Day: February 25, 2022

Authorities in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh on Friday released 73 striking employees of the NagaWorld Casino who were detained this week at a quarantine center on charges of violating COVID-19 protocols, RFA has learned.

Thousands of workers walked off their jobs in mid-December, demanding higher wages and the reinstatement of eight jailed union leaders and 365 workers they say were unjustly fired from the hotel and casino, which is owned by a Hong Kong-based company.

Cambodian authorities called the strike is “illegal” and allege that it is supported by foreign donors as a plot to topple the government, but the recent arrests were attributed to alleged violations of pandemic health protections. Activists said the charges were trumped up to break up the strike.

After the government arrested and released 62 strikers on Monday and ordered two others into treatment when they tested positive for COVID-19, authorities warned that they would issue steep fines of 1-5 million riel ($245-1,230) to any more strikers who gathered to protest in large groups.

More arrests, releases and orders for COVID-19 treatment were made over the past week, but the remaining 73 detained workers were let go Friday without having to pay any fines, they told RFA.

Authorities also said the workers must agree to stop gathering to protest as a condition of their release, but the 73 strikers refused to sign statements to that effect. As a result, they were not provided with transportation and had to arrange their own rides home from the quarantine center.

Several Cambodian civil society groups, community organizations, and trade unions on Thursday accused governmental officials of sexually harassing female strikers, including a report that a male officer grabbed and squeezed a female striker’s breast while forcing her onto a bus.

The city government on Thursday denied mistreating the strikers in a statement.

“It’s obvious that we were sexually abused by the authorities, and we will continue to demand our labor rights,” Siek Kanha, a woman among the group released on Friday, told RFA’s Khmer Service.

She vowed to continue to protest until the courts release the union leaders who are still detained.

RFA was unable to reach any officials from the Phnom Penh City Hall.

The Cambodian authorities’ abuse of public health measures to stifle a peaceful strike is “outrageous and unacceptable,” Phil Roberston, deputy Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“This continued harassment against striking workers exercising their rights is a blatant attempt to silence these brave workers’ voices, and weaken Cambodia’s union movement,” Robertson said.

He noted that many of the strikers were wearing masks, social distancing, and getting tested for COVID-19 in accordance with the government’s health measures.

“They have done nothing that justifies the authorities’ actions to detain them, shove them into overcrowded buses, and then hold them against their will for further COVID-19 testing at a quarantine site that lacks appropriate sanitation and health facilities due to inadequate access to water for washing and drinking,” he said.

“Government officials involved are not fooling anyone. Their claims that the workers violated COVID-19 measures is a fabricated cover story showing the lengths to which the authorities are prepared to go to stop the NagaWorld strike.” 

Authorities continue to hold in pre-trial detention 11 labor union members and leaders who were arrested in December 2021. Eight unionists are charged with incitement to commit a felony and face up to two years in prison if convicted. Three others are charged with “obstruction of COVID-19 measures,” which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

A Uyghur who served as a torchbearer in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and was a medical doctor is serving an 18-year jail sentence, caught in a wider crackdown on the ethnic minority group, Uyghurs living in exile and officials in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region said.

Abduqeyum Semet was deputy director of Kashgar Kirembagh Hospital and later promoted to director of the Health Department of Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture.

Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur activist and linguist, originally from Kashgar but now residing in Norway, said he confirmed in 2019 through other Uyghurs living in exile that Abduqeyum
had been detained, received a lengthy prison sentence, and was serving his term in a detention center administered by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC).

The XPCC, also known as Bingtuan, a state-owned economic and paramilitary organization sanctioned by the U.S. government for its alleged involvement in human rights violations against Uyghurs.

Abduweli, founder of the Uyghuryar Foundation, a Uyghur advocacy and aid organization also known as Uyghur Hjelp in Norwegian, has included Abduqeyum as a disappeared “Uyghur intellectual” on a list of detained Uyghurs he maintains. He says Abduqeyum is one of eight torchbearers from the 2008 Games that is now detained.

“He was a skilled cardiac surgeon. He was a highly revered doctor in Kashgar among the whole community,” Abduweli said.

When RFA called Kashgar Kirembagh Hospital, a staff member said that no one named Abduqeyum Semet worked there. The person said he only recently began working at the hospital and did not know if Abduqeyum had been employed there in the past. Other hospital employees said that they did not know the physician.

A court official in Kashgar contacted by RFA said that Abduqeyum had been imprisoned since 2018.

“It’s been four years,” he said.

Another employee at the same court said that Abduqeyum was arrested in early 2018 for refusing to follow Chinese government directives and that he was criticized by different government bureaus in Kashgar.

Government officials issued papers on Abduqeyum so others could learn a lesson from his “bad example,” he said.

“It was said that the reason for his arrest was that he was not following Chinese government directives, which means he was not active in implementing government directives and policies,” the court official said.

He also said that court officials were aware that Abduqeyum had been moved to the prison administered by the XPCC.

RFA also contacted Chinese government officials who work with the judicial office in Kashgar, but they declined to provide information on Abduqeyum’s prison term or in which detention facility he is now being held. One of them said the doctor had been moved from an internment camp to a prison run by the Bingtuan.

Abduqeyum was a graduate of Xinjiang Medical University and later became a revered doctor in his community, Abduweli said.

A Chinese media report said the physician was director of the Health Department of Kashgar prefecture. Another Uyghur who now lives in exile and who knew Abduqeyum told RFA that the doctor received the promotion after he served as an Olympic torchbearer.

The Uyghur, who requested anonymity so he could speak freely, said Abduqeyum kept his position as chief surgeon of medical operations at Kashgar Kirembagh Hospital following his promotion.

Uyghur activists in exile say that Chinese authorities seek to portray members of the Muslim minority group as happy, dancing “model Uyghurs” in arts and sports to cover up the repression the community faces in China.

At least eight Uyghur torchbearers from the 2008 Beijing Olympics are in prison in Xinjiang, including Abduqeyum and Adil Abdurehim, a former Chinese government official who is serving a 14-year jail sentence for watching counter-revolutionary videos, according to an earlier RFA report.

The other six imprisoned in recent years are Patigul Kadir, Alimjan Mehmut, Yasinjan Awut, Jumehun Memet, Nureli Memet, and Abdureshid Memet, according to a list compiled by Abduweli.

The Chinese government stepped up its repression of Uyghurs in 2017, arresting and detaining prominent people in Uyghur business and society as well as intellectuals and educators.

China is believed to have held 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in the region.

Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Lao officials in Bokeo province have issued new rules for the Chinese-run Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in an effort to better protect female workers who have been held there against their will and, in some cases, trafficked as sex workers.

But labor officials and former SEZ workers say the measure may not be enough to stop employers from abusive practices, in part because Lao authorities have little power to operate in the SEZ.

The new procedures established by the provincial SEZ Management Office in northwestern Laos require all SEZ employers and workers to sign labor contracts that ensure workers have a safe workplace, insurance benefits and fair wages. They also forbid forced labor and require regular monitoring and reporting of work and living conditions to the management office.

“The workers must be registered and accepted by a company or sent to the SEZ by an employment placement agency,” an official from the Special Economic Zone Management Office of Bokeo province told RFA on Thursday.

“All Lao, Chinese, Burmese and Thai workers must come in through the proper channel,” said the official, who declined to give his name in order to speak candidly. “If they want to work here, they must go by the rules.”

After employers and workers sign labor contracts, authorities in the SEZ will issue a Smart Card to the workers that shows their identity and the name of their employer, the source said. Every worker who has a card will be registered with the province’s management office. The new regulations took effect on Tuesday.

Workers in the SEZ said they remain skeptical that the new regulation will stop employers from holding female workers against their will, demanding exorbitant sums for housing and food, and forcing some workers into prostitution to pay their debts.

Local Lao authorities recently rescued several women who had gone to SEZ after being promised jobs as barmaids or “chat girls” who recruit investors online. But hundreds remain trapped inside the zone by their employers, despite wanting to leave.

Lao authorities cannot easily enter the Chinese-run zone, which operates largely beyond the reach of the Lao government. Rescues have taken place only after the women provided proof of their identity and endangerment to a special provincial task force.

A former SEZ worker whose employer prevented her from leaving said that signing a contract is not an effective solution to the problem, and that once signed, it might not be enforceable.

If Lao authorities do not have more power in the SEZ to monitor worker conditions, inspect work premises, and reinforce labor laws, then abuses like the denial of benefits or, worse, human trafficking, will continue, she said.

“The contract will make no difference,” said the former SEZ worker from the country’s capital, who declined to give her name out of fear for her safety. “I’ve been there, physically detained. I had no freedom at all.

“As we know, in the SEZ, Lao police have no right to do anything at all,” she said.

A better solution

A woman from the country’s capital Vientiane, who used to work as an online chat girl in a call center in the Golden Triangle SEZ and was pushed into prostitution when she could not make her sales quota, said the new labor contract requirement is not a failproof safeguard against abuse.

She noted that women in SEZ often have to fulfill ambitious sales quotas that are difficult if not impossible to meet as they pile up “debts” for food and housing.

“The contract must be fair and must clearly state that the worker will have basic rights, freedom, and social welfare benefits. Everything must be transparent,” she said.

“If you get a good job, it might be worth spending all the money [to pay the recruiter’s fee], but if you get a bad job like in my case, the employer wouldn’t provide food and water,” she said. “You’d have to pay for everything, and the cost of living here is expensive. In a case like this, you’d be heavily indebted [to the employer].”

An official from the Prosecutor’s Office of Bokeo province told RFA on Tuesday that a mandatory labor contract might not be the best solution.

“With so many young women and men being trafficked and recruited to work in the SEZ, our authorities now want to help or rescue them, but they can’t because they have no right to enter the SEZ. Our rules and laws are not applicable in there,” he said.

A better solution would be for the Lao government to give more power to the Lao police and various governmental and outside groups to monitor the zone and crackdown on human trafficking and forced labor there, said the official who declined to give his name.

“Up to now, no government agency has monitored and checked on labor abuse in the SEZ,” he said. “The SEZ has become an unforbidden zone plagued with human trafficking, forced labor and other serious crimes.”

Earlier in February, RFA reported that at least 19 Lao women had been rescued by police from the SEZ, eight of whom had escaped through a fence before being helped by police. The rest of the women had filed complaints with Lao authorities and formally requested their help, so that police could enter the SEZ and free them.

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

Fighting between Myanmar junta troops and local militias has intensified along the border of Shan and Kayah states, leaving at least 10 civilians and 80 junta soldiers dead, sources in the region say.

Around 20 People’s Defense Force fighters have also been killed in the clashes, sources said.

Local aid groups and other sources say the fighting began on Feb. 16 in the town of Mobye in southern Shan state and has spread to Nang Mae Khon in Kayah state, forcing more than 30,000 people to flee their homes.

Clashes continued Friday morning, a spokesman for the Karenni National Defense Force (KNDF) told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

“The fighting has been intense for eight days in a row, and has gotten worse in recent days,” the spokesman for the armed ethnic group said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “And as junta forces are now using airstrikes, the destruction is even greater.

“More than 70 to 80 enemy soldiers have been killed in the fighting, while we suffered about 20 losses,” the spokesman added.

At least 10 civilians have been killed in heavy shelling by junta forces near Mobye since fighting began, the KNDF said on Feb. 22, with other local sources saying that junta helicopters and fighter jets have carried out daily bombing raids in the area since Feb. 17.

A People’s Defense Force fighter in Kayah state’s Demawso township told RFA that the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion 427 in Demawso, Light Infantry Battalion 422 in Mobye, and Infantry Battalion 250 in Loikaw township were using heavy artillery fire against civilian targets.

“It’s really too cruel to attack innocent civilians when there aren’t any battles happening nearby,” he said. “We are suffering heavy casualties.”

Two doctors working in Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement, Maung Nwae Le and U Alexander, were killed Thursday evening by junta airstrikes that also destroyed six houses in Dawkamee village, the Demawso People’s Defense Force said in a statement.

Villagers remaining in Demawso’s Nang Mae Khon have meanwhile fled their area to escape heavy fighting, one refugee who had earlier escaped to southern Shan state said.

“They said earlier that they would wait to see how the situation developed, but then were not able to escape to the north when things got worse. So last night, when the planes attacked Nang Mae Khon, they fled to the west, moving all night.

“It’s not so easy to come here, especially in large numbers,” she said.

Destroying property, spreading fear

Ko Banyar, director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said that 25 civilians had been injured in clashes during the recent nine days of fighting. Myanmar junta soldiers now see all villagers as enemies, he said.

 “They are deliberately destroying people’s property,” he said. “Wari Suplai and Wi The Ku villages are still burning, so the military is deliberately trying to endanger people’s lives if they return to their homes.

“Cutting off health and food supplies also threatens people’s lives, and we can see that the military is spreading fear among the locals. All in all, the junta is systematically violating human rights,” he said.

More than 10,000 refugees have fled Daw Bu Ku and Thay Sulie villages since Thursday’s bombing of Nang Mae Khon, the Karenni Human Rights Group said.

Reached for comment, deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, said that no junta soldiers had died in the recent fighting, but some had been injured.

“In the Mobye area, around 150 to 200 [Karenni National Progressive Party] militants set fire to the Loi Lem Lay police station yesterday, and they then attacked security forces in seven places near Mobye Nang Mae Khon. Some of our soldiers were wounded, but as far as I know no one was killed,” he said.

In nine days of fighting, more than 20,000 people from Mobye and 10,000 from Nang Mae Khon have fled their homes, bringing the total number of war refugees in Kayah state to nearly 200,000, according to the Karenni Human Rights Group.

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

Authoritarian regimes around the world are making gains against liberal democracies and encouraging more leaders to abandon democracy, according to a Washington-based think-tank, Freedom House.

“Autocracy is making gains against democracy and encouraging more leaders to abandon the democratic path to security and prosperity, with countries that suffered democratic declines over the past year outnumbering those that improved by more than two to one,” the organization warned in its annual report.

“Authoritarian regimes in China, Russia, and elsewhere have gained greater power in the international system, and freer countries have seen their established democratic norms challenged and fractured,” the report said.

Freedom House president Michael J. Abramowitz warned that democracy was “in danger” around the world.

“Authoritarians are becoming bolder, while democracies are back on their heels,” he said. “Democratic governments must rally to counter authoritarian abuses …  and prevent homegrown efforts to undermine the separation of powers and the integrity of elections.”

The report found that, of the 47 nations elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council for 2022, 15 are rated Free, 18 are rated Partly Free, and 14 are rated Not Free.

It said the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had become “increasingly repressive” in recent years, tightening control over all aspects of life and governance, including the media, online speech, religious practice, universities, businesses, and civil society.

“The CCP leader and state president, Xi Jinping, has consolidated personal power to a degree not seen in China for decades,” Freedom House said, adding that Xi was “directly involved” in the mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

It said rare first-hand accounts from inside detention camps in Xinjiang had revealed systemic sexual abuse and torture of ethnic minority detainees, in addition to credible reports of deaths in custody.

“The authorities took further steps to forcibly assimilate all ethnic minorities into the dominant Han Chinese national identity, in part by imposing Mandarin as the language of instruction at all educational levels,” the report said.

Shih Yi-hsiang of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights said the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s ongoing military saber-rattling directed at democratic Taiwan had thrown the findings of the report into greater relief.

“The international community is now playing close attention to Chinese and Russian authoritarian expansionism,” Shih told RFA.

Worsening restrictions

A Chinese rights activist, who gave only the surname Xu, said dictators are afraid of pluralism and diversity.

“A dictator is for the unbridled freedom of [a single] individual, and he will deprive all the people of their freedom [to achieve it],” Xu said. “A free society works for the freedom of all the people and restricts the freedom of the ruler.”

“China is just the opposite; it restricts the people’s freedoms to give the greatest possible freedom to its leaders,” he said.

A political dissident who declined to be named said the situation in China only appears to be worsening under CCP leader Xi Jinping.

“In the years since the 19th Party Congress, the years under Xi Jinping, the human rights situation has gotten worse and worse,” the dissident said. “It’s not just the large numbers of people getting arrested; there are now far more restrictions on online speech.”

“There’s a lot of stuff that you could get away with saying a few years ago that you can’t say now,” he said.

Taiwan and Hong Kong

Taiwan, by contrast, is listed as a “Free” country, scoring highly for political rights and civil liberties, according to Freedom House.

“There are still some areas in which Taiwan is a bit less free, and there are human rights violations,” Shih said. “For example, the treatment of foreign migrant workers, and some forced demolitions and forced evictions … while there are some topics journalists aren’t allowed to report on.”

In Hong Kong, where a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the CCP has led to dozens of political arrests and the closure of several pro-democracy media organizations, freedom scores have plummeted. The once-free city is now classed as “Partly Free.”

Zhao Sile, a journalist who specializes in authoritarian politics, said China has two main routes through which it seeks to export its model of authoritarian rule, for the time being.

One is the theft of intellectual property, while another is to invest in key infrastructure in other countries, including energy and communications.

“The more it has guaranteed [control of resources] in other countries, the more it can shore up the weaknesses in its own regime,” Zhao said.

“It’s a two-way expansion of authoritarianism; on the one hand, it exports influence to the rest of the world, and on the other, it consolidates [CCP] power at home,” she said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Eyes are on China after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine to see if Beijing would make an opportunistic move in the Indo-Pacific, with analysts saying Beijing is watching developments in Ukraine “intently” before making any decision.

Chinese officials, while refusing to call Putin’s action an “invasion,” say they’re “closely monitoring the latest developments.”

“We call on all sides to exercise restraint and prevent the situation from getting out of control,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying.

China has maintained this position since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis.

Vietnam, which has territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, has said little about the conflict. Its Foreign Ministry spokeswoman when asked said exactly the same words: “We call on all sides to exercise restraint.”

Hanoi holds a long-standing suspicion of Beijing’s intentions in the South China Sea and is no doubt watching China’s movements closely.

The waiting game

Beijing, meanwhile, is also watching.

“Putin’s ally, China’s President Xi Jinping, is watching intently for the precedent set by Putin’s actions,” said John Blaxland, professor at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University.

“If he gets away with this, it may give him confidence, to be more assertive in the South China Sea or to further undermine the stability and independence of the self-governing regional economic powerhouse and vibrant liberal democracy of Taiwan,” Blaxland said.

“China is watching closely and taking notes,” agreed Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine colonel turned political analyst.

“Indeed, if the U.S. and Western response to the Ukraine invasion is seen as weak or ineffective, and ultimately accepts the Russian seizure of Ukraine as a fait accompli, China will feel emboldened to move.”

“This will take some months. But China will keep the heat on Taiwan in the meantime and also tighten up control over the South China Sea and keep pressuring Japan in the East China Sea,” Newsham said, adding that in his opinion, “this is the most dangerous international situation since World War Two.”

Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, said Beijing does not like comparisons drawn between Ukraine – a sovereign state, represented at the United Nations – and Taiwan, which it regards as part of China.

But she said the U.S. response to the invasion of Ukraine could be a point of reference for China.

“China is watching how [the] U.S. is reacting in the Ukraine crisis, to test U.S. resolve and willingness to get militarily involved in a military crisis that’s far away from the U.S. homeland,” she said.

If Vietnamese leaders and those in the countries bordering the South China Sea are worried about China’s possible actions, they certainly don’t show it.

Vietnamese state media have not spoken about any looming threat but stress the need to be independent and self-reliant.

Dismissed concerns

The Philippines’ top diplomat, Teodoro Locsin Jr., has tweeted quite a lot about the conflict in Ukraine, but he made no comment about Russia’s invasion. Nor has he expressed any concern about the South China Sea.

Instead, the Philippines foreign secretary talked about going to Poland to meet “my people” – Filipinos who have fled Ukraine.

The Philippines, together with Vietnam, are the two countries most actively pursuing maritime claims against China in the South China Sea. Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan are also claimants.

The government in Manila “doesn’t have a position” about the unfolding situation in Ukraine and is “staying out of it,” according to Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines.

“But of course, there are worries and private discussions in the academic and security circles,” he said.

Some other analysts dismissed concerns about Beijing’s immediate actions in the South China Sea.

“There’s not been any big incident between Vietnam and China in the South China Sea since 2019. Both sides want to maintain it and China won’t do anything against Vietnam for the time being,” said Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia and a veteran Vietnam watcher.

“With Philippines, Beijing showed an increased assertiveness last year as [President Rodrigo] Duterte was seen veering away from his pro-China stance,” said Thayer.

“But with the presidential election looming and Duterte leaving his post for good, there’s no need to keep the pressure on,” he added.