Day: November 22, 2022

A Vietnamese court on Tuesday sentenced a couple to prison for “abusing democratic freedoms” on their popular social media channel by allegedly smearing Vietnamese officials, one of the defendants said.

A court in Dong Nai province sentenced Nguyen Thai Hung to a four-year term and his spouse, Vu Thi Kim Hoang, to two-and-a-half years for running their “Telling the Truth TV” YouTube channel, which had nearly 40,000 followers and earned allegedly “illegal profits” of more than 384 million dong, or U.S. $15,500, from advertisements. 

During the trial, police presented evidence from material the pair presented on the social media platform addressing a deadly January 2020 police raid over a tense land dispute in northern Vietnam’s Dong Tam village, the management of prisoners, and Vietnam’s communist regime and legal system.

Hoang, 44, was arrested with Hung, 50, in January. Police released Hoang in late April. 

She told RFA that the couple first hired Nguyen Van Mieng as their defense lawyer, but later dismissed him under pressure from police. They also believed they would be able to defend themselves at the trial. 

But the trial did not go as expected, Hoang said.

 “We could not debate much at today’s trial,” she said. “Most of the time, they asked us yes-or-no questions. That was it. Because we did not have a lawyer, we did not have the right to speak.” 

Even if the couple had had a chance to explain what they had done, the verdict would have still been the same, Hoang said.

Although the trial was supposed to be open to the public, Hoang said only her daughter was allowed into the courtroom. Other relatives had to remain at the building’s entrance, she said.

The indictment said from June 2020 to January 2022, Hung used his YouTube channel to host 21 online discussions that contained content “speaking badly of the [Communist] Party and the state, distorting the government’s socioeconomic policy, slandering the party and state’s high-level leaders, and distorting recent high-profile incidents.” 

Hung’s comments in the videos, which each had 19,000-56,000 views, “caused confusion and worries to the people and seriously insulted the party and state’s senior leaders,” according to the indictment. 

Hoang was accused of “being a related and supportive person” for providing Hung with accommodations and letting him use her laptop and access her bank account. 

She admitted the acts in court, while Hung pleaded innocent, saying that by live-streaming his talks on YouTube, he was exercising his rights to freedom of speech and democracy. 

After the verdict was rendered, the couple announced that they would hire a defense lawyer to appeal the decision.

No additional content has been posted on the YouTube channel since the pair’s arrest.

The one-party state dominated by the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam tightly curbs freedom of expression and enforces stringent controls over the country’s online environment.

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Jim Snyder. 

The number of properties seized by authorities in Myanmar over their owners’ alleged ties to the armed resistance has risen to 789 since last year’s coup, and has expanded to include those owned by relatives of the accused, RFA Burmese has learned.

Data obtained by RFA, based on statistics from Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) and the deposed National League for Democracy party’s Human Rights Documentation Team, showed an increase of 203 properties seized by late May, when a report by independent research group the Institute for Strategy and Policy (Myanmar) said junta security forces had confiscated 586 properties since the Feb. 1, 2021 takeover.

The properties seized are mostly owned by people with alleged ties to the shadow National Unity Government, Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Committee of Representatives (CRPH), and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group — all of which the regime considers “terrorist organizations.”

In one of the more high profile seizures since May, on Nov. 9, junta police and officials in civilian clothes confiscated the home of NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung in Yangon region’s North Okkalapa township.

A day earlier, authorities in Yangon’s Hlaing township seized the home of the parents of CRPH member Sithu Maung – a former member of parliament for the NLD in Yangon’s Pabedan township.

Speaking to RFA, Sithu Maung said that seizing his parents’ home was “not only totally unlawful, but a deliberate act of suppression” by the junta.

“It’s not in accordance with the law to seize the home of the parents of the target,” he said.

“I don’t hold any ownership of my parents’ home nor do I keep any documents in my name there … I moved to Pabedan township ages ago.”

He said rule of law and reparations for victims of home seizures like his parents will have to wait until military rule has ended in Myanmar.

Other high profile seizures since May include that of the family home of Pa-O National Federation Council Chairman Khun Myint Tun in Mon state’s Thaton township on Oct. 12. Khun Myint Tun, a former political prisoner, was formerly an MP for the NLD in 1990, and the home served as the elections office for the party during Myanmar’s 1990, 2015 and 2020 polls.

According to the NLD’s Human Rights Documentation Team, the military had seized 278 homes and 39 businesses owned by 274 NLD members as of the end of October. They included the homes of 136 NLD MPs.

Junta’s ‘hatred of all things NLD’

Bo Bo Oo, an NLD MP in Yangon’s Dala township, told RFA the seizures were motivated by the junta’s “hatred of all things NLD.”

“In every election, the military-backed parties always lost because everyone in Myanmar supported the NLD,” he said.

“Since they can’t compete against the NLD in any free and fair elections, they just choose to cowardly suppress us in this way.”

When contacted by RFA for comment on the property seizures, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun described them as “lawfully ordered” because of their ties to the PDF and other armed groups.

While Myanmar’s law states that authorities may confiscate the properties of any fugitive charged with a crime, a legal expert told RFA on condition of anonymity that the seizures since the coup were “only intended to suppress anti-junta activists and to solidify the junta’s power.”

“The junta is trying to end the people’s support for the CRPH, NUG, and PDF, who they accuse of being terrorists … It’s obvious that they are doing this for their political advantage,” they said.

Ko Tun of the Myanmar-based Human Rights Initiative called the junta’s seizure of civilian homes a “major human rights violation.”

“Seizing homes and properties based on someone’s political involvement, such as peacefully demonstrating or taking part in anti-dictatorship activities, is a human rights violation on top of all the other crimes committed by the junta,” he said.

The junta says voter fraud led to the NLD’s landslide victory in the country’s November 2020 election but has yet to provide evidence for its claims. It has instead violently suppressed nationwide protests calling for a return to civilian rule, killing 2,530 people and arresting 16,388 in the 21 months since, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Most detainees from the NLD were charged for alleged crimes that carry heavy sentences, including rebellion, corruption, unlawful association and incitement.

The NLD said in January that more than three-quarters of its members arrested by the junta remained in detention more than 11 months after the military seized power. Since the Feb. 1 coup, junta security forces have arrested hundreds of NLD members, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Myanmar has raked in $3.8 billion in foreign investment in the nation’s key energy sector as key Asian oil firms continue to do business with the military regime despite efforts to reduce cash flows to the junta since the  February 2021 coup.

Earlier this month, independent research group the Institute for Strategy and Policy (Myanmar) reported that the junta had attracted U.S. $3.8 billion to Myanmar’s energy sector between its Feb. 1, 2021, takeover and Oct. 30, 2022, or nearly 68% of all foreign investment over the same period.

The report was based on numbers provided by the junta’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration and comes despite a concerted effort by Western governments to cut off funding to the military regime through sanctions, citing its role in violence that has claimed the lives of at least 2,525 civilians since the coup.

It’s a substantial cash infusion for the junta, which observers expected would be starved of money 20 months after seizing power as foreign companies fled political turmoil and economic mismanagement by the regime. Since December, five major players in the country’s energy sector have announced their departure, including France’s Total, U.S.-based Chevron, Australia’s Woodside, Japan’s Mitsubishi and Malaysia’s Petronas.

However, Soe Thura Tun, minister of energy and electricity for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, questioned the accuracy of the junta’s numbers, which he said only accounted for the total amount of investment without addressing losses incurred from foreign companies leaving the country.

“The reality is that $1 billion came in as new investment while $1 billion of old investment pulled out,” he said.

“But the junta won’t include loss of investment in its calculations and showed only the total figure. I don’t believe that they have as much investment as they claim.”

‘Selfish opportunists’ ignore crisis

Despite the departures since December, companies such as Thailand’s PTTEP, South Korea’s POSCO, India-based ONGC, Nippon Oil of Japan and China-owned CNPC continue to operate in Myanmar and have become the major players in the country’s energy sector, expanding their presence to make up for the gaps.

Soe Thura Tun said that the shadow government is working with the international organizations to cut off that energy sector revenue and other sources of income, which rights groups allege is being used by the junta to crack down on pro-democracy civilians.

The junta, meanwhile, has ignored calls to seek a political compromise, prompting condemnation and sanctions from the global community.

Ko Ye, spokesman for the Blood Money Campaign, which seeks to shut down junta access to foreign income and international business, told RFA that the kind of foreign investment that has entered since the coup is “not good … for countries like Myanmar.”

“This kind of investment at this time of chaos in our country is the work of selfish opportunists,” he said. “Reputable and unbiased investments are hard to come by these days.”

According to Ko Ye, much of the new investment obtained by the junta in 2022 involved fuel, including for aircraft, and electricity production.

The National Unity Government and NGOs such as Blood Money Campaign estimate that as much as 50% of Myanmar’s total revenue comes from the energy and oil and gas sectors, and despite their efforts to reduce how much of that flows to the junta, they have a long way to go.

Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun acknowledged in May that while energy sector production had seen a “pause” as the result of foreign investment withdrawals, Russia was expected to make up the difference with investments of its own “in the near future.”

Russia, China and ASEAN

A Myanmar-based economist, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said that while Western sanctions have been effective, China, Russia, and some of Myanmar’s fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states are continuing to prop up the regime with foreign investment.

“The NUG’s attempts to cut off the junta’s sources of income won’t have much of an impact on Russia and China, because those counties have always supported the military regime,” they said.

Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, said Myanmar’s neighboring nations should know how the junta rule has impacted the country more than most.

“We are dealing with selfish neighbors that prioritize their national interest above anything else,” he said.

“That’s why we have seen oil and gas companies from Thailand replace western corporations that pulled out, such as Chevron and Total Energy.”

Myanmar’s Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, which is estimated to generate U.S. $1.5 billion in annual revenues – or half the country’s foreign currency reserves – signed a deal with Thailand’s PTTEP in August 2014 to cooperate on U.S. $72 billion-worth of energy projects. 

Last week, the Blood Money Campaign issued a statement urging Thailand, which recently hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, to stop investing in Myanmar’s energy sector.

Translated by Myo Min Soe. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris hit back at China on Tuesday over its coercive tactics in the South China Sea as she became the highest-ranking American official to visit Palawan, a remote Philippine island on the frontline of a territorial dispute.

Her trip coincided with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announcing that his government would file a diplomatic note against Beijing over alleged harassment by the China Coast Guard during the weekend retrieval of space debris from a Chinese rocket in contested waters.

“The United States and the broader international community have a profound stake in the future of this region. America’s prosperity relies on the billions of dollars [of commerce] that flow through these waters every day, and we are proud to work with you in your mission,” Harris said during a speech on the deck of the BRP Teresa Magbanua, a Philippine Coast Guard ship that patrols the waterway.  

“As an ally, the United States stands with the Philippines in the face of intimidation and coercion in the South China Sea,” she said in a report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

After landing in Palawan, Harris and her small entourage traveled first to Tagburos village, a fishing community where residents are continually threatened by developments in the South China Sea.

The Philippines won an arbitral award against China in 2016 that basically invalidated Beijing’s expansive claims to the maritime region potentially rich in minerals.

Tensions have grown between Beijing and Manila in recent years, with Filipino officials taking China to task over the alleged aggressive behavior of its coast guard ships and fishing boats in Philippine-claimed waters. Other claimants to territories and waters in the sea are Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan.

“I am here in Palawan to underscore the importance of our partnership in order to create economic opportunities, protect coastal ecosystems, maintain peace and stability, and uphold international rules and norms here in the South China Sea and around the world,” Harris said in her speech after a closed-door briefing by Philippine Coast Guard officials.

“To uphold international rules and norms is to support the lives and livelihoods of people throughout the region.”

When foreign vessels enter Philippine waters and illegally raid the fishing stocks and harass and intimidate local fishermen, “the vitality of communities like this is at risk,” she stressed.

Harris said the U.S. government was also helping the Philippines address “illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing” by conducting training with the local coast guard.

“In addition, we have stepped up efforts to provide countries in the region with a wider and more accurate picture of their territorial waters,” the U.S. vice president said, noting that the United States, Japan, Australia and India had in May launched a partnership for “domain awareness.”

The project uses “space-based platforms to deliver a common operating picture of Indo-Pacific waterways” and is ultimately aimed at protecting fishing areas, as well as detecting and combating illegal fishing, Harris said.

“We will continue to rally our allies and partners against unlawful and irresponsible behavior. When the international rules-based order is threatened somewhere, it is threatened everywhere,” she said.

Harris and her entourage later boarded Air Force Two for the homeward flight to Washington.

In Manila, President Marcos said the Philippine government would send a note verbale to China in protest over the alleged forcible seizure of the space debris by Chinese coast guard personnel during an incident involving the Philippine Navy in waters in the Spratly Islands on Sunday.

“[I ] think that’s what we need to do because when it was first reported to me by the chief of staff, I asked him to immediately call the military attaché in the Chinese embassy and to get a report,” Marcos told reporters Tuesday.

He noted that the Navy had used the word “forcibly” in a report that contradicted a Chinese embassy statement, which described the encounter at sea near the Philippine-claimed island of Pag-asa (Thitu) and retrieval of the space debris as “friendly.”

“So we have to resolve this issue. Of course, I have complete trust in our Navy and if this is what they say happened, I can only believe that that is what happened,” Marcos said.

“These are the things that we need to work out because with the way that the region, our region, the Asia-Pacific, is heating up, one small mistake can lead to a larger conflagration,” the Philippine president warned.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Department of National Defense said it was awaiting additional reports about alleged incidents tied to the retrieval of the rocket debris.

“We stand by the accounts of our personnel in the area that, contrary to the narrative of the Chinese side, the debris being towed by a Philippine vessel to Naval Station Emilio Liwanag for inspection was rudely taken by personnel from CCGV5203,” Department Undersecretary Jose C. Faustino Jr. said in a statement Tuesday, referring to a China Coast Guard ship.

“Philippine authorities are also investigating the reported explosions near Pag-asa Island after the incident involving the floating debris. The situation is still developing; thus, we cannot provide additional details at this time,” he added.

Caught between rival superpowers

Harris’ three-day trip to Manila and Palawan was seen as an effort by the Biden administration to reset America’s longtime relationship and alliance with the Philippines. These had cooled under Marcos’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who pursued closer bilateral ties with Beijing. 

Marcos, who took office in June, has signaled that he is open to repairing frazzled bilateral and military ties with the U.S. amid a Sino-American rivalry in Southeast Asia.

“[B]eing at the entrance of maritime Southeast Asia and located at the geographic heart of the Indo-Pacific, the Philippines has clearly established its geopolitical value in the region. What makes the Philippines an even more important player is that it does not only share a historic treaty alliance with the U.S., but also continues to forge closer political and economic relations with China,” Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst who focuses on the region, told BenarNews.

“Therefore, the Southeast Asian nation serves as a crucial element in the changing dynamics of the Indo-Pacific.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news news service.

Six former executives of Hong Kong’s now-folded Apple Daily newspaper pleaded guilty on Tuesday to ‘conspiring and colluding with foreign powers’ under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

Publisher Cheung Kim-hung, associated publisher Chan Pui-man, editor-in-chief Ryan Law, executive editor-in-chief Lam Man-chung, and columnists Fung Wai-kong and Yeung Ching-kee pleaded guilty to “conspiring” with the paper’s founder Jimmy Lai to call for sanctions on Hong Kong and China in support of the pro-democracy movement.

The pro-democracy Apple Daily and Lai’s Next Digital media company were forced to close in June 2021 after their assets were frozen during a national security police raid on its headquarters in Tseung Kwan O. 

Cheung and the other five defendants were arrested in the days and weeks that followed, while Lai is currently in prison serving sentences for fraud and “illegal assembly,” awaiting trial on the same charges as the six executives.

Lai will plead not guilty to ‘colluding with foreign powers’ at a trial to be held before a panel of three national security judges vetted by the government and no jury, that is scheduled to start on Dec. 1. 

Prosecutors are also accusing three linked to Next Digital of involvement in the “conspiracy,” which allegedly ran until the day of the paper’s last print edition on June 24, 2021. The companies are expected to plead not guilty alongside Lai.

In May, the city plummeted to 148th on a global press freedom index, as Reporters Without Borders cited the ongoing crackdown on the pro-democracy media that has targeted the Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News, among other outlets. 

The implementation of the national security law since July 1, 2020 has ushered in a crackdown on pro-democracy media organizations, activists and politicians in Hong Kong, with many former journalists joining the steady stream of people leaving their home to seek a less restricted life elsewhere. 

Cheung and the others were convicted by a High Court judge after the prosecution put its case, and will be sentenced after Lai’s trial.

Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kei, who fled to the democratic island of Taiwan as soon as the national security law took effect, said the 2019 protest movement wasn’t the work of the Apple Daily or any media organization, however.

“Hong Kong people didn’t take part in the [2014] Umbrella movement or the [2019] protests at the Apple Daily’s instigation,” Lam told RFA. “It was because [authorities in] mainland China wanted to interfere in the running of Hong Kong.”

‘Politically realistic’ pleas

Meanwhile, independent journalist Lam Yin-bong said the guilty pleas were likely due to a sense of realism about the outcome of their cases.

“They face very serious charges that could result in very long sentences,” Lam Yin-bong told RFA. “It’s politically realistic [to assume] … that they will be convicted, so if they plead not guilty, they would just wind up with a longer sentence.”

“With a guilty plea, they can reduce their sentence by a third and avoid a lengthy trial and high lawyers’ fees,” he said. “These pleas have nothing to do with their relationship to guilt; they really have no choice under the current state of the judicial system in Hong Kong.”

“None of these six high-level executives … went overseas or even communicated with anyone in a foreign country, and yet they are still being charged with collusion with foreign powers, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment,” Lam Yin-bong said.

He said Jimmy Lai, who is being framed as the “ringleader” in the “conspiracy,” is likely to be the chief target of the authorities’ wrath in this case.

“Jimmy Lai is likely to get a very, very severe sentence,” he added.

Anthem arrest

Another Hong Kong court on Tuesday found nine people were found guilty of “rioting” at a protest on Oct. 1, 2019, while police arrested a man who praised the playing of a 2019 protest anthem instead of the Chinese national anthem at a rugby match in South Korea.

The arrest came after Hong Kong police said its organized crime wing would investigate the matter, to see “whether the incident has breached the National Anthem Ordinance or any other legislation of Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong National Security Law.”

The 42-year-old man was arrested by national security police on suspicion of “acting with seditious intent” after reposting the clip and thanking South Korea for “recognizing Hong Kong’s national anthem,” local media reported. 

The man had posted a number of messages of support for the 2019 protests, as well as calling for resistance to pandemic control measures in the city, reports said.

The Hong Kong government has said the song is “closely associated with violent protests and the [Hong Kong] ‘independence’ movement,” although the song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence. 

In 2019, when protesters began defending peaceful demonstrators against riot police firing tear gas, non-lethal bullets and occasionally live ammunition with Molotov cocktails, bricks and other makeshift weapons, Hong Kong fans chanted “Freedom for Hong Kong” and booed the Chinese national anthem at a soccer match in South Korea.

They waved banners that read “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution in our time!” a popular protest slogan that was banned under the national security law, and sang “Glory to Hong Kong.” 

Hong Kong passed a national anthem law in June 2020 banning ‘insults’ to the Chinese national anthem after Hong Kong soccer fans repeatedly booed, yelled Cantonese obscenities or turned their backs when it was played at matches. 

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.