Day: January 28, 2022

The last Lunar New Year holiday, “Tet” in Vietnamese, is one Huynh Anh Khoa would like to forget.

Police in Ho Chi Minh City arrested Khoa and his friend Nguyen Dang Thuong in June 2020 for participating in an online discussion group on Facebook.

Both men were charged with “abusing democratic freedoms” under a vaguely worded law often used by authorities to stifle dissent and sentenced to 15 months in prison.

A year ago, Khoa rang in the year of the ox behind bars.

“Last Tet, I was transferred to Bo La detention center from a tiny detention house in District 8,” Khoa told RFA.

“My cell in District 8 housed only three people but was very small and stuffy. As we did not have access to any information about our families. We were really struggling mentally.”

Khoa was released from prison on Sept. 13, 2021, and today he is grateful to be able to welcome the year of the tiger, which starts Feb. 1, with family and friends.

“We often say that the outside world is a big prison. However, living outside is still so much better than staying in prison, far away from our families,” Khoa said.

According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, at least 145 people are in prison in Vietnam for peacefully demonstrating or expressing political opinions. At least 31 of these detainees were imprisoned in 2021 for criticizing the government online and will soon experience their first Lunar New Year in prison.

RFA talked with former inmates and the families of current inmates about their experiences in prison at a time when many of their countrymen and women are celebrating one of the region’s most significant holidays.

Prisoners live in squalid or crowded cells, may suffer from severe health problems, and can be subjected to torture and solitary confinement at any time of the year.

But during the Lunar New Year many say a pervasive loneliness can often overcome them. That’s been made worse by a pandemic that has further restricted access to their loved ones behind bars.

Sometimes families are only allowed to speak with prisoners for 10 minutes each month, Truong Thuc Doan, the daughter of imprisoned RFA blogger, Truong Duy Nhat, told RFA.

“Since May 2021, visits are banned as a consequence of the pandemic. … He said he had been vaccinated. However, when the weather changes, his herniated disc problem and allergic rhinitis often come back, causing him a lot of pain,” she said.

In 2019, Nhat received a 10-year sentence for “abusing position and power while being on official duty” over a land-use scandal dating back to his days as a reporter for a state-run newspaper.

The 88 Project, an Illinois-based group that promotes free speech in Vietnam, called the conviction “dubious” because his position was not high enough to commit the crime.

Tran Huynh Duy Thuc is serving a 16-year sentence at Detention Center No. 6 in Vietnam’s northern Nghe An province after being arrested in 2009 on charges of “carrying out activities to overthrow the people’s government” for blogging.

RFA reported in August that Thuc had vowed to begin a hunger strike, which would have been his fourth, if his 16-year prison term was not reduced to five years to reflect changes to the law after he was sentenced.

According to the 88 Project, Thuc has been tortured and put in solitary confinement and has been transferred far away from his family for standing up for prisoner rights.

“So far, my family hasn’t visited my brother Thuc as visits are banned due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Tran Huynh Duy Tan told RFA.

“Thuc has only been allowed to call home twice a month during the pandemic. His health is okay now, and we haven’t got any new updates,” Tan said. 

Conditions in some of the prisons are so bad that the prisoners often get sick, Nguyen Thi Hue, older sister of imprisoned RFA reporter Nguyen Van Hoa, told RFA.

Hoa was arrested in 2017 while filming a demonstration against the Taiwanese conglomerate involved in the Formosa chemical spill in central Vietnam the year before.

Hoa is serving a seven-year term.

“He often gets the flu, cough, runny nose and headaches recently. His health has deteriorated,” Hue said.

“His mental health during the pandemic has not been good, either. People who live in the outside world have been worried about their family members living in prison. Those living inside have been very concerned about the health of their families living outside. It has been very challenging,” she said. 

Nguyen Thi Chau, the wife of Nguyen Ngoc Anh, a shrimp farmer in prison on a six-year sentence for his environmental activism, told RFA that she hasn’t seen her husband in more than a year.

“He’s still at the Xuan Loc Detention Center. The last time I met him was in December 2020,” she said.

“In a recent phone call, he told me not to visit him during Tet, because the center was not allowing prisoners to receive gifts and supplies, and prisoners could only see their families through a glass partition, so it would be better for me to stay home. He said that we might try arranging a visit if the children are allowed to see him after Tet,” she said.

Do Thi Thu, the wife of Trinh Ba Phuong, in detention since 2020 for his role in a protest that turned violent at a commune near Hanoi, where several police officers and protesters were killed, told RFA she has no idea where he is being detained.

“Since his initial trial at the Hanoi People’s Court on Dec. 15, I have only heard that my husband had appealed his sentence,” she said.

Phuong’s brother Trinh Ba Tu and mother Can Thi Theu were also arrested at the same time, and Thu said that she had no updates about their cases either.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

The bodies of six people, including women and minors, have been discovered mutilated and dumped in a septic well in Myanmar’s Kayah state, residents and relief workers said Friday, bringing to eight the number of victims found killed in the state’s war-torn capital region over the past three days.

The six people were found in a sewage pit in Loikaw’s Yay-yo village on Jan. 26 and included three 17-year-old boys identified as Eugene, Fei Dae Le and David Kyaw Soe, as well as a 16-year-old boy named John Paul, sources told RFA’s Myanmar Service. The other two victims were confirmed to be residents of Loikaw township’s Naung Yar Ward but have yet to be identified. 

On Friday, the bodies of a 63-year-old woman named Daw Muta and her 23-year-old son, Saw Dar Htoo, were discovered in Loikaw’s Htudu-Ngantha village, residents and aid workers told RFA. The cause of their deaths has yet to be determined.

A villager who personally buried the bodies in Yay-yo told RFA that they exhibited signs of torture, as well as bullet and stab wounds.

“Their faces were swollen. We are not sure if they were shot or stabbed in the abdomen, but most of them had injuries to the abdomen,” the villager said, speaking on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. “One was found with a bullet wound in the back.”

A woman who claimed to be Eugene’s aunt told RFA that her nephew had recently returned home from a refugee camp with friends when he was taken away on Jan. 25 by soldiers in Yay-yo village.

“The dogs [soldiers] came to the house at about 7 p.m. … The kids were snuggling in bed at the time as it was quite cold,” she said.

“When the dogs showed up in front of the house, [Eugene] called his cousin, but the line suddenly went out. The soldiers even had a meal in the house and yet they did that to my nephew. A woman from a neighboring house said she saw three people with their hands tied up being led away.”

Eugene’s father recently died of disease, she said, and the boy had been the family’s sole bread winner.

In the year since the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected National League for Democracy in a Feb. 1 coup, authorities have arrested nearly 8,800 civilians and killed almost 1,500, mostly during nonviolent anti-junta protests, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The military has also launched major offensives against armed ethnic groups and prodemocracy militias in the country’s remote border regions, and reports suggest residents of areas that include Loikaw township have been subjected to rights violations by troops that include torture, sexual assault and murder.

Just two weeks ago, the military justified deploying an airstrike that killed six civilians, including two children, in Kayah’s Demawso township and sent thousands fleeing for safety by saying it had received reports that anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) militiamen had gathered there to attack government positions in Loikaw.

Blaming ‘terrorists’

When asked by RFA on Friday about reports that the military was responsible for the deaths in Loikaw in recent days, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun dismissed them as rumors.

“Allegations of such incidents are heard all the time and are not uncommon,” he said.

“It’s true there were armed clashes between the two sides in some places. The problem is that some of these so-called PDF terrorists wore civilian clothes and took cover as civilians. … When they defeat us, they claim responsibility, but if they fail, they blame the army for killing civilians.”

Militia members told RFA that they have had frequent clashes with the army in and around Loikaw since Jan. 8 and that the junta soldiers have been raiding houses in some of the town’s wards and nearby villages.

“There were no major clashes in the area,” said one, who declined to be named.

“There was some fighting near the village of Hmone Pyargan the day before, not far away from Nanattaw and Yay-yo villages, where the bodies were found. The victims must have been killed during that operation.”

According to the Karenni Human Rights Group, 12 civilians were killed in Kayah state and another 20 left dead by heavy shelling since the start of January.

The Karenni Social Network said a total of 198 civilians have been killed in Kayah state, most of them in Phruso and Demawso townships, since the coup last February.

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

Ships arriving from China carrying fruits, oil and sugar are entering North Korea across the Yalu River border to deliver the goods ahead of Seollal, the Lunar New Year holiday, but sources told RFA the goods were for officials of the State Security Department, not for the general public.

Seollal, along with the harvest holiday Chuseok, are the two most important holidays in both North and South Korea. During both holidays families gather together and pay respects to their ancestors while sharing a huge feast.

North Korea is suffering from severe food shortages, mostly due to the closure of the border with China since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Jan. 2020. Though rail freight between the two countries resumed last week, many of the key ingredients are still in short supply.

But those with power and privilege will use it to make sure their family can have a proper feast, the sources said.

“Since the beginning of last week in Ryongychon Port, which faces Donggang Port in China, small and medium-sized vessels have been frequently going to and from both ports across the Yalu River, at the point where it joins the West Sea,” an official from a trading agency told RFA’s Korean Service Wednesday, using a Korean term for the sea between China and the Korean peninsula, known internationally as the Yellow Sea.

“These ships are mainly loaded with fruits, cooking oil and sugar, and all the ships … belong to the General Bureau of Border Security, under the Ministry of State Security,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

The authorities gave special permission to the trading companies run by the bureau to import supplies needed for Seollal so that officials of the Ministry of State Security could celebrate properly, he said.

“The ships are able to go into Donggang in the morning and load up on boxes of food, then return to Ryongchon around 4 p.m. Before they can unload their goods, the ships must go through a thorough quarantine and disinfection procedure before the food can be put in storage,” the official said.

“After a week, the food is put on freight vehicles and transported to each region and supplied as gifts to officials from the ministry in each region,” he said.

A source living near the port in Donggang said time is of the essence when North Korean ships arrive.

“The workers from the Donghang food company load the fruits and food boxes onto the boats, which immediately leave once loading is finished and the items covered,” he said.

From there, they travel to Ryongchon to be unloaded by workers at the pier.

“All the goods coming into Ryongchon ahead of Seollal are covered with a blue screen when we unload it, so the general public cannot recognize the contents,” a third source working at the pier in Ryongchon told RFA on condition of anonymity.

“But the people here in Ryongchon are all aware that the ships are carrying holiday goods for officials of the Ministry of State Security,” the worker said.

Residents are resentful that they make special exceptions for themselves while the people suffer, the dockworker said.

“The authorities closed off the border under the pretext of COVID-19, but they have no qualms reopening maritime trade so they can get their holiday gifts.”

Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Two ethnic Tibetans and a Uyghur are competing this year on China’s national Olympics team in Beijing, prompting feelings of both pride and concern from activists fighting against human rights abuses in the athletes’ home regions.

Tibetans Yangchen Lhamo, a woman, and Tsering Damdul, a man, will be competing in snowboarding and cross-country skiing respectively at the Games, according to reports in Chinese state media.

“I am proud and very happy for the two Tibetans who are competing in these Games,” said Chemi Lhamo, a Tibetan-Canadian activist who was arrested in October for disrupting the Winter Olympics’ torch lighting ceremony in Olympia, Greece.

 “But it is important for them to know the reality of what is happening inside Tibet, and Tibetans both living in Tibet and in exile must support each other,” Lhamo said.

 Golok Jigme, a former Tibetan political prisoner now living in exile in Switzerland, said he had nothing against the Tibetans participating in the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

“However, it is clear that Tibetans inside Tibet have no freedom and are forced to conform to the wishes of the Chinese government,” he said.

The Beijing Winter Games have already drawn a series of protests and calls for boycott from the international community because of China’s treatment of Tibetans and other minority groups, Jigme said.

“And so this is just a political performance for the Chinese government to show the world,” he said.

Dhondup Wangchen, a Tibetan who served six years in prison for making a documentary film depicting the hardships of Tibetans’ lives under Chinese rule, said that by placing Tibetans on China’s team, Chinese president Xi Jinping may be trying to show the team represents all groups living in China.

“But we don’t know what kind of force may have been used on these individuals,” Wangchen said.

Formerly an independent country, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago, and Tibetans living in Tibet frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity.

‘Facade of false equality’

Also present on China’s team this year, Uyghur cross-country skier Dilnigar Ilhamjan, 20, comes from northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where China has forced over a million ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims into reeducation and labor camps in a campaign described as genocide by rights groups and many foreign governments.

Dilnigar was selected to join the China National Cross Country Training Team in 2017, and was sent to Norway the following year for a three-year period of advanced training under foreign coaches with other highly skilled international skiers, Chinese media sources say.

However, Roshan Abbas — executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs — called Dilnigar’s addition to the Chinese team “yet another attempt to create a façade of false equality by the Chinese Communist Party.”

“This is nothing more than another game to district the world from the reality that the Uyghur genocide is ongoing and that the CCP is responsible for it,” Abbas said.

More than 200 nongovernmental organizations from around the world called on Thursday for governments to join a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Games, now set to begin on Feb. 4, saying host country China is responsible for “atrocity crimes and other grave human rights violations.”

“That the Winter Olympics is held in Beijing sends a signal to the world that Xi Jinping’s government is normal,” said Renee Xia, director of the rights group Chinese Human Rights Defenders, one of 243 groups including Human Rights Watch and the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress who joined in the call.

“When the world rationalizes away such an abusive situation, it makes it harder for victims to stand up against injustice,” Xia said.

Reported by RFA’s Tibetan and Uyghur Services. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Hundreds of millions of people across East and Southeast Asia will welcome the Year of the Tiger on Feb. 1. Known as the Spring Festival among Chinese, Seollal in Korea, and Tet in Vietnam, the Lunar New Year is celebrated with gift giving, feasting with families, and fireworks. Traditional large public gatherings at temples and fairs, however, remain discouraged in a region still dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

Construction workers in Myanmar’s commercial center Yangon are moving in large numbers to the country’s western Rakhine state as jobs dry up at home due to political instability following last year’s military coup, sources say.

Formerly torn by violent ethnic clashes that saw thousands of the state’s Rohingya ethnic minority expelled to Bangladesh, Rakhine is now relatively peaceful compared to other parts of the country, according to workers who have left Yangon.

“There used to be good job opportunities in Yangon, but now the political situation is not so good, and jobs are scarce,” said Myo Htike, a former resident of the city’s South Dagon township who has been working in the Rakhine capital Sittwe for the last two months.

Chances for work in Yangon were already uncertain during the second half of 2019, Myo Htike said. “But later on, when the coup took place, the situation became even worse. When there is no work, there are many difficulties, so I had to leave Yangon and come here, where there are plenty of opportunities,” he said.

Nay Lin Aung, from Thanlyin township in the Yangon region, said he decided to come to Rakhine because construction work in Yangon had come to a stop.

“In the past, I had full-time work for an entire month. But recently we had no jobs for that same period of time, and then I could work for only five out of about 10 days,” he said. “Most construction projects have closed down, and even if someone wants to have a building put up, the companies are closed, and there’s no work for us.

“I have friends in Rakhine state, and I’ve worked with them four or five times before. So that’s why I came here,” he said.

Myo Htike and Nay Lin Aung are both employed now at a construction site in Sittwe, working together at a daily wage of 15,000 kyats ($8.44), they said. Many more workers from other parts of Myanmar would also like to come to Rakhine to find jobs, they said.

An attractive option

Rakhine is now an attractive option for workers fleeing political unrest and job shortages in other parts of the country, agreed Tun Hla Kyaw, secretary of the Rakhine State Builder’s Association.

“They lost their jobs in other places because of the political situation there. They did not come here previously because we had a war going on, and there was little new construction happening. But now there is political instability and fighting in the rest of the country, so they came here to work in a more peaceful place.”

Myo Htike said he hopes that peace will soon return to Myanmar so he can rejoin his family in Yangon.

“If politics are stable and things are peaceful, any worker can find a job, and only those people who don’t want to work will have problems,” he said. “But now, as there is no stability, people have to leave their families and go to work in different places.

“It would be best if the country was at peace,” he said.

Myanmar’s military on Feb. 1, 2021, overthrew the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, saying voter fraud had led to the party’s landslide victory in the country’s November 2020 election.

The junta has yet to provide evidence for its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide protests calling for a return to civilian rule, killing at least 1,499 people according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP-Burma).

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