Day: June 14, 2022

North Korea is forcing two doctors who set up a highly profitable ward in a hospital in Laos to send their earnings back home as so-called “loyalty funds,” North Korean sources in Laos told RFA.

The North Korean doctors, a physician and a surgeon, were dispatched to the Southeast Asian country to set up a practice on one floor of the Lao-Asean Hospital in the capital Vientiane, an upscale medical facility that offers a higher standard of care than an average Lao hospital. The hospital caters to wealthy foreigners who live in Laos, as well as tourists.

Under the normal terms for North Korean workers dispatched to other countries, the doctors had to give their government a percentage of their earnings. In most cases, the money these workers keep is still several times what they could hope to earn at home.

But the COVID-19 pandemic caused revenue at the hospital to decline, as there were fewer wealthy foreign patients. The ward operated by the North Korean doctors was forced to suspend operations until the Lao government lifted restrictions in May.

As the money started rolling in, Pyongyang ordered the two doctors to resume payments, only in greater amounts that cut sharply into their incomes.

“I heard from an acquaintance, who is close to the doctors from Pyongyang, that the North Korean authorities have demanded excessive loyalty funds from the doctors,” a North Korean source in Laos told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Their operations have barely become normalized. But they look particularly depressed and disappointed because they owe more in loyalty money than they earn,” she said.

The doctors started their practice in Vientiane to capitalize on the tourism industry centered there.

“Since there are many tourists, they expected that [opening a ward] in that hospital would be able to earn a lot of foreign currency,” said the source.

“They designated [their ward] as [part of the] international hospital rather than a North Korean one,” she said. “Most foreign tourists and residents recognize it as [part of] an international hospital that offers better treatment than the local Lao hospitals, and they visit a lot.”

Prices can be up to 10 times higher, and must be paid in U.S. dollars, cash only, according to the source. She said she was aware of a Chinese businessman who paid $20 for an abdominal pain diagnosis that would cost $2 in a typical Lao hospital.

“Since May, the hospital has been making a good profit as the Lao government completely lifted the COVID-19 lockdown,” she said.

Another North Korean in Laos said the hospital ward was established a few years ago, before the worst of the pandemic had reached Laos.

“It was founded and operated by two doctors in their 40s who were dispatched from Pyongyang a few years ago. They diagnose, treat and perform surgeries on patients regardless of their nationalities, and get a lot in foreign currency,” she told RFA on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.

“The Lao government closed the border and banned movement between regions in 2020. As the entry and movement of foreigners was suspended, the North Korean hospital [ward] started seeing fewer patients,” the second source said.

Eventually the ward had to suspend operations as the steady flow of patients dwindled.

“The [ward] has emerged from operational difficulties caused by the COVID-19 crisis, and it is making significant profits,” she said.

Sources told RFA that the North Korean ward is able to earn between $100 and $200 per day on average, but has been asked to send to Pyongyang $3,000 per month. After factoring in overhead, very little remains for the two doctors.

An employee of the Lao-Asean hospital confirmed to RFA’s Lao Service that two North Korean doctors have been working at the hospital for the past two years, but could not elaborate on how they came to work for the hospital or what their exact positions were.

A Lao health official, meanwhile, told RFA that the hospital is privately owned by a domestic company, Lao Medical Service Co., but that it was common for hospitals to hire doctors from abroad.

“Many private hospitals in Laos employ many foreign doctors and medical experts including Chinese and Vietnamese because these foreigners have great knowledge in the field,” the official said.

“As for the Lao-Asean Hospital, I know that the owner is a Lao investor who has hired several Chinese doctors to work with Lao counterparts and at least one of them is the head of a treatment department, but I don’t know whether the hospital has any North Korean doctors,” he said.

Additional reporting by RFA Lao. Translated by Claire Lee, Leejin J. Chung and Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

The leader of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army rebel group ordered the killing of Rohingya activist Muhib Ullah at a Bangladeshi refugee camp last year, police in the South Asian country said in recommending murder charges against 29 suspects, although the insurgent group denied being involved.

Muhib Ullah was more popular than Ataullah Abu Ahmmar Jununi, the head of ARSA, and that displeased him, according to an investigation report that police submitted to a court in Cox’s Bazar district on Monday.

Seen by BenarNews, the police report says the 29 suspects were members of ARSA and that they acted at the orders of Ataullah and were involved in Muhib Ullah’s murder at various stages. 

Fifteen of the 29 suspects have been arrested since the killing last September and the remaining 14 are absconding, police said.

The report says that four of the 15 persons confessed to their involvement in Muhib Ullah’s murder. According to one of them, ARSA leaders organized a meeting at one of the refugee camps two days before the murder, the police report says.

“At the meeting, [one suspect] and others said ‘our leader Ataullah Jununi told us that Muhib Ullah is emerging as a bigger leader. The Rohingya are giving him more support. He must be killed’ said accused Azizul Haque who was guarding the meeting venue,” according to a portion of the police report.

“All of the persons having involvement with the murder are the members of the so called ARSA/Al-Yaaqin,” reads the report, adding that the accused persons had reportedly been involved in theft, robbery, murder, rape, mugging, human trafficking and smuggling of illegal narcotics.

“All of them are rogues,” says the report, stating that ARSA and Al-Yaaqin were the same organization.

This is the first official admission by Bangladeshi authorities on the presence of ARSA at the refugee camps. Until now, the Bangladesh government has strenuously denied that ARSA exists on Bangladesh soil.

Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, an additional superintendent of police in Cox’s Bazar district, confirmed to BenarNews that police submitted the investigation report to the local court on Monday, but he declined to comment further.

“The investigation report says it all. We have no comments beyond the investigation report,” he told BenarNews.

On the night of Sept. 29, 2021, unidentified gunman burst in and fatally shot Muhib Ullah, a refugee and internationally known Rohingya activist, in his office at the Kutupalong camp while he was meeting with other refugees.

ARSA is a Rohingya insurgent group whose 2017 attack on government outposts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state led to a brutal military crackdown against the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority, causing about 740,000 of them to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

ARSA is also blamed for criminal activities at the Rohingya camps in Ukhia and Teknaf, two sub-districts of Cox’s Bazar, a southeastern district near the border with Rakhine state in Myanmar.

The police report says that ARSA was against the repatriation of the Rohingya to Myanmar but it did not elaborate on the reason.

“Ataullah Abu Ahmmar Jununi could not accept the leadership of Muhib Ullah. He asked Muhib Ullah to stop the operation of his organization to promote the repatriation of the Rohingya. But he did not listen,” the report says.

Without going into detail, the report also says that the popularity of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, Muhib Ullah’s organization, would stand in the way of ARSA’s operations.

In addition, according to the report, Ataullah asked Muhib Ullah to join ARSA but he rejected the offer.

Sunil Barua in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

The international community must “reengage and refocus” on Myanmar to head off a looming crisis that may leave a “lost generation” of children, who have already suffered incredible deprivation since the country’s February 2021 military coup, a United Nations human rights official said on Tuesday.

In a 40-page report titled “Losing a Generation: How the military junta is attacking Myanmar’s children and stealing their future,” Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, says the military regime has systematically abused children since taking power.

Soldiers, police officers and military-backed militias have murdered, abducted, detained and tortured children in a campaign of violence across the Southeast Asian nation, the report says.

Military attacks have displaced more than 250,000 children, the report says. More than 1,400 youths have been detained and at least 61 are currently being held hostage. The report says that 142 children have been tortured — beaten, cut, stabbed, burned with cigarettes, deprived of food and water — since the military seized power from the democratically elected government.

“The junta’s relentless attacks on children underscore the generals’ depravity and willingness to inflict immense suffering on innocent victims in its attempt to subjugate the people of Myanmar,” said Andrews, a former member of the U.S. Congress from Maine from 1991 to 1995, in a statement. He was appointed to his U.N. role in May 2020.

An estimated 7.8 million children remain out of school because of the conflict. As many as 33,000 minors could die preventable deaths this year because they have not received routine immunizations, according to the report.

Andrews called on U.N. member states, regional organizations, the U.N. Security Council and other U.N. agencies to significantly increase humanitarian assistance and regional support for refugees. Countries should also implement stronger economic sanctions and coordinated financial investigations to diminish the military’s ability to remain in power.

The parties must “respond to the crisis in Myanmar with the same urgency they have responded to the crisis in Ukraine,” the special rapporteur said.

“The junta’s attacks on children constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes,” Andrews said. “Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing and other architects of the violence in Myanmar must be held accountable for their crimes against children.”

There was no immediate response from the State Administration Council, the formal name for the junta regime.

In Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged member states to step up pressure on the Myanmar junta amid ongoing reports of violence and human rights violations.

“[T]here are reasonable grounds to believe the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes,” Bachelet said.

“What we are witnessing today is the systematic and widespread use of tactics against civilians in respect of which there are reasonable grounds to believe the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes,” she told the current session of the Human Rights Council.

Bachelet called on U.N. member states to take sustained and concrete action to end the violence against civilians and minority groups.

“I urge all member states, particularly those with the highest-level access and influence, to intensify the pressure on the military leadership,” she said, citing measures such as increased restrictions on the regime’s financial holdings and business interests and limiting its access to foreign currencies to restrict the purchase of military equipment and supplies.

“I also call for continued support to the efforts underway to pursue accountability for the ongoing and past serious human rights violations, as well as alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity through all available tracks,” she said. “Myanmar’s future depends on addressing the root cause of this crisis.”

Police in Phnom Penh on Tuesday arrested a Cambodian American lawyer and activist dressed as the Statue of Liberty outside a courthouse, where minutes before a mass trial ended by convicting her and more than 50 other opposition figures of treason.

Theary Seng and the others were all in some way connected to the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) before the country’s Supreme Court dissolved the party five years ago, a decision that paved the way for Prime Minister Hun Sen to tighten his grip on the country and squash criticism of his longstanding government.   

Wearing a copper-patina hued flowing gown and speckled in glitter, Theary Seng stood holding the torch of liberty in one hand and a tablet reading “Paris Peace Accord, 23 October 1991” in the other, a reference to the agreement that ended civil war in Cambodia and established the Southeast Asian nation as a fledgling democracy.

“I am ready for the sham verdict that will be announced this morning which will be a guilty verdict. I am ready and prepared to go to the notorious Cambodian prison for my political opinions, for my beliefs, for my belief in democracy,” she told reporters prior to the conviction.

“This regime will not let me go free. It will be an unfair and unjust verdict, because I am innocent, the others charged with me are innocent. But we are living in a dictatorship, we are living in a regime that suppresses and represses its own people, that punishes, that uses the law as a weapon against its own people,” Theary Seng said.

She also said that she would not enter the court during the trial. If the authorities wanted to arrest her, they would have to do it publicly, she said.

Theary Seng was sentenced to six years in prison, while the others received sentences ranging from five to eight years. Among the other activists on trial Tuesday, 27 were tried in absentia, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The treason charges against the activists stem from abortive efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, who has been in exile in France to avoid what his supporters say are politicized charges against him.

Following the verdict, authorities obliged Theary Seng’s request for a public arrest — two police officers grabbed her and rushed her into a waiting truck, a video shows.

Chhoeun Daravy, an activist who witnessed the arrest, told RFA the police truck drove her to prison.

“We are deeply troubled by today’s unjust verdicts against Theary Seng and others,” the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia said in a statement posted to Facebook. “Freedom of expression and association, and tolerance of dissenting views, are vital components of democracy.

“We call on Cambodian authorities to release her and other human rights activists from unjust imprisonment.”

The Cambodian government’s spokesperson, Phay Siphan, told RFA’s Khmer Service that Theary Seng’s courtside demonstration had nothing to do with the verdict, and tried to dispel the idea that her conviction could damage relations with Washington.

“The court’s measures are based on the law,” he said. “Cambodia and the U.S relationship is important … more important than just one person,” Phay Siphan said.

Because Theary Seng is a dual citizen of Cambodia and the United States, the embassy can request that she serve her sentence in the U.S., Phay Siphan said. He also said she had the option to appeal and could also seek amnesty from Cambodia’s king after serving two-thirds, or four years, of her sentence.

Theary Seng’s lawyer, Choung Chou Ngy, told RFA that he will appeal the court’s verdict. Meanwhile, the prison department refused to allow him to see her, which he said violated the law.

The court’s verdicts today show a double standard, Ny Sokha of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association told RFA. He said that former CNRP officials who agreed to defect to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party have seen their sentences suspended or the charges they faced dropped.

“The court’s decision is more about politics rather than the law. If the culture of the dialogue still existed, no one would have been prosecuted. The problem stemmed from political conflict,” he said.

In an interview with RFA, Sam Rainsy said he would return to Cambodia to face charges if Hun Sen dropped all charges against former CNRP officials, including Theary Seng.

“Hun Sen has targeted me. Hun Sen is afraid of my presence. Why is Hun Sen is afraid of me?” he said. “Release all the prisoners. I volunteer to stay in jail since they [the court] accused me of being the ring leader.”

During the mass trial in Phnom Penh Tuesday, Sam Rainsy was given an additional eight years in absentia–adding to the 47 years he has received in recent years.

“Hun Sen is afraid of democracy. About 61 were prosecuted but millions of people won’t be intimidated. Wipe your tears and continue,” he said, adding that Theary Seng would be a bone that Hun Sen would have to swallow.

Jared Genser, who is providing pro bono counsel to Theary Seng, condemned the court’s decision.

“By detaining Theary on plainly fabricated national security charges, Hun Sen has violated a litany of her rights — and dealt yet another blow to Cambodia’s civic space,” said Genser.

“It is clear that Hun Sen feels greatly threatened by this courageous woman who speaks truth to power.” 

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, called Tuesday’s proceedings a “show trial” and said they “expose the Hun Sen government’s fear of any vestige of democracy in Cambodia.”

“The mass trials against political opposition members are really about preventing any electoral challenge to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s rule, but they have also come to symbolize the death of Cambodia’s democracy,” Robertson said.

“By creating a political dynamic that relies on intimidation and persecution of government critics, Hun Sen demonstrates his total disregard for democratic rights,” he said.

The convictions draw to a close a trial that began in 2020 but was temporarily stopped until December 2021 due to restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The court case originally involved about 130 defendants but was split into three separate trials.

Theary Seng’s appearance as the Statue of Liberty on Tuesday was only her latest use of costumery as a political statement. During a session of court in May, she dressed as “Lady Justice,” complete with blindfold, scale and sword.

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

Reporters and editors employed by state media outlets in Vietnam are being trained to uphold the views of the ruling Communist Party on human rights, freedom of expression and other politically sensitive topics, sources in the country say.

Vietnam’s government appears especially sensitive to foreign criticism on human rights issues, frequently attacking allegations of abuse or the suppression of free speech as the work of hostile forces, according to rights groups and other activists.

Trainings are now held each year to ensure that those working in Vietnam’s state-owned media work within limits set by the government and ruling party, Nguyen Ngoc Vinh — former managing editor of the country’s popular Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper — told RFA in an interview.

“Vietnamese law already clearly stipulates that the media in Vietnam are a tool of the party and state, and fighting against ‘hostile forces’ is just one of the goals the media has to achieve,” Vinh said.

A training course recently held in northern Vietnam’s Ninh Binh province, and reported in an article on Monday by the country’s Labour newspaper, served to remind the reporters, editors and other staff attending of their role in affirming “the party’s guidelines in media affairs,” Vinh said.

“Those guidelines have been agreed by the media in Vietnam at all levels, and they are that caution must be used in reporting on human rights issues. That’s it!” he added.

Employees of state media in Vietnam are also instructed to guide public opinion on politically sensitive and controversial cases, Vinh said, pointing to the deadly January 2020 clash between land protesters and police at Dong Tam commune outside Hanoi as an example.

At first, only social media covered the killing by police of Dong Tam elder Le Dinh Kinh, but then official media reported the incident, using the police as their only source of information, Vinh said.

“The media rejected all other sources of information, including accounts by local residents who were witnesses to the killing.”

One-sided stories

According to standards of modern reporting, the media must obtain information from different sources in order to get as close to the truth as possible, Vinh said.

“But in Vietnam, the media are only allowed to tell one-sided stories, especially in human rights cases.”

A human rights lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told RFA that the censoring of media by political authorities has badly hurt the defense of human rights in Vietnam.

In a free and democratic society, the media play a critical role in protecting the freedom and dignity of the people, RFA’s source said.

“However, in Vietnam, the media are seen as a tool of the ruling party and government. They lose their function of creativity and criticism, as they are closely controlled by the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Commission on Education and Communications.

“The media therefore only serve as the authorities’ mouthpiece in cracking down on dissenting voices, providing misleading information to divide people in society, and protecting the ruling elite,” the lawyer said.

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Police in the northern Chinese city of Tangshan have announced a citywide crackdown on violent crime after a viral video of thugs beating up a woman at a barbecue restaurant sparked massive public outrage.

Nine people were arrested in connection with the incident. Tangshan mayor Tian Guoliang said the city would “strike hard” against organized crime and improve public order after several of the woman’s assailants were found to have ties to a Jiangsu-based criminal gang, the Tian ‘an Society, according to state broadcaster CCTV.  

The anti-crime campaign received widespread public support on social media, where the video has sparked outrage, prompting women to voice concerns about traveling or eating alone.

It will target criminal activities that “spur strong emotion from the public and have an adverse influence on society, including intentional injury, extortion, drug abuse and cybercrimes,” the English-language China Daily newspaper reported.

The video — which shows women initially fighting back after being approached and harassed by an unidentified man — has been traced to the early hours of June 10, at a restaurant in Tangshan’s Lubei district.

Much of the outrage focused on the fact that nobody watching intervened to stop the subsequent, vicious beating of the women who fended off the initial assault, who was left severely injured as the attackers ran off.

Four women were injured in the incident, two of whom were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police told state media.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s disciplinary arm called for the “root causes” of the crime to be investigated and dealt with.

“We must stick to a zero tolerance policy for all kinds of illegal and criminal activities … and build a comprehensive and three-dimensional prevention and control system,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said.

“Don’t wait for problems to emerge before you pay attention to them.”

Hebei resident Zheng Cheng said the barbecue restaurant incident was just the tip of the iceberg, in a city plagued by gang violence.

“They have their own independent source of funding, and there are [powerful] people behind them,” Zheng told RFA. “These attackers are very arrogant, and act as tyrants in the local area.”

Further reports of violence against women have emerged in Tangshan since the beating video.

Kidnappings

Pictures posted by medical staff from a Tangshan hospital showed a young woman’s injuries after she was kidnapped outside the high-speed railway station, raped and stabbed, eventually crawling two kilometers before being rescued.

A nightclub singer surnamed Zhang also reported being kidnapped by a Tangshan gang who held her for ransom, locking her in a dog cage.

Six people have been arrested in connection with her case, and with that of a cake shop owner who reported extortion, Tangshan police department said on Monday.

A current affairs commentator surnamed Cai said online discussion of the case was relatively free, even on China’s tightly controlled internet.

“The reason they have gone easy on online [reports and comments] is that there was no official involvement here,” Cai said. “That’s hugely important. If officials had played any kind of a role here, they would have shut down discussion.”

“They are now deflecting the blame onto criminal gangs, to take the heat off the government,” he said.

Xue Li, a Generation Z woman, said she has been left sad and angry after reading constant updates on the Tangshan incident on her phone all weekend.

“I just felt so angry at the time, and so disappointed, for the same reason as everyone else, which was why was nobody helping?” she said.

“How is it that men can just get away with beating up women like that?”

Another young woman who asked to be identified as S said she had felt panicky after seeing the video.

“I couldn’t breathe,” S said. “I couldn’t believe that something like this could happen in 2022.”

A Taiyuan resident who gave only the nickname Ellie said many women are well aware that the Tangshan incident was just the tip of the iceberg.

“What makes me feel even more helpless is that this is just one of countless cases of violence against women, and if the authorities hadn’t decided to go in hot [due to the online outcry], they wouldn’t have arrested them so soon,” she said.

‘Powerless in the face of absolute violence’

Another woman who gave the nickname Shirley said telling women to be more careful wasn’t the right response.

“I don’t know why, but every time this kind of incident happens, somebody comes out and says that women should take steps to protect themselves,” she said. “I used to agree with that, but after watching this incident, I wonder if women can actually protect themselves,” she said.

“Even if I stop wearing [certain clothes] or going to out-of-the-way places … I’m still powerless in the face of absolute violence,” Shirley said.

The Tangshan beating was just the latest case of violence against women to rock China in recent months,

In February, harrowing video footage of a woman identified as Xiaohuamei chained by the neck in an outbuilding went viral on the Chinese internet, prompting widespread public anger over the rampant trafficking of women and girls, aided and abetted by local ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.

An investigation by Jiangsu provincial authorities said Yang was a missing woman known by the nickname Xiaohuamei who was trafficked out of the southwestern province of Yunnan in 1997 and sold twice by human traffickers in Feng county. Nine people have been arrested for crimes linked to her trafficking, including her “husband,” who was identified by his surname, Dong.

However, doubts remain about Yang’s actual identity.

“Both the Tangshan incident and the case of the chained woman a few months ago, taken together, have contributed to a general concern among Chinese women that there are no guarantees for their personal safety,” Human Rights Watch senior researcher Maya Wang told RFA.

According to the government-backed news website The Paper, found a number of court cases in which men stood trial for beating women who spurned their advances.

A man surnamed Gu was placed under 13 days’ administrative detention Anhui’s Fuyang city after beating a woman who wouldn’t talk to him at a soymilk shop in April 2019, while a man surnamed Zhang was ordered by a court in Baoqing county, Heilongjiang to pay 17,000 yuan in compensation after he beat her up for not talking to him.

In southwestern Guizhou province, a man surnamed Zhu was ordered to pay more than 21,000 yuan in compensation to a woman he beat up after she spurned his drunken approaches, leaving her in hospital for a month recovering from serious injuries.

“The decline of women’s rights is closely related to the decline of human rights,” Wang said. “During the past few years since Xi Jinping came to power, under the framework of this so-called superpower mentality, an important pillar of which is the worship of male power, women are being pushed into more traditional, Confucian roles, encouraged to have more children and return to the domestic life.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.