Day: December 22, 2021

A Vietnamese soldier died this month at the hands of his colleagues, the third death of a member of the military to be reported this year, according to media sources in Vietnam.

Hoang Ba Manh, 20, was allegedly beaten to death on Dec. 20 in what an officer in a meeting with the victim’s family described as a “fight among soldiers.” News of the incident was widely covered by social media on Dec. 22, the 77^th anniversary of the founding of the Vietnam People’s Army.

Speaking in a video shared on social media, a family representative confirmed that Manh, a resident of Phu Loc village in the Cam Vu commune of northern Vietnam’s Hai Duong province, had been physically attacked and later died in his bed at his military camp.

Manh had been “handled” by his fellow soldiers in the attack, an officer wearing an air force uniform said in the video, which was filmed by a person describing himself as one of Manh’s neighbors at home.

“After attending a routine roll call, they called to each other to gather in a bathroom separated from their barracks to do what they called ‘handling each other,’” the officer said. “If this had happened in another, less private place, someone from his unit would definitely have seen it.”

RFA has been unable to identify in which military unit the attack took place, and Manh’s family has refused to speak to reporters.

“Our family has not yet reached an agreement on what exactly took place, so I can’t say anything about this,” one family member said. The person confirmed that Manh’s military unit had held a funeral for him.

Also on the video, a man said that Manh’s family had identified at least two soldiers responsible for the attack, and a military representative promised to investigate the incident.

Hoang Ba Manh is the third soldier to have died this year while doing military service in Vietnam.

Nguyen Van Thien, a resident of Village No. 2 in the An commune of central Vietnam’s Gia Lai province, died in November of what his unit said was heart attack. Family members citing an autopsy said however that multiple injuries had been found both on and inside his body.

And in June, Tran Duc Ho from northern Vietnam’s Bac Ninh province also died at a military camp. Representatives from Vietnam’s Ministry of Defence said that Do had taken his own life, but his family disagreed, saying that many injuries had been found on his body.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Authorities in western China’s Sichuan and Qinghai provinces are barring family visits for Tibetan prisoners held in political cases, citing concerns over the spread of COVID-19, Tibetan sources say.

The restriction remains in force even though no cases of infection have been reported for more than a year in Sichuan’s Mianyang prison or the detention center in Minyak Yak-nga (in Chinese, Ya’an), a prefecture-size city in the western part of the province, a family member of two political prisoners said.

Prisoners in the past have been able to meet with relatives separated by a glass wall, and their families could bring in goods that had been inspected by prison authorities, RFA has learned.

“But now, family members are not allowed to meet their imprisoned relatives even while socially distanced, and families may not send in any clothes, food items or medicines,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“We have asked the authorities many times since 2020 to allow us to meet our relative held in Mianyang prison, but they have cited COVID prevention measures and given us no consideration,” the source said. “We had hoped at least to see him from a distance, but that request was also ignored, so we don’t know what our relative’s current condition is.”

Also speaking to RFA, a family member of a prisoner held in Yak-nga confirmed that many Tibetans have not been allowed to visit incarcerated family members in prison.

“My relative is a political prisoner who was arrested in May 2019 and sentenced to four years and six months in Minyak Yak-nga, but we have been able to meet him only once since he was put in jail. We are very worried about his overall condition,” he said.

Tibetan political prisoners are required to report to police on their activities for at least one to two years following their release from prison. In a program launched in 2014, the prisoners are given government-issued cell phones that track their movements and conversations, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force over 70 years ago. Tibetans protesting Beijing’s rule or promoting their national identity are frequently detained by Chinese authorities, with many handed long jail terms.

Language rights have become a particular focus of official concern, with informally organized Tibetan language courses typically deemed illegal associations and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Chinese social media users are voicing support for Hunan teacher Li Tiantian, believed to be detained in a psychiatric hospital after she spoke out over the expulsion of a Shanghai journalism lecturer who encouraged her students to verify official accounts of the Nanjing massacre.

Li, who is currently pregnant, has been incommunicado since she issued a cry for help on the social media platform Weibo Moments on Sunday as officials from her hometown of Shaba in Hunan’s Yongshun county committed her for psychiatric care.

“The leadership benefits when local governments do evil things,” Twitter user @fjv_n commented on Wednesday. “Anyone can be be mentally illed if the wind rises.”

Being “mentally-illed” is a satirical term used to describe the use of psychiatric diagnosis and incarceration by the authorities to target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Others retweeted an open letter from writer Li Xuewen, who said Li’s disappearance had caused “great indignation” on the country’s tightly controlled internet.

In the letter, Li Xuewen says Li Tiantian was likely targeted by officials in the local education bureau in Hunan’s Xiangxi prefecture, who used her support for Song Gengyi as a pretext for retaliation over a critical article she wrote about rural education in 2019.

“She was just exercising the basic rights of a citizen, and you actually forced her to disappear,” Li Xuewen wrote. “This is an abuse of public power … and must be immediately rectified.”

In her 2019 article, Li Tiantian wrote: “What makes me feel most helpless and upset is that, while, as teachers, we teach students to be honest and trustworthy, we can’t actually tell the truth ourselves. We have become captive intellectuals who are forced to live carefully.”

Hunan scholar Li Ang said Li Tiantian’s husband hasn’t been allowed to visit her since she was sent to the Yongshun County Psychiatric Hospital.

“She’s just a primary-school teacher of Chinese, who likes to write poems, and is a very thoughtful person,” Li Ang said. “She turned 27 this year.”

Some social media users have flocked to buy Li Tiantian’s book, Fox Watching the Moon, which uses poetic language to retell some of the folk legends of her native western Hunan with an ecological twist. Her unique teaching style had earned Li the nickname “Fairy Teacher” among her students, according to some comments.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, user @Szhou12345 dedicated a poem to Li Tiantian using the wild grasses of western Hunan as a metaphor for her spirit.

“A small flower bloomed among the wild grasses, but was trampled by a bunch of pigs,” the poem said.

Informants, denunciations

Current affairs commentator Xiang Wei said China’s education system has become rife with politically motivated denunciations by “informants” among both students and teaching staff at every level.

“Informants have become a kind of political asset used by the authorities to bolster their grip on power,” Xiang said. “I remember when I was at the Qianhai Primary School in Nanshan, Shenzhen, there were a few little spies among the students.”

“They weren’t just there to study, but also to … observe the mood of their classmates, and any psychological changes,” he said. “They would report back to the teachers at specified intervals.”

Literary scholar Chen Kun said informing is an inherent part of the communist way of governing.

“The communist way of thinking absolutely prohibits the progression of logical thinking, political psychology and so on in an educational setting, so this kind of informing is an inherent and logical part of communism, and has been from the start,” Chen said.

“It is a process of de-intellectualising the people, and an important tool for them to govern by.”

Meanwhile, veteran rights lawyer Ran Tong said lawyers hoping to extend assistance to Song Gengyi have been unable to contact her.

“Everyone saw [the video clip], which is normal teaching content,” Ran told RFA. “What it means is that ultra-leftism now prevails everywhere, and any teacher who tells the truth is regarded as a problem.”

“I could offer her legal assistance if needed, but I’m not able to get in touch with her right now.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Typhoon Rai, the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines and Vietnam this year, caused severe damage to some of their major outposts in the South China Sea, according to the Philippine Coast Guard and Vietnamese media.

The hardest hit are Pag-asa Island under the Philippines control, and Southwest Cay, held by Vietnam.

Satellite images taken before and after the category-5 super typhoon struck show the islands changed color from green to brown, as winds and rains knocked out trees and destroyed plants.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) posted on social media several photos of the Pag-asa after the typhoon, known as Odette in the Philippines, slammed the island last week.

Pag-asa, or Thitu Island, is the only Philippine-controlled outpost in the South China Sea with a civilian population of around 200. It’s also the largest and most important feature in the Kalayaan Island Group, hosting a naval port and an air strip.

The island is also claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Aerial photos show “almost all the buildings and structures on the island were destroyed by the typhoon,” said the PCG, adding that “no fishing boats were found to have survived” either.

A PCG spokesman, Commodore Armand Balilo, was quoted by the ABS-CBN News Channel as saying that the newly-built coast guard station on Pag-asa was “totally washed out”.

Residents on Pag-asa were evacuated before the typhoon and there’s no report of fatalities but the coast guard is calling for relief supplies and reconstruction of damaged structures.

Typhoon Ray hit the Philippines last Thursday. At least 375 people were killed and 56 are still missing. Officials are still assessing the scale of the economic impact.

Vietnamese outposts affected

Meanwhile Vietnam, while being spared the worst as the typhoon didn’t directly strike the mainland, had to evacuate thousands of people from the central coastal areas.

Local media said some of the outposts in the Spratlys islands including Southwest Cay and Sin Cowe Island were badly affected.

On Southwest Cay, the typhoon known in Vietnam as Typhoon Number 9 destroyed 90% of the trees and many houses as well as solar panels. The cay and Sin Cowe Island had sheltered hundreds of Vietnamese fishing boats operating nearby, the Voice of Vietnam said.

Southwest Cay is the second largest of the Vietnamese-occupied features after Spratly Island. It’s also claimed by China, the Philippines and Taiwan.

North Vietnamese forces took the island from the Saigon regime’s troops in 1975.

Chinese lawmakers could tighten legal regulations on sexual harassment and other women’s rights issues despite the widespread suppression by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of the country’s feminist and #MeToo movements, including sexual assault allegations by tennis star Peng Shuai.

Among the amendments currently being considered by the National People’s Congress (NPC) is a clearer definition of sexual harassment, including “verbal expressions with sexual content or implications,” “inappropriate or unnecessarily physical behavior,” “the dissemination or display of texts, audio, video, news articles or images [with sexual content or implications],” as well as “implying that a sexual relationship will confer certain benefits,” and other similar situations.

Victimized women will have the right to report such behavior, and to have their organizations or government agencies deal with it in a timely manner, according to a Legal Daily article republished on the official NPC website.

“Some old problems yet to be properly resolved when it comes to protecting women’s rights,” the article said. “Some new issues have also emerged as a result of economic and social development.”

The potential legal changes come amid international concern over the treatment of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, who recently retracted allegations of being “forced” into a sexual relationship with former vice premier Zhang Gaoli made in a quickly deleted Nov. 2 social media post, in an interview with a pro-Beijing newspaper that rights activists said was likely scripted and coerced by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

A change in the language of the previous law, from “personal rights” to a concept closer to the “right to personal dignity,” is intended to ban the psychological abuse and emotional manipulation of women and girls.

New York-based feminist Zhang Jing said any amendment was better than nothing, but questioned whether any amended legislation would be implemented in practice.

“Will somebody be punished for violating a woman’s right to personal dignity? What kind of punishment? How many years [in jail]?” she said, expressing skepticism that the law would be implemented.

“China’s constitution guarantees the right to free speech,” Zhang said. “But does China actually have freedom of speech?”

She said the proposals are likely in response to the #MeToo movement, both in China and overseas, but also likely linked to the CCP’s bid to encourage women to have more children to combat a rapidly aging population.

“One thing is the … pressure of international public opinion over the Peng Shuai incident,” she said. “But it’s also about the demographic crisis, falling birth-rates.”

“They want to curry favor with Chinese women, so working women will be more willing to have children.”

She said the wording of the law was surprising, given that there has been scant success for those who came forward with #MeToo allegations against powerful men in China.

“It’s a bit surreal seeing the official media talking about [this stuff],” Zhang said. “The #MeToo movement was supposed to encourage women to speak out … but the Chinese government has always suppressed us, saying we are influenced by foreign powers, and a danger to social stability.”

The amendment, if passed, will also include “special measures” to level the playing field between men and women, and requires government departments and agencies to draw up measures to ensure that they perform better on gender equality, it said.

Other proposed measures include a unified nationwide helpline and a public interest litigation system to protect women’s rights, it said.

It said employers currently appear confused about what is meant by gender discrimination in the workplace, leading to “contradictions in practice.”

The amendments will explicitly ban employers from issuing male-only recruitment ads, and from asking women about their marital status and their plans for childbirth, or from requiring applicants to submit to a pregnancy test.

“[The amendments] will … put higher demands on employers … and provide stronger legal protection for women in the workplace,” NPC deputy and Shaanxi-based lawyer Fang Yan was quoted as saying in the Legal Daily article.

The proposed amendments will also outlaw training classes in “women’s virtues,” a set of sexist prescriptions from imperial China regulating women’s sexuality, relationships, speech and comportment, that have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years.

Tougher measures governing the trafficking and illegal adoption of girls and women are also included, the report said, as well as new rules on medical consent leaving the final decision in the hands of a pregnant woman, rather than her husband.

Women will also be able to make a claim for compensation for household tasks carried out during a marriage, as part of their divorce settlement.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.