Day: June 21, 2022

Chinese authorities sentenced a young Tibetan language activist arrested in October 2021 to four years and five months in prison, although his friends and family members remain in the dark about where he was taken, a source in Tibet told RFA on Monday.

Thupten Lodoe, also known by his pen name Sabuche, is in his 30s and hails from Seshul county (in Chinese Shiqu), part of the Garze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province. 

“He was actually arrested in October of last year and 2021 [and] convicted of ‘separatist acts and creating disorder in society’ on June 13 or 14,” said a friend of his in Tibet, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “We don’t know where he is imprisoned at the moment.” 

Lodoe was reportedly taken to Sichuan’s capital Chengdu following his arrest, according to an earlier RFA report.

Lodoe’s arrest comes as part of a larger crackdown by the Chinese government on Tibetan writers, intellectuals and cultural leaders who are arbitrarily imprisoned in undisclosed locations, usually for long periods. In most cases, authorities do not provide information about their charges and sentencing details to their families.

Fluent in Chinese, English and Tibetan, Lodoe is known to have studied at a school established by the Panchen Lama, a Tibetan spiritual leader. After his graduation, Lodoe taught in a school in his town.

The Chinese government previously offered Lodoe 10,000 yuan (U.S. $1,500) for a job, which he turned down to advocate for the preservation of the Tibetan language, sources told RFA earlier.

“Lodoe was sentenced to four years and five months in prison for allegedly writing about the real situation of Tibetans inside Tibet under the Chinese government and sharing them on social media,” said his friend.

Chinese police had warned Lodoe once before to stop writing such articles, but he kept doing so, he added.

Lodoe also translated many works from Chinese and English into Tibetan for which the Chinese government considered him a threat, which was another reason for his arrest, the Tibetan said.

Now, the Chinese government has erased Lodoe’s social media posts and blocked his accounts, he said.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

With a shortage of vaccines in North Korea, the government is telling unvaccinated soldiers to rely on unproven folk remedies if they come down with coronavirus symptoms, sources in the country told RFA.

North Korea has been importing Chinese vaccines for use among the military and has held widely publicized vaccination campaigns involving soldiers. But not every member of the military has been fortunate enough to receive the so-called “potion of love” from the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Instead, they have been told to turn to unproven folk remedies if they get sick.

“Fever continues to emerge among soldiers who could not be vaccinated due to a lack of vaccines,” a resident of South Hwanghae province, on the peninsula’s western coast, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Military authorities are recommending folk remedies such as indoor disinfection using mugwort smoke and gargling with salt water,” she said.

According to the source, only soldiers working off base were vaccinated due to an insufficient amount of vaccine inventory imported from China.

“The vaccinations were limited to the soldiers of the military police squadron who perform crackdowns against other soldiers, the communication battalion, the divisional medical office, and the rear support battalion. Even so, soldiers within those units who are on ordinary guard duty, are known to have been excluded from the vaccination,” she said.

“Unvaccinated troops and soldiers were excluded from rural support or community service. Last year, soldiers helped rice planting and harvesting at a nearby farm. But, this spring, the authorities banned the unit from rural support activities due to fear of the spread of COVID-19,” said the source.

In North Hamgyong province, in the country’s northeast, only the coast guard, the military police and staff of military hospitals are vaccinated, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“The military authorities are designating units and soldiers to be vaccinated separately as there is a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines. Only officers and soldiers who have been vaccinated are permitted to engage in outside activities,” the second source said.

“Most soldiers who did not get vaccinated were instructed not to leave the barracks and to prevent COVID-19 with folk remedies such as mugwort smoke disinfection and gargling salt water,” she said.

Soldiers tending two salmon farms, one of which Kim Jong Un once visited to provide guidance on its operations, were also excluded from vaccination, according to the source. Places visited by the country’s leaders are usually given special considerations long after the trip, so it is somewhat surprising that the fish-raising soldiers did not receive vaccines.

“There are complaints within the military over what authorities have implemented. The authorities have declared a national emergency and even implemented nationwide lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but they have failed to secure enough COVID-19 vaccines,” said the second source.

“Very few soldiers have been vaccinated. However, some soldiers are rather fortunate in that they were not mobilized for rural support labor because they are not vaccinated,” she said.

RFA reported in May that the North Korean government began a vaccination campaign for soldiers working on a high-priority construction project in Pyongyang. The event was filmed and used as propaganda, complete with soldiers weeping at receiving Kim Jong Un’s “Immortal Potion of Love.”

Citizens who saw the propaganda complained that the government only secured enough vaccines for the military, not for the general public.

After two years of denying the pandemic had penetrated its closed borders, North Korea in May declared a “maximum emergency” and acknowledged the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade the previous month.

Though North Korea has not been tracking confirmed coronavirus cases, possibly due to lack of testing equipment, state media has been publishing daily figures of people who report fever symptoms.

As of Monday, 4.65 million people have come down with fever, nearly 99.4 percent of whom have recovered, according to data published by the state run Korea Central News Agency.

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

Police in northwestern Laos’ Bokeo province rescued nearly 500 trapped workers in the past year, including about 200 women who were victims of human trafficking in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a provincial official said.

Bokeo Deputy Gov. Khamphaya Phompanya told Kikeo Khaykhamphithoune, Laos’ deputy prime minister and chairman of the National Committee on Anti-Human Trafficking, during a June 14 meeting that police rescued 477 workers between May 2021 and May 2022.

The smallest and least populous province in the landlocked country is home to the SEZ, a gambling and tourism hub catering to the Chinese situated along the Mekong River where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet. In 2018, the U.S. government sanctioned the Chinese tycoon who is said to run the SEZ as head of a trafficking network.

Most of those rescued have been Lao nationals lured by middlemen to perform jobs as scammers trying to convince people to invest or buy shares in the Kings Romans Casino. When they couldn’t meet their sales quotas, they were detained against their will, and in some cases sold off to work in the sex industry.

“Our police department estimates that there are a lot of workers who are still being abused in the Golden Triangle SEZ in Bokeo province and haven’t been rescued,” Khamphaya said during the meeting. “Rescuing workers in the SEZ is not easy because the SEZ is controlled by the Chinese, and not accessible by the Lao authorities.”

Lao authorities cannot easily enter the Chinese-run zone, which operates largely beyond the reach of the Lao government. Provincial police officers have been able to rescue workers being held against their will by their employer only after the women have contacted the authorities.

At the end of the meeting, Kikeo said that the Lao government began implementing a five-year anti-human trafficking plan to crack down on human trafficking nationwide in 2021.

Bokeo province officials have put in place their own measures to protect SEZ workers. In February, they began requiring all employers to sign labor contracts that ensure workers have a safe workplace, insurance benefits and fair wages.

The authorities also prohibit forced labor and require regular monitoring and reporting of work and living conditions to the provincial management office. Once the contracts are signed, workers receive a province-issued smart card showing their identity and the name of their employer.

Labor contract disputes

A Bokeo province police officer, who like other sources requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA that authorities know there are still many more abused and trapped workers in the SEZ, but they don’t know the number.

“[M]any Lao and foreign workers have been abused [while] having labor disputes with Chinese employers,” he said. “For example, they couldn’t do the jobs, and the employers wouldn’t give them any food and water, or would detain them or sell them to massage parlors and brothels.”

“We don’t know the number because the SEZ is a Chinese territory,” the police officer said. “We can go in there only when we’re allowed to.”

A member of Bokeo’s anti-human trafficking unit said it also was difficult to rescue trapped workers because they have signed employment contracts.

“We can’t help many workers such as those who have labor contracts with their employers for six months or one year,” he said. “They have to abide by the contracts. We can help only those who are abused and didn’t sign the contracts.”

A Lao woman who recently escaped from the SEZ confirmed that human trafficking is still occurring despite the Lao government’s efforts.

“Right now, they [human traffickers] are still recruiting Lao and Thai girls, women and men to work in the SEZ,” she told RFA, adding that recruiters usually are paid 15,000 baht (U.S. $425) for each person they recruit.

“Many workers experience all kinds of hardship and still continue to work in the SEZ because they come from very poor families,” she said. “They have no other choice but to work there.”

Another former SEZ worker said when middlemen tried to sell him women, he declined because he pitied them.

“In the SEZ, a woman can be sold for sex for 2,000 yuan (U.S. $300) per night or 400 yuan (U.S. $60) for one time.”

Translated by Max Avary for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Four civilians and a local militia member were found killed Monday after a three-day raid by junta troops and allied fighters on a village in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region that saw 10,000 civilians flee the area, Myanmar sources say.

The five victims, whose charred bodies were discovered after being left behind by departing junta soldiers, were buried by residents of Chaung-U township’s Nyaungbin Tae village when they returned following the attack, one local villager told RFA on Tuesday.

A military column combining Myanmar military and fighters from the Pyu Saw Htee, a pro-junta armed group, had entered the village on Saturday, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“When they arrived, all the villagers ran to safety, leaving only four or five people behind in the village,” the source said. “During the raid, one of the village guards was killed by artillery fire, but we weren’t able to recover his body until the soldiers left the village on June 20.

“We later found all the bodies and buried them yesterday,” the source said.

Killed in Nyaungbin Tae by junta troops and allied fighters were 20-year-old Toe Naing Win, a member of a local People’s Defense Force unit set up to oppose junta rule; Paw Kyi, 52, whose body was found burned in a house; and 37-year-old Ne Win and 49-year-old Pyay Aye, whose bodies were found in a cornfield nearby, sources said.

The body of Aung Min, 48, was later found outside the village, they said.

The June 18 raid on the village was carried out by a force of around 80 junta soldiers, all in plain clothes, a local anti-junta militia member told RFA, also declining to be named.

“There was no fighting, no clash,” the source said. “They entered the village after shelling it with heavy weapons, and one of our comrades was killed by an artillery shell. Two others were injured, one in the hand and the other on his body.

“Four men were killed in the village altogether, three of them when their house was set on fire. One other man was shot dead in the road when he would not carry the soldiers’ stuff,” he said.

The soldiers may have been attached to Light Infantry Battalions 357, 368 and 369, and were accompanied by pro-junta fighters from the Pyu Saw Htee pro-junta militia, he added.

Before leaving Nyaungbin Tae, soldiers looted the village’s nearly 275 homes of cash, jewelry and other valuables, villagers said.

‘We all had to run’

Also speaking to RFA, a 70-year-old villager confirmed that junta soldiers had attacked Nyaungbin Tae with heavy weapons. “We all had to run, and older women who could not run had to be taken away on motorcycles,” the villager said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

“One woman who was paralyzed had to be left behind in the village,” he said.

“The men who were killed were too attached to their livestock and refused to leave. They were seized and killed. Now I don’t even want to hear anything about the army, and I don’t want to see them,” he added.

Requests for comment by junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun received no reply.

Sagaing has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting to take place between junta troops and opposition forces since Myanmar’s military overthrew civilian rule in a February 2021 coup.

Villagers say junta forces have indiscriminately attacked communities, killing civilians, torching homes and forcing thousands to flee in search of safety.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Authorities in the northern Chinese province of Hebei have launched a crackdown on “fake news,” in a move commentators said was likely a bid to suppress widespread reporting of the vicious beatings of women at a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan earlier this month.

The Hebei provincial state prosecutor, internet regulator, state-run journalists’ association and radio, film and television bureau issued a joint notice launching “a special campaign targeting fake news and extortion in journalism,” vowing to crack down on “fake media, fake reporters and fake news.”

The move comes amid social media reports that Tangshan police have been obstructing state media journalists as they try to follow up on a crackdown on organized crime in the city sparked by public outrage at the beating incident.

Its scope mirrors a campaign announced at the national level in the summer of 2021.

“[These government departments] have launched a special campaign against fake news and journalistic extortion,” the provincial government website said in a report published June 16.

“The chief task of this … campaign will be to crack down on journalistic extortion and fake news, investigate and punish fake media, fake reporters, and fake bureaus, and rectify ‘paid-for news’,” the report said.

The campaign will be led by a taskforce in the propaganda department of the provincial branch of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it said.

Chinese journalist Lu Nan said the provincial authorities’ move to adopt the nationwide campaign is likely a direct attempt to shut down independent accounts of the Tangshan beatings and the anti-crime campaign that followed.

“They don’t want to solve problems using the rule of law, but just move to solve law-enforcement issues with non-legal means, moving straight to ‘strike hard’ campaigns,” Lu told RFA.

“All this means is that they want to keep up their total control over public expression,” he said.

Pressure on media

Lu cited the case of the Guizhou TV reporter detained and interrogated by police after arriving at the Tangshan railway station.

“Just a few days ago, they were interrogating [journalists] one by one as they arrived in Tangshan, and even treated some journalists roughly who went to report there,” Lu said.

“The only reason for doing such things is to cover up the truth.”
 
Hebei-based scholar Wang Zheng agreed, saying the move was an indirect way of putting pressure on news organizations and social media sites.

“Why do they want to crack down on fake news? Because they are the ones who are fake,” Wang told RFA. “Some people want to report the truth, maybe citizen journalists, but they won’t be allowed.”

“Sometimes citizen journalists will volunteer to cover a certain story, sometimes for a fee, given that they have to take risks, that’s very reasonable,” he said.

A Zhejiang-based journalist surnamed Jiang said the local authorities are clearly keen to avoid any follow-up reporting of the Tangshan beatings, which prompted widespread shock and anger on social media.

“Naturally they need to lay down the law and frighten the media so as to suppress any follow-up reporting on the Tangshan beating incident,” Jiang said.

“This comes along with the deletion of tens of thousands of posts from Sina Weibo relating to Tangshan in the past couple of days, and the closure of tens of thousands of accounts.”

He added: “Shanghai lawyers have also gotten a notice from the municipal justice bureau saying they are banned from representing any of the victims of the Tangshan beatings,” Jiang said.

Two beaten women still in hospital

Two of the four women beaten by a gang of thugs at the restaurant remain in hospital 11 days after the attack, despite claims from the authorities that they had sustained “second degree minor injuries.”

The deputy chief of the Tangshan police Lubei branch, which was responsible for the initial handling of the case, has been fired, while the authorities have promised an investigation into the slow response to incidents and “serious violations of laws and discipline” by Tangshan’s police department.

Police arrived at the scene 28 minutes after they received the report, by which time the injured had already been sent to hospital.

Video footage of the incident showed four women who had been eating at a late-night barbecue restaurant being brutally attacked by a group of men in the early hours of June 10, after one of them harassed a woman, who flapped a hand at her harasser and fought back after she was slapped, prompting the others to join in to repel the man.

The attackers shoved the women to the ground, kicked them, threw a chair at them, and later dragged one of the women out of the restaurant to continue beating her outside. One was taken away on a stretcher with a visibly bloodied and swollen face.

The claim that the women sustained “minor injuries” was met with skepticism on social media.

But the CCP-backed Global Times said the official classification of “minor injuries” could include anything up to broken ribs, perforated eyeballs or rupture of tissues and organs.

Nine suspects – seven men and two women – were formally arrested on June 12, it said.

It said five officials are being investigated for by the CCP’s own discipline inspection and supervision arm, including Ma Aijun, the head of the public security bureau of Lubei district in Tangshan.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.