Day: April 10, 2023

A Chinese court on Monday sentenced two prominent political activists to more than a decade in prison for “subversion of state power” – a charge often used to target critics of the government – after they attended a 2019 dissident gathering.

The Linshu County People’s Court in the eastern province of Shandong handed down a 14-year jail term to Xu Zhiyong and a 12-year sentence to rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi.

Ding and Xu, the founder of the “New Citizens’ Movement” campaign for government transparency, were detained after they attended a dinner with prominent activists in December 2019 in Xiamen, southeastern China.

“The jailing of Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi is tantamount to saying that the government’s own constitution isn’t even worthy to be used as toilet paper,” Ding’s U.S.-based wife Luo Shengchun said. “It runs entirely counter to their claim that we are citizens under the constitution and the rule of law.”

“They are now being totally blatant about their barbaric behavior,” she told Radio Free Asia.

Ding was taken away as part of a slew of coordinated and nationwide arrests of fellow Xiamen gathering attendees, including Zhang Zhongshun, Dai Zhenya and Li Shuai. In 2020, Luo reported that Ding had been tortured while in Shandong’s Linshi Detention Center.

Hiding out

Xu, who also later penned an online essay calling on Chinese Communist Party supreme leader Xi Jinping to step down, went on the run after the meeting, hiding out in a friend’s apartment in the southern province of Guangdong. 

He was eventually tracked down by police via a nationwide facial recognition and surveillance camera system known as SkyNet.

His partner, the rights activist Li Qiaochu, was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Linyi city after she posted details of torture allegations made by Xu during his time in pretrial detention.

Xu stood trial behind closed doors in June 2022, as the authorities placed potential witnesses under house arrest and forced his legal team to sign non-disclosure agreements, according to Luo.

Like many detainees in subversion cases, both Xu and Ding have been denied meetings with defense attorneys or visits from family members for prolonged periods of time, which rights groups say is a major risk factor for torture and inhumane treatment.

‘Suffer for freedom, justice and love’

In statements prepared in 2021 in the event of their conviction, both men vowed to keep up the fight for a more democratic China.

“To be a true citizen is to be subversive. The pursuit of freedom and democracy is subversive,” his statement said. “I take it as a personal honor to suffer for freedom, justice and love.”

Ding’s statement foresaw “huge changes” in China’s political landscape soon.

“Huge changes are about to happen in China,” Ding predicted. “Even though I’m behind bars, I can sense strongly that a battle is unfolding between authoritarian rule and democracy.”

“I’m convinced that rationality and non-violent resistance are the most stable path towards transformation in China,” his statement said. “Neither personal doubts, setbacks nor physical torture will change what I believe in.”

His wife, Luo, said that anyone “with ideals, talent and corsage gets sent to prison… Ding and Xu have always said that we don’t need to be subversive because [the Communist Party regime] will subvert themselves.”

‘Greatly encouraged’

Luo was greatly encouraged by the “Bridge Man” protest of Peng Lifa ahead of the Communist Party’s 20th party congress in October 2022, and by the “white paper” protests in late November in which protestors gathered on the streets in more than a dozen cities across China to protest a deadly fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, rigid COVID-19 restrictions and the lack of freedom of speech.

“The Peng Lifa incident and the young people of the white paper movement have made me feel greatly encouraged,” Luo said. For Xu and Ding, “they were a huge comfort.”

Rights activists said the sentences were a “new low” for Beijing’s rights record.

“Their sentencing once again demonstrates the Chinese government’s hostility to peaceful advocacy of democracy and human rights, and marks a new low in the Chinese government’s human rights record,” Chinese Human Rights Defenders senior researcher Ramona Li said in a statement.

The group’s research and advocacy coordinator William Nee said the sentences were “a travesty of justice.”

“At every step, Chinese authorities have taken the wrong turn: from detaining them in secret, torturing them, falsifying witness testimony, putting them on trial in secret, and now this heavy sentence,” Nee said in a statement emailed to Radio Free Asia.

The New York-based group Human Rights in China said via its Twitter account: “The Chinese government’s overreaction to gatherings of its citizens reveals its insecurity about the illegitimacy of the regime, and its fear of a unified citizens’ resistance.”

Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, called on the government to quash the convictions, citing allegations of procedural errors and mistreatment in custody.

“The cruelly farcical convictions and sentences meted out to Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi show President Xi Jinping’s unstinting hostility towards peaceful activism,” Wang said in a statement on the group’s website. 

“Governments around the world should join in calling on the Chinese authorities to release the two lawyers immediately and unconditionally.”

 

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Myanmar authorities in Magway have informed residents that they must relocate their homes from the vicinity of the air force base by May 20 under the pretext of land encroachment, locals said Friday.

Residents said municipal officials first notified about 100 families in the city’s Aung Zayar ward adjacent to the base on March 25 to relocate, and then convened a meeting at the township hall five days later and told them to move by May 20. 

Most of the affected residents are tricycle rickshaw drivers, carpenters and masons who have been living there for the past 15 years in small two-story houses and huts, with the exception of about 10 large houses, residents said. Retired military sergeants and about 15 other veterans also live there, as well as parents whose children are stationed at the base. 

“Because of the order, they now are facing housing problems,” said the friend of a resident who must relocate. “They have built their houses there, but now they have to tear them down and move.”  

The notice said the houses encroached on roads, causing traffic jams, were prone to fires, and that the area’s layout was not in line with the city’s characteristics. Municipal authorities said they would take legal action against any residents who defied the order. 

The junta has cited land encroachment to clear out neighborhoods in other areas of the country, including Yangon’s Mingaladon township, where more than 4,000 buildings on over 500 acres of land were removed. It also removed houses in three townships in Mandalay for the same reason.

Some residents say the junta is forcing them to move to persecute ordinary citizens, who have largely opposed military rule following the February 2021 coup, in which the national army seized power from the elected government and unleashed a torrent of violence on peaceful protesters. 

“In such a difficult time like now when people are facing various hardship and livelihood problems following the military coup, forcing people to move their hard-earned homes has placed more of a burden on existing despair in their lives,” he said. 

“They will have to look for new land and build new homes that will cost a lot of money,” he said. “That’s why I think that it is another act of the military junta to further torture people.”

Door-to-door inspections 

Other residents believe Myanmar’s ruling military junta is behind the move, fearing that the Magway base may be targeted next by anti-regime People’s Defense Forces after opposition fighters launched rocket propelled grenades against Mingaladon Air Base in the commercial city of Yangon on April 6.

“As far as I know, the junta forced them to be removed as they feared that resistance forces would launch rocket attacks at the air force base from the neighborhood, which has occurred repeatedly as of late,” said a local who declined to be named out of fear for his safety.

People’s Defense Forces have fired missiles at the Magway Air Force Base more than twice in 2021, in one case hitting a weapons storage facility, he said.

Radio Free Asia could not reach the junta’s spokesman in Magway region for comment, though he previously said the military council was handling the encroachment issues that previous governments avoided because it was trying to ensure law and order. 

The military tightened security on Yangon’s Mingaladon township on Friday following the rocket attack on the base during which some junta members were injured and an aviation fuel tank and the aviation headquarters building were hit and damaged, local sources said. RFA has not been able to confirm this.

Soldiers are blocking and checking the entrance and exit roads to the bases, nearby Mingaladon Airport and in front of the main market, said a resident who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety. 

Other Mingaladon township residents said troops and ward administrators have been conducting door-to-door inspections in some neighborhoods.

Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.

In North Korea, couples involved in secret, illicit or private business who need places to meet away from prying eyes don’t have many options. 

So restaurant and karaoke bar owners have created “secret rooms” – usually in the back of their establishments – where so-called “8.3 couples” can pay extra for privacy, which brings in extra cash, sources in the country say.

The slang for secret or adulterous couples comes from a government directive issued back on August 3, 1984 that encouraged factories to earn extra money beyond their state-set profit quotas by reusing waste materials. It has come to refer to anyone who does extra work on the side.

Such private rooms are not new in North Korea; authorities had shut down most of them in past crackdowns to stamp out “anti-socialist” behavior. 

But they are now re-emerging, probably because many eateries and related outfits are struggling to make money three-years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which included a lengthy shutdown that restricted travel and trade has crippled the economy, the sources told Radio Free Asia.

In the northeastern coastal city of Chongjin, even the most popular restaurants have secret rooms because the managers are worried they won’t meet their government-mandated quotas, a resident there said on condition of anonymity so as not to get in trouble.

“The secret room is usually located in the corner of the dining room, a table placed in a dressing room, or a room previously used to store food materials,” she said. 

“Restaurant staff will quietly escort 8.3 couples – men and women who appear to be in a romantic relationship – to the secret room,” she said. “After the food is served, the server does not enter the secret room unless the customer asks.”

Loaded male patrons

Such privacy does come at a price, reflected in the more expensive menu items. Most of the clientele are rich North Korean men – a somewhat rare breed in the country – who can afford to spend more, she said.

“Men who come in with a young woman are usually loaded, so they will seek out more expensive food than regular customers and drink lots of beer and other beverages,” she said. “The restaurants offer the secret rooms to attract these kinds of customers who can spend more.”

The eastern coastal city of Sinpo has many restaurants running secret rooms, a source there who recently visited one with a female business partner said.

“I experienced it myself when I went to a restaurant in Sinpo last week,” he said. “The server directed us to a room in the back. It was a small room with only one table, but no one was coming in and out. So, it was good to talk about business and secrets.”

He thought the food prices were a bit expensive, but “didn’t want to argue so I could save face in front of the woman I was with,” he said. “On the way out, I saw the server guiding another young man and woman into the secret room.”

Chong Eun-joo, a former restaurant worker who lived in North Hamgyong Province until 2019 and resettled in South Korea, said her former workplace had two secret rooms.

“We guided men and women who seemed to be in a relationship or were 8.3 couples into the secret rooms,” she said. “You can tell when you see an 8.3 couple.” 

“We charged 2,000 won [about 24 U.S. cents] more per item on the menu,” she said, explaining that it represented about a 10% price increase. “There were many cases where customers who used the room once came back again.”

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