Day: February 1, 2022

Bangladeshi government officials on Tuesday dismissed an NGO’s report alleging that authorities are using force and intimidation to compel Rohingya to move from crowded refugee camps in mainland Bangladesh to an isolated island. 

Citing interviews with refugees and representatives of international humanitarian groups, the Fortify Rights group on Sunday reported “patterns of coercive and involuntary transfers, including needless family separation.”

“It’s cruel and inhumane to separate these families of genocide survivors. The government should cease any additional transfers to the island until all human rights and humanitarian concerns have been resolved and genuine consultation and informed consent is assured,” Ismail Wolff, the NGO’s regional director, said in a statement.

He was talking about Bhashan Char, a tiny, low-lying island in the Bay of Bengal whose resident population is made up almost exclusively of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Fortify Rights had earlier made similar allegations about refugees being made to go to the island against their will, but that was before U.N. officials became involved in humanitarian activities there.   

Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner challenged Fortify Rights’ findings.

“The statement might have been prepared based on wrong information. We are relocating Rohingya people to Bhashan Char from Cox’s Bazar with their full consent,” Shah Rezwan Hayat told BenarNews.

He called on Fortify Rights and other groups concerned about Rohingya to visit the refugee camps before commenting on the alleged treatment of the refugees.

“The Rohingya population in Bhashan Char could have been much higher had we used force to bring them here. The activities of relocation are taking place in the presence of representatives of many NGOs, International Organizations and United Nations agencies,” he said.

Bangladesh’s government has set up housing for 100,000 people on the island to alleviate pressure on the refugee camps in and around Cox’s Bazar district on the mainland that house about 1 million Rohingya. About 21,000 have relocated to the island since December 2020.

In its report, “Bangladesh: Prevent Coercive and Involuntary Transfers of Rohingya Refugees,” Fortify Rights said it interviewed 10 Rohingya, including two on Bhashan Char.

It alleges that aid organizations in Cox’s Bazar district shared documents showing recurring threats, coercion and intimidation against Rohingya prior to transfers to Bhashan Char in December 2021 and January 2022. The report did not include the documents.

‘I was shaking out of fear’

Fortify Rights also alleges that Bangladesh authorities beat a Rohingya man who obstructed efforts to move others to the island, and confiscated documents from his family before forcing him to Bhashan Char, where he is separated from his wife and children.

Without naming her, Fortify Rights quoted the man’s wife: “I was shaking out of fear when they took my family’s [documents].

“I saw my husband’s face was swollen from the beating,” she said. “I want my husband to come back home. I do not want to go to Bhashan Char.”

Hayat, the refugee commissioner, said he was not aware of any efforts to use force to split families.

According to Fortify Rights, a 27-year-old Rohingya man said that, in mid-December, government officials brought in about 25 “thugs” to coerce refugees to prepare to move to the island from the mainland.

“They brought sticks with them, and some women were beaten. Before they [authorities] left the camp they said, ‘we will bring the crane and gasoline along with us tomorrow. If you are not ready to go tomorrow [Dec. 17, 2021] with the sacks given to you, we will either break your shelters and burn them or drag you to the truck,’” the man told Fortify Rights.

Bhashan Char concerns

As early as December 2020, Fortify Rights called on the Bangladesh government to halt Bhashan Char relocation efforts over concerns that the island was isolated and flood prone.

“Not one refugee should be moved until all human rights and humanitarian concerns have been resolved and genuine informed consent is assured,” Wolff said at the time.

More recently, the NGO called on the government to ensure the Rohingya are protected, have access to education and freedom of movement. It released a statement on Dec. 20, 2021, a day after U.N. Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews traveled to the island during a week-long visit in Bangladesh to meet with government officials and Rohingya leaders.

In October 2021, BenarNews obtained a copy of a memorandum of understanding between the Bangladesh government and UNHCR. The MoU, which was not made public, would allow the U.N. agency to set up humanitarian operations on Bhashan Char and allow those on the island to move more freely.

The U.N. relief agency UNHCR did not immediately respond on Tuesday to a BenarNews request for comment.

Rohingya speak out

Meanwhile, a Rohingya who moved to Bhashan Char from the Ukhia camp with his wife and four children in December 2020 said he had tried but failed to sail from the island on three occasions.

“I came here for a better life than in Cox’s Bazar, but I found a different life here. I have a good house, but the medical system and the food supply system are very poor,” Jahirul Islam told BenarNews. “I am living here with my family like prisoners.”

A Rohingya who lives at a camp in the Teknaf sub-district said he feared camp leaders were working with authorities to get people to move to the island.

“A few of my neighbors and relatives have been shifted to Bhashan Char. They told me the conditions are not good there,” Md. Nur told BenarNews. “I am concerned that the authorities are regularly asking camp leaders regularly to give names of people to send them to Bhashan Char. Sometimes, they pressure our leaders in this regard.”

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

United Nations human rights officials called on Cambodia to drop plans to create a “National Internet Gateway” that would allow the government to monitor all internet traffic in the country.

On Feb. 16, 2021, Prime Minister Hun Sen signed an order to launch a National Internet Gateway — similar to China’s complex network of censorship tools known as the Great Firewall — to regulate all online traffic in the interest of “protecting national security and maintaining social order.”

The Gateway will provide authorities with “measures to prevent and disconnect all network connections that affect national income, security, social order, morality, culture, traditions and customs,” the decree said.

Internet service providers will be given a year to connect to the gateway. Those that do not could lose their operating licenses or have their bank accounts frozen. Users will be required to provide their true identities, according to the directive.

The new law is scheduled to go into effect on Feb. 16 and will have “a serious negative impact on internet freedom, human rights defenders and civil society in the country,” the U.N. said in a statement Tuesday.

“As the world has evolved to depend on internet access as a primary channel for communication, information sharing and networking, the body which controls the internet effectively controls much of society.”

Once in effect, Cambodia will be able to see the websites that people visit. Authorities will also be able to block certain websites and turn off internet access for individuals, the U.N. statement said.

The new law will have disastrous effect on press freedom, Nop Vy, the executive director of the Cambodian Journalists Alliance, told RFA’s Khmer Service.

“When the language of sub-decree is vague, authorities can accuse reporters of making content that violates ethics and culture so they can shut down websites without first obtaining approval from the court,” Nop Vy said.

Youth activists are concerned that the decree will allow the government to spy on their private communications and prevent them from using the internet as a tool for activism, activist Svay Samnang told RFA. 

“The sub-decree gives unlimited power to authorities so activists will become authorities’ prime targets,” he said.

The government must first demonstrate that it cannot use this law to infringe upon personal freedoms, social researcher Sek Socheat told RFA. 

“Can the sub-decree be used for other purposes? Will it affect our freedom of expression that is protected by the constitution?” he said. “We don’t know yet whether the government can violate our freedom with this law. We are waiting to see but I hope that the government won’t unconstitutionally restrict people freedom.”

The local Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights NGO told RFA that the government has a poor track record on using internet evidence to charge people with crimes, and that this goes against international human rights agreements the country has signed.

“Past arrests of social media users have had an impact on human rights, especially freedom of expression,” said Am Sam Ath, the group’s deputy director for human rights.

“[The Gateway] will restrict people’s freedom of expression through fear. Journalists will have to increasingly self-censor to post news on Facebook. People will not dare to post messages in social media or anywhere on the Internet,” he said.

The Gateway will give the government the ability to target people more efficiently, Out Latin, the project coordinator for the Cambodian Youth Network Association, told RFA.

“There are environmental activists and politicians, who have been threatened and imprisoned because they made statements critical of the government’s inaction,” he said. “I think the establishment of this internet gateway will give more power to the government that could further affect freedom of expression.”

RFA attempted to contact Ministry of Post and Telecommunications spokesman Meas Bo for comment but could not reach him. 

The New York Times in a recent report drew comparisons to China’s Great Firewall, which allows Beijing to regulate and censor the internet within its borders.

“The authorities are emboldened by China as an example of an authoritarian state that gives Cambodia political cover, new technology and financial resources,” Sophal Ear, a dean at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, told the Times.

The report is misleading, government spokesperson Phay Siphan told RFA. The purpose of the National Internet Gateway is to earn raise revenue, fight terrorism and maintain internet security, he said, not to restrict or suppress freedom of expression.

Speaking to RFA Jan. 31, Phay Siphan justified the government’s recent crackdown on online activists.

“They incite violence, discrimination and spread insults. Should we allow that to happen?” he said.

Translated by Sok Ry Sum and Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Streets in Myanmar were largely empty today as people across the country took part in a mass “Silent Strike” to protest the one-year anniversary of the military coup on Tuesday, despite a week of junta threats and arrests of organizers.

Public areas around the country were noticeably barren beginning around 9 a.m., except for occasional groups of young people holding flash protests. In the lead up to the anniversary of the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, authorities had warned of tough punishments — including life in prison — for anyone found applauding, honking or otherwise expressing support for the strike.

Tuesday marked the third Silent Strike since the military seized power, the others coming in March in the immediate aftermath of the putsch and in December on International Human Rights Day. In the past year, security forces have arrested nearly 8,900 civilians and killed more than 1,500 — mostly during nonviolent anti-junta protests, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

A housewife in Yangon region’s Kyi Myin Daing township told RFA’s Myanmar Service that shops stayed open on Tuesday, but shoppers and pedestrians were nowhere to be seen in the city of more than 5 million people.

“During the first Silent Strike, the streets were empty, and all the shops were closed. But this time, the authorities pressured the shop owners to remain open — they were asked to sign pledges that they would do so,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

“I was at the market this morning and only saw two or three people there. After 9 a.m., the streets were empty. I saw the shops and vendors opened as usual. But I didn’t go out after that.”

Similarly, shops were open in Myanmar’s second-largest city Mandalay, while the main roads remained largely devoid of people, sources said.

Thura Aung, a Mandalay-based organizer, said his group Mandalay Forces for Strikes began staging a protest early on Tuesday morning.

“It has been a year. The military council has not gained the control of the country. The power is still in the hands of the people. Law and order are still in the hands of the people,” he said.

“We want to show that we can protest and be silent if we want to in our city. We came out to show that we have not given up on the revolution even after one year.”

While protests in Mandalay were largely silent, a 40-year-old man named Aung Aung staged a self-immolation in opposition to military rule in the region’s Kyauk Pan Daung township around noon and later died from his injuries, sources said. Aung Aung, who specifically expressed opposition to government management of electricity amid frequent outages around the nation, was survived by his wife and two children.

Junta counter-protests

In the capital Naypyidaw, sources told RFA that most residents stayed home, although some small parades took place showing support for the junta.

“Most people didn’t go out, but the shops were open. Some of the owners were pressured by the authorities. They ordered them to open their shops,” said one resident, who declined to be named.

“Most people going out today are supporters of the [junta]. I saw a group of people holding flags and signs showing support for the military marching this morning.”

Government employees in Naypyidaw said junta ministries issued a directive shortening work hours on Tuesday to between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., suggesting that they may have been pressured to take part in displays of loyalty to the military.

Similar counter-protests in support of the junta were reported in other townships around the country.

Leo, an organizer with the General Strike Committee in Yangon, told RFA that support for resistance to the junta remains strong, despite the difficulties of the past year under military rule.

“On this day that marks the one-year anniversary, we are organizing many forms of protests to keep up the momentum of support for a popular revolt,” he said. “The strikes will continue.”

RFA received reports that at least 70 shop owners in Yangon, Mandalay, Naypyidaw and other cities were arrested in the week leading up to Tuesday after they announced that their businesses would be closed on Feb. 1 to show support for the Silent Strike.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

A Lao human rights activist living in Thailand and detained since Saturday under threat of deportation to his communist homeland was released on bail on Tuesday under strict travel restrictions, he told RFA.

Khoukham Keomanivong, a U.N.-recognized refugee, was convicted Monday in a closed-door Thai trial of overstaying his visa and was being held pending deportation to Laos, where he faces arrest for his advocacy work he says he has refrained from for more than two years.

Speaking to RFA on Tuesday, Khoukham declined to provide details about the conditions of his release, citing restrictions imposed by Thai authorities. “What I can say right now is that I’ve been bailed out with the help of a human rights lawyer and the U.N.

“I can only sleep and stay in and travel to certain restricted areas, and I can’t travel to the provinces,” Khoukham said. “The U.N. has been coordinating with me and the authorities ever since I was held in the immigration detention center.”

A founding member of the rights group Free Laos, set up by Lao workers and residents in Thailand to promote human rights and democracy in their home country, Khoukham said he had ended his political activities long before his arrest.

“I stopped my political activities more than two years ago after getting my UNHCR card,” Khoukham said, referring to the U.N. document recognizing his status as a refugee in Thailand.

“One of the conditions of my obtaining that card was that I end my involvement in politics. The problem of my arrest arose because some individuals saw some old stories online and reported them,” he said.

“If I now have to go to a third country, I’ll go. But if I’m given a choice, and if there’s more security for me here in Thailand, I’d prefer to stay here,” he said.

Tough on critics

Laos deals severely with dissidents who call for democracy and respect for human rights in the one-party communist state, and Lao dissidents living abroad have been harshly punished after returning or being forced back to Laos.

Three Lao workers who criticized their government on Facebook while working in Thailand disappeared in March 2016 after returning to Laos to renew their passports.

Somphone Phimmasone, his girlfriend Lod Thammavong, and Soukane Chaithad were later shown on television making what appeared to be forced confessions and were charged with criticizing the Lao government online while working abroad and for taking part in a protest outside the Lao Embassy in Thailand.

Somphone was sentenced to a 20-year term, while Soukane was sentenced to 16 years and Lod was handed a 12-year sentence.

In August 2019, Lao democracy activist Od Sayavong, a friend of Khoukham, vanished under mysterious circumstances in Thailand after posting a video clip online criticizing the government. Listed as a “person of concern” by the UNHCR because of his advocacy for democracy and human rights, his whereabouts remain unknown. He was 34 at the time he went missing.

Thailand has hosted hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war, natural disasters and human rights violations in neighboring countries.

Human rights groups, however, criticize Thailand’s authoritarian government for recent cases in which it returned refugees and asylum-seekers to China, where they face torture, persecution and other rights abuses.

Last November, Thai authorities arrested and deported to Cambodia two activists from the banned political opposition after Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the arrest of one of them over a poem criticizing the strongman ruler on Facebook.

In early 2019, Vietnamese blogger Truong Duy Nhat was arrested by Thai Royal Police and handed over to Vietnamese police, who took him across the border into Laos, and from there back to Vietnam.

Nhat, who had been a weekly contributor to RFA’s Vietnamese Service, was sentenced in 2020 to ten years in jail for “abusing his position and authority” in a decade-old land fraud case.

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

Journalists laid off after the folding of a number of outspoken news organizations since the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a ban on public dissent face an uncertain future amid dwindling freedom of expression in Hong Kong, they told RFA on Tuesday.

A Jik, a former journalist at the now-disbanded Stand News, said she never expected the news website to fold, even after Jimmy Lai’s pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper was forced to fold after its assets were frozen amid an investigation into the paper’s opinion-writers under the national security law.

“Once they start arresting editors, then you start to worry about your boss, and whether that will also happen to them sooner or later,” A Jik said.

On Dec. 29, 2021, her worst fears were finally realized, as more than 200 national security police raided the offices of Stand News, seizing more than 30 boxes of material and arresting its former chief editor Chung Pui-kuen and acting chief editor Patrick Lam, as well as former pro-democracy lawmaker Margaret Ng, Cantopop star Denise Ho, Chow Tat-chi and Christine Fang, all of whom have served on the board of directors.

“You can imagine it 100 times or more, but on the day it actually happens, when you go to court and see your two bosses in the dock, and the court clerk reads out the charges one-by-one, saying how your organization instigated this or betrayed that, it’s a huge shock,” A Jik told RFA.

“You may never have thought of the things you were doing as criminal, until someone [denounces you] and you have suddenly somehow broken the law, and committed a very serious crime,” she said.

Stand News closed down on the same night as the raid, laying office its staff, and leaving A Jik out in the cold, wondering what to do next.

She has been focusing on meeting up with former colleagues, who go hiking, camping and rock climbing together, in a bid to reorient themselves in a world that has totally changed in just a few weeks.

“At least I know that there are others in the same boat; it would be disastrous if I had to go through this alone,” she said. “I’d just be wallowing in a world of hurt.”

She said they often orient themselves according to what their jailed friends, colleagues, opposition politicians and rights activists would want them to do.

“When you know that the people doing time want you to enjoy life, then you try to do as they say,” she said.

But she flinches from looking too closely at possible futures, as tens of thousands of young Hongkongers emigrate to seek better lives free from CCP political control and educational propaganda.

“I don’t think I’ll ever meet a group of people like this ever again; I still really want to work with them,” she said.

Film industry affected

Freelance video producer Sum Wan Wah, who used to work regularly for RTHK’s Hong Kong Connection documentary series, much of which has been deleted under a crackdown on the state broadcaster, which now has to toe the government’s editorial line, said he had realized how fast the space for free and independent journalism was disappearing when Stand News‘ closure was quickly followed by that of Citizen News in early 2022.

Without regular work from well-funded platforms like RTHK, Sum doubts he will be able to make documentaries as a freelance, with a one-hour film costing up to H.K.$100,000 to make.

“The production costs for documentaries are quite high, and it’s not just about production resources; journalists also need to make a living,” he said. “Will journalists be able to find anyone to invest, so they can keep on making these films? And do they even dare to keep making them?”

He said the ongoing exodus from the city that was sparked by the national security law is also affecting the industry.

“When a group of experienced people leave, it has a hugely negative impact on documentary film-making,” Sum said. “When you take all of these issues into account, things don’t look good at all: it’s hard to see how it’s feasible.”

He said it’s hard to imagine what he will do now, work-wise.

“None of that experience I have, or the wisdom I may have found along the way, is remotely relevant now,” Sum said. “I could grit my teeth and soldier on, but death is getting closer and closer.”

“One wrong step, and I could fall to my death,” he says, in a reference to running afoul of the national security law, with its shifting red lines governing what is deemed acceptable public speech.

For A Jik, there is consolation to be found in the idea that journalism is, after all, the first draft of history.

“[My former editor-in-chief at Stand] once told me this: ‘You know, everything you wrote, everything you are currently writing, all those stories you reported, is future history. It’s a very important record. Maybe its value won’t be seen for another 30 or 40 years, but people will see it when they come to read that stuff again.'”

Slogan on Tower Bridge

Meanwhile, activists in London projected a slogan onto Tower Bridge on Tuesday calling for Jimmy Lai’s release.

“Free Jimmy Lai and the Apple 7,” the slogan read, in a reference to the arrests under the national security law of people linked to his Apple Daily newspaper.

Mark Clifford, a former independent non-executive director of Lai’s now-dissolved Next Media empire, also displayed picture on his personal Twitter account showing a projection of a photo of Lai raising his right fist, surrounded by journalists.

The installation was the work of artist Robin Bell ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, and also featured the Olympic rings drawn in barbed wire, in a reference to China’s mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other minority groups in Xinjiang, as well as rights abuses targeting Tibetans, dissidents and Hong Kong protesters.

The display came after a coalition of Christian groups on Monday called on Hong Kong’s leader to drop charges against pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai and other political activists currently behind bars under a draconian national security law.

Catholic priest Franco Mella called on chief executive Carrie Lam — who is a devout Catholic — to press the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing for an amnesty.

“Let’s hope she gives an answer to the voice of her conscience as a Catholic,” Mella told reporters.

Anglican priest and former lawmaker Fung Chi Wood added: “I hope more voices can be heard about the possibility of an amnesty for them.”

The Rev. Alan Smith of St. Albans in the U.K. and the former Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, Lord Eames also added their names to the call for an amnesty, with Mella calling on the Pope would add his voice to the number of Catholics speaking out.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Competition for human feces has once again become cutthroat in North Korea, with mass public brawls breaking out as citizens begin the annual ritual of trying to fill unrealistic quotas to make fertilizer for the farming season.

In impoverished North Korea, farmland is fertilized using human waste, and the government tasks every household with yearly collection quotas.

RFA reported in January 2019 that households were struggling to meet an impossible quota amounting to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) per able-bodied citizen per day.

One source at that time told RFA the quota was intentionally unreasonable because the true purpose of the quota was to force the citizens to pay fines and bribes for failure to meet targets.

The quota is slightly more reasonable in 2022, as each citizen has until March to collect 300 kilograms of manure—human waste mixed with soil—per person, but the quota still means people must dip into their reserves, or find deposits elsewhere.

Those who don’t want to pay fines are fighting over night soil at public toilets and stealing it from each other. But individual fisticuffs are now giving way to group conflicts.

In the northeastern city of Chongjin, whole neighborhoods are mobilizing against each other, a resident who requested anonymity for security reasons told RFA’s Korean Service.

“On the 25^th, several residents from Marum village in Sunam district had a dispute with the people of nearby Sinhyang village as the Marumers were trying to collect human feces from a communal toilet located within Sinhyang,” the source said.

“After the authorities imposed their orders for every citizen to produce manure, conflicts are erupting… as the people venture into other districts,” he said.

The order to produce manure went out to every institution, company, school, and neighborhood watch unit according to the source.

“Both adults and children are participating in the ‘Battle for Manure Production,’” the source said. North Korea often stylizes public projects and campaigns as “battles” in the socialist revolution.

“It’s so pathetic that disputes break out over this, but they do this every year at about this time of year. Each family in the neighborhood has been organized into shifts to guard the communal toilet to keep the supply of human waste secure. Residents lament that they have to stand guard at a public toilet at night, then go to work the next day,” he said.

The source said each resident must deliver the 300 kilograms of manure by early March at the latest to a cooperative farm to use as fertilizer.

“The manure assignment is also put on the schools. Even though they are on winter break… students must come to school and pull carts loaded with human feces and soil… People are complaining that authorities had no problems closing school due to fears over COVID-19, but they can mobilize students to collect manure,” said the source.

Elementary school students and seniors who have retired are exempt, according to the source.

Some regions of the country have more sources of human waste than others, a resident of North Pyongan province in the northwest told RFA.

“Residents are having significant difficulty in securing manure here in North Pyongan province, which is located on the plains and has less than other areas,” the second source said.

“Because the residents are having a significant difficulty in securing manure, they are scooping up the residue at the bottom of a sewage treatment plant in the city… causing conflicts with the community sewage management organizations,” he said.

Manure is human feces mixed with ash from firewood, and humus soil made from rotten leaves in a specific ratio, the second source explained.

“It is common for residents to bribe the cooperative farm officials to accept low-quality manure with a higher percentage of soil and ashes,” he said.

Fights over human waste are a sight burned into the memory of a former cooperative farm official who fled North Korean in 2014 and now lives in South Korea.

“When the new year begins, everyone in North Korea must make manure and bring it to a nearby cooperative farm using buckets and handcarts. When you deliver it, you must move as a group. After the manure is given to the official, you will receive a confirmation receipt, which you must submit to the unit manager to complete the assignment,” said the escapee, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

“The problem is that North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages, so it is difficult for each family to reach the manure quota,” he said. “Before I left North Korea, there were frequent fights between villages and their residents at the beginning of January each year.”

Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.