Day: October 6, 2022

North Korea is offering amnesty to citizens who have sold propaganda lecture publications to buyers in South Korea, but only if they turn themselves in by the end of the month, sources in the country told RFA.

Citizens in North Korea are frequently made to attend lectures either at their workplace or in their neighborhood watch units. The purpose of the lectures can range from glorifying the leadership to reinforce loyalty, explaining the government’s stance on world events, educating the public about new government policies or initiatives, or justifying unpopular ones.

To ensure uniformity in lectures given nationwide, they use official materials provided by the Propaganda and Agitation Department. 

Occasionally, copies of the materials end up in South Korea, which is a problem because they could be used by organizations, media, or intelligence to gain accurate information about the North, or could be used to show how the government keeps its people in the dark.

Authorities are now telling people who leaked lecture materials in the past that they will be forgiven if they come clean now.

A resident of Songchun in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, said authorities in the city recently lectured people on the policy.

“The meeting was hosted by a local official of the State Security Department, and the main topic was that citizens who have had communication with ‘hostiles’ should surrender,” the source told RFA Korean Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The source said that “close communication with hostiles” specifically refers to citizens who use brokers who can contact people in South Korea by using a Chinese mobile phone near the Sino-Korean border.

“They hand over the publications of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, including lecture materials, to South Korea,” he said.

 “The amnesty period is until the end of this month. The authorities promised that those who turn themselves in during this period would be forgiven of their charged crimes,” the source said.

If they are caught after the amnesty period ends, punishment will be harsh, according to the source.

 “The authorities threatened that if the residents do not turn themselves in during the surrender period, they and their family members would be sent to a political prison camp,” he said.

The amnesty is only available to ordinary citizens, according to the source. Government officials guilty of handing over lecture materials to the South are not to be forgiven, he said.

At a similar meeting in North Pyongan province’s Ryongchon county, which borders China, the lecturer said those turning themselves in would need to expose others, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“[They] would have to reveal which party officials they contacted to steal lecture materials and learning materials,” the second source said. 

“Residents are very nervous, arguing that the authorities may be using self-defense and mercy as bait to purge party officials,” he said.

Sources say that authorities tend to offer amnesty to citizens for “non-socialist behavior” whenever there is a tense situation inside or outside the country, or when public sentiment is low. 

The amnesty is always coupled with threats to more harshly punish those who did not turn themselves in, they said.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Uyghur activists and human rights groups expressed outrage on Thursday over the voting down of a U.S. proposal that the United Nations Human Rights Council hold a debate on a recent report by the body’s rights chief on abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.

China and its allies on the 47-member Council defeated the proposal in a 19-17 vote, with 11 abstentions.

The U.S. filed a motion on Sept. 26 demanding that the Geneva-based council organize the discussion in response to a damning report issued a month earlier by former U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet.

Bachelet’s report, released on the final day of her four-year term on Aug. 31, documented widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including torture, arbitrary arrests, forced abortions, and violations of religious freedom. It said the repression there “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

“For the first time in its history, the U.N.’s top human rights body considered a proposal to debate the human rights situation in the Xinjiang region of China,” Sophie Richardson, China director at New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement issued after Thursday’s vote. 

“While the Council’s failure to adopt the proposal is an abdication of responsibility and a betrayal of Uyghur victims, the extremely close vote highlights the growing number of states willing to take a stand on principle and shine a spotlight on China’s sweeping rights violations,” she said.

The Human Rights Council has long faced criticism that countries seen as major rights abusers–such as China, Cuba, Eritrea, and Venezuela–are members of the body, and they often work to shield each other from scrutiny.

Angered by the vote which came despite years of revelations of abuses in Xinjiang, more than 60 Uyghur organizations from 20 countries urged U.N. agencies and experts to take concrete action to adopt a resolution committing to a debate on the Uyghur issue.

“This is a missed opportunity by Council members to hold China to the same standard as other countries,” said Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress, in a statement. “The international community cannot fail the victims of the Uyghur genocide.”

“Member states that voted down the action have “blatantly disregarded previously-accepted principles of objectivity, dialogue, impartiality, non-discrimination and non-selectivity within the Human Rights Council,” said Omer Kanat, executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project based in Washington, D.C.

“This failure on the part of Council members does not preclude action by other U.N. agencies, the global business community, and governments, nor does it cast doubt on the findings from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which found that abuses faced by Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples ‘may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,’” he said in a statement.

If the vote had passed, the debate could have led to a resolution supporting a probe into Xinjiang, said Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs.

“However, some member states have adopted China’s genocide denial,” she said in a statement. “They should consider the consequences of allowing one powerful country to effectively have impunity for committing genocide.”

CFU urged countries not to be influenced by the Chinese government threats, manipulations or propaganda that has denied severe rights abuses involving Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in Xinjiang. 

The U.S. and parliaments in several Western countries have declared that China’s repression in Xinjiang amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity.

Uyghur rights groups also called on Volker Türk, the U.N.’s new rights chief to address the issue and to present his predecessor’s report to the Human Rights Council.

‘A dire day for multilateralism’

Western democracies that had backed the U.S. proposal for debate of the report also expressed dismay over the voting outcome.

“Today is a dire day for multilateralism: China has prevented a mere debate on the HR situation in Xinjiang in the #HRC, tweeted Germany’s U.N. mission in Geneva. “However: we will not turn a blind eye and continue to work for the indivisibility of #HumanRights worldwide.”

HRW’s Richardson also called on Türk to implement the recommendations in Bachelet’s report and hold Beijing to account for its maltreatment of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs.

“Nothing will erase the stain of China’s crimes against humanity, laid bare by a recent report of former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet,” she said. “We urge incoming High Commissioner Volker Türk to brief the Council on his office’s report, and we call on states, companies, and the international community to implement the report’s recommendations and hold Chinese authorities accountable for their international crimes.”

Kenneth Roth, HRW’s former executive director who has been sanctioned by the Chinese government, tweeted that the vote was “a shameful moment for the members of the U.N. Human Rights Council as they reject even having a debate about the damning U.N. report on the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghur/Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.”

In another tweet, Roth said it was “hard to know where to begin to apportion blame” and noted that Latin American democracies abstained from voting, “giving in to China’s blackmail.”

Muslim-majority Indonesia turned its back on the Muslims of Xinjiang, India refused to support a debate, and Ukraine abstaining while seeking help on Russia’s war crimes, he said.

Argentina, where lawyers acting on behalf of two Uyghur rights groups filed a criminal case alleging that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its repressive policies targeting Muslims in the country’s northwestern Xinjiang region, also abstained from casting a vote.

Beijing responded by calling the resolution’s defeat a “victory.”

Hua Chunying, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, tweeted: “The #HRC51 voted down the #Xinjiang-related draft decision filed by the U.S. and several other Western countries. This is a victory for developing countries and a victory for truth & justice.” HRC51 refers to the Council’s current 51st regular session.

Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Chinese social media platform Douyin appears to have pulled the plug on a live-stream host broadcasting in Cantonese, a regional Chinese language that is also the lingua franca of Hong Kong.

“We haven’t been live-streaming much at all on Douyin lately,” live-stream host Fung Siu, who has more than 4.6 million followers, said in a video statement posted to Facebook.

“The reason is very simple. The platform is banning hosts from live-streaming in the Cantonese language,” he said. “They even shut down our account.”

“The reason they gave is very simple. It’s that they can’t understand this language,” Fung Siu said. “It’s a pretty ridiculous reason, actually.”

“The subtitles you can see on the bottom of the screen right now were all added using automation by the platform itself,” he said.

“Yet they have no way of understanding me.”

Mandarin Chinese, which largely derives from the language of Beijing officialdom, uses the same script as Cantonese, but the two are mutually unintelligible to casual listeners.

Cantonese has a subset of Chinese characters used to express specific structures and parts of speech not found in Mandarin, and these were also present in the Douyin automated subtitles to Fung Siu’s video.

“There are many people in countries all around the world [who understand Cantonese], and we Cantonese are the biggest population in the country,” Fung Siu said.

“Guangdong ranks first in the country in terms of the number of people online, annual GDP growth and online sales, yet you are so backward that you don’t want … a group of valuable Cantonese-speaking customers on your platform. Bye bye,” he said.

Furious reactions

Fung’s video prompted a flurry of reaction videos by fellow Cantonese speakers.

“Why should we be treated differently just for saying a few words in Cantonese on Douyin,” one said.

Another answered claims from Mandarin speakers that Cantonese was an “uncivilized” language.

“People have been speaking Cantonese for thousands of years. Why do they say it’s uncivilized?” the live-streamer said. “You can speak Mandarin. In Guangdong, people around you already speak Mandarin. We cater to you, but why can’t you tolerate Cantonese? Who finds it offensive?”

They added that live-streamers are still allowed on Douyin speaking the dialects of Chinese found in Chongqing, the northeast and Chengdu.

A live-streamer with the handle @honest_guy_from_Guangdong said Fung Siu isn’t the only Cantonese-language live-streamer to be banned, citing other broadcasters who have had their videos taken down from the site, or have been banned from the site.

Most are awaiting an explanation from Douyin, and daren’t post for the time being, he added.

“It took everyone at least one or two years to get onto Douyin, and its growth isn’t just down to Douyin on its own,” he said.

“Now, the risks are too great, because we don’t know if our video will be banned,” he said. “I plan to take a break and wait for them to respond either clearly, saying they don’t want us using Cantonese, or saying we can, and then we can start live-streaming again.”

Current affairs commentator Fang Yuan said Douyin’s ban on the use of Cantonese was likely linked to the current crackdown on all forms of political opposition and peaceful dissent in Hong Kong, in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

“Over the past 40-something years of economic reform, Cantonese has represented a particular form of cultural ideology in China,” Fang said. “With Hong Kong backing it up, it represents an innovative consciousness that is friendly to what is foreign.”

“This has had a number of impacts on the mainland.”

‘Hostile foreign forces’

Now that ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is moving China away from the economic reforms of late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping and closer to a state-controlled economy focused on domestic demand, that image has become linked to claims that recent waves of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong were the work of “hostile foreign forces” trying to foment a color revolution in the city, Fang said.

“The weakening of Hong Kong and its [ongoing] integration with the mainland also means the weakening of Cantonese,” Fang said.

Cheng Yizhong, who founded the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily, said the Cantonese-speaking people of Guangdong province have always been vulnerable to political persecution under the CCP due to the province’s history as a source of Chinese migrants and a major international trading port.

Millions fled to Hong Kong during the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) under late supreme leader Mao Zedong.

“The CCP insists on a one-size-fits-all policy that is strict and extreme, culturally and ideologically,” Cheng told RFA. “Language, as the carrier of both culture and ideology, must be restricted to one and one alone, and to something they can understand.”

“Especially now, under the current totalitarian rule by the CCP,” he said. “What if you were to use it to make fun of them; they can’t allow such a thing to happen.”

“Someone might use Cantonese to insult them or undermine their message, and they wouldn’t know,” Cheng said. “That would be an even bigger offense.”

Cheng said there are already parallels in recent bans on schools using Mongolian to teach ethnic minority youngsters.

In March 2018, posters and graffiti briefly appeared on the streets of Guangzhou calling for independence not just for neighboring Hong Kong, but for Guangzhou.

Graffiti phrases like “Independence for Guangzhou, Go Hong Kong!” were photographed in a number of public places in the city, which is the provincial capital of Guangdong province, and lies at the heart of the Pearl River delta economic area.

The slogans were spotted at bus stops, and on the backs of bus seats, with the words scrawled in different color marker pens in traditional Chinese characters of the kind still taught and used in Hong Kong.

In mainland China, the ruling Chinese Communist Party simplified large numbers of Chinese characters after coming to power in 1949, while the original characters are still taught in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which weren’t under communist control at the time of the reforms to the writing system.

Cantonese speakers in Guangdong province, which gave the dialect its name, have said they feel culturally very connected to those living in Hong Kong, where Cantonese has been an official language of government and the lingua franca of most residents for generations.

In 2010, thousands of people took part in mass protests in Guangzhou in support of the Cantonese language after a mainland Chinese political body called for cuts in Cantonese-language broadcasts.

Flash mobs showed up in public places wearing white as a sign of protest, sparking similar actions in Hong Kong. However, activists reported intimidation by state security police in the wake of the demonstrations.

Generally, television stations in China are required to use Mandarin, but the Guangzhou Broadcasting Network (GZBN) was given special approval in the 1980s to broadcast in Cantonese to attract viewers from neighboring Hong Kong and Macau, which were still under British and Portuguese rule at the time.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

The Philippines must lead in peace-keeping efforts amid rising tensions in Southeast Asia and beyond, new President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said as he pledged this week to propose “concrete” steps at an ASEAN summit in November for addressing conflicts.

Marcos said the time has come to strengthen the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – of which the Philippines is a founding member – and make it a significant force in an Indo-Pacific region roiled by international tensions. As examples, he cited tensions over North Korean missile tests, the Rohingya issue in Myanmar, and the “push and pull” between rival superpowers the United States and China over Taiwan.

“So we have a very important part to play in that because we have a great interest. It must be a subject of central concern in our foreign policy and in the defense of the nation in the Philippines,” Marcos said.

He made the remarks while fielding questions after a speech at the Manila Overseas Press Club on Wednesday night. A transcript from the event was made available Thursday.

“So I do not think we have a choice. We must play a leadership role because it is in our interest. And if we do not do it, we are not doing our jobs as the protectors of our country, of our state, of our territory, of our people, if we do not take that leadership role,” said Marcos, the namesake son of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos who led the Philippines from 1965 until 1986, when he was ousted in a people-power revolt.

Since taking office on June 30, the younger Marcos has vowed to pursue an independent foreign policy “where the country is a friend to all, enemy to none.”

“I think ASEAN can do more than it has done thus far,” Marcos said of the 10-member regional bloc.

“I think we should continue … to move that united front forward so that we can say that ASEAN as a political, geopolitical aggrupation, economic aggrupation, has certainly shown that it has a function to do in the normal scheme of the geopolitics. But when crisis comes, that they come to the fore,” Marcos said.

This was a similar refrain during his state visit to Indonesia in September, where the Philippine president and Indonesian counterpart Joko “Jokowi” Widodo called on ASEAN to lead the way in bringing peace in the region.

In his remarks, however, Marcos did not mention territorial disputes in the South China Sea, which is known here as the West Philippine Sea. The Philippines and several of its neighbors in ASEAN as well as Taiwan and China have contending claims in the strategic waterway.

Marcos said he would propose “concrete” steps in the upcoming ASEAN summit in November on how to bring Myanmar’s military government to the table and discuss the Rohingya crisis.

“I intend to propose several actions that ASEAN can take specific to the different conflicts that we are seeing in our region,” he said. “And if the Philippines can play a part, then that would certainly be a good thing.”

ASEAN has been widely criticized for its failure to compel the Burmese military to live up to a five-point consensus for bringing peace to post-coup Myanmar that the junta chief agreed to during an emergency summit of Southeast Asian leaders in April 2021. Since then, the Burmese military has largely carried on unchecked in bloodily crushing the political opposition while fighting various insurgencies.

The 55-year-old regional bloc, which operates by consensus, has been seen as failing repeatedly to issue a strong stance against perceived Chinese aggression in the disputed South China Sea, the Mekong River dams, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

Lao authorities have ordered a China-owned gold mine in the country’s northwestern Oudomxay province to suspend operations pending an inquiry into a series of accidents causing death and injury to miners, Lao sources say.

Located in the province’s Pak Beng district, the mine will be permanently closed if its owner, China’s Lao Zin Long company, continues to ignore regulations governing worker safety, the Lao Ministry of Mines and Power said in its Sept. 22 order.

Lao mine workers speaking to RFA said that accidents have occurred there in the past, with many workers injured or killed by landslides or falling rocks. “Casualty figures have been kept secret by company officials, though,” one worker said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Another worker said that most accidents occur when miners dig for gold. “This is mostly due to landslides during the rainy season,” the worker said, also declining to be named.

“I don’t know how many have been injured or killed. I’m still working there myself, but I’m being as careful as I can, because anything might happen,” the worker added.

Also speaking to RFA, a villager living near the mine said he had heard of accidents happening at the mine and had seen ambulances taking injured workers to a nearby hospital.

“I can’t go inside the mine, though. I just drive past in my car. Work at the mine is strictly controlled by the Chinese, and villagers can’t go anywhere near the area,” he said.

“If anyone gets seriously injured, they are taken to the hospital, but I don’t know how many there have been or how they are treated when they get there,” the villager added.

Accidents go unreported

Reached for comment, officials at Oudomxay province’s Department of Mines and Power declined to discuss the issue, referring questions to central government authorities in the capital Vientiane.

But one department official speaking anonymously said that managers at the mine never made reports of accidents directly to his office. “Therefore, we don’t know whether the company paid compensation to the victim or not.”

“We receive reports of accidents unofficially or see stories about them on Facebook, but we can’t do anything about them because the company and the victims’ families never notify us,” he said.

“They should let us know if they need our help,” he added.

Work meanwhile continues at the mine despite the government’s order suspending operations, said a Lao woman who works at the mine as a translator. “No, nothing has stopped. Work is going on here as usual,” she said.

Much of Laos’ recent economic growth has been generated through land concessions to China, Thailand and Vietnam for natural resources including timber, agricultural products, minerals and energy.

But the country’s concession policies have sparked friction over environmental pollution and land taken from villagers without proper compensation.

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has used a brief official visit to Australia to vow that his government won’t allow foreign military installations or do anything to jeopardize security in the Pacific.

Sogavare met Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on Thursday following months of tension between the Solomon Islands and U.S. ally Australia that stemmed from the Sogavare government’s deepening relationship with China. 

“Solomon Islands will never be used for foreign military installations or institutions of foreign countries because this will not be in the interest of Solomon Islands and its people,” Sogavare said.

“Solomon Islands will not do anything that will undermine our national security and jeopardize the security of any or all [Pacific Island] Forum countries,” he said.

Albanese said he welcomed Sogavare’s clear commitments. 

“We regard security in our region as being critical, and we also regard the need to uplift the living standards and quality of life of people in the Pacific as being absolutely critical,” he said.

Earlier this year, the Solomon Islands signed with Beijing a secret security agreement, which amplified U.S. concerns about increased Chinese influence in the Pacific. 

Neither country has released the text of the final agreement, but a purported draft that circulated online said China would be able to send security forces to protect its interests in the Solomon Islands. 

The U.S. and Australia have indicated they want to prevent a permanent Chinese military presence in the region.

Over the past two decades, Beijing has amassed substantial goodwill with economically lagging Pacific island countries by building infrastructure and providing other assistance.

The United States last week promised more than U.S. $800 million in assistance to the region over a decade as it tries to rebuild relationships with island countries after a period of neglect.

Relations between Australia and the Solomon Islands have a history of tension. 

Sogavare, who has been Solomon Islands prime minister four times, resented the power wielded by the Australian-led military intervention in the Solomon Islands from 2003 to 2017. 

Known as the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, the Solomon Islands government requested support after lawlessness and economic collapse threatened to overwhelm the country.

Earlier this year, Sogavare gave a speech in the Solomon Islands parliament that criticized what he saw as the hypocrisy of Western media coverage of his government’s security pact with Beijing. 

He said Australia also had not consulted with countries in the region before it entered its security and nuclear submarine pact with the United States and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS.

On Thursday, Sogavare said his government’s priority is working with other countries to meet the substantial development needs of the Solomon Islands.

“The key to long-term peace and security in Solomon Islands rests with our ability to address the priorities of all provinces … including roads, bridges, market outlets for products, schools and hospitals, the list goes on,” he said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.