Day: December 21, 2022

An India-based Buddhist organization has declared that it would not support any Chinese-appointed successor to the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s foremost spiritual leader, and neither would the people of the Himalayan region.

 “If the government of the People’s Republic of China, for political ends, chooses a candidate for the Dalai Lama, the people of the Himalayas will never accept it, never pay devotional obeisance to such a political appointee and publicly denounce such a move by anyone,” the Indian Himalayan Council of the Nalanda Buddhist Tradition said in a resolution issued Tuesday.

 “The system of recognizing reincarnated spiritual beings is a religious practice unique to Nalanda Buddhism and the philosophy of the principle of life after death,” the council said. 

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 national uprising against rule from Beijing. Now 87 years old, concerns on how succession will be handled have arisen.

Tibetan tradition holds that senior Buddhist monks are reincarnated in the body of a child after they die. The Dalai Lama has said that his successor will be born in a country outside of Chinese control. 

But RFA reported in October that China has plans to install a puppet leader in place of the current Dalai Lama after his death, in an elaborate public relations strategy intended to end international support for Tibet.

China has no right to make a decision regarding the next Dalai Lama, Lochen Rinpoche, president of the Indian Himalayan Council, told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“Everyone who follows Nalanda tradition around the globe considers the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader, therefore the sole authority on the reincarnation of his holiness the Dalai Lama is Ganden Phodrang Foundation,” he said, referring to the Dalai Lama’s personal office.

The process of the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation is a religious and cultural process, Moling Gonpo, the council’s secretary said.

“Our resolution emphasizes that only Ganden Phodrang has the sole authority when it comes to the matter of reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. If the People’s Republic of China or any other entity interferes in this matter for political gain, then the [council] will never accept their outcome,” Moling Gonpo said.

Tibetans remain bitter about Chinese intervention in the selection 25 years ago of the Panchen Lama, who died in 1989.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was recognized on May 14, 1995 at the age of six as the 11th Panchen Lama, the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 10th Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama is Tibet’s second-highest spiritual leader and, together with the council of high lamas, is in charge of seeking out the next Dalai Lama.

The recognition by the Dalai Lama angered Chinese authorities, who three days later took the boy and his family into custody and then installed another boy, Gyaltsen (in Chinese, Gyaincain) Norbu, as their own candidate in his place.

The Panchen Lama installed by Beijing remains unpopular with Tibetans both in exile and at home.

The resolution on the Dalai Lama’s successor came as lawmakers in the U.S. introduced the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act, a bill that if signed into law would make it official U.S. policy that a resumption of dialogue is necessary to resolve conflict between Tibet and China, and states that Tibet’s legal status remains to be determined under international law.

The bill brought forward in the U.S. Senate also charges the Chinese government with violating Tibetans’ right to self-determination.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force nearly 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 Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

More than 6,000 residents from nine villages near a Chinese-operated copper mine in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region fled their homes as troops loyal to the ruling military junta entered their communities on Wednesday, locals said.

The exodus occurred the same day as the United Nations Security Council called for the release of former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in its first-ever resolution on the political crisis in the country wracked by instability and violence since the military deposed her and other elected leaders in a February 2021 coup.

The soldiers, who provide security for China’s state-owned Wanbao Co., which owns the nearby Letpadaung copper mine in Salingyi township, entered the villages situated next to the Pathein-Monywa Highway in Salingyi and adjacent Yinmarbin township at about 4 a.m., they said.

The mine is a joint venture between Wanbao and the military-owned Myanmar Economic Holding Limited company. Following the military’s coup, employees walked off the job to join the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, reducing the mine’s operating capacity by more than 80%.

Earlier this year, locals reported that workers were being recalled to the mine to restart operations after more than a year of downtime, prompting threats of an attack from anti-junta People’s Defense Force militias.

In response, the junta pledged to defend the mine, seen as a key source of revenue for the military regime.

Though the soldiers left in the afternoon, residents of Won Taw, Done Taw and Kan Kone villages in Salingyi township, and Aung Moe, Mya Pin Si, Mya Shwe Si, Bein Nwe Chaung, Kyay Sar Kya and Ywar Thar villages in Yinmarbin township, said they were afraid to return to their homes.

A column of nearly 100 soldiers in three military vehicles from the junta’s northwestern military command, along with a police battalion from Yinmarbin township, entered Done Taw village at 5 a.m., said one resident, who refused to be named for safety reasons.

“They positioned 10 soldiers each at the two entrances to the village that are located on the north and south sides,” he said. “Police officers were placed in the streets.”

When the forces moved to the center of the village, residents ran away frantically but soldiers detained a 14-year-old boy to use as a guide, the resident said. They released him that afternoon with a slap across his face.

The more than 2,000 residents from 500 houses in the village have not yet returned, he added.

The soldiers did not target Done Taw and other villages, but rather waited there to provide security for the Chinese workers returning to the mine. 

‘Still hiding away’

A resident of Ywar Thar village who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said a column of about 50 soldiers was stationed beside the village but had not raided the homes. 

“It looks like the military is taking security [precautions] for Chinese nationals going to the Wanbao company,” he said. “We are still hiding away from them for now. We don’t know for sure if they have left our streets or not.”

The troops did not torch or destroy any homes in the community because they appeared to only be performing regular security checks, the villager added. 

After the security forces had taken up positions in the villages, two express buses with more than 40 passengers each drove past the Chindwin bridge in Yinmarbin township and entered the Wanbao company compound, said residents.

Aye Hlaing, the junta’s spokesman for Sagaing region, later told  RFA that the three vehicles of troops in the area positioned themselves north and south of Wanbao in case any fighting broke out with the local PDF.

The military convoy entered the villages for security while four vehicles escorted passengers to Wanbao company at 4 a.m., said Sat Kyar Waday, a spokesman for the Yinmarbin People’s Defense Force. 

“Although we were waiting to attack with landmines, we couldn’t do it as they did not come into our target area,” he told RFA.

More than 10 clashes between the military and the PDF had already taken place in Yinmarbin township, he said. 

In the 22 months since the Burmese military seized control of the country from the democratically elected government, more than 1,000 homes in over 20 villages in Yinmarbin and Salingyi townships have been torched and destroyed by junta troops. The attacks forced more than 3,600 civilians to flee their homes and seek shelter in monasteries and on vegetable fields, according to aid workers who are helping them.

More than 10,000 locals fled their homes on Dec. 12 when junta troops providing security for Wanbao raided their villages. 

UN Security Council takes action

Reports of the exodus in Sagaing came as the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday passed its resolution on Myanmar 12-0, despite abstentions by China, Russia and India. The resolution expressed “deep concern” over the state of emergency imposed by the military and its impact on civilians. It also emphasized the need for humanitarian access in Myanmar and the release of political prisoners, including Suu Kyi.

The resolution also requested further action in the form of a report from U.N. Secretary General António Guterres or his special envoy on Myanmar by March 15.

“Today’s resolution is long overdue, but it’s still a critical step forward for a Security Council whose silence on Myanmar had long supported global inaction and continued a cycle of impunity in the face of staggering human rights abuses,” said Akila Radhakrishnan, president of the Global Justice Center, a New York-based human rights group.

“We know the Security Council has a legal and moral responsibility to respond to the crisis in Myanmar. And this resolution offers some reassurance that Council members understand this fact,” she said.

Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government welcomed the adoption of the resolution, but said it would have liked to have seen a “stronger text.” It called on the Security Council to build on the resolution “to take further and stronger action to ensure the swift end of the military junta and its crimes.”

There was no immediate response from Myanmar’s junta.

Myanmar’s powerful military has operated with impunity while committing human rights abuses for decades, including the 2017 genocide of Rohingya Muslims.

Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Joshua Lipes.

A court in Cambodia on Wednesday heard closing arguments in the trial of opposition leader Kem Sokha, who faces unsubstantiated charges of treason.

Kem Sokha was detained in 2017 after the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which had been the main opposition party at the time, made significant gains in local commune elections. He was placed under house arrest, but was released prior to the beginning of his trial which has dragged on for more than two years.

In the final arguments on Wednesday, the prosecution recommended that the court reimpose Kem Sokha’s detention and sentence him to a long prison term. It said that in addition to criminal prosecution for treason, the government plans to seek civil compensation and damages.

The court is scheduled to announce the trial’s verdict on March 3 – just four months before Cambodians go to the polls to vote in the 2023 general election.

As he exited the courtroom at around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Kem Sokha told reporters that the court had relied on “fake evidence.” 

“The verdict has not been rendered,” he said, and claimed that video evidence the prosecution used against him was edited with the intent to defame him. 

Kem Sokha’s lawyer Meng Sopheary told reporters that her client was neither involved with a revolution nor had led violent demonstrations against the government, and said the video evidence was edited in such a way as to prove these allegations.

“I don’t know about the court’s decision but our closing argument has cleared allegations against my client,” she said.

Another lawyer, Peng Heng, said Kem Sokha has maintained his innocence and urged the court and government to drop charges against him. 

“He wants the court to show that he is innocent so he can return to serving his country,” he said.

Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved and outlawed the Cambodia National Rescue Party following Kem Sokha’s arrest, which paved the way for Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party to take every seat in the country’s National Assembly in the 2018 general election. 

The ban kicked off a five-year crackdown on the political opposition, with many of those affiliated with the illegal party arrested and detained on charges like conspiracy, incitement, and treason.

Political commentator Seng Sary told RFA’s Khmer Service that even though the prosecutor referred the court to convict Kem Sokha, he believes the court will drop charges against him.

“I am optimistic that Kem Sokha will get justice,” he said, explaining that Cambodia can ill afford to convict him and face more economic pressure from the international community.

Another political commentator Kim Sok, told RFA that the court would likely issue a light sentence against Kem Sokha. 

“But I don’t expect he gets full freedom. The verdict will be difficult to understand,” he said.

Ruling party spokesman Sok Ey San told RFA that the government used a speech delivered by Kem Sokha in Australia in 2013 to charge him with treason. 

“He said he was proud that he succeeded [in collusion with foreign countries] but it turned out to be a win for the government,” said Sok Ey San.

Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Authorities in China’s far-western Xinjiang region have detained a well-known Uyghur nutritionist for messages he posted on social media, according to Sweden-based siblings and police in the region’s capital Urumqi. 

Behtiyar Sadir, 46, a national-level health coach and member of Xinjiang’s Association of Health and Nutrition, went missing in mid-October when authorities placed Urumqi and other regional population centers under a strict lockdown to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus, his younger brother, Seydijan Sadir, and elder sister, Munewer Sadir, told RFA Uyghur.

Sadir, the father of three children, had suddenly stopped using the WeChat social messaging service and updating information on his company website, which alerted them to his disappearance.

The siblings said they lost contact with their brother in 2017, when Chinese authorities began apprehending the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and interning them in “re-education” camps to purportedly prevent religious extremism and terrorism.

“We were able to observe his activities over his WeChat,” said Munewer Sadir. “Although we had no contact with him, seeing his WeChat activities, we felt satisfied that he was safe.”

Munewer Sadir said she waited for more than a week after Sadir disappeared from social media on Oct. 13th, thinking that he might have traveled somewhere, “but I also wondered how he could go outside when everyone was at their houses because of the lockdown.”

“Then I began to suspect his disappearance,” she added.

The siblings then began inquiring about Sadir’s whereabouts through acquaintances in Urumqi, but had no luck, they said.

RFA contacted an officer at the Hotan Road Police Station in Urumqi to ask about Sadir’s status and learned that he had been arrested “on suspicion of revealing state secrets.” The officer was unable to provide further details and referred questions about where Sadir’s status to the city’s Qarlighach District Police Station.

“The Qarlighach police station arrested him,” he said.

An officer at the Qarlighach station said he was present when police arrested Sadir “along with other Uyghurs” during a night raid, but did not receive a formal notification about the reason for his detention.

“It seems he took photos on the spot and sent them via his WeChat, which is why he was arrested and will be investigated,” the officer said, suggesting the images may have been related to the harsh restrictions residents were forced to endure during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The officer said he had no information about where Sadir is being held and was unable to provide any further details about the other Uyghurs who were detained along with him.

Successful entrepreneur

A well-known nutritionist with more than 10 years experience, Sadir was accredited by regional and national health certification boards and had adopted the moniker “Coach Bahtiyar” for his popular online lectures, classroom training modules, and eponymous line of nutritional products.

When Sadir’s business was thriving, he traveled to Europe and to the United States in 2014, 2015, and 2016, but was never targeted for arrest by authorities in Xinjiang when they began detaining Uyghurs who had traveled abroad in “re-education” camps in 2017, his siblings said.

However, Saydijan Sadir said his brother had been under “constant surveillance” during 2017 and 2018, and had to report his every move to police.

“I obtained some information from my acquaintances in our homeland,” said Saydijan Sadir. “The police surveilled my brother for two years from 2017 to 2018. They did not take him to the [internment] camps or arrest him, but they prohibited his movements and ordered him not to leave his neighborhood.” 

Sadir’s siblings said that because they had been forced to cut contact with him, it was only through friends in Urumqi that they learned of their father’s death in 2021. 

“When my father passed away last year, my brother could not give us any information about his death as he was afraid of getting into trouble,” his sister said. “We only heard about my father’s death from others. 

The siblings said that Sadir had managed to build a successful business despite becoming disabled as a child.

“The doctors cut off his right hand when he was little after he was burned in an accident, so he was [able to thrive despite being] disabled,” Saydijan Sadir said.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Joshua Lipes.

Experts are disputing a media report that China is developing disputed and unoccupied land features in the South China Sea.

The Philippines voiced serious concern about the news in the Bloomberg News article, which cited unnamed Western officials for its report about China “building up several unoccupied land features” in the Spratly Islands.

But a Philippine military source told BenarNews there were no signs of construction in the four territories within the chain. Beijing, for its part, rejected the report.

In its article published on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported on what it called China’s building spree in unoccupied reefs in the Spratlys, and added that reclamation activities took place at four sites: Eldad Reef in the northern Spratlys, Lankiam Cay, Whitsun Reef and Sandy Cay. The Spratly Islands are claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs was quick to respond.

“We are seriously concerned as such activities contravene the Declaration of Conduct on the South China Sea’s undertaking on self-restraint and the 2016 Arbitral Award,” the department said in a statement on Tuesday night.

In 2016, an arbitral tribunal ruled in favor of Manila and threw out China’s vast claims to the sea region, a ruling that Beijing has rejected. 

Bloomberg came out with the report as the United States pledged to back the Philippines over “the reported escalating swarms” of Chinese ships encroaching on Manila’s territories in the contested waterway.

Next month, Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during his first presidential visit to China.

Report challenged

The South China Sea Probing Initiative, a state-supported Chinese think-tank, issued a tweet questioning the report’s findings.

“So far, of the four reefs accused, no signs of land reclamation on Lankiam Cay, Eldad Reef and Whitsun Reef, Sandy Cay is indeed in reclaiming, however it is conducted by Vietnam. The reporter of Bloomberg News should do more homework on SCS issue,” it tweeted.

During a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected Bloomberg’s report as “completely untrue.”

“Refraining from action on the presently uninhabited islands and reefs of the Nansha Islands is a serious common understanding reached by China and ASEAN countries in the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), and China always strictly abides by it,” Mao Ning said in response to a reporter’s question. China refers to the Spratlys as the Nansha islands. 

The Philippine military had little to say about the report officially, pending verification.

“The instruction is that the authority [to issue a statement] should come from the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea,” said Col. Isagani Nato, acting spokesman of the military’s Western Command, based on Palawan island.

The West Philippine Sea is the name that Manila uses for the territories it claims in the South China Sea. Philippine troops have occupied Lankiam Cay (also known as Panata island), a 108-acre cay, since 1978.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were no monitored Chinese reclamations in the areas listed in the Bloomberg report.

“Based on our patrols, we have not noticed (Chinese reclamations),” said the source official who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to reporters on the matter, adding “they did not indicate construction.”

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), attached to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, gave a similar assessment.

“China has not occupied a new feature since December 1994 and has not built up anything it didn’t already occupy,” AMTI Director Greg Poling said, adding “commercial imagery cannot corroborate” Bloomberg’s claims.

Another analyst, Taylor Fravel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pointed out that landforms appear and disappear in the South China Sea.

Jeoffrey Maitem in Davao City, Philippines, contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Nanjing have jailed a prominent democracy activist for a further four years on subversion charges after he criticized the government’s handling of the pandemic as it emerged in Wuhan, Radio Free Asia has learned.

The Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court handed the four-year jail term to former Nanjing Normal University lecturer Guo Quan for “incitement to subvert state power” on Dec. 20, after he had been held for nearly three years in pretrial detention.

Guo stood trial on the charges on Sept. 9, 2021, where he was accused of seeking to “divide the people from the ruling party” and negate the existing political system by advocating multi-party democracy, on the basis of less than 20 articles criticizing the CCP’s COVID-19 response, social injustice, and official corruption. 

Guo, 54, who has also served as a judge, addressed the court for nearly two hours, presenting a systematic legal defense of the articles.

He was initially detained by Nanjing police on Jan. 31, 2020 and held at the Nanjing No. 2 Detention Center on charges that were unknown at the time.

Guo had previously served a 10-year jail term from 2009 on the same charge after he set up the China New People’s Party in 2007 in a bid to campaign for multi-party democracy in China, an idea that has been banned by Beijing.

Guo’s lawyer Chang Boyang said his client had likely gotten a harsher sentence because it was his second conviction for subversion.

“Back during the pandemic in Wuhan three years ago … he expressed his opinions on the attempts to cover up the extent of the outbreak on WeChat,” Chang told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.

“The charges against him really didn’t stand up, but he was handed this four-year jail term mainly because of his earlier sentence, as repeat offenders are dealt with more severely,” he said.

‘There is nothing we can do’

Guo’s octogenarian mother Gu Xiao that she was unable to attend the sentencing hearing for health reasons.

“I didn’t attend because I’m not in good health,” Gu said.

She said two of Guo’s defense lawyers, Chang Boyang and Shi Weijiang, had planned to go but had been unable to due to testing positive for COVID-19.

“The lawyer called me afterwards and told me he had been sentenced to four years,” Gu said.

She said there was nothing to be done about it.

“If they want to pin another crime on him, what can we do? There is nothing we can do. Can we talk back or protest against it?”

Gu, who said she has never agreed with Guo’s political activism, dismissed Guo’s plan to appeal the sentence.

“It’s not going to happen,” she said. “Appealing is 100 percent pointless. I have hired more than a dozen lawyers for him [over the years] but it hasn’t done any good.”

“He’s already served three years, so I just have to wait one more year,” Gu said. “I just hope I can stay alive that long.”

She added: “I was a very good person and I have lived a good life, a very ordinary and low-key life, but this son of mine has turned my old age into a living hell. Even if he comes back [from prison], he won’t have a job, and I will have to support him instead of the other way around.”

Sending a warning

U.S.-based commentator Hu Ping said Guo had managed to make a difference to the democracy movement in China, despite the consequences he now faces.

“He practices freedom of speech and association, and won’t give in even under huge pressure,” Hu said. “He has definitely made a contribution to the Chinese democracy movement, and his case has attracted international attention.”

Hu said Guo was likely jailed at this time to send a warning to anyone who took part in recent “blank paper” protests against COVID-19 curbs in the wake of a fatal lockdown fire in Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi.

“We have lost contact with a lot of people [since the protests] and their whereabouts are still unknown,” Hu said of fellow democracy activists in China.

“They’re bringing out the older cases and pronouncing these judgments with great fanfare, because they want to threaten and intimidate the public, to shock them,” he said. 

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.