Day: September 14, 2022

Authorities in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon arrested 15 people on Tuesday evening after breaking up an anti-junta protest calling on the United Nations to extend the tenure of the shadow National Unity Government’s (NUG) envoy to the world body.

A young man who took part in the protest march on Panbingyi Road in West Yangon’s Kyimyindine township told RFA Burmese that several members of the security forces in civilian clothes pulled up in five vehicles at around 4:30 p.m. and confronted his group.

“I can confirm [the identities of] those who were arrested and I’d say they are in a very dangerous situation,” said the man, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

“There were a lot of them in civilian clothes. They arrived in two taxis and three private cars, coming in from all four sides. I saw the guy who was arrested in front of me severely beaten, grabbed by the throat, and dragged away.”

The man said he was late to join in the march and “heard the sound of gunshots and screams” when he arrived, just as the protest was being broken up.

Those who were arrested were members of the Yay Bawai (Octopus) People’s Benevolent Youth Organization, Basic Education Young Students Association (Ah-ka-la-Central), Myanmar Labor Alliance, Burma Youth Network, Pyinnya Nandaw Private School Students’ Union, and the Owl Community, he said.

The protesters had been marching with banners calling on the U.N. to extend the tenure of NUG representative Kyaw Moe Tun, instead of replacing him with an envoy from Myanmar’s military regime, which came to power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup that unseated the country’s democratically elected government.

In December, the U.N. Credentials Committee announced that it would indefinitely postpone the decision, allowing Kyaw Moe Tun to retain his seat, in what observers called a serious blow to Myanmar’s junta on the world stage. 

On Wednesday, the leader of Yay Bawai, which organized the protest, confirmed to RFA that two men, two women, and a person identifying as gender non-binary were among those arrested from his group. He added that the detainees are being held at the Shwe Pyitha and Yay Kyi Aing interrogation centers.

The Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM) announced on Wednesday that five of its members – two women and three men – were among those arrested.

A person who fled arrest told RFA that he saw a few men and some cars – including a Toyota Alphard – parked nearby before the protest started.

Soon after the protest began, people in civilian clothes came out of the cars and violently arrested the protesters, he said, adding that shots were fired and at least one protester was injured.

Reports by local media said that some journalists covering the protest were among those arrested on Tuesday, although RFA was unable to independently confirm the claim.

Tuesday evening’s protest took place on the same street where on Dec. 5 authorities arrested several anti-junta demonstrators after a military vehicle drove into the crowd, hitting several people.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Myanmar’s labor unions have been all but crushed amid a crackdown by the junta in the more than 19 months since the military seized power in a coup, according to union officials and the workers who they represent.

On March 1, 2021 – one month after the takeover – the newly formed junta’s Ministry of Immigration and Manpower declared 16 labor unions and labor activist organizations illegal. Activists who promote workers’ rights and the groups they represent have since become a target of frequent harassment by authorities.

In a report released on Aug. 24, the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Yangon warned that trade unions and civil society organizations (CSOs) providing services to workers and migrants “face an existential threat” in Myanmar following the takeover, citing the severe limitations on their ability to operate amid what it called “targeted persecution.”

The report said the members of unions and CSOs assisting workers face arbitrary arrests, detentions, acts of violence, raids on homes and offices, seizure of equipment, threatening phone calls, and interrogations and surveillance.

The crackdown has left workers at the mercy of their employers and subject to various forms of abuse in the workplace, the ILO said.

On March 14, 2021, a group of unknown individuals set fire to the Chinese-owned No. 2 Solamoda Garment Factory in Yangon region’s Shwe Pyitha township, destroying the structure and causing more than 1,200 workers to lose their jobs.

The affected workers recently told RFA Burmese that the company had agreed to pay them 2.3 billion Myanmar kyats (U.S. $1.1 million) collectively in compensation, but has yet to do so, and no action has been taken by authorities to resolve the case.

One worker from the garment factory, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said that while Myanmar has a long history of labor rights violations, the situation has worsened significantly since the coup.

“Nowadays, when companies hire workers, they only ask for day laborers. They don’t offer jobs with salaries [and benefits],” the worker said.

“If you like it, you take it. But if you can’t accept it, you have no option but to leave … There are no more jobs where you can claim compensation according to the law if you get fired or laid off.”

‘Completely uprooted’

A factory worker in Yangon, who also declined to be named, said demanding labor rights in Myanmar is more difficult than ever, as there are no unions to fight on behalf of workers.

“If workers unite and there are labor organizations in every factory, the unions can negotiate and fight against one-sided regulations,” the worker said.

“Otherwise … the management will sow doubt and dissent among the workers.”

Responding to the ILO’s findings, the junta’s Labor Ministry issued a statement on Sept. 2, rejecting claims that labor organizations are under attack in Myanmar. It said the groups are permitted to form and operate freely.

However, an official from the Federation of General Trade Unions of Myanmar (FGWM) told RFA that trade unions are being systematically “uprooted” in the country and can no longer protect workers.

“Most of the unions have disappeared in the workplaces. The situation is even worse than what the ILO reported,” the official said.

“We have a situation where the unions have been completely uprooted. Those that remain are also in a precarious state, so there aren’t many options for the workers.”

The official said the junta is currently “hunting down” the leaders of trade unions, while employers pressure labor leaders in the workplace to cut off contact with the organizations.

Exploiting workers’ fears

Among the 16 organizations that were dissolved as illegal by the junta in March 2021 were the Solidarity Trade Unions of Myanmar (STUM), the Burma Federation of Labor Unions, Action Labor Right, the All Myanmar Trade Union’s Network, and the Association for Labor Development (ALD).

STUM Director Myo Myo Aye, who was arrested for taking part in anti-junta protests and jailed for more than six months until her release on Oct. 21, 2021, told RFA that any union formed in accordance with the rules of the ILO is “legal” and deserves protection under the law.

“Whether they are recognized or not … it is a labor union,” said the labor leader, who spent 45 days in solitary confinement during her imprisonment.

Despite the junta’s dissolution of Myanmar’s unions, Myo Myo Aye said she continues to fight for the country’s workers as best she can.

“Most of the workers are afraid. They are always worried they will get arrested or sent for interrogation, and employers are taking advantage of those fears,” she said.

“I want to say to them that there’s nothing to be afraid of. You can’t be taken away for interrogation just because you demand your rights. While it’s difficult to [make demands] these days, the workers must do whatever they can. To put it plainly, the unions are dead without movement.”

According to the ILO, at least 1.1 million of Myanmar’s 54.4 million people are unemployed – most of whom are women.

Workers have called for the Ministry of Labor to undertake measures to reduce unemployment and raise the minimum wage, amid rising inflation.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

North Korea is forcing citizens to attend propaganda lectures to promote the newly passed “Nuclear Forces Policy Act,” which authorizes leader Kim Jong Un to order a preemptive nuclear strike to counter threats, but people are griping that the lectures waste time while they struggle to make a living, sources in the country told RFA.

The rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly approved the new law last week, after which Kim vowed in a speech to never give up nuclear weapons, moves that sparked deep concern from members of the international community who hope to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue.

The government organized a week of lectures to explain to the public how the law enhances North Korea’s defensive capabilities, and to highlight its passage as an example of Kim’s greatness, an official from Hyesan in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Today, an intensive lecture promoting the Nuclear Forces Policy Act was held for all residents. But the residents are responding to the lecture, in short, negatively,” said the source. “Lectures will be held every day this week in each institution, company, and region,” he said, adding that 100 percent of the population must attend all week.

“Today’s lecture emphasized that as long as Kim Jong Un breathes, we must have faith that victory will soon follow,” he said.

Shortly after the law was passed, citizens began speculating on why, so the authorities say the lectures are supposed to prevent rumors from spreading, according to the source.

“People have been talking about the new law, saying they passed it because closed-door talks with other countries to get financial aid without giving up nuclear weapons have failed,” the source said.

The source did not specify which closed-door talks the people were referring to, however, summits in 2018 and 2019 between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump failed to produce an agreement on sanctions relief for partial denuclearization. North Korea has additionally held summits with South Korea, China and Russia during the same time frame.

Citizens generally do not like hearing about the nuclear issue because they are more concerned with making ends meet while the economy is in dire circumstances, according to the source.

“The residents are very aware right now that the development and possession of nuclear weapons are not helping their lives at all, so they think the order to attend lectures about it is a waste of time,” the source said.

“They accuse the government of benign paranoid … making a fuss as if the U.S. is on the brink of attacking us,” he said.

In addition to the lectures that justify the new law, the citizens in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong must also study Kim Jong Un’s speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly last week, an official in the province’s Onsong county told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Many residents did not react favorably to Kim’s promise to keep North Korea nuclear, he said.

“They are concerned about the negative consequences of the adoption of this new policy, saying that the country’s economy and residents’ lives have reached a tipping point,” the second source said..

The lectures will also focus on the country’s achievements in Kim Jong Un’s first 10 years as ruler, and its successes in the struggle to construct a socialist society, he said.

Warning from Seoul

In response to the North’s new nuclear law, South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense issued a stern warning Tuesday.

“Should North Korea attempt to use nuclear arms, it would face the overwhelming response from the South Korea-U.S. alliance, and its regime would enter a path of self-destruction,” ministry spokesperson Moon Hong-sik told a press briefing. 

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

Faced with falling birth rates, authorities in Anhui are gearing up to remove bans on unmarried women having children.

The Anhui Provincial Health and Health Commission issued a draft change to regulations for public comment that will free up requirements around registering births and remove a ban on single women registering a birth, the official provincial news website AnhuiWang reported.

“Citizens who already have children will no longer be restricted to a certain number of births, and will be able to apply to register new births,” the document said.

“If no marriage has been registered, the ID card or household registration booklet should be supplied,” the draft rules say.

The draft rules go further than a similar document issued by the central province of Hunan in July 2022, which allowed couples to register births if marriages were planned in the next few months, according to a report on the Sohu news platform.

The proposals come as China’s population records zero growth, with the number of newborns falling to just 10.62 million in 2021, the Global Times newspaper quoted the National Bureau of Statistics as saying.

Lu Jun, founder of the non-profit Beijing Yirenping Center, who now lives in New York, said that the reproductive rights of unmarried women in China were ignored for a long time during the era of family planning controls under the draconian “one-child” policy.

“Unmarried [mothers] couldn’t get a birth certificate in the past; hospitals wouldn’t give them pregnancy tests, prenatal care or deliver their babies,” Lu said.

“Birth certificates weren’t available to them … and if they had a baby it wouldn’t have a hukou [household registration],” he said. “Without the hukou, the kid wouldn’t even be able to go to school, and there would be no benefits such as maternity insurance.”

‘Predicated on marriage’

Lu welcomed the proposed changes in Anhui, but also called for changes to the law and regulations to allow single women to freeze their eggs or access other forms of fertility technology — something they are currently barred from doing.

“This technology is all predicated on marriage,” he said.

“They think that people’s right to reproduce needs to be managed by the state, and they don’t see it as part of their natural rights as human beings,” Lu said.

Online responses to the plan have been mixed, with some commentators worrying about the effect on children of growing up without a father, and others about a lack of legal protection for children born out outside of marriages.

But Lu said the biggest purveyor of discrimination is the Chinese government.

“China has always claimed to be a socialist country and should pay more attention to equality,” Lu said. “Children born out of wedlock should enjoy the same rights and dignity as children born in wedlock.”

“If these rights were respected, then prejudice and discrimination wouldn’t naturally not exist,” he said. “Then how would children be negatively impacted? It could set a good example for the whole of society.”

Kuan-ting Chen of the Taiwan Next-Gen Foundation think tank, agreed.

“The rights and interests of children born can’t be damaged by [their mother’s] unmarried status,” Chen said. “This is unfair to children.”

“Whether single-parent families have problems depends on many factors, including their level of income and education,” he said.

“The situation [should be] that, when both parties agree not to marry, [the child] is raised by the father or mother [alone].”

Supportive policies

He said the democratic island of Taiwan has a raft of policies aimed at encouraging people to have kids.

“There’s good nursery provision, public kindergartens, and a system of qualified childminders,” Chen said. “The key thing is that the government plays an important role in creating an environment suitable for children to grow up in.”

“Taiwanese society is relatively open, and [the government] uses policy to adjust the level of assistance and make that good environment.”

Lu said that without more supportive policies, any move to allowing single parenthood is unlikely to have much impact in China in the near term.

Officials vowed last month to ensure unmarried mothers receive maternity benefits, with Liu Juan, deputy director of payment security at the National Healthcare Security Administration, following media reports that regional authorities were still asking for marriage certificates.

A joint plan announced by 17 government departments in August 2022 vowed to offer “support policies in finance, tax, housing, employment, education and other fields to create a fertility-friendly society and encourage families to have more children.”

They promised expanded community nursery services, better infant and child care services at local level, including funding for the building of new early years facilities and government controls on childcare fees, as well as government perks for nurseries in the form of cheaper bills.

They also promise to “build a fertility-friendly employment environment,” encouraging flexible working and family-friendly workplaces, and safeguarding the labor and employment rights of parents.

But women’s rights activists and other commentators said discrimination in the workplace still presents major obstacles to equality for Chinese women, despite protections enshrined in the country’s law.

Chinese women still face major barriers to finding work in the graduate labor market and fear getting pregnant if they have a job, out of concern their employer will fire them.

 Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has arrived in Kazakhstan at the start of a state visit to two Central Asian countries that will see him meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a regional strategic summit in Uzbekistan, and amid speculation of a meeting with the Pope.

Xi touched down in Nur-Sultan on Wednesday morning, where he was met by Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev and other senior officials, state news agency Xinhua reported.

He will be in the country at the same time as Pope Francis, prompting speculation that there could be a meeting.

Asked en route to Kazakhstan whether he would meet Xi, the Pope replied that he was ready to go to China at any time, but said he had no information on any potential meeting.

Taiwanese national security researcher Shih Chien-yu said that even if the meeting does take place, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unlikely to concede much on its treatment of Chinese Catholics, amid an ongoing clampdown on all forms of religious activity.

“The CCP hasn’t been in further contact with the Holy See [since a deal was signed between the two sides in 2018],” Shih said. “They haven’t felt the need to make any more concessions … because they are implementing their sinicization of religions policy.”

Chang Chia-lin, former religious affairs professor at Taiwan’s Aletheia University, said the 2018 deal had been functioning well so far.

“I think it has been maintained so far,” Chang said. “As for the Pope, if he makes any visits to Chinese dioceses, then this will likely be a warning signal that the Vatican is getting ready to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan.”

“But he hasn’t been allowed to visit them yet by the Chinese side.”

Meanwhile, Beijing declined to comment on the forthcoming meeting with Putin, which has been confirmed by the Russian side.

“The heads of state of China and Russia have maintained close contact and conducted strategic communication through various means for a long time now,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

“Regarding the specific questions you mention, I have no information at present, and refer to you previously published news.” she said.

Li Zhanshu, the No. 3 figure of the Communist Party of China and Chairman of the National People’s Congress, has just left Russia. while Yang Jiechi, Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, met the Russian ambassador to China on Sept. 12.

Xi’s trip is expected to focus on broad strategic concerns in response to the United States’ formation of the Quad alongside Japan, Australia and India in a bid to counter Beijing’s increasingly assertive foreign policy.

Xi and Putin will meet at the eight-member SCO Summit, which also includes Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan, with the president taking the trip at a time when Chinese citizens have been barred from non-essential foreign travel.

It also comes as his ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gears up for its 20th National Congress on Oct. 16, during which Xi is widely expected to secure an unprecedented third term in office following constitutional amendments in 2018.

The last time Xi met Putin at the February 2022 Winter Olympics — shortly before Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine — the two leaders declared a “no limits” friendship that has seen China claim neutrality but decline to criticize the war, amid a large spike in its exports of electronics components and other raw materials to Russia since the war began.

Until now, Xi has taken part in other international engagement via video link, only making the trip to Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover to China.

Formed under Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao, the SCO is seen as a counterweight to U.S. alliances across East Asia to the Indian Ocean amid increasingly tense relations with Washington, Europe, Japan and India over trade, technology, security, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights and territorial conflicts at sea and in the Himalayas.

Rolling out his “Global Security Initiative” in April, Xi said he aimed to ”uphold the principle of indivisibility of security” and “oppose the building of national security on the basis of insecurity in other countries.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.