Day: April 21, 2022

A prominent Cambodian activist who fled her country in a six-day journey through the jungle safely arrived in Thailand, where she plans to seek asylum with the U.N. In Cambodia, meanwhile, government officials said they would not call foreign officials as witnesses in a “treason” case against another critic of the country’s ruling party.

Sat Pha, who has supported the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), told RFA that she fled after a hand-written threat, which she believed was from the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, saying she could be “disappeared” was tacked to her door.

“Authorities know how to assault, arrest and imprison [activists],” she told RFA’s Khmer Service.

Opponents of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) have been targeted in a 5-year-old crackdown that has sent leaders of the CNRP into exile and landed scores of its supporters in prison. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017 in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election.

Sat Pha is one of the many Cambodians who has become disenfranchised in land disputes with the government or developers. She has also protested the detention of former CNRP politicians, and, she says, been beaten by governmental officials.

“The authorities attacked me until my legs were injured. Has the govt. arrested any authorities? As a leader [Hun Sen] he doesn’t protect citizens. He knows how to assault, arrest and imprison. Killers are never brought to justice,” she said.

Sat Pha said she became ill in her journey but is now in a safe location in Thailand. She said she is in the country illegally and is running low on food. She plans to request asylum from the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) office in Thailand.

Sat Pha was released from prison in Cambodia six months ago after serving a year in detention for inciting social unrest during a peaceful protest in front of Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh. 

RFA was unable to contact Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha for comment. 

However, Cambodian People Party spokesman and lawmaker Sok Ey San told RFA that he believes Sat Pha fabricated her story to earn sympathy.

“Police have a duty to look for the suspects. There is a need for cooperation between the victim and the police. It might be a personal dispute,” he said.

Sok Ey San previously denied that the threat came from CPP leadership.

Sat Pha has the right to ask NGOs for help when she doesn’t have any confidence in the authorities, Soeung Seng Karuna, spokesperson for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association told RFA.

“It is normal for a victim who is threatened to seek asylum,” he said.

Kem Sokha Trial

In the treason trial of CNRP former leader Kem Sokha in Phnom Penh, prosecutors on Wednesday refused to summon representatives of any foreign governments that he is accused of colluding with. 

The prosecution citied the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an international agreement that codifies diplomatic immunity.

Defense lawyer Ang Odom told RFA after Wednesday’s session that the convention does not forbid representatives of foreign governments from testifying, adding that the prosecution told the defense they could ask the foreign governments to testify.

“They need to do it, but they asked us to instead,” he said, adding that the defense plans to officially request that the prosecution summon foreign government representatives to testify in next week’s session, scheduled for April 27.

“All relevant parties will help the court seek the truth. They need to speak the truth about the alleged collusion to commit treason,” he said.

The government claims Kem Sokha was in league with Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Australia, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Taiwan and India in plots to commit treason against Cambodia.

The government may have a legitimate point regarding the Vienna Convention, Cambodian American legal analyst Theary Seng, who is herself on trial in Phnom Penh for treason and incitement, told RFA.

“Rarely do I have the opportunity to agree with this regime’s political tool [the court], but in this instance it is right to deny the defense’s request. First, there is clear international custom and provision enshrined in Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that gives diplomats immunity from criminal proceedings as a charged person or a witness,” she said.

“Second, it is not politically feasible that any country, especially a superpower, would give way to an incendiary charge as ‘treason’ in another country’s court system, as that carries countless criminal and political implications,” she said.

Theary Seng said that putting a diplomat on trial would be a loss of face for the country he or she represents.

“It is understandable that Kem Sokha’s lawyers will look to influential figures or countries to come their client’s defense in denying this most serious charge of treason. But it is a dead-end road. Rather, the defense lawyers should place the onus on the prosecutors and court in demanding why the regime did not expel the diplomats or close down the embassy, making the diplomat persona non grata or communicating to the sending state the extremely serious nature of the change,” she said.

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

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield sparked a social media spat with her Chinese counterpart on Wednesday after she called on the head of the U.N. Human Rights Council to release an overdue report on rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.

In a tweet, Thomas-Greenfield urged Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, to release the report on Xinjiang, which Bachelet previously said would be finished in September 2021.

“And let’s be clear: any visit by the High Commissioner to China must have unhindered and unfettered access,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted, referring to Bachelet’s upcoming visit to China.

Bachelet announced in March that she had reached an agreement with the Chinese government for a visit “foreseen to take place in May” to China, including the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). No dates have been announced.

In response, the spokesperson of Chinese mission to the U.N. tweeted that, “China welcomes the visit by @mbachele including a trip to Xinjiang. This is a normal exchange between two sides. There is no place for political manipulation and malicious pressure. Such indiscreet remarks only reveal the US intention to set up obstacles to disrupt the visit.”

A second tweet said, “To some U.S. politicians who are obsessed with making lies: STOP turning a blind eye to the human rights violations in your own country. Save your own people from desperate racism, violence and inequality. Smearing and defaming China cannot cover or divert your failure.”

Bachelet first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to the Uyghur region in September 2018, shortly after she became the U.N.’s top human rights official. But the trip has been delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region.

International rights groups have said that Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang must be independent and unhindered to be credible.

Bachelet’s office is under pressure from rights activists to issue the overdue report on alleged serious rights violations by Chinese authorities who target Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the XUAR.

In March, about 200 human rights groups urged Bachelet to make the report public without delay.

Up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others have been held in a vast network of internment camps operated by the Chinese government under the pretext of preventing religious extremism and terrorism among the mostly Muslim groups.

The U.S. government and the legislatures of several Western countries have declared that China’s maltreatment of the Uyghurs and other minority Muslims in Xinjiang constitutes genocide and crimes against humanity.

‘A political pawn’

Thomas-Greenfield’s tweet followed a meeting on Wednesday with the family Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur physician detained for more than three years in an internment camp in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region.

“Just met with the family of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur medical doctor who’s been unjustly detained in China,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted. “The U.S. will continue to push for her safety and release — and speak out against PRC [People’s Republic of China] atrocities toward Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups.”

On Sept. 11, 2018, Chinese police took Gulshan Abbas, now 59, from her home to one of the region’s camps. Her family, including her sister, Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur American activist who is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs based in Washington, D.C., later learned that Gulshan had been sentenced in March 2019 to 20 years in prison on false charges.

Rushan has said that her sister was detained on trumped-up “terrorism” charges after she spoke out against the Chinese Communist Party (CPP).

Gulshan’s daughter, Ziba Murat, told RFA on Thursday that her mother was a “nonpolitical, kind, generous person and gentle grandmother” with chronic health issues.

“As a health care provider, she devoted her life providing medical treatments for people suffering from illnesses/disease,” Murat said. “The CCP defiled my mother’s name as if she is a political pawn. My mother is a law-abiding and caring human being, deserving of dignity.”

In response to the Thomas-Greenfield’s tweet, the Chinese mission account tweeted: “Q: Who is Gulshan Abbas? A: a criminal sentenced to jail for crimes of participating in a terrorist organization, aiding terrorist activities. It is common sense to respect the rule of law. Time to stop making yourself a laughing stock.”

That prompted Rushan Abbas to join in the exchange: “Did I make my sister up or is she in prison? Your claims have 0 credibility. 1st #China denied the existence of my sister (see) & called me a liar, saying I stole images of others. Now they falsely link her to ‘terrorism.’”

In reference to the upcoming visit to China by Bachelet of the U.N., 56 civil society organizations on Tuesday issued a statement laying out certain conditions that must be met in order for the visit to be credible, including the release of the overdue report on serious human rights violations in Xinjiang.

They also demanded that Bachelet meet with independent civil society groups, human rights defenders and diaspora groups before leaving for China and to set up unsupervised meetings with human rights defenders and others who have been forcibly disappeared or who have been arbitrarily detained.

The groups also said they were concerned that Bachelet has remained silent on the human rights crisis in Tibet, in contrast with her predecessors.

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a Germany-based Uyghur activist group that signed on to the statement, said Bachelet also has a responsibility to meet with Uyghur groups and survivors to hear directly from them before her visit to China.

“Engagement with the affected communities must be a priority for her and her office,” WUC president Dolkun Isa said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China on Thursday issued a letter to Claude Heller, chair of the U.N. Committee Against Torture, urging him to release a review of China’s actions.

“The human rights situation in China has demonstrably worsened since the committee’s last review in 2015, particularly in the XUAR, which prompted the United States government and policymakers of multiple countries to determine that Chinese authorities have committed genocide or crimes against humanity against Turkic Muslim and other minorities in the region,” the letter says.

Residents in Laos said they were surprised to find water on the Mekong River rising this week due to unannounced releases from the Jinghong Dam upriver in China, although there were no reports of significant damage.

The Mekong in parts of Laos rose more than 30 centimeters (0.98 feet), according to a notice issued Wednesday by water authorities in Thailand. Water levels rose higher in Thailand, to between 70 and 80 centimeters in Chiang Khan district in Loei province and Chiang Saen district of Chiang Rai province, Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources said.

Officials in Laos and in Thailand said they were not notified of the release from the dam in in southwestern China’s Yunnan province.

China has 11 massive dams, including two large storage dams, along the mainstream of the Upper Mekong Basin, known as the Lancang in China. Laos has two hydropower dams in operation on the Mekong mainstream and dozens more on its tributaries as part of the government’s aim to bring in revenue by exporting electricity to the country’s richer neighbors.

A Lao fisherman who lives in Tonpheung district said he noticed higher water on Wednesday.

“At 10 a.m. on April 20, the Mekong River water level in front of Tonpheung district was about 30 centimeters higher than it was the day before, and it is expected to be higher today and tomorrow,” he said. “So far, we haven’t been affected yet. We’ve already secured our boats by tying them up to the stakes on the riverbank.”

The dam near Jinghong includes a 1,750-megawatt hydroelectric power station, and water is sometimes released to generate more electricity. But sudden releases of water can pose a threat to communities downstream.

The Office of National Water Resources said that the Mekong’s water flow rose to 1,626 cubic meters per second, from 970 cubic meters per second, following the release at Jinghong.

Thai water authorities and the Mekong Dam Monitor, which tracks water levels in the river, expect levels to increase between 80 centimeters and 160 centimeters, or 1.6 meters, on Thursday and Friday.

Lao officials received no notice about the increased water discharge from China, an official at the Natural Resources and Environment Department of northern Laos’ Bokeo province said.

“Usually there must be some kind of a notice or a letter informing us of the discharges so that we can issue a warning to our residents,” said the official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons and to speak freely.

An estimated 80% of the nearly 65 million people who live in the Lower Mekong River Basin depend on the river for their livelihoods, according to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental organization representing Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam that manages the shared water resource.

Agriculture and fisheries production in the Lower Mekong River Basin can be harmed by either higher or lower levels of water discharge from China.

A resident of Bokeo’s Tonpheung district, which sits along the Mekong River, told RFA that locals heard about the upstream water release from the crew of a Chinese cargo ship.

“Oh, the water level is now inching up,” he said.

An MRC member told RFA that it also did not receive any notice or warning from the Chinese about the dam discharge.

A member of the Hak (Love) Chiang Khong Group, a Thai nonprofit environmental campaign in Chiang Rai, told RFA that the Jinghong Dam has discharged more water nine times since the beginning of the year, including twice in April.

“We believe that the dam will release more water whenever it wants to produce more electricity or to raise the Mekong River’s water level so that Chinese cargo boats can navigate down to Laos and Thailand,” he said.

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

Cooking oil prices in North Korea remain high despite more imports from China, the result of the government diverting the new supplies to food factories in preparation for a major holiday, sources in the country told RFA.

Food prices skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Sino-Korean border was shut down and all trade was suspended for about two years, starting in January 2020. As supplies dwindled, sugar, cooking oil and other ingredients became unaffordable luxuries to many North Korean families.

Poor harvests in North Korea in both 2020 and 2021 added market pressure by creating shortages of staples like rice and corn.

Ahead of the Day of the Sun, a holiday celebrating the life of leader Kim Jong Un’s late grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung, North Korean authorities began importing more ingredients for cakes and sweets, but residents outside the capital Pyongyang are not seeing much benefit.

Though freight trains laden with cooking oil are now rolling in from China, North Koreans are not seeing a price drop, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“In early April, the news spread that the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train was importing 20 cargo compartments of sugar, flour and cooking oil almost every other day, raising hopes that the cooking oil prices would fall soon,” he said.

“However, the price of 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of cooking oil is still equivalent to 5 kg (11 lbs.) of rice. Residents are wondering where all the imported cooking oil is going. They are complaining that they don’t know when they will be able to add oil to their dishes,” the source said.

The current price of cooking oil is 22,000 won per kg ($7.43 per lb.) at the marketplace in Sinuiju, a border city that lies across the Yalu River from China’s Dandong, the source said.

Locally produced cooking oil costs 25,000 won per kg. In 2019, before the pandemic, cooking oil cost 13,000 to 15,000 won per kg.

In contrast, prices for flour are falling as supplies increasingly come in via maritime trade through Sinuiju and are distributed to local markets as far away as South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang. At the height of the pandemic, flour cost as much as 30,000 won per kilogram, but now it costs 11,000 to 12,000 won per kilogram.

In the city of Pyongsong in South Pyongan, food factories received orders to increase production of sweets, instant noodles and bread, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“Raw materials such as flour, sugar, and cooking oil are imported on the Dandong-Sinuiju weekly freight train,” the second source said.

“On the occasion of Kim Il Sung’s birthday, authorities ordered the import of food materials from China by increasing the frequency of freight trains. They ordered gifts of sweets and food to distribute to high-ranking officials, national contributors and Pyongyang citizens,” he said.

Residents of the capital Pyongyang live lives of privilege, with more access to luxuries than people living in the provinces.

“Food products from the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train are not released to the market,” the second source said.

“After the cargo is disinfected at the Uiju food-quarantine facilities, it is only supplied to food production plants in Pyongyang and other food production companies under the party and the military. The price of food products in the marketplace is not going down,” he said.

Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Myanmar’s military junta leader Min Aung Hlaing did not let such problems as a civilian death toll topping 1,700, international pariah status and a ruined economy stand in the way of awarding himself the country’s two top honorary titles—Thiri Thudhamma and Maha Thray Sithu—that traditionally recognize those who have done great work for the country. The leader of the Feb. 2021 army coup also marked the Burmese New Year by bestowing the highest honors on previous military dictators from Myanmar’s five decades of army rule.

Hong Kong activists based in the U.K. have repeated warnings that community groups in the county may have been infiltrated by people loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), posing potential threats to incoming migrants from Hong Kong under the British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme.

Former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law said via his Twitter account on April 19 that most the of 100,000 people who have left the city following the imposition of the draconian national security law to make new lives in the  U.K. support the 2019 mass protest movement, which called for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.

“HKers are anxious and insecure. Most of them are in support of the pro-democracy movement, therefore they left Hong Kong with trauma and worries of persecution,” Law wrote. “They fear that Chinese agents in the UK would send their activity records back to Hong Kong, thus endangering them.”

Law voiced his concerns as The Times reported that pro-CCP figures appeared to have infiltrated large Chinese community organizations in Southampton and Birmingham, both of which have received tens of thousands of pounds in government funding to help newly arrived Hongkongers integrate into British society.

Law added: “The Chinese govt is a dictatorial regime that destroyed our home. Many Chinese community organizations in the UK support the political lines of CCP. More than 200 of them endorsed the National Security Law,” he said, adding that Hongkongers would feel “scared and unwelcome” if government funds were awarded to such groups.

According to The Times, two of the Birmingham center’s directors worked with the British Chinese Project, a scheme founded by Christine Lee, a lawyer who MI5 warned was trying to influence parliamentarians on behalf of Beijing in January 2022.

A patron of the center, James Wong, has visited China on a trip sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, part of the CCP’s outreach and influence operation known as the United Front Work Department. The Birmingham Chinese Community Center denied it was under CCP influence, saying it had no wish to be drawn into the politics of the Hong Kong protest movement, and had no wish to become involved with such “toxicity.”

Meanwhile, U.K.-based activist Ping Hua, who has termed reports of the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang “appalling lies and fabrication,” founded the Southampton group, which told the paper she is no longer part of the organization.

Law tweeted a day after being quoted in the article: “We must know more about the infiltration activities of the Chinese govt and prevent these mistakes from happening. The best way is to engage with the UK-based Hong Kong community and conduct thorough background checks on the org’s connection to the Chinese embassy.”

U.K. activist and former consular worker Simon Cheng said that while the links between Wong and Ping and the CCP were fairly clear, many other Chinese community organizations have made statements that suggest where their allegiances lie, even if connections with the CCP are harder to trace.

“They want to carefully blunt our democratic consciousness and fighting spirit,” Cheng said. “For example, they could, once people have settled in, encourage them to move on from the past.”

“If they really have a pro-CCP agenda, or are United Front, the most important concern is that they could report people’s personal information to the national security police [in Hong Kong],” he said. “Then, you could run into problems if you go back to Hong Kong, or to any country that has a current extradition treaty with either China or Hong Kong.”

According to a 2017 report by New Zealand political science professor Anne-Marie Brady, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is leading an accelerated expansion of political influence activities worldwide, much of which rely on overseas community and business groups, under the aegis of the United Front Work Department.

Some 100,000 Hongkongers have emigrated to the U.K. under a pathway-to-citizenship visa scheme aimed at around three million people eligible for the BNO passport.

Community groups have sprung into action to offer career, job-hunting and taxation workshops to new arrivals, provide entertainment and social opportunities and to offer advice on education, mental health and starting a new business.

Meanwhile, the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said nine high-ranking Hong Kong officials and 12 lawmakers elected under Beijing’s approval to the city’s legislature hold property overseas, including in the U.K., Canada, the U.S., Australia, Japan, and France.

In a new report, the group lists health secretary Sophia Chan as owning or co-owning three properties in London, civil service secretary Patrick Nip as owning a flat in Islington, and former University of Hong Kong senior leader Arthur Li as owning two west London properties.

All are members of chief executive Carrie Lam’s cabinet, the Executive Council, and are collectively responsible for implementing the national security law, which bans public criticism of the government and criminalizes acts of political opposition, journalism and online dissent.

All of the officials and lawmakers in question have pledged allegiance to Beijing and expressed their public support for the national security law, the report said.

“The report recommends that like-minded countries consider auditing the assets of Hong Kong officials and introducing a Hong Kong specific sanctions list covering those named,” it said.

The group’s senior policy adviser Sam Goodman said: “The Hong Kong officials and lawmakers who are complicit in the ongoing human rights crackdown in Hong Kong are more than happy to continue to use the West as a safe haven for their hidden wealth.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.