Day: May 6, 2022

Laos is an information “black hole” where the government exerts complete control over news outlets, Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) said in its 2022 World Press Freedom Index this week that ranks the Southeast Asian country near the bottom of its list in terms of allowing journalists to challenge authorities.

Laos placed 161^st out of of 180 countries in the index, a slight improvement over 2021, when it was ranked 172^nd. But the index still painted a dismal picture of press freedom in Laos, a finding that local reporters and citizens backed up in interviews with RFA this week.

“The government essentially controls all press. Laos’ 24 newspapers, 32 television networks and 44 radio stations are required to follow the party line dictated by the Peoples’ Propaganda Commissariat, which is disseminated by the three dailies that the ruling party publishes,” the index, released this week, said.

“The Lao Popular Revolutionary Party (LPRP) keeps the press under close surveillance and makes the creation of independent media impossible. The circle of cronies at the heart of the system, in many cases descendants of the old aristocracy, keep a lock on information,” the report said.

Laos’ guarantee of freedom of expression is undone by laws prohibiting media outlets from harming the “national interest” or “traditional culture.”

“The penal code provides for imprisonment of journalists who criticize the government, a provision extended in 2014 to internet users. Internet service providers are required to report web users’ names, professions and data search histories to the authorities,” the index said.

The small boost in the rankings was likely due to more reporting on drugs and corruption, a former reporter for Lao state media told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

“In March this year, a drug lord, Sisouk Daoheuang, was sentenced to death for drug trafficking and smuggling. State media also report some more details like the number of corrupt officials who have been disciplined, dismissed and charged,” the former reporter said.

But one current reporter who is an employee of the Information, Culture and Tourism Department of Savannakhet Province told RFA’s Lao Service that journalists’ work is still restricted.

“Despite improvement in ranking, we in the Lao media still don’t have much press freedom. There are no independent news outlets. All the news agencies belong to government and are controlled by government,” the reporter said.

“We’re all members of the state media and we’re not independent and there is no variety of news in Laos. So, our reporting is restricted especially when reporting about corruption of the Party members and government officials. We can’t be critical to the Party and government at all. Even reporting on social media is restricted,” said the source.

Reporters must run their stories by their department directors before they are published and they cannot cover any events without permission from at least the head of the department, the reporter said.

Another reporter in the capital Vientiane told RFA that no media outlet there is free or independent.

“If we’re told to cover that event, we’ll go and do it. They’ll tell us whether we can or can’t go and we must follow government policy. We only report what is approved and permitted by the authorities,” the Vientiane reporter said.

“Sometimes, we know that what we are reporting is not true, but we can’t do anything about it. For example, we know that those government officials in that ministry are corrupt and are embezzling state money, but we can’t report that. We can’t report any news that the government considers as dangerous to the national security, the political process or is too critical of the leaders,” said the Vientiane reporter.

Another problem with freedom of the press is that too many people are afraid to speak the truth, a resident of the southern province of Savannakhet told RFA.

“If we speak out we’ll be thrown in jail. In this country, if someone tries to speak the truth, they will end up missing like Mouay,” the resident said.

Houayheuang Xayabouly, better known by her nickname Mouay, was arrested Sept. 12, 2019, a week after she published videos critical about the government’s inability to rescue people from flooding in the country’s southern Champassak and Salavan provinces. The delayed government response had left many Lao villagers stranded and cut off from help, she said in the video, which was viewed more than 150,000 times.

“She criticized the government, and actually what she said was true, but now she’s in jail for five years. People outside the country can speak out, but no one inside can. The people of Laos are afraid and worried, even when they express themselves on social media,” said the resident.

A resident of Vientiane province told RFA that people can get in trouble for complaining about their lives.

“The government will suppress you right away before you can do more harm. It’s like they’ll put out the fire before it spreads. Even if you escape to Thailand, the government will get you. That’s why many people here don’t get involved in politics,” the Vientiane province resident said.

An aid worker in Laos told RFA that social media has in some ways given people more of a voice, as it provides more access with less restrictions than traditional media like radio, television and newspapers.

“More and more Laotians are hungry for information and they turn to social media for it. The trend will continue because Laotians can express themselves more on social media. They want to vent their frustration because the government can’t do anything to solve the problems like the crumbling economy and financial crisis.”

The number of social media users among Laos’ population of 7 million people increased to 51% this year, up from 49% last year and from 43% year before, data from statista.com shows.

“Social media is a voice and a tool of people. When they see an official doing something wrong or judges making an unfair decision, they can post their comments online,” a businessman in Laos told RFA.

“Then either the police or the court can come out and give explanation to the public. That’s a good thing. We know that state media is not reliable. Only those who are 55 years old or older follow the state media. While younger folks follow Thai media, which is much more interesting.”

Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution calling on the Cambodian government led by Prime Minister Hun Sen to stop persecuting and intimidating political opponents, trade unionists, human rights defenders and journalists ahead of local elections in June and national campaigns next year.

The government of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, is now five years into a no-holds-barred crackdown on its political opposition and civil society, jailing or driving into exile scores of opposition figures.

The resolution, which was adopted with 526 votes in favor and only five votes against (another 63 members abstained), condemns the Cambodian Supreme Court’s dissolution of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), the country’s largest opposition party, in November 2017.

The European Parliament repeated its call for charges against former CNRP leaders Kem Sokha, Sam Rainsy and Mu Sochua and other opposition officials to be dropped and urged authorities to release all prisoners of conscience, journalists, human rights defenders, environmental activists and union members.

The CNRP was banned for its supposed role in an alleged plot to overthrow the government. With the CNRP out of the picture, Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) went on to win all 125 seats in the country’s July 2018 general election.

Since then, the government has continued to target activists associated with the CNRP, arresting them on arbitrary charges and placing them in pretrial detention in overcrowded jails with harsh conditions.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan said he doesn’t understand why the resolution was passed given discussions with the Cambodia’s EU representative on the progress the country has made in regard to human rights.

“So far, individuals have breached the law, so [that] is the issue between the court and those individuals,” he said. “What the EU raised was a political matter that we already have explained. If they raise the same issue, we will explain it to them again because we are strengthening the law and the rule of law.”

Men Vanna, who served as leader of the youth movement for the CNRP, told RFA that the resolution will give hope to Cambodian’s fighting for a more democratic country.

The government “must change if they love democracy and the country,” he said.

‘Friday Wives’ petition US Embassy

Also on Friday, a group of spouses whose husbands are in jail for political activities staged a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh to call on the government to push for their release before a special U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Washington on May 12-13.

Cambodia currently holds the rotating chair position of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

About 10 women from the group “Friday Wives” handed a petition to the embassy seeking U.S. support.

At least 60 CNRP activists have been imprisoned. Some of the former members of the banned political party have been convicted as others are being tried.

“Please release our husbands. We are suffering, our families are splitting apart,” one of the women, Prum Chantha, said. “In Cambodia, people don’t give credit to politicians, but rather prosecute them. This shows that Cambodia doesn’t respect human rights and democracy.”

Another protester, Ouk Chanthy, whose husband has been detained for two years, said she hopes that the U.S. will pressure the Cambodian government at the summit to release her husband “in order to restore Cambodia’s reputation.”

“Hun Sen is heading to the U.S. as the ASEAN chair,” she said. “I urge him to drop all charges against political opponents and release them. Should Hun Sen represent ASEAN when Cambodia has imprisoned politicians who haven’t committed any crimes?”

Phnom Penh security guards harassed the women, injuring at least two of them and destroying their banners.

Kata Orn, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights Committee, an organ for the government, said the guards responded to the women because they allegedly assaulted the guards.

He also said the government has nothing to do with the cases against the women’s husbands.

“Cambodia isn’t worried about international pressure during the U.S.-ASEAN Summit,” he said.

Translate by Samean Yun for RFA’s Khmer Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Russia will soon begin participating in Myanmar’s energy industry in place of international companies that quit, the Burmese junta said in response to the exit of three big Asian firms from a gas field in the coup-hit nation.

Since April 29, the Malaysian and Thai state-owned oil firms and a Japanese energy conglomerate have withdrawn from Myanmar’s Yetagun gas field, with all three citing commercial reasons for pulling out.

Japan’s ENEOS also mentioned Myanmar’s “current situation, including the social issues” as one of the reasons for quitting, referring to human rights excesses by the military where nearly 1,800 civilians have been killed since the February 2020 coup.

The companies quit not because of political instability but because of declining economic benefits from the Yetagun project, Myanmar’s military spokesman told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

“Our allies and friendly organizations are cooperating with us in the electricity and energy sectors. You will soon see Russia’s cooperation in the near future. We will expand our oil and gas operations as soon as possible,” Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said on Thursday.

One political analyst said it would not be surprising if Russia entered Myanmar’s oil and gas industry.

“When democratic countries sever relationships or slap sanctions against a military junta, countries that do not value human standards or rules and regulations will step in for their own benefit. This has happened in many countries,” analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe told RFA..

“There have been similar incidents in the history of Myanmar.”

One economist, who requested anonymity, said it was unlikely that Myanmar could find a replacement so soon for the companies that have quit its energy sector.

“Russia is a very powerful country in the oil world,” the economist said.

“[E]fforts could be made with them [the Russians] but a sudden replacement is not so easy. It’s not going to work right away.”

Declining output

While it is true that ENEOS, Malaysia’s Petronas, and Thailand’s PTTEP withdrew from a depleting gas field, the political situation did not help, analysts told BenarNews.

Besides, said one Southeast Asia observer, the withdrawal of the firms representing two ASEAN nations, even from an unprofitable project, would have been a huge blow to the junta. It had bamboozled the regional bloc by reneging on a consensus among ASEAN members to put the country back on the democratic path.

The three firms packed up from the Yetagun project because gas output had plummeted, Readul Islam, a Singapore-based energy research analyst, told BenarNews.

“The Yetagun project produced roughly 3 percent of Myanmar’s 2020 gas output, which already was a steep decline from the project’s 6 percent of Myanmar’s 2019 output,” said Islam, an analyst for Rystad Energy, an independent energy research company, about a field where experts say output had been declining since 2013.

“[S]o, while the politics certainly don’t help, the Yetagun exits appear to be purely economic decisions,” Islam said.

BenarNews could not reach the chief executive of PTTEP for comment, nor did officials at Petronas immediately return phone calls or reply to emails.

Human and civil rights activists have been pressing corporations, especially oil and gas companies, to quit post-coup Myanmar.

Since the military took over, a slew of companies, not only oil firms, have left. They cited the coup or the subsequent abuses, and said they had also been hobbled by international sanctions imposed on the regime that makes it difficult to do business there.

Among the international firms that quit Myanmar are British American Tobacco, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Posco, Telenor, TotalEnergy, and Woodside Petroleum.

The ASEAN factor

The departures of Petronas and PTTEP from the Yetagun project should be viewed in this context, according to Southeast Asia analyst Zachary Abuza.

He agreed that Petronas and PTTEP may have left a dying field but, in his view – at least in the case of Malaysia’s Petronas – apart from the economics, others reasons motivated the decision.

“My takeaway from this is that the Malaysians are frustrated and want to put pressure on the SAC,” said Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, referring to the State Administration Council, the junta’s official name.

It was different for Thailand’s PTTEP, which, in fact, announced they were taking over the stakes quit by Chevron and TotalEnergy in another Myanmar gas field, Yadana, Abuza acknowledged.

And yet, “[i]t is a loss for the SAC. It doesn’t look good when your key cash cow, the MOGE (the Ministry of Oil and Gas Enterprises) is losing key investors even if [the oil] fields are not profitable. The optics are bad.”

What makes it worse for Myanmar, a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc, is that state-owned firms from fellow member-states were the ones that quit, Abuza said.

“These [Malaysian and Thai companies] are ASEAN partners. For the junta, it is probably not a huge surprise that Western oil firms have pulled back, but for ASEAN partners to do so, that has got to sting a bit more,” Abuza said. 

“Symbolism matters for a regime that craves international recognition.”

Meanwhile, activist group Justice for Myanmar, told BenarNews that the withdrawal from the Yetagun gas project was a result of the “sustained pressure from the people of Myanmar and activists around the world.”

According to the group, more pressure is needed to stop all oil payments to the junta so it cannot use the funds to buy the arms and ammunition it uses to gun down civilians in its brutal nationwide campaign against anyone who opposes the generals’ rule.

“PTTEP now must go further and suspend payments to the Myanmar military junta from the Yadana and Zawtika projects, or withdraw,” Yadanar Maung, spokesperson for Justice For Myanmar, told BenarNews by email.

“These projects bankroll the Myanmar military junta, a terrorist organization, and PTTEP’s continued involvement aids and abets the junta’s … crimes. …We call on the Thai government to change course and stop business with the junta.”

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service and Shailaja Neelakantan, Subel Rai Bhandari and Nontarat Phaicharoen of BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news outlet.

North Korea is cracking down on citizens who sport so-called “capitalist” fashion and hairstyles to ensure that they conduct themselves according to the ideals of socialism, sources in the country told RFA.

Wearing certain items of clothing, such as tight-fitting pants or t-shirts with foreign words, or having hair longer than a certain length, has always been potentially problematic in North Korea. But now the government is redoubling its efforts to make sure that people don’t flaunt styles associated with capitalistic countries.

“At the end of last month, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League held an educational session nationwide, where they defined the act of imitating foreign fashion and hairstyles as ‘capitalist flair,’ and examples of ‘anti-socialist practices,’” a resident of the city of Hamhung in the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The league, formerly known as the Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League until last year, is modeled after the Soviet Komsomol, a group of teenagers and young adults who spread communist propaganda.

“The youth league’s patrols are cracking down on young people who wear long hair down to their waists, and those who dye their hair brown, as well as people who wear clothes with large foreign letters and women who wear tight pants,” the source said.

“This time the crackdown mainly targets women in their 20s and 30s. If they are caught, they are made to wait on the side of the road until the patrols can finish their crackdown in that area. Only then will they be taken to the youth league office in the district, where they must write letters confessing their crimes. They must then contact someone at home to bring acceptable clothes for them, and then they are released,” she said.

The country has been on a crusade against the infiltration of foreign — especially South Korean —culture.

RFA previously reported that authorities ordered members of the country’s main youth organization to turn in the cellphones for inspection, so they could determine who was watching and distributing foreign media or spelling words in the South Korean way or using Southern slang.

Patrols in the city of Chongjin, in the province of North Hamgyong, targeted the marketplace where many young people are known to hang out, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“If they are caught, the company they work for and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League will be notified. They are then subject to criticism and in the most severe cases, the violator’s name, home address and workplace will be revealed publicly on the Third Broadcast,” she said, referring to government-controlled loudspeakers placed throughout most cities and towns to spread messages of propaganda.

“Even though they have these kinds of crackdowns all the time, the young people do not stop trying to look and dress like people in foreign films and TV.”

Illegal activities

The government is also working to suppress what it deems to be illegal capitalistic activities, an official in Chongjin told RFA.

“Recent arrests here in Chongjin caught five property brokers who illegally facilitated state-owned housing transactions and collected fees for their services. Meanwhile, six fortune tellers and a fake medicine seller were also arrested. The guy selling fake traditional medicines claimed they could treat diseases,” he said.

“Everyone was sentenced five to seven years of hard labor and put in jail,” said the official.

Chongjin authorities are also targeting the scalping of rail tickets, bribes given to train crews and rail police by merchants who don’t have the proper government permission for travel, and payments to police to look the other way when they catch someone doing something illegal, he said.

In Ryanggang province, west of North Hamgyong, authorities there have been using the Third Broadcast to warn citizens against the evils of drugs, superstitions like fortune telling, and fake medicines, a resident there told RFA.

“The people are complaining that the authorities are coming down hard on them again so soon after the April national holidays have ended, under the pretext of eradicating anti-socialist acts,” she said, referring to holidays that commemorated the life of country’s founder Kim Il Sung on April 15 and the formation of the country’s military on the 25^th.

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

The special envoy to Myanmar for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) aims to visit the strife torn-country in coming weeks, he said Friday in a statement following humanitarian relief talks with the U.N. and regional agencies.

The visit, specific dates for which have not been announced, would be the second trip to Myanmar by the ASEAN envoy, Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, following a trip in March.

“I look forward to my second visit to Myanmar in the next few weeks,” the minister wrote on Facebook Friday, after hosting the Consultative Meeting on ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance to Myanmar.

The meeting addressed plans to deliver humanitarian aid and administer Covid-19 vaccines to Myanmar, Cambodia’s foreign ministry said in statement.

The country of 54 million people, ASEAN’s poorest per capita, has been engulfed in political turmoil as well as military conflict since the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup that overthrew the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi three moths after her party won re-election by a landslide.

“Today we are taking another step forward in our collective endeavor to ensure that the people of Myanmar will have access to humanitarian assistance without discrimination,” Sokhonn wrote.

“As the ASEAN Chair’s Special Envoy, I remain optimistic that our persistent efforts will genuinely benefit the people of Myanmar,” he added.

Cambodia is the current rotating chair of the 10-member ASEAN.

In a video conference on May 1, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urged the Myanmar junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, to allow the special envoy to visit and meet deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and take other steps to implement a five-point agreement the military leader reached between ASEAN’s foreign ministers in April 2021.

Although the military regime in Naypyidaw agreed with ASEAN on humanitarian aid and the creation of the special envoy, little concrete progress has been made on more challenging parts of the five-point agreement, including an end to violence, talks among all parties in Myanmar, and mediation by the envoy.

The junta on May 3 poured cold water on calls from Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah last month for ASEAN talks with Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), a parallel, civilian administration formed of ousted lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, prominent civil servants, and ethnic minority leaders.

The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper quoted the junta’s foreign ministry as saying it “protests and rejects” the Malaysian foreign minister’s remarks, because “they could abet terrorism and violence in the country, hampering the Myanmar Government’s anti-terrorism efforts and infringe international agreements related to combatting terrorism.”

The junta has branded opponents of military rule as terrorists. The military regime has jailed Aung San Suu Kyi among thousands of political prisoners and killed 1,800 people, mostly anti-coup protesters.

The 76-year-old Nobel laureate has been sentence to 11 years in jail on various charges, and faces other charges that could land her in prison for more than a century. Her supporters and human rights groups reject the charges as baseless and designed to end her political career.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Written by Paul Eckert.

The Biden administration is reportedly preparing to place tough human rights-related sanctions on Hikvision, a company in Hangzhou, China that is the world’s largest manufacturer of surveillance equipment. The U.S. accuses the firm of providing the Chinese government with surveillance cameras used for intrusive monitoring and repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, where some 1.8 million members of the Turkic Muslim minority group have been detained in internment camps.