Day: October 27, 2022

Protests over COVID-19 restrictions in the Tibetan capital Lhasa spread to at least four different areas of the city Thursday, prompting “scuffles” with authorities in some cases, sources told Radio Free Asia, as ethnic Chinese migrant workers demanded permits to return home from the region.

RFA was able to confirm that many of the protesters were ethnic majority Han Chinese migrant workers who likely obtained permission to reside in Lhasa for jobs that pay daily wages. 

Sources in the city, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said that the migrant workers have been demanding that local authorities issue them permits to return to their homes in eastern China because they have been unable to earn a living during the nearly three months of lockdown in the city.

In footage from one video obtained late on Wednesday, a man claiming to be a police officer pleads with protesters in Mandarin Chinese to return to their homes, and tells them their concerns have been relayed to senior officials.

“Please return to your homes. Why? If you [don’t] go back and block up this area, what might happen? You’ll infect each other,” the apparent officer says. “We’ve already reported to the higher ups, okay? Please go home.”

“We understand your pain. We’re going to make a report soon,” he goes on to say. ”Please everybody understand, we will report to the relevant authorities.”

On Wednesday, RFA Tibetan reported that scores of people had taken to the streets in what appeared to be Chengguan district’s Chakrong area, in eastern Lhasa, as well as the Payi area of the city, based on video obtained by sources in the region.

By Thursday, protests had spread to include the districts of Lhalu and Kuang Ye, sources told RFA, with newly obtained video footage showing crowds growing more restless. In one such video, protesters appear to engage in a yelling and shoving match with authorities, while in another, a group of people appear to push a large iron gate off of its hinges.

Trying to contain

Sangay Kyab, a Tibet expert based in Spain, told RFA that Chinese authorities likely did not resort to violence to crack down on the protests in Lhasa because they were related to COVID-19 restrictions, and because Beijing doesn’t want the situation to escalate.

Sakar Tashi, a Belgium-based China and Tibet watcher, took it a step further, suggesting that authorities wouldn’t have responded as peacefully to a protest held exclusively by Tibetans.

“Han people in Lhasa protested against the epidemic control policy. Tibetans are also involved,” he wrote in a post to Twitter. “Most who led & participated were Han – if it were Tibetans, it would have been bloodily suppressed long ago.”

RFA was able to contact an officer with the Lhasa Public Security Bureau who insisted that no protest had taken place over the past two days. “There was no gathering, assembly or protest,” he said. “Everything is in an orderly manner. We did not arrest anyone.”

When asked how many people were able to obtain permits to leave the region, the officer replied that “anyone who meets conditions can receive permits and leave Tibet freely.”

When pressed further about the status of the protests, the officer said that “everyone is fine, everyone went home.”

Other sources inside the city appeared more wary about discussing the incidents, including some who had provided RFA with updates on Wednesday.

However, accounts provided to RFA by some Lhasa residents on Thursday appeared to confirm the officer’s explanation of events. Residents said that protesters dispersed after authorities agreed to process applications for Chinese migrant workers to return to their homes outside of the region.

RFA was unable to independently verify whether such an arrangement had been made.

COVID-19 restrictions

Reports of the protests in Lhasa – believed to be the largest in the city in more than a dozen years – came days after the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region issued an Oct. 24 statement announcing that a harsh COVID-19 lockdown in Lhasa would be “loosened.”

The lockdown in Lhasa began in early August as COVID-19 numbers there and throughout China continued to climb. 

Lhasa residents have said on social media that the lockdown order came without enough time to prepare, leaving some short on food, and making it difficult for those infected with the virus to find adequate treatment.

Despite Monday’s announcement by authorities, residents of Lhasa told RFA on Thursday that the lockdown remains in effect and claimed even more stringent measures were being implemented.

One video obtained by RFA appears to be taken inside a bus full of people who the narrator says are Tibetans being rounded up and taken to an undisclosed location.

“Look, they are taking all these people who aren’t even sick,” a man’s voice says, urging viewers to “please share this on Douyin,” referring to a popular video-hosting website in China.

Chinese state media had reported more than 18,000 cases of COVID-19 infection as of early October, with at least 60,507 people now held in quarantine in conditions described as harsh by sources inside the Tibet Autonomous Region.

In a Sept. 26 statement, the Central Tibetan Administration – the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan government-in-exile – said Chinese authorities are holding Tibetans in quarantine camps without adequate food, water or medical care. Camp managers have routinely placed infected persons with others still uninfected, resulting in a further spread of the virus, it said.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, following which the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled into exile in India and other countries around the world.

Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting separatism in Tibet.

Translated by Kalden Lodoe, Rita Cheng and Chase Bodiford. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

The widow of a slain Cambodian opposition party activist said she received compensation for her husband’s death, but had not agreed to withdraw charges against the assailant as court officials claimed she had.

Wen Kimyi, whose husband Po Hin Lean was shot on his way to go fishing early on the morning of Oct. 16 in the southeastern province of Tbong Khmum, told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday that she received $12,000 in compensation from a Cambodian court.

But when she received the compensation, court officials read a document stating that she had withdrawn her criminal complaint and agreed not to press charges against her husband’s killer. 

“They read me a letter saying that my husband resisted arrest, and so the police shot him, according to the police officer,” said Wen Kimyi. ”I don’t allow the police to release my husband’s killers. I want to find out: who is my husband’s killer?”

She said she accepted the compensation money to pay for her husband’s funeral.

The court in Tbong Khmum province only said that a security guard named “Vet” was detained for the killing and charged with involuntary manslaughter. RFA was unable to confirm if he was released after the victim’s wife accepted compensation.  

A court spokesperson discussed the case with a local radio station in Cambodia and said that the matter is being handled by an investigative judge.

Po Hin Lean’s killing was part of a series of attacks targeting opposition activists across Cambodia, especially those linked to the relatively new Candlelight Party. 

Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party has had a firm grip on Cambodia’s government since 1997. In the most recent communal elections, several opposition candidates and activists reported being harassed and targeted in the run-up to the vote. 

Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh.

Ireland on Thursday ordered Beijing to shut down its “overseas Chinese police service center” in Dublin, as the Dutch government said it would investigate media reports about Chinese police offices in the Netherlands, which are believed to enable Chinese police to operate illegally overseas.

The Department of Foreign Affairs ordered a Chinese “police service station” operating in Dublin city center to close, the Irish Times reported.

“The Department noted that actions of all foreign states on Irish territory must be in compliance with international law and domestic law requirements,” the paper quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying. 

“On this basis, the Department informed the Embassy that the office on Capel Street should close and cease operations.”

The Chinese Embassy had confirmed that the office has now ceased operations, the foreign ministry said.

The Irish statement came after the Dutch government said it would probe service centers in the Netherlands in response to two reports run by broadcaster RTL Nieuws earlier this week.

“Appropriate action will be taken. We take this very seriously,” a Dutch foreign ministry spokesperson told the station.

In an investigation that appeared to confirm earlier allegations from the Spanish-based rights group Safeguard Defenders that Chinese police were operating from offices across Europe, the RTL reports quoted Dutch lawmakers as calling for the immediate closure of the offices.

“Secret police stations”

“Now that it’s clear that these two secret police stations are operating illegally here, we shouldn’t wait a day longer,” Dutch MP Sjoerd Sjoerdsma of the Democrats 66 party told RTL. “These activities must be stopped as soon as possible and the stations must be closed.”

Free People’s Party MP Ruben Brekelmans said the offices were “another example of the Chinese government’s infiltration of the Netherlands.”

The Chinese repression model must not be allowed to infiltrate the Netherlands,” Brekelmans said via his Twitter account.

“The government has to get to the bottom of this … and must demand the closure of these Chinese outposts,” the tweet said, calling for a register of individuals who work for a foreign government.

In Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Brenda Lucki described the Chinese overseas service centers in January as ‘a growing problem,’ with a probe already under way.

Safeguard Defenders reported in September that China is carrying out “illegal, transnational policing operations” across five continents, targeting overseas critics of the Chinese Communist Party for harassment, threats against their families back home and “persuasion” techniques to get them to go back to China.

Chinese police are currently running at least 54 “overseas police service centers” in foreign countries, some of which work with law enforcement back home to run operations on foreign soil, the Sept. 13 report found.

A number of reports on official news websites in China have also reported on the service centers, with a June 6, 2022, report listing service centers run by police in the southeastern city of Fuzhou as having “police work” within their remit.

Targeted

Chinese national Wang Jingyu, who is seeking asylum in the Netherlands after a harrowing escape from Chinese agents last year that spanned the Middle East and Eastern Europe, said he was targeted by calls he believes came from the “service center” in Rotterdam earlier this year.

The initial call was from someone claiming to be a wealthy overseas Chinese businessman looking to support dissidents.

“The Chinese police and overseas Chinese service station in Rotterdam tried to meet with me in February, pretending to be this rich man saying he supports dissidents,” Wang told RFA after the RTL report was published. “He wanted me to meet with him somewhere in Rotterdam, so I ignored him.”

“He was so angry that he started repeatedly calling me to harass and abuse me,” Wang said. “This harassment continued until March.”

Wang called on European governments to take note of Chinese cross-border law enforcement activities.

“Basically this is a law enforcement agency illegally set up by the Chinese Communist Party in Dutch territory, seriously violating the sovereignty of the Netherlands,” he said.

“But I also feel a little puzzled as to how an illegal agency can operate in the Netherlands and many other European countries,” Wang said. “They have been persecuting dissidents [here] for a long, long time, including me.”

A man who answered the phone at the Rotterdam overseas Chinese service station denied any harassment had taken place, saying the media was “deliberately misinterpreting” the function of the service stations.

“Dutch TV is also talking about me, thinking I have something to do with the police,” the man, who introduced himself as overseas businessman Zheng Fabiao, told RFA. “The Fuzhou Public Security Bureau 110 service was set up as a way of filing police reports, as there are too many scams.”

“I am the president of an association,” Zheng said. “I can’t threaten anyone. I didn’t do anything,” he said. “This is just a fuss they are making about certain … organizations.”

A Zheng Fabiao is listed as chairman of the Dutch Chinese Economic and Technological Development Center.

Fujian overseas Chinese associations come under the umbrella of United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party’s outreach and influence arm targeting groups outside the party at home and internationally.

A keyword search for “Zheng Fabiao United Front” resulted in official photos of Zheng attending an April 2018 symposium in Fujian province that was also attended by provincial United Front Work Department official Chen Ye.

According to a 2017 report by New Zealand political science professor Anne-Marie Brady, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is leading an accelerated expansion of political influence activities worldwide, much of which rely on overseas community and business groups, under the aegis of the United Front Work Department. 

Overseas Chinese community groups routinely issue public statements that parrot Beijing’s political line, including support for its territorial claims on democratic Taiwan and public denials of mass human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin denied that Chinese police are operating out of offices in Europe.

“The allegation is simply untrue,” Wang told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. “Chinese public security authorities are fully committed to fighting transnational crimes in accordance with the law, while strictly observing international law and fully respecting the judicial sovereignty of other countries.”

Wang said the overseas Chinese service centers mostly enable Chinese people to process bureaucratic paperwork, including renewing expired driver’s licenses.

Canadian journalist Jonathan Manthorpe, said there are at least three service centers in Toronto, describing China’s claims about them as “absolute nonsense,” and adding that they enable Chinese law enforcement agencies to operate overseas.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Southeast Asian foreign ministers decided Thursday to persist with a failed peace plan on Myanmar, a move that a top human rights group called “a huge disappointment,” days after the bloodiest single airstrike in the country since last year’s military coup.

The ministers emphasized the need to ensure the time-bound implementation of a five-point consensus agreed to with the Burmese junta in April 2021, ASEAN chair Cambodia said after a special meeting in Jakarta of top diplomats from the regional bloc’s member-states.

The ministers “reaffirmed the importance and relevance” of the consensus, “and underscored the need to further strengthen its implementation through concrete, practical and time-bound actions,” Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn said in a statement after the meeting.

The consensus calls for an immediate end to violence; a dialogue among all concerned parties; mediation of the dialogue process by an ASEAN special envoy; provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels; and a visit to Myanmar by the bloc’s special envoy to meet all concerned parties.

Retno Marsudi, Indonesia’s top diplomat, acknowledged that the foreign ministers from member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were disappointed with the lack of significant progress in implementing the five-point consensus, with some expressing their frustration.

“Instead of progressing, the situation was even described as worsening,” Retno said.

“The approach of sweeping problems under the rug should no longer be an option.”

But, as chair Cambodia’s statement said, the foreign ministers, “agreed that ASEAN should not be discouraged, but even more determined to help Myanmar to bring about a peaceful solution the soonest possible.”

Myanmar’s expulsion from ASEAN was never on the table, according to Sidharto Suryodipuro, director general of ASEAN cooperation at the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Discussions on the situation in Myanmar have always been based on the assumption that Myanmar remains part of ASEAN,” Sidharto told reporters.

The special meeting in Jakarta was held to prepare recommendations to be submitted to ASEAN leaders at the summit of the 10-nation bloc in Cambodia next month.

Discontent has been growing among some ASEAN members about the junta reneging on the consensus it had agreed to, and amid the relentless violence, especially the execution of four political prisoners in July.

The violence has only increased since.

At least 63 people were killed after Myanmar military jets Sunday dropped munitions on a crowd attending a concert celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)’s founding. It was believed to be the deadliest single airstrike since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup.

Saifuddin Abdullah, Malaysia’s outspoken top diplomat, in July had raised the prospect of junking the five-point consensus. Last month in New York, he had questioned its validity, because the junta had been blithely ignoring it.

But Saifuddin, who has consistently taken the lead on post-coup Myanmar issues at ASEAN, was absent from the special meeting in Jakarta, because his government is now a caretaker administration after the announcement of a general election next month in Malaysia.  

Seven ASEAN foreign ministers attended the talks in Jakarta in person.

As in several previous meetings, Myanmar was not represented, Prak said.

Vietnam’s foreign minister was busy preparing for a visit by the head of the Vietnamese communist party to China next week, according to an ASEAN diplomatic source.

‘Junta has shown its contempt for ASEAN’

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, minced no words in expressing his dismay about the outcome of Thursday’s meeting in Jakarta.

“ASEAN has reached a make or break point on Myanmar, but the Special Foreign Ministers meeting statement reflected just more business as usual, and that’s a huge disappointment. It’s hard to see how the Five Point Consensus can be saved when the SAC military junta has failed to implement one word of what Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing promised in Jakarta last year,” he said in a statement, referring to the Burmese military chief.

“Instead of the kind of wishy-washy language contained in the [ASEAN] chairperson’s statement today, ASEAN needs to get tough by establishing clear, time bound human rights benchmarks on Myanmar that include the release of political prisoners, a cessation of attacks on civilians, and steps towards dissolving the junta to allow for the establishment of civilian democratic rule,” Robertson added.

“Those benchmarks should be accompanied by clear penalties should Myanmar fail to meet them,” he added.

ASEAN will have to do more than repeat calls for an end to violence and the need for dialogue and negotiation, said Hunter S. Marston, a researcher on Asia at the Australian National University.

“Those conditions are unrealistic at this point, and the junta has shown its contempt for ASEAN and its diplomatic efforts,” he told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

ASEAN will never expel Myanmar, but it should include representatives from the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) to promote dialogue, he said.

For its part, the NUG said the benefit of ASEAN holding on to the five-point consensus was questionable.

“ASEAN leaders know all too well what Myanmar people want and need. We have just heard Ms. Noeleen Heyzer, the United Nations envoy to Myanmar, say the other day that Myanmar’s people can never accept the military junta,” Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the NUG’s president office told the Burmese Service of Radio Free Asia (RFA), an online news service affiliated with BenarNews.

“If ASEAN believes the same, I think they should have direct dialogue with the NUG, the real government that represents the wish of Myanmar people and the national ethnic groups to put an end to all these crises,” Kyaw Zaw added.

Based on the outcome of Thursday’s meeting and because ASEAN makes its decisions consensually, one Burmese analyst, Sai Kyi Zin Soe, did not foresee much progress being made at the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh next month.

“ASEAN member countries seem to be split into two: the west leaning and the pro-China, and they are not sure of their stand between the two either. Some member countries favor the idea that the NUG should be invited as the west suggested whereas the others still hold the belief that the Myanmar military junta can be further reasoned with for the progress,” Sai Kyi Zin Soe told RFA.

“Because of these different views among ASEAN countries, the summit, in my opinion, might not be able to make a common decision that Myanmar people desire, or a common decision that leads to effective changes for Myanmar people.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated News Service.

The foul-smelling yellow smoke belching from the steel factory’s many chimneys was much worse than the usual fumes that Vietnamese high-school student Thanh Tam was used to.

“On that day, on the way home, I started smelling a burning smell, so I thought it might be that something was being incinerated,” said Tam, who rides his bike past the Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation factory four times a day – back and forth to school and to come home for lunch.

“But when the wind hit the road, we were struck by a revolting smell, like the smell of rotten waste,” he said.

Preliminary investigations revealed the yellow smoke was caused by a fire inside the plant, the director of the provincial police department, Nguyen Hong Phong, told the state-run Industry and Trade newspaper. The Oct. 22 incident is under investigation, he said.

The Formosa factory, located in Ky Anh district, in the coastal province of Ha Tinh, has a poor reputation. In 2016, it caused Vietnam’s worst-ever environmental disaster when it discharged toxic chemicals into the ocean, devastating more than a hundred miles of coastline in four central provinces of Vietnam.

Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group, the primary investor in the steel plant, offered U.S.$500 million to clean up and compensate people affected by the spill, but the government has faced protests over the amount and terms of the settlement, as well as the slow pace of payouts.

Tam said the odor permeated everything in the area, even as far away as the school, about 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) from the factory, he said.

“At home, I felt as if I was going to faint because the house reeked with the smell of waste. Then at school, even inside our class, the horrible smell was still pervading,” he said. “We had to wear a mask throughout the day and only took it off at home. That smell was just everywhere.” 

Authorities downplay fire

Police Director Phong said an exhaust fan in the coking workshop of the factory’s energy department malfunctioned, causing a fire that spewed an opaque yellow smoke. If violations are found during the investigation, the violators will be held responsible, he said.

Authorities downplayed the severity of the fire, with Vo Trong Hai, the chairman of Ha Tinh province, telling the state-run Investors magazine that the smoke was “not a problem.”

Six years after causing Vietnam’s worst environmental disaster, the factory is still disrupting the lives of people who live near it, and their surrounding environment, a resident there told RFA. 

“This time, it was the dark yellow smoke, which we haven’t seen in a while,” said Mai Chau Bau, who lives a few kilometers from the steel mill. Last month the factory let out a thick black smoke, he said.

“Whenever you are on the road, the smell is very unpleasant and suffocating. But these days it has become a common thing,” he said.

Pollution from the factory has been getting worse since 2008, the year it was constructed, Bau said. It affects the air, the soil, the sea, and is detrimental to the people’s health and income.

“If you use a wash basin to collect water when it rains, you will see a layer of black coal dust on the bottom of the basin,” he said. “In the past, we could use rainwater for cooking and drinking, but we no longer dare to do so now.”

Though Formosa admitted responsibility for the 2016 disaster and paid compensation, it was paid to the Vietnamese government rather than directly to the affected people. Some of those attempted to sue Formosa through the Vietnamese courts, but their petition was denied.

The government has jailed numerous activists for protesting how the disaster and compensation had been handled, including Nguyen Van Hoa, who had been a regular contributor to RFA.

When the court sentenced Hoa to seven years in 2017, state media reported that his videos, photos, and articles about the disaster were for the purpose of “propagating against, distorting and defaming the government.” and that he “received money” from “extremists and hostile forces” to cause public disorder.

In June 2019, around 8,000 victims of the environmental catastrophe sued Formosa in a  Taiwanese court for not receiving adequate compensation. The court has accepted the case, and the legal battle is still ongoing. 

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Two Rohingya were gunned down inside their camp in Cox’s Bazar on Thursday, in the third such killing in the past two days by suspected supporters of the ARSA militant group, according to Rohingya community leaders.

As many as 40 Rohingya have been slain since the start of 2022 by armed groups in the sprawling camps near Bangladesh’s southeastern border with Myanmar, police records show.

Armed men entered Camp 17 in Ukhia early Thursday and shot dead Md. Yasin, 30, and Ayatullah, 40, said Additional Deputy Inspector General Syed Harunur Rashid, the captain of the Armed Police Battalion in Cox’s Bazar.

The brothers of both the slain men also confirmed the killings.

Yasin was killed because he had provided information to the police about men who had cut off his hand and a foot two months ago, said one of his brothers, Md. Hosson.

“For this, they targeted and killed my brother Yasin,” Hosson told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

“They tried to catch me, but I fled.”

Hosson did not give details about the incident two months ago.

Ayatullah was sleeping when men in ski masks came into his room and shot him, said his brother, Salamatullah.

Md. Faruk Ahmed, an assistant superintendent at the Cox’s Bazar police battalion, which oversees security at the camps, said Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) militants were behind most of these killings.

“The ARSA terrorists are mainly responsible for the murders at the camps,” he told BenarNews.

“We have been trying to eliminate them.”

According to the police, at least nine Rohingya, including a child and two camp leaders, were killed by ARSA in October.

ARSA, formerly known as Al-Yaaqin, is the Rohingya insurgent group that launched coordinated deadly attacks on Burmese government military and police outposts in Rakhine in August 2017. The raids provoked a brutal Burmese military crackdown that forced close to three-quarters of a million people to seek shelter in Bangladesh.

For years since the 2017 exodus into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladeshi government officials denied that ARSA had a foothold or presence in the sprawling camps, which house about 1 million refugees.

The killings have terrified the Rohingya refugees.

“We are not sure who would be the next target. We are in constant fear,” Master Shafiullah, a leader of the Balukhali Camp 9, told BenarNews.

Others living in the area are also running scared.

“Target killings are taking place inside the camps. We the local people have been terrified and helpless,” Ayachhur Rahman, a civil society group promoting the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, told BenarNews.

“Those involved in vigilance of camps at night and those providing the police with information about the terrorists are the victims of target killings,” he said, urging the government to take tougher action against such elements.

Night-time guards were introduced at the camps in October following the September 2021 killing of Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah, who had drawn international attention to the refugees’ plight and visited the White House in Washington.

In a report issued in June, Bangladesh police alleged that ARSA leader Ataullah Abu Ahmmar Jununi had ordered Muhib Ullah assassinated because he was popular.

Rohingya repatriation

Meanwhile, the chairman of a parliamentary watchdog on foreign affairs alleged on Thursday that ARSA was working hand-in-glove with the Myanmar army.

“[A]RSA has been working in favor of the Myanmar army,” Faruk Khan told BenarNews, after a briefing by foreign ministry officials on the progress of Rohingya repatriation and the law and order situation at the camps.

“They have been working against the repatriation of the Rohingya in Rakhine state. They are killing the pro-repatriation people,” Khan said.

However, he did not elaborate on what he meant by the allegation and he did not provide evidence when BenarNews asked him about this.

“The Rohingya people have been getting involved in criminal activities as they have been frustrated over their future. Their repatriation is the only sustainable solution,” Khan further said.

“The foreign ministry officials have told us that the Myanmar government now wants to take the Rohingya back. China has [also] been helping us in this regard.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.