Day: July 25, 2022

The follower of a Vietnamese religious group which has as many as two million believers faced more than six hours of interrogation on returning to the country from a conference in the U.S.

1926 Pure Cao Dai member Nguyen Xuan Mai went to Washington, D.C. to attend the 2022 International Religious Freedom Summit which took place from June 28 to 30. She also met with many international organizations to call for religious freedom in Vietnam.

On her return to Ho Chi Minh City’s international airport on Friday evening she was asked by airport security to talk with nine officials, Mai told RFA on Saturday morning.

“I was there from 8 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. the next day,” she said. “They [airport security] invited me to follow them over some issue, so I followed. There were nine people working, including one policeman from Vinh Long province and two policemen from Hanoi, one named Tran Dai.”

The officers took her phone and checked her messages, printed all her emails and forced her to sign a letter of confirmation, Mai said.

“My emails were already deleted, but they were still in the trash,” Mai said. “They took 90 of my documents and then printed them out asking me to sign to confirm that those people sent me emails.

There was nothing wrong with my emails, just material for classes on human rights, and international and Vietnamese religious law. I honestly told them that, so it would be quick and wouldn’t create any difficulties for me.”

“They said we should work together to see if I was sincere or hiding anything. I said I wasn’t denying anything. In general, I did not do anything to break the law.”

Two riot police cars were parked outside the international terminal’s exit according to Mai’s daughter Nguyen Mai Tram. She said nearly a dozen people in plain clothes filmed and took pictures of a group of Cao Dai followers who had come to welcome Mai.

“There were two riot police cars parked outside. A policeman walked around behind me filming and taking pictures of me, but he didn’t ask anything,” she said.

Fellow Cao Dai member Tran Ngoc Suong said he and many fellow believers had to avoid police guards at their homes to get to the airport.

Suong said while he was at the airport, a police officer in Tien Giang province named Manh, who didn’t give his family name, called a member of the delegation to “advise” everyone to go home because Mai was being held for interrogation and he was not sure when she would be released:

“He said he saw me sitting to greet Xuan Mai, and advised me to go home because Mrs. Xuan Mai would be detained and could not return,” Suong said.

The 1926 Pure Cao Dai group says the name of the religion is based on the year of its founding and it is an original religion, not under the direction of the State, and not part of the Cao Dai state-affiliated religious sect established by the Vietnamese government in 1997.

Followers of 1926 Pure Cao Dai in Tien Giang province say they have frequently been harassed for many years by a policeman named Manh. He forced them to give up their religion to join a religious sect established by the government, Suong said.

During her visit to Washington Mai met with some U.S. religious officials to raise the status of Pure Cao Dai followers who had been beaten and suffered years of repression. She met U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain and Katrina Lantos-Swett, co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit Steering Committee.

Former US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback wrote on Twitter:

“It is very worrying about the news that Ms. Mai disappeared after returning to Vietnam. She was released by the police after six hours of questioning. Thankfully she is on her way home but this is a completely unwarranted form of harassment by the government.”

Myanmar’s junta has executed veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy, state media reported. New Light of Myanmar announced the executions of Ko Jimmy, former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zeyar Thaw and two others without reporting the date and method of killings, although it is believed the men were all hanged.

The New Light of Myanmar said “the punishment has been carried out under the prison’s procedures,” without elaborating.

Former student leader Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, was convicted on terrorism charges for activities against the military regime that has ruled the country since a coup last year, according to state media.

The first judicial executions in Myanmar since 1988 came despite a direct appeal on June 11 by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to junta leader Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. Hun Sen acted in his role as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member.

Ko Jimmy was a prominent leader of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students Group who fought military rule three decades ago.

The 53-year-old activist was arrested in October after spending eight months in hiding and was convicted by a military tribunal in January under the Counter-Terrorism Law.

He was accused of contacting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, National Unity Government (NUG), and People’s Defense Force (PDF), an opposition coalition and militia network formed by politicians ousted in the Feb. 1 coup that the junta has declared terrorist organizations.

In September, the NUG declared a nationwide state of emergency and called for open rebellion against junta rule, prompting an escalation of attacks on military targets by various allied pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups.

Ko Jimmy, an outspoken critic of the junta, was also accused of advising local militia groups in Yangon and ordering PDF groups to attack police, military targets, and government offices, and asking the NUG to buy a 3D printer to produce weapons for local PDFs.

On June 3, Ko Jimmy, former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zeyar Thaw, and two others lost appeals of their death sentences. The junta rejected the possibility of a pardon for the condemned men.

The four death sentences, as well 111 others that have been handed down by junta courts between the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, and May 19 this year, have drawn criticism from legal experts and rights groups, who say the regime is threatening the public with unfair executions.

The United Nations, Washington, Ottawa, and Paris have issued statements strongly condemning the decisions in the cases now proceeding to execution.

Hun Sen on June 10 wrote a letter to Min Aung Hlaing, urging him to “reconsider the sentences and refrain from carrying out the death sentences.”

He said the executions “would trigger a very strong and widespread negative reaction from the international community” and hurt efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Myanmar.

In an interview with RFA Burmese last month, Ko Jimmy’s wife Nilar Thein called the planned executions “a blatant violation of human rights” for which the junta would be held accountable.

“Regardless of what they will do, I want them to know they will be accountable for their decisions. Their acts will not be forgotten,” said Nilar Thein.

Responding to Monday’s announcement, activist group Justice for Myanmar Tweeted: “The shocking executions of Phyo Zeya Thaw, Ko Jimmy, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw are #CrimesAgainstHumanity and #WarCrimes. All perpetrators from Min Aung Hlaing down must be held accountable for these brazen acts of cruelty. #EndImpunity.”

Written By Paul Eckert.

Myanmar’s military authorities have executed four democracy activists accused of helping carry out “terror acts,” state media said on Monday, the Southeast Asian nation’s first executions in decades.

Sentenced to death in January during a closed-door trial, the four men had been accused of helping militias to fight the army that seized power in a coup last year and unleashed a bloody crackdown on its opponents.

Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration outlawed by the ruling military junta, condemned the reported executions.

“Extremely saddened…condemn the junta’s cruelty with strongest terms if it’s the case,” the NUG president’s office spokesman Kyaw Zaw told Reuters via message.

“The global community must punish their cruelty.”

Among those executed were democracy figure Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Jimmy, and former lawmaker and hip-hop artist Phyo Zeya Thaw, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

Kyaw Min Yu, 53, and Phyo Zeya Thaw, a 41-year-old ally of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, lost their appeals against the sentences in June. The two others executed were Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw.

“I am outraged and devastated at the news of the junta’s execution of Myanmar patriots and champions of human rights and democracy,” Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a statement.

“My heart goes out to their families, friends and loved ones and indeed all the people in Myanmar who are victims of the junta’s escalating atrocities,” said rights expert Andrews. “These depraved acts must be a turning point for the international community.”

Thazin Nyunt Aung, the wife of Phyo Zeyar Thaw, said she had not been told of her husband’s execution. Other relatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

The men had been held in the colonial-era Insein prison and a person with knowledge of the events said their families visited the prison last Friday. Only one relative was allowed to speak to the detainees via the Zoom online platform, said the person.

The four had been charged under the counter-terrorism law and the penal code and the punishment was carried out according to prison procedure, the paper said, without elaborating.

Previous executions in Myanmar have been by hanging.

An activist group, the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), said Myanmar’s last judicial executions were in the late 1980s.

A military spokesman did not immediately respond to telephone calls to seek comment.

International condemnation

Last month military spokesman Zaw Min Tun defended the death penalty, saying it was justified and used in many countries.

“At least 50 innocent civilians, excluding security forces, died because of them,” he told a televised news conference.

“How can you say this is not justice?” he asked. “Required actions are needed to be done in the required moments.”

The sentences had drawn international condemnation, with two U.N. experts calling them a “vile attempt at instilling fear” among the people.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), appealed in a letter in June to junta leader Min Aung Hlaing not to carry out the executions, relaying deep concern among Myanmar’s neighbors.

Myanmar’s ruling junta has condemned foreign statements about the execution orders as “reckless and interfering.”

Myanmar has been in chaos since last year’s coup, with conflict spreading nationwide after the army crushed mostly peaceful protests in cities.

“These horrendous executions were murders. They’re a part of the junta’s ongoing crimes against humanity and attack on the civilian population,” Matthew Smith, head of Southeast Asia’s Fortify Rights, told Reuters.

“The junta would be completely wrong to think this would instill fear in the hearts of the revolution.”

The AAPP says more than 2,100 people have been killed by the security forces since the coup, but the junta says the figure is exaggerated.

The true picture of violence has been hard to assess as clashes have spread to more remote areas where ethnic minority insurgent groups are also fighting the military.

Last Friday, the World Court rejected Myanmar’s objections to a genocide case over its treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority, paving the way for the case to be heard in full.

The latest executions close off any chance of ending the unrest in the country, said Myanmar analyst Richard Horsey, of the International CRISIS group.

“Any possibility of dialogue to end the crisis created by the coup has now been removed,” Horsey told Reuters.

“This is the regime demonstrating that it will do what it wants and listen to no one. It sees this as a demonstration of strength, but it may be a serious miscalculation.”

Source: Voice of America