlier at a time the law we allegedly violated didn’t even exist. All told, the charges I face could send me to jail for about 100 years.”

Ressa also described social media as a “deadly game for power and money.”

“[D]estructive corporations have siphoned money away from news groups and now pose a foundational threat to markets and elections,” she said.

She cited a disinformation campaign waged by China last year that undermined her own news operation.

“To show how disinformation is both a local and global problem, take the Chinese information operations taken down by Facebook in Sept 2020: it was creating fake accounts using AI generated photos for the U.S. elections, polishing the image of the Marcoses, campaigning for Duterte’s daughter, and attacking me and Rappler,” Ressa said.

Maria Ressa of the Philippines (left) is applauded by laureate Dmitry Muratov of Russia as she is presented with the Nobel Peace Prize diploma and medal during the award ceremony for the Nobel Peace prize in Oslo, Dec. 10, 2021. [AFP]

‘Progress without freedom’

Meanwhile, Ressa’s co-winner, Russia newspaper editor Dmitri Muratov, said he believed the world had fallen out of love with democracy and is beginning to turn to dictatorship.

“We’ve got an illusion that progress can be achieved through technology and violence, not through human rights and freedoms,” he said in his lecture after being presented the Nobel Peace Prize.

“This is progress without freedom. It is as impossible as getting milk without having a cow. The dictatorships have secured access to violence. In our country (and not only) it is common to think that politicians who avoid bloodshed are weak. While threatening the world with war is the duty of true patriots.”

In this scenario, he said, it is more important than ever for journalists to distinguish between facts and fiction.

The dictatorships have secured access to violence. But he warned this was a dangerous venture.

 “Over a hundred journalists, media outlets, human rights defenders and NGOs have recently been branded as ‘foreign agents.’ In Russia, this means ‘enemies of the people,’ he said.

“Many of our colleagues have lost their jobs. Some have to leave the country. Some are deprived of the opportunity to live a normal life for an unknown period of time. Maybe forever.”

Since its launch two decades ago, Muratov’s newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, has repeatedly written about alleged corruption in the Russian government – and many link that to the killings of six of the paper’s reporters.

“But this is their mission,” he said, speaking of journalists who risk their lives.

“As governments continually improve the past, journalists try to improve the future.”

Muratov said his Nobel was “for all true journalism.”

“This award is to my colleagues from Novaya Gazeta, who have lost their lives …. This award is also to the colleagues who are alive, to the professional community who perform their professional duty,” Muratov said.

He then called for a minute of silence to honor fallen journalists around the world.

“Let us rise and honor my and Maria Ressa’s reporter colleagues, who have given their lives for this profession, with a minute of silence, and let us give our support to those who suffer persecution,” he said.

“I want journalists to die old.”

Ressa to co-head new fund for shielding journalists

Earlier this week, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, praised the “extraordinary work of journalists and media workers” worldwide, including Ressa and Muratov.

“And yet, as we all know, for too many journalists, doing this work means having to endure threats, harassment, attacks,” he said, speaking at a panel ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy held on Dec. 9-10.

The top U.S. diplomat also announced three new funding initiatives to protect reporters and support independent international journalism worldwide.

One of these initiatives, the International Fund for Public Interest Media, will be co-chaired by Ressa and New York Times CEO Mark Thompson, according to an Oct. 1 article in Rappler. The fund is part of a global push to support public interest media organizations worldwide.

“Having co-chairs of the stature of Maria and Mark is a testament to the scope and ambition of the Fund, and a sign of the progress we’ve made,” said Sheetal Vyas, the fund’s founding director.

“The International Fund makes supporting independent media simple, effective and most likely to develop the long term strategies that can address the business model collapse.”

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Citizens across Myanmar marked International Human Rights Day by joining a “Silent Strike” on Friday as a public boycott of junta rule, leaving towns and cities throughout the country eerily quiet. 

Nearly all businesses — particularly those in the regions of Yangon, Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway and Irrawaddy, as well as Kachin and Chin states — were shuttered, and residents avoided any form of public interaction, emptying the streets.

Protest leaders told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the action was meant to mourn the loss of human rights under military rule and the people’s opposition to the Feb. 1 coup that saw the junta seize power from the country’s democratically elected National League for Democracy government.

Originally scheduled to take place from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Friday, most public areas — including marketplaces — were cleared of people beginning early in the morning, sources said.

Nan Lin, a spokesman for the University Alumnus Association, said Friday’s Silent Strike was one of the most effective expressions of opposition against the coup since February.

“We’d staged a ‘Silent Strike’ on March 24 that was noted by the international media when millions of people participated in the program … and now, nine months later, we are having another, but the situation is different,” he said.

“Living conditions have become much more difficult. People have returned to their daily lives not because they have accepted military rule but for the sake of survival … Today’s Silent Strike will show that we, the people, will dictate how we live our lives and that we will not let them rule us.”

In the weeks and months since the coup, security personnel have committed blatant human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, rape and killings. At least 7,916 civilians have been arrested and 1,325 killed by junta authorities since February, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, mostly during non-violent protests of the coup.

A participant in Friday’s strike named Yin Yin, who lives in Yangon’s Hmawbi township, told RFA that she was doing her part to protest the junta’s rights violations.

“I feel bad now that I couldn’t do anything for the young people who are risking their lives fighting back against the junta and, therefore, I am taking part in today’s protest,” she said.

“Young people think we have lost interest in their cause. I’m here to show that my blood hasn’t run cold yet.”

Other protesters in Yangon’s Kyeemyindine township said recent violence by the military, including the burning massacre earlier this week of 11 teenagers and adults in Dontaw village, in Sagaing’s Salingyi township, go beyond simple “human rights abuses.”

San San Win Maw, a clothing store owner in Yangon, said she joined Friday’s strike because there are increasingly few protections for human rights in Myanmar.

“We now hate the military, which has shown no kindness to the people,” she said.

“Some people have been arrested and ended up dead the next day. I feel broken as a parent. We have empathy for the people. We don’t want to hear any more of these incidents. Do we have anything called human rights here?”

Residents of the city said the junta urged people to carry on with their lives as usual without taking part in Friday’s strike and have threatened to act against those who close their shops, but it did not deter them.

‘Heinous’ attacks

Rupert Colville, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, highlighted rights abuses in Myanmar in a statement issued to mark Human Rights Day, saying the U.N. is “appalled” by their recent escalation and congratulating the public for standing up against the junta.

“The country’s human rights situation is deepening on an unprecedented scale, with serious violations reported daily of the rights to life, liberty and security of person, the prohibition against torture, the right to a fair trial, and freedom of expression,” he said.

“Today the courageous and resilient people of Myanmar have marked Human Rights Day and their opposition to the coup with a universal silent protest.”

The rights agency called recent attacks on civilians “heinous” and urged a swift and firm international response to pursue accountability for the junta.

Dr. Tay Za San, one of the leaders of the strike movement in Mandalay, suggested that human rights had “gone completely extinct” in Myanmar and urged the public to unify to get them back.

“We have already fallen into complete darkness. Our lives that were previously bad have now turned to worse,” he said.

“You cannot even speak freely under an authoritarian rule. Dictatorships will not give us human rights willingly. So, we must fight for it.”

He called the nationwide Silent Strike “one of the loudest expressions by the people” against the junta’s violence and human rights abuses.

Government response

Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun about the protest went unanswered Friday.

In some towns, residents reported that military and police tried to thwart the protest by urging them via loudspeakers to conduct business as usual and vowed to “protect the people from threats and attacks.” In other areas, authorities threatened to “punish” vendors if they didn’t show up to market. Despite the threats, no major clashes were reported.

Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said the rights situation in the country had completely collapsed under the junta.

“The 73rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out 30 articles on human rights. Myanmar has violated all 30 articles. From the coup to the murders, the arrests of innocent people and destruction of homes — these were all violations,” he said.

“We can say the situation in Myanmar is such that all human rights are in jeopardy. There had been weaknesses during the previous governments. But since the latest coup, the few human rights we had were all taken away.”

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Taiwanese naval ships could join next year’s Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) for the first time under a defense policy bill for fiscal year 2022 passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Earlier this week the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly in support of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which defines the country’s defense policy and budget.

The bill suggests “conducting practical training and military exercises with Taiwan, including, as appropriate, inviting Taiwan to participate in the Rim of the Pacific exercise conducted in 2022” in order to support the development of Taiwan’s defense forces.

The NDAA bill still needs to be passed by the Senate before getting to President Joe Biden’s desk and “it will depend on Biden to decide whether inviting Taiwan to joint exercise is worth his political capital,” said Richard Bitzinger, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore.

“At the moment, I think the chance is 50/50 that an invitation would be granted,” Bitzinger said.

RIMPAC is the world’s largest multi-national maritime warfare exercise held every two years since 1974. Before that it was held annually. The exercise is hosted by the U.S. Navy’s Indo-Pacific Command and joined by navies from dozens of countries. China took part in 2014 and 2016.

“Taiwan attending RIMPAC would be very important politically as a sign of support by the U.S. and other attending nations,” said Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine colonel who spent 2019 in Taiwan to research the island’s defense.

“If the Americans do not help Taiwan’s armed forces break out of over 40 years of isolation and give them the opportunity to train with somebody, Taiwan’s defense capabilities will not improve as they need to improve,” said Newsham. 

Until now, the U.S. military hasn’t conducted any bilateral and joint exercise with Taiwan but it was reported in October that a number of U.S. military trainers have been deployed in the island for at least a year.

The Wall Street Journal said that a small contingent of U.S. special forces soldiers and Marines are training Taiwan’s local ground and maritime forces.

The Pentagon did not comment on the report at that time but said that the U.S. “support for and defense relationship with Taiwan remains aligned against the current threat” from China.

U.S. troops have not been permanently based on the island since Washington established diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979.

Asymmetric defensive capabilities

“China will react strongly, as usual, if Taiwan gets invited to RIMPAC,” said Bitzinger from Singapore’s RSIS.

“It would stoke further tensions with Beijing but I don’t think this alone would lead to an eventual clash,” he added.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and vows to reunite it with the mainland, by force if necessary. Chinese military activity in the Taiwan Strait has intensified in recent months, with hundreds of military aircraft sorties into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in what observers see as an intimidation campaign.

Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said in October that the cross-strait tension was “the most serious” in more than 40 years.

When asked about the NDAA earlier this month, Chiu said he had not seen the details of the U.S. legislation. He indicated that Taiwan needed to have an internal discussion on the applicability of the bill to Taiwan. He said Taiwan would utilize and evaluate what it could benefit from.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon’s top official for the Indo-Pacific said “bolstering Taiwan’s self-defenses is an urgent task and an essential feature of deterrence.”

Ely Ratner, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that China’s air and sea campaigns around Taiwan “increased the likelihood of miscalculation between armed forces in the Indo-Pacific.”

Responding to Ratner’s statement at the hearing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman said the U.S. has “repeatedly cited the so-called ‘China threat’ rhetoric as an excuse to justify its expansion of military strength.”

The U.S. is Taiwan’s largest arms supplier with agreed deals worth more than $23 billion since 2010.

However the $768.2-billion defense policy bill also calls to assist Taiwan “in the domestic production of defensive asymmetric capabilities including through the transfer of intellectual property, co-development, or co-production arrangements.”

Experts say Taiwan’s defense concept is based on a strategy of asymmetric warfare as there is a widening gap between China and the island’s capabilities.

Taiwan launched the construction of its Indigenous Defensive Submarine program in November 2020 and aims to acquire as many as eight diesel-electric submarines at an estimated cost of $16 billion.

In March, the U.S. approved the export of sensitive technology including three major types of equipment — digital sonar systems, integrated combat systems and an auxiliary equipment system (periscopes) – for the fleet.

With additional reporting by RFA’s Mandarin Service.

A Chinese court in Tibet has given a 10-year prison term to a Tibetan writer and educator known for expressing loyalty to exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, with the sentence handed down in a secret trial, RFA has learned.

Go Sherab Gyatso, a 46-year-old monk at Kirti monastery in Sichuan’s Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was taken into custody on unknown charges by State Security agents on Oct. 26, 2020 in Sichuan’s capital Chengdu.

Gyatso will be moved soon to a prison near Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa, sources close to Gyatso said. No  details are available regarding the charges on which he was convicted.

Speaking to RFA, a Tibetan scholar living in exile described Gyatso – who had written books and articles describing restrictions on freedom of expression under Chinese rule – as an “open-minded individual who advocates the preservation of Tibetan language, religion and culture.”

“He also believes in the equality of humanity,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“It’s sad news to hear about his 10-year sentence on Human Rights Day, and I want to call on the United Nations, governments around the world, and the international community to look into this matter immediately,” he said.

The Chinese government in October responded to a July 16 letter from U.N. human rights experts asking about Gyatso’s case, telling them that Gyatso had been placed in criminal detention “in accordance with the law on suspicion of inciting secession.”

“No such things as ‘secret detention,’ ‘arbitrary detention,’ or ‘enforced disappearance’ ever took place,” China said.

Gyatso had earlier endured a four-year period of detention, beginning in 1998 during a “Patriotic Reeducation” campaign in Ngaba, for possessing a portrait of the Dalai Lama.

He was also reportedly detained for a year in 2008 during a period of widespread unrest in Tibet, although the specific reasons for that detention were not immediately clear.

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is widely reviled by Chinese leaders as a separatist intent on splitting Tibet, a formerly independent Himalayan country which was invaded and incorporated into China by force in 1950, from Beijing’s control.

The Dalai Lama himself says only that he seeks a greater autonomy for Tibet as a part of China, with guaranteed protections for Tibet’s language, culture and religion.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet and Tibetan regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment and extrajudicial killings.

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

Authorities in China targeted dissidents, rights lawyers and activists and their families with house arrest, round-the-clock surveillance and restrictions on their children’s school attendance on Human Rights Day, RFA has learned.

Rights activist Li Wenzu and rights lawyer husband Wang Quanzhang said they were placed under house arrest on Dec. 9, with unidentified security guards refusing to let them leave to take their child to school.

“I’m leaving for the school run,” Wang tells them in a video clip posted to Li’s Twitter account. “It’s OK. We’ll take the kid to school for you,” comes the reply.

Li said she had asked the people stopping them from leaving to identify themselves, but met with no clear answer.

“Would you please show your ID? In what capacity are you here right now?” Li is heard asking one guard in another clip. “Is this really necessary?” comes the reply. “It’s not as if we’ve only just met.”

Fellow activist Xu Yan and her rights lawyer husband Yu Wensheng said around nine people were outside the door of their apartment at 6.00 a.m. on Thursday, and they were unable to get out at all.

“They’re not letting me open the door,” Xu told RFA. “I can’t get it open no matter how hard I push.”

“They pushed back pretty hard a couple of times, and my ribs are still hurting,” she said.

Xu said she suspects the restrictions will end after Human Rights Day on Friday, but that the people outside her home had declined to confirm this.

She said police had come out after she dialed the emergency number, taken one look at the guards outside her home, and left again.

“It feels pretty helpless to have your freedom restricted like this, as well as being a violation of human rights and the law,” Xu told RFA. “It’s also very harmful to kids to let them see things like this; I feel horrible about that.”

Rights lawyer Xie Yanyi said he and his wife Yuan Shanshan are under surveillance, adding that he was followed by unidentified personnel on Dec. 9 when he took his daughter to the supermarket.

‘It’s like this every year’

“It’s like this every year,” independent journalist Gao Yu said in a tweet on Dec. 9. “I wonder if the people doing this are deliberately trying to destroy the image of the [ruling] Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

“Tomorrow is Human Rights Day, so today the police will come in their police cars and tell me that they’ll be there until Dec. 11,” Gao wrote.

Gao tried to answer a call from RFA on Friday, but apparently was unable to hear the caller, repeating “Hello? Hello?”

Rights activist Wang Qiaoling said she and her rights lawyer husband Li Heping were also being told to stay home.

“When my husband tried to take the dog out this morning, a state security police officer guarding our home told him to stay home today,” Wang said, expressing surprise that she’d been able to receive a call from overseas at all.

“It’s a particularly sensitive day,” she said, adding that the same thing happens every year at this time.

The restrictions on activists come as U.S. President Joe Biden holds a Summit for Democracy online running Dec. 9-10, in a move that has been slammed by Beijing.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin accused the U.S. of trying to “weaponize democracy, by openly convening this so-called Summit for Democracy to incite division and confrontation for geopolitical gains.”

Veteran democracy activist Wei Jingsheng said the summit makes Beijing uneasy, because it will likely form the basis for an alliance to resist authoritarian rule.

“This democracy summit being held by the administration is actually a bid to form an alliance against authoritarian countries … who naturally haven’t been invited,” Wei told RFA. “It will be a democratic alliance, so it’s a very important thing.”

“Naturally the Chinese government is very upset.”

Authoritarian resurgence

Wei warned of a “resurgence” of authoritarian styles of governance around the world.

“Global authoritarianism and coercive governance are seeing a resurgence,” Wei said. “After trending higher and higher since World War II, democracy seems to have been on the wane lately, which is harmful to humanity everywhere.”

“This summit at this juncture should be helpful to help it bounce back,” he said.

New York-based political commentator Wang Juntao agreed, saying the summit wasn’t just about sending messages.

“It’s not just a propaganda war; there will also be some practical measures taken to combat authoritarian regimes,” Wang told RFA.

“They will promote Magnitsky-type legislation, asking democratic countries to collaborate, so as to sanction and block corrupt and rights-abusing officials everywhere.”

“They will freeze their accounts and not let them into democratic countries,” he said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.