About 300 members of the Cambodian diaspora in the U.S. rallied at United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday, demanding that the Phnom Penh government release political prisoners and implement democratic reforms as Prime Minister Hun Sen was set to address the U.N. General Assembly.
The protesters displayed photos of detained activists from the now-dissolved Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), whose leader Sam Rainsy has been in exile in France, and urged Hun Sen, the country’s long-ruling strongman, to release his grip on power.
“Please respect human rights, release political activists to their freedom, and have free and fair elections in which all parties can participate,” Sam Vathana of Long Beach, California, told RFA when asked what his message was for Hun Sen.
Chun Sothy, a CNRP activist who recently received asylum in the United States, traveled from North Carolina to attend the New York protest, told RFA that he was persecuted in Cambodia and fled to Thailand for three years before coming to the U.S.
“I want Hun Sen to return our positions that he robbed from us. I am a former commune councilor. He robbed 5,007 seats,” Chun Sothy said. “He robbed the wills of more than 3 million people. If Hun Sen loves peace, why did he rob the wills of the people?”
Chun Sothy was referring to Cambodia’s recent communal elections, which opposition activists and civil society groups said was marred by pressure campaigns from Hun Sen’s allies.
“I want to tell the world that Hun Sen is not a leader who was elected. He stole power and we are living under a dictatorial and corrupt regime,” Chun Sothy said.
The prime minister, who has ruled Cambodia for more than three decades, did not schedule any meetings with Cambodians now living in the U.S. while on his trip to the U.S., saying he was too busy. But some of his supporters greeted him at his hotel in New York.
Members of the Cambodian diaspora protest against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s authoritarian rule as the long-time strongman was set to address the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 23, 2022.
The protest was organized by the Cambodia-Myanmar Group, in opposition to “Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party’s (CPP) decades-long tyrannical rule in the country,” the group said.
It called on Cambodia “to reverse all wrongful convictions and detentions,” including the recent conviction of Cambodian American human rights attorney Seng Theary for conspiracy to commit treason, part of a mass trial largely viewed as part of a broader crackdown on critics of Hun Sen.
Since coming to power in 1985, Hun Sen has consistently targeted opponents to his rule and placed CPP officials in positions of authority nationwide. Parties that challenge his rule are often subjected to investigations, arrests and other forms of harassment by CPP officials and their supporters.
Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh.
North Koreans are continuing to test positive for COVID-19 and several have died of starvation during lengthy quarantines more than one month after Pyongyang “declared victory” over the virus, sources in the country told RFA.
On Aug. 10, the country’s leader Kim Jong Un ended “maximum emergency” restrictions that had been in place since May, saying the country had won its battle against COVID.
But the disease is spreading and North Koreans are still dying from it, a resident in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“As the weather gets cooler in the fall, the number of farmers confirmed with COVID-19 is increasing in Kimhyongjik county, which faces the border with China,” the source said.
“Last week, a couple in their 60s living in Muchang village died while quarantining at home, only ten days after being confirmed to be infected with COVID-19,” he said.
During the emergency, North Korea had been keeping a tally of “fever cases.” The total reached around 4.8 million people, and state media reported 75 related deaths. These figures were never confirmed to be COVID-19 related, likely because of a lack of testing capabilities.
But the source said that health authorities are now using Chinese self-test kits to unofficially confirm infection.
Doctors visit the households of sick people once a day to take their temperature. After three days with a fever, they report it to the county’s quarantine commander, who will come to administer a test.
If they test positive, they must quarantine at home for 20 days.
But even though authorities are now testing for the disease, they still try to cover up deaths, according to the source.
“The quarantine authorities carried the bodies away by ambulance without informing their son who lives in the same neighborhood,” he said. “They buried the bodies in a mountain away from the neighborhood. Their son is angry because he is unable to even hold a funeral for his parents.”
During the emergency, suspected COVID-19 patients were sent to a group quarantine facility, where they were monitored. After the emergency officially ended, patients were required to quarantine at home.
“COVID-19 patients and their families who quarantine at home only receive two tablets of fever-reducer each day, and no food is provided for them,” the source said. “Residents are blaming the authorities for not taking care of the patients by blindly isolating them. They argue that COVID-19 patients are dying because they do not eat properly.”
A 72-year-old woman in nearby Kimjongsuk county’s Songjon village died during quarantine in her home one week after testing positive for COVID-19, a resident there told RFA.
“The quarantine authorities only supplied two fever-reducer tablets to the patient each day during the quarantine period. They also gave two tablets to her daughter in her 40s, her son-in-law, grandson and granddaughter, all who lived with her,” the second source said.
“They were all quarantined at home as suspected cases, and they were not given food at all,” she said. “Families who are quarantined at home are not able to work, nor can they go out to buy food at the marketplace. This family not only had to worry about dying from COVID-19, they also had to try not to starve to death, by eating corn and potatoes from their garden.”
Though the family attempted to hold a funeral for her, authorities quickly seized the body, put it on an ambulance and sped away, according to the second source. They buried the body in the mountains away from where people live, and only told the family the location of the burial site.
“They said they were not allowed to hold a funeral for COVID-19 dead,” she said. “Residents are dying from symptoms of COVID-19 because there are no measures to supply food and medicine to COVID-19 patients. Residents are resentful that the authorities falsely advertise that we are a COVID-free country.”
Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
At least one person is dead and 19 more are missing after a boat carrying 41 Chinese passengers sank in the Gulf of Thailand, authorities said Friday.
The small wooden fishing boat went down Thursday near Cambodia’s Koh Tang Island en route to Sihanoukville in the country’s southwest, a city that has seen an influx of Chinese expats and a spate of work scam human trafficking cases.
Authorities have not yet said why the 38 men and three women were trying to get to Cambodia by boat.
Rescue workers were able to retrieve 18 people as the boat began to slip below the water but 23 more were initially reported missing.
On Friday, three men who had been on board were found alive, while another woman was found dead, according to an Associated Press report that quoted a Sihanoukville province official.
The passengers began their trip in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou on Sept. 11 aboard a speedboat, before transferring to the Cambodian fishing boat on Sept. 17 in international waters, Sihanoukville’s provincial police chief, Gen. Chuon Narin, told local media, according to the AP report.
After the boat began to sink, another Cambodian boat came to rescue the two Cambodian crewmembers, leaving the Chinese passengers behind, he said. The two have since been arrested for questioning.
Cambodian authorities are still searching for the remaining 19 Chinese nationals, offering a 2 million riel (U.S. $484) reward to anyone who rescues any of them.
Though the purpose of their trip has not been confirmed, they might have been tricked into illegally working in Sihanoukville, Cheap Sotheary, provincial project coordinator for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, told RFA’s Khmer Service.
“Ring leaders have distributed [human trafficking victims] to other provinces [across Cambodia],” she said. “The victims don’t fly in, they use cars or boats.”
RFA recently reported several other cases of migrants trafficked to Cambodia through Sihanoukville.
Chinese nationals walk down a pier to an island in Preah Sihanouk province, southwestern Cambodia, after being rescued from a sinking boat, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Credit: Preah Sihanouk province Authority Police via AP
Diaspora reacts
Economic conditions in China may be why the 41 Chinese may have attempted to sneak into Cambodia, a Chinese businessman identified by his surname Fan told RFA’s Mandarin Service.
China has been devastated economically by its zero-COVID policy, which has included shutdowns of commerce in many of its cities. People who depend on their jobs for survival have had to get by with little to no income.
“This tragedy happened because there was no job opportunity in China, and they tried their best to escape,” Fan said.
The news was shocking to a man from Guangzhou who requested anonymity to speak freely.
“Who wants to leave their hometown and go abroad with great language barriers?” he said, noting that although Guangzhou is one of the most prosperous regions in China, its economy is very poor and it is not easy to find a job there.
He said the incident was reminiscent of the 1970s when people were smuggled to Hong Kong from Guangzhou.
“It’s really miserable right now. People used to be smuggled into the United States, but now they are being smuggled into Cambodia,” he said.
China’s most impoverished citizens are willing to take desperate risks for a better life elsewhere, a tourism expert surnamed Luo, who specializes in Chinese tourism in Vietnam, told RFA.
For Canadian human rights activist and journalist Sheng Xue, the incident brought back memories of the 2000 human smuggling tragedy, where 58 Chinese were found suffocated to death in the back of a freight truck in the U.K.
“Why is it that the Americans and the Japanese do not smuggle themselves [to other countries]? Why do the Chinese?” she told RFA. “China’s political system limits everyone’s right to freedom, so that is to blame.”
Chinese stowaways are trying to get to any place that will give them freedom, democracy, human rights, dignity, security and a little bit of money, she said.
Additional reporting by Qi Desai for RFA Mandarin. Translated by Samean Yun and Zirong Ye. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Nearly 3 million people have fled Myanmar because of armed conflict, nearly half of whom left the country after last year’s military coup, an independent research group said Friday.
The Myanmar Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies (ISP-Myanmar) said 2,930,201 internally displaced persons (IDPs), or slightly more than 5% of Myanmar’s population of 54.4 million, have fled violence in the country. It said 1,413,811 of them, or 48%, fled Myanmar amid the conflict that followed the Feb. 1, 2021, putsch.
According to ISP-Myanmar, the number of people in Myanmar who were classified as IDPs due to civil war more than doubled to 1,019,190 after the coup from 497,200 prior to the takeover.
The research group said its list was compiled from data obtained by organizations that assist refugees in conflict zones, international aid groups, ethnic armed groups, and reporting by independent media. It said the data had been checked and confirmed by its researchers.
ISP-Myanmar senior research officer Kyaw Htet Aung told RFA Burmese that all combatants in Myanmar must adopt measures to reduce civilian suffering.
“IDPs do not have full access to humanitarian aid at present and their number is rising month by month,” he said.
“How are we going to solve the problem? All the adversaries must pay more attention to military codes of conduct to minimize harm to civilians. If they can do that, I think civilian suffering would be substantially reduced. Additionally, IDPs must have better access to international aid.”
According to ISP-Myanmar, 533,833 people displaced by violence since the coup are from Sagaing region, where the military has encountered some of the fiercest resistance to its rule over the past 19 months.
Aid workers told RFA that fighting between the military and the armed opposition is intensifying and spreading rapidly throughout Myanmar, resulting in a substantial increase in the number of IDPs and civilian casualties.
IDPs from Kyaung Pyar, Kyaukkyi township, Bago region, flee their village after military raids, July 4, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist
No access to international aid
A villager who recently fled fighting in Sagaing’s Kanbalu township said that IDPs have had to rely on assistance from people in the region because they have not received any international aid.
“We have been on the run since the moment the military entered our villages, and we’ve faced a lot of difficulties moving through the jungle with the elderly, pregnant women and children,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“People are exhausted from running and hiding for so long without food. These days, it’s difficult to get even one or two baskets of rice. We have never received any international aid. We all are struggling to stay alive.”
In addition to the challenges of obtaining food and medicine, the villager said his group also faces dangers such as snake bites while sheltering in the jungle.
Similar problems have been reported in Chin state, where transportation is difficult due to the region’s terrain and lack of infrastructure.
An official with the Mindat Township Refugee Camps Management Committee, who declined to be named, told RFA that basic food items and fuel are getting expensive, leaving IDPs in dire straits.
“The price of rice has risen and with the increase in fuel prices, buying rice has become even more difficult,” he said.
“In the meantime, we are also facing the danger of landslides because it is the rainy season. There are a lot of landslides here as it has been raining non-stop for more than two weeks.”
Banya, the director of the ethnic Karenni Human Rights Group, said IDPs also endure psychological suffering when they lack food, shelter and healthcare.
“The loss of their family members and homes, and being in the jungle for a long time, leaves them stressed,” he said.
“When they go from expecting a month or two of displacement, to six months, and finally more than a year, it’s very difficult to comfort them. Their losses are heavy and it is a difficult situation to bear. Currently, everything — including health conditions — have been quite bad.”
At present, he said, only emergency measures for obtaining food and medicine can be offered to the displaced, while long-term planning has been out of the question.
Aid program status unclear
Win Myat Aye, minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said efforts are underway to provide aid to the country’s IDPs, but he acknowledged the limitations he faces.
“With more than a year and a half of experience, our connection with aid groups has gradually become stronger and we can now provide more effective support,” he said.
“Access to funding and cash flow is a challenge, but now that the NUG has its own sources of income, it can supplement public donations. We are making special efforts in cooperation with ethnic armed groups to provide international support.”
He said he believes humanitarian assistance will soon be able to reach the displaced.
At the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Meeting held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on May 6, a decision was reached that the ASEAN Humanitarian Coordination Center (AHA) would act under the supervision of Myanmar military authorities to provide aid to the country’s IDPs.
On Sept. 20 pro-junta media reported that the AHA task force held an interim meeting on the aid situation in Myanmar, but more than four months since the ASEAN decision, RFA has been unable to independently confirm the status of the program.
Attempts by RFA to contact the AHA Center went unanswered on Friday.
According to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 2,316 civilians and arrested more than 15,600 since the coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Authorities have handed down suspended death sentences to two formerly high-ranking security officials ahead of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 20th party congress next month.
The Changchun Intermediate People’s Court in the northeastern province of Jilin handed down a death sentence, commutable to life imprisonment after two years, to Sun Lijun, a former vice minister of public security, for taking bribes, manipulating the stockmarket and illegal possession of firearms.
“After the expiration of the two-years reprieve, his sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment, with no possibility of commutation or parole, according to the court ruling,” the CCP-backed Global Times newspaper reported.
From 2001 to April 2020, Sun used the influence accumulated through past positions to seek gains for others and illegally accepted money and property worth 646 million yuan, the paper quoted the court judgment as saying.
In the first half of 2018, Sun manipulated related individuals to engage in stock market dealings, helping certain individuals to avoid losses of 145 million yuan, and was found in possession of two illegal firearms, it said.
Sun, 55, failed to stay true to the party’s ideals, displaying “extremely inflated political ambition and very poor political integrity,” making groundless criticisms of the party’s policies, and spreading political rumors, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
“Sun unscrupulously cultivated personal followers and interest groups to obtain personal political gains,” it said. “He also seriously undermined party unity and compromised political security.”
In this image taken from video footage run by China’s CCTV, former Chinese justice minister Fu Zhenghua is escorted by court police as he attends a court session for his verdict announcement in Changchun, northeastern China’s Jilin province on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Credit: CCTV via AP
‘Heavy losses’
Sun’s sentencing came a day after the same court handed the same sentence to former Beijing police chief Fu Zhenghua, after finding him guilty of “accepting bribes and bending the law for personal gain.”
From 2014 to 2015, when served as the director of the Beijing municipal police department, he concealed clues to his younger brother Fu Weihua’s alleged serious crimes, and did not deal with them in accordance with the law, enabling his brother to evade prosecution for a long time, the court said.
“The amount of bribes Fu Zhenghua received was particularly large, the circumstances of his crime are particularly serious, and their social impact was particularly bad,” the court found. “The interests of the country and the people have suffered particularly heavy losses.”
“It was decided that after his death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment upon the expiration of the two-year reprieve, he will be imprisoned for life without commutation or parole,” the court judgment said.
Commenting before Sun’s sentence had been made public, Xia Ming, professor of political science at New York’s City University said the timing of Fu’s sentence was no coincidence, and is intended as a warning to Xi’s rivals and detractors within the highest echelons of the CCP.
Xi will be seeking an unprecedented third term in office at the CCP 20th National Congress, which opens in Beijing on Oct. 16.
“I believe Xi Jinping still faces a certain amount of resistance within party ranks, because he is trying to break with the past 40 years of political tradition,” Xia told RFA.
“He wants [this] to have a political effect at a critical juncture, which is that those who obey him prosper, and those who oppose him fall,” he said.
‘Atmosphere of fear’
Political commentator Wang Juntao agreed, saying Xi is preempting any political opposition, and hoping to stave off any challngers.
“Xi Jinping is doing this to create an atmosphere of fear in the party’s political and legal affairs system [which controls law enforcement],” Wang told RFA.
“It is likely that more senior officials and even Politburo members will lose their jobs, so as to intimidate other party members into staying loyal to Xi.”
Also implied is that high-ranking party members must show loyalty to incumbent public security minister and CCP political and legal affairs deputy chief Wang Xiaohong.
“Sentencing those who have challenged Wang Xiaohong is supposed to force the political and legal affairs system to pledge absolute obedience and support for Wang Xiaohong,” Wang said.
Fu, along with recently sentenced provincial public security officials Liu Xinyun, Deng Huilin and Gong Daoan, are widely regarded as being in Sun’s “faction” of the CCP.
The Changchun court also said the seriousness of Fu’s crimes merited an out-an-out death penalty, but it had handed down a suspended sentence because Fu “confessed and repented,” as well as actively returning stolen assets and helping with “major clues in other investigations,” in a possible reference to the Sun Lijun investigation.
A court in the northern Chinese province of Hebei has jailed a man for 24 years in connection with the vicious beatings of several women at a barbecue restaurant in June.
“Defendant Chen Jizhi, the prime culprit involved in the harassment and brutal beating of four women at a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan … was sentenced to 24 years in prison and fined 320,000 yuan (U.S.$45,215),” the Global Times quoted the Guangyang District People’s Court in Hebei’s Langfang city as saying.
The case sparked international headlines and domestic public anger after surveillance video 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 remaining 27 defendants were given jail terms ranging from six months to 11 years, with 19 of them issued with fines ranging from 3,000 to 135,000 yuan, the report said.
“Chen Jizhi, the prime culprit and other five defendants will correspondingly compensate the four victims for costs incurred for medical treatment, nursing, food subsidies, transportation and other losses,” the paper reported.
The court heard that Chen attacked one woman surnamed Wang after she “declined his inappropriate approach,” the Global Times said.
“Later, Chen and other defendants attacked and kicked the four women using chairs and wine bottles, and one of the defendants even threatened victims not to report the incident to the police,” it said.
The attackers can also be seen in the video footage dragging 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 initial claim that the women sustained “minor injuries” was met with skepticism on social media, where many comments said the penalty was too lenient.
“I feel sad for my country, and sad for Tangshan,” one comment read, to which one social media user replied: “Shouldn’t the most important thing be to feel sad for the victims?”
Another commented on footage of Chen weeping as the sentence was read out: “He cries like that because he’s afraid of going to jail, not out of sincere remorse. He’s unworthy of our sympathy.”
Much of the public outrage at the time of the attack focused on the fact that nobody watching intervened to stop the subsequent, vicious beating of the women who fended off the initial assault, which left four women injured, two of whom were hospitalized.
Rather than engage with public criticism of state-enabled male violence, the official response has focused on allegations that the attackers were members of a local organized crime gang with links to the local police department.
On the social media platform Weibo, where a report from state broadcaster CCTV garnered 1.2 million likes, user @everyday3kmbaseline commented: “How could such a big fish slip through the net? Could they have done so without someone [in the government] protecting them?”
User @Taikoo Artifacts said the jail term was a response to “unstoppable public opinion,” praising the official response, while @YuYanyan wrote: “No parole, no parole, no parole,” and @hair_never_grows commented: “Only 24 years in prison.”
@Xiao_Yuqi, @Fang_Hongbang and @road_no_promise_59764 agreed, calling for the death penalty for Chen, while @A_child_1920 added: “Strongly recommend flogging.”
