Day: February 8, 2022

A U.N. official will return to South Korea for the seventh time next week to collect data on right abuses north of the 38^th parallel in preparation for an annual report.

Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights Tomás Ojéa Quintana will be in South Korea from Feb. 15-23, the U.N. Human Rights Office told RFA’s Korean Service.

“The South Korean government has been continuously cooperating with special procedures, including the special rapporteur on North Korean human rights,” the ministry said.

South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told RFA that it was finalizing with Quintana a specific itinerary for the visit.

Quintana plans to meet with several North Korean human rights-related private organizations and individual refugees and is expected to discuss his findings in a press conference at the end of his visit.

“There are likely to be talks about the situation of North Korean refugees in China and changes in Chinese policy toward North Korean refugees,” an activist scheduled to meet with Quintana told RFA.

Once lenient toward North Korean refugees, Chinese authorities have begun taking a harder stance, with thousands reported to be in detention awaiting deportation.

Quintana will also meet with the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, a private research organization.

Quintana last visited South Korea in June 2019 before the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since then, he has expressed his concerns about the South Korean government’s handling of the shooting of a South Korean fisheries official. The official’s family sued the government for not fully disclosing information about the incident. A court ordered the government to share the details of their investigation.

Quintana has also demanded explanations from the South Korean government on why it audited North Korean rights advocacy groups in the country. He has criticized the government for prohibiting rights groups from launching balloons with anti-regime leaflets into North Korea.

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

An outpouring of online anger at a video of a mother of eight children locked up in a hut with a chain around her neck forced officials in Xuzhou in eastern China’s Jiangsu province to intervene to free the woman. The video on the Chinese platform Douyin went viral and sparked debate among shocked netizens about governance and women’s rights in rural China. Viewers questioned how the woman was able to give birth to eight children under the country’s strict family planning controls. The woman was sent to a hospital and her children were placed in state care, said local authorities, who opened an investigation of her husband.

More than a dozen Lao women have been rescued by police from the Chinese-run Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in northwestern Laos where they were being held against their will and, in some cases, forced to work as prostitutes.

Local authorities rescued six women on Feb. 5 and 6 after the women had filed complaints with police. Eight others ran away on Jan. 20, escaping through a fence. The women had gone to SEZ after being promised jobs as “chat girls” who recruit investors online or as barmaids.

“We rescued three women yesterday, and the day before we rescued another three women,” said a police officer from Bokeo province, where the SEZ is located, on Monday. “These six women formally asked us for help; therefore, we could go into the SEZ and help them get out. Most of them worked as chat girls or sex service providers.”

The confinement of female Lao workers in the SEZ is nothing new. The police officer from the province said his department rescued 40-50 women — most from the country’s capital Vientiane — from the Golden Triangle SEZ in 2021.

Hundreds of others in the SEZ in Bokeo province are still trapped by their employers, wanting and waiting to get out, authorities and the Lao women who escaped said.

But Lao authorities cannot easily enter the Chinese-run zone, which operates largely beyond the reach of the Lao government.

“It’s difficult to rescue women from the SEZ because the zone practically belongs to the Chinese,” said a Bokeo province official. “Outsiders have no right to be there. The women and their parents or relatives must work with us so we can in then rescue them.”

Some of the women did just that, contacting local police to ask for help.

One of two Lao women from Vientiane who escaped told RFA that she and her colleague went to the SEZ in mid-December 2021 to work as barmaids but ended up being forced to work as prostitutes.

She told RFA on Monday that they were able to contact authorities from a Bokeo province special task force who suggested that they plan an escape using the shortest route possible.

One night when no one was around, the pair went to the ground floor of the building they were confined to and ran toward a fence where two members of the taskforce shined flashlights on them. The authorities immediately called the police, who questioned the women and took them to the police station.

“If we had been caught while escaping, we would be dead,” said the woman who declined to give her name for safety reasons.

The two women told police that they did not receive any money while in SEZ.

“Later the police had us sign a copy of our statement, and then put us on a train back to the capital Vientiane,” the woman said.

Six other women who worked as barmaids in a different building also fled on the same night and were similarly rescued by the taskforce, she said.

The woman from Vientiane who spoke with RFA said the women told her that they had been confined to a house since November 2021, though recruiters had promised them jobs at the SEZ with free food and accommodations.

After they arrived, they discovered that they had been lied to. Instead of free food and a place to stay, they were told they each owed 20,000 yuan (U.S. $3,050) to their Chinese employer, the woman said.

Happy to escape ‘living hell’

Many of the women lured to the SEZ work as “chat girls,” texting casino customers over web applications like Line, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. They often have to meet ambitious sales quotas that are difficult if not impossible to meet, piling up “debts” for food and housing all the while.

A woman from Luang Namtha province who worked as a chat girl in SEZ told RFA that she had sent her location to the authorities, who were able to rescue her.

“I’m so happy I was able to escape that living hell,” said the woman, who requested anonymity for safety reasons.

She said her job required her to lie to foreign male customers, promising healthy rates of return if they invested in the company. Whenever she did something wrong, her employer would fine her 200-2,000 yuan, she said.

Though the woman signed a six-month contract, her employer fired her after a month and said she owed 28,000-yuan for various expenses, which the woman could not pay. Now, she is helping to run a family store in Luang Namtha province, she said.

Three women interviewed by RFA on Jan. 27 who were rescued said they had been forced into prostitution when they could not repay their debts.

“At first, they were told that they would get three free meals a day and free accommodations. In reality, things were not like that. What we eat or where we live will cost us,” a woman from Khammouane province said.

Another of the women, who recently returned to her family in Oudomxay province, said she was “lucky” because she had taken photos of her national ID card and proof of COVID-19 vaccinations. She later sent them to the special task force when she asked authorities for help.

“I also told them the details of where I was located in what building and for which company I was working in the SEZ,” she said.

A woman from Luang Prabang province said she had done the same.

The women said they now live in constant fear that the middlemen who secured their jobs — in many cases the wives of the Chinese business owners — will come after them over the debts.

The woman from Khammouane said she had already received calls from the middleman who told her, “You’ve escaped the SEZ, but you can’t escape your debt.”

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Bangladesh should boost security in Rohingya camps, allow refugees to work and pursue education, and begin cooperation with the international community to resettle the stateless minority from Myanmar in a third country, a U.K.-based NGO said in a report released Tuesday.

The recommendations by the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) were based on a survey it did last year of Rohingya living in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, a district in southeastern Bangladesh near the border with Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

A majority of the surveyed refugees said that the crowded camps were rife with crime and violence, and that they would prefer to be repatriated to a third country, according to the group’s report, titled “We Also Have Dreams.”

“Security officials should increase their presence in areas dominated by criminal organizations or armed groups and ensure the safety of the community. In doing so, they must also ensure they do not arbitrarily harass, arrest, or harm civilians,” said the 57-page report based on a survey of 29 refugees across 10 camps.

“Arson or similar crimes against the Rohingya community must be thoroughly investigated and the authorities must be transparent about their investigations to foster the trust the community places on them ongoing safety and quality of life issues for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.”

The Rohingya are legally prohibited from working, but they are willing and able and should be allowed to so they can support themselves financially and are able to afford a little more than only the basic necessities provided to them, the report said.

“Many Rohingya interviewed for this report spoke positively about their ability to work and support themselves in Burma compared to how they are living in Bangladesh, even though they faced harsh restrictions on employment and labor in Burma,” the Burma Human Rights Network reported.

“The willingness to work and the many skill sets the Rohingya bring with them should be encouraged by Bangladesh rather than legally prohibited. This would help ease the burden on aid agencies, allow for greater autonomy for refugees, and could help the economy of the host communities grow as well,” it added.

Shah Rizwan Hayat, Bangladesh’s commissioner for refugee relief and repatriation, said local authorities had to restrict the movements of Rohingya and keep them confined to the camps in order to prevent potential trouble between members of the refugee community and the surrounding host community in Cox’s Bazar.

“Making a demand is easy but managing this huge number of people is a tough job for the host-country. There is no scope for allowing Rohingya people [to pursue] formal education here.”

A local police official, meanwhile, responded to concerns conveyed in the report about criminality in the camps.

“Camp dwellers are now living here with enough safety and security. The camps have now become unsafe for miscreants,” M. Kamran Hossain, additional superintendent of police for the Armed Police Battalion in Cox’s Bazar, told BenarNews on Tuesday.

‘Ready to go to another country’

With the survey by BHRN showing that 63 percent of refugees would want to be repatriated to a third country if it were an option, the report recommended that the international community work with the Bangladesh government on the issue.

“The international community must exercise diplomatic efforts with Bangladesh to allow for the [resettlement] of Rohingya into third countries,” the report said.

If resettlement is allowed, the chances of Rohingya fleeing with the help of human traffickers would decrease as would their unsafe passage in rough seas, the rights group said.

“Yes, we would want to be resettled into a third country. We are ready to be resettled into a third country. If we can’t return to Myanmar with the resolution of our case, we are ready to go to another country,” a 38-year-old woman told Burma Human Rights Network.

Meanwhile the shadow civilian National Unity Government in Myanmar must also have a clear repatriation timetable, the report said, because all the Rohingya refugees surveyed had said “they wanted to return to Burma despite the atrocities the Burmese military committed against them.”

“When asked what change they wanted to see in the next five years the majority of refugees said they wanted to return to Burma,” the report said.

“When asked what needed to change in order for them to go back to Burma, the majority of Rohingya refugees interviewed by BHRN said equal rights (ethnic and citizenship) and safety had to be ensured for them to be able to return.”

Additionally, “international pressure was raised as a requirement several times, implying that nothing could change if the world didn’t raise serious pressure on Burma to equitably return refugees to the country.”

The U.S. Navy is investigating the “unauthorized leak” of an official video showing the crash of an F-35C fighter jet on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea last month, the Pentagon says.

The video of the so-called “ramp strike” by the jet on the USS Carl Vinson emerged at the weekend and was then shared widely on social media including Twitter and YouTube.

The Pentagon confirmed that the video of the Jan. 24 crash is authentic. It shows footage, apparently originating from flight deck cameras and taken from two angles as the jet comes into land. From the first one, the plane hits the deck then rotates and skids in flames. In the second, it crashes onto the deck before sliding off the flight deck and into the sea.

Yelling can be heard for the pilot to abort the landing attempt but within five seconds the F-35C had dropped into the South China Sea.

The pilot safely ejected, the U.S. Navy said earlier.

Another video clip and a photo circulating on social media last week showed the F-35C hitting the water the right side. It appeared to be intact before sinking.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. Navy is investigating the “unauthorized leak” of the official video.

This is “going to be crucial to the investigation into the mishap itself,” he told a media briefing on Monday.

He said the U.S. Navy is “taking all the appropriate planning actions” to recover the plane, and that the salvage operation would be done “in a timely manner as we’ve done in the past.”

‘Our property’

It has been two weeks since the crash. U.S. 7th Fleet spokesperson Cmdr. Hayley Sims was quoted in the U.S. Naval Institute’s news portal USNI News as saying that “the U.S. Navy has begun mobilizing units that will be used to verify the site and recover the F-35C aircraft.”

On Feb. 2 the Japanese Coast Guard issued a navigation warning for mariners to beware of salvage operations, believed to be for the U.S. fighter, which would take place at a location west of Luzon Island of the Philippines.

Experts told RFA the water depth at the site is around 3,000 meters to 3,500 meters, and the salvage operation could take more several weeks.

The $100-million F-35, developed by the American aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp., is a state-of-the-art, stealth aircraft.

The leaked footage of the crash has attracted huge attention from observers and analysts who said China would be interested in recovering the wreckage that may contain sensitive technological information.

Beijing said it had “no interest” in the affair but Chinese military observers have been monitoring the accident closely – not least because it took place in the South China Sea which China regards as its own domain and which has become a focus of strategic rivalry with the U.S and its allies.

The state-run Global Times on Monday said the accident “again exposed the exhaustion and lack of proper management of the U.S. military under its excessive troop deployment in attempts to contain China.”

Pentagon’s spokesperson Kirby, when asked, dismissed concerns about “specific Chinese ship movements” in the salvage area and said any question about “some sort of competition to recover what is in fact our property is speculative at best. “

A man holding dual Chinese and Australian nationality is believed to be among 47 democracy activists and opposition politicians awaiting trial for “subversion” under a draconian security law for taking part in a democratic primary, Australian media reported.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) hasn’t named the man, but says he was arrested on Jan. 6 last year, the date of the mass arrests of the 47 political activists, on suspicion of “conspiring to subvert state power,” before being bailed, rearrested and charged with “subversion,” ABC news reported.

The man — who was potentially identified by the news website HK01.com as Gordon Ng — has spent the last 11 months in jail and could face life imprisonment under the national security law, which ushered in a citywide crackdown on political opposition and public dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

Australian officials have been repeatedly refused consular access to the man, ABC quoted a DFAT spokesperson as saying.

“We have been denied consular access despite multiple attempts because the individual is deemed to be a Chinese citizen under China’s citizenship laws, which do not recognise dual nationality,” the spokesperson said.

The case has raised concerns about dual nationals of China and another country who are caught up in the current political crackdown in Hong Kong.

City leader Carrie Lam has previously warned that the government doesn’t recognize dual nationality, and so anyone holding Chinese and another nationality will be denied consular assistance.

Hardening stance

Hong Kong political commentator Joseph Cheng said the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appears to have hardened its stance since promising to make “accommodations” for dual passport holders ahead of the 1997 handover to Chinese rule.

“The Hong Kong government used to take a relaxed attitude to this, even after the handover,” Cheng told RFA. “Consular officials were still allowed to offer assistance to Hong Kong residents with foreign passports.”

“But under the national security law, as this case shows, you will be considered a Chinese national … even if you never gave up your foreign passport,” he said.

Benson Wong, a former Hong Kong politics lecturer now based in the U.K., said Beijing’s earlier attitude had come from a sudden mass wave of emigration out of Hong Kong in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

“Since 1989, a lot of business people and professionals in Hong Kong have held more than one nationality,” Huang told RFA. “[Their earlier approach] was to a certain extent a compromise in the face of reality.”

“If China had said it wouldn’t recognize dual nationality at the time it took over in 1997, that would have been quite a shock, especially for the financial elite,” he said.

“Now, the tacit understanding has changed, along with the political situation.”

He said the emerging news about the Australian passport-holder could shake up a decades-long practice among Hong Kong residents, who have tended to prefer to live in the city as permanent residents while holding nationality of another country as an insurance policy.

“This puts a lot more pressure on Hong Kong people holding dual nationality to leave Hong Kong altogether,” Wong said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.