Day: April 27, 2023

Myanmar’s junta carried out 47 airstrikes, killing at least 19 people and destroying multiple religious buildings and civilian homes in Chin state in April alone, a rights group said Thursday.

The campaign, which saw an average of nearly two bombs dropped on the western state each day this month, comes as the Chin National Front claimed new territorial gains in the region, suggesting the military has stepped up air operations amid an increasingly stymied ground offensive.

Since April 1, Myanmar’s air force has dropped more than 80 bombs on Chin state, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization. The attacks killed 17 civilians and injured 34 others, the group’s managing officer Salai Man Hre Lian told RFA Burmese, as well as two members of the armed resistance.

“Most of the injured were civilians, as well,” he said.

The worst loss of life occurred on April 10, when the junta launched three airstrikes on Falam township in a single day, dropping six bombs near Var village at around 9:00 a.m., four near a high school in Webula at 11:00 a.m., and six near Ramthlo village at 4:00 p.m.

Residents said the attack on Webula killed nine civilians, including the school headmaster and his wife and son, and injured four others.

Six days later, fighter jets attacked Pan Par village in Mindat township, killing three people – including a child – and injuring seven others.

The CNF confirmed that two members of the armed resistance were killed and four others injured when the junta launched an airstrike earlier this month on a base operated by the 4th Brigade of the Chin National Army in Tedim township, near Myanmar’s border with India.

CHRO said that multiple buildings – including a Buddhist monastery, a Christian church and at least 20 civilian homes – were destroyed in the April strikes.

The carnage in April followed a March 30 airstrike on Thantlang township’s Khuafo village that killed 10 civilians and injured 20 others, residents told RFA.

According to the CHRO, nearly 10,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes due to junta airstrikes so far this month.

The group said the junta has launched nearly 200 airstrikes and dropped more than 350 bombs on targets in Chin state since the military orchestrated a Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat. The strikes have killed 38 people and injured nearly 100.

Fighting back against the junta

The April bombing campaign comes amid growing success by anti-junta forces on the ground in Chin, according to CNF spokesman Salai Htet Ni.

On April 23, a People’s Defense Force paramilitary unit attacked a junta military convoy of 30 vehicles, including two armored cars, near Hakha township’s Chuncung village, touching off an intense firefight. 

Despite the military’s advantage in equipment, the PDF was able to rout its opponent and prevent the convoy from continuing on to the seat of Hakha, Salai Htet Ni said.

“All of the military vehicles were destroyed by the resistance forces,” he said, adding that around 30 junta troops remain stationed in Chuncung. “We now have control over 70 out of 100 territories in nine [of 19] townships in Chin state.”

Given the success of anti-junta forces on the ground in Chin, the military has stepped up its air attacks, and villagers have responded by digging trenches and other crude defenses.

“Every village has built bomb defenses, such as trenches, to protect against the junta’s airstrikes,” said a Hakha resident who, like other inhabitants of Chin villages RFA spoke to, declined to be named for security reasons. “But with such unexpected attacks as these, it’s been very difficult for us to set up effective defenses.”

The military has yet to issue any statements regarding the April airstrikes and attempts by RFA to contact Thant Zin, the junta’s social minister and spokesman for Chin state went unanswered Thursday.

A legal expert, who also spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, noted that Myanmar is a signatory to and should be held accountable under the Geneva Convention, which lays out international legal standards for humanitarian treatment during conflict.

“[The convention] prohibits all armed forces from attacking non-military or civilian targets during times of war,” he said. “It also restricts armed forces from using highly destructive airstrikes and dropping bombs in civil wars.”

One resident of Thantlang called the junta’s unprovoked aerial attacks “cowardly.”

“I think the junta attacks villages to terrorize the people,” he said. “If they are truly brave, they would only fight the armed groups. Targeting innocent people like us is extremely cowardly.”

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

Chinese authorities banned most Uyghurs praying in mosques – and even in their homes – during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, in many parts of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, residents and police said.

People age 60 and older were allowed to pray in a local mosque under heavy police surveillance during Eid, which fell on April 20-21 this year, they sources said.

Since 2017, China has restricted or banned ethnic customs and religious rituals among the mostly Muslim Uyghurs in an effort to stamp out “religious extremism.”

During this year’s Eid, the most important Muslim holiday, authorities in Xinjiang patrolled city streets and searched houses to prevent people from secretly praying inside their homes, the sources said.

An administrative staffer from Yarkowruk town in Akesu Prefecture said one mosque there was open for Eid prayers.

“Our police officers went to the mosque to watch the people,” the employee said. “I don’t know if people needed permission to go to the mosque because I did not go there.”

Likewise, only one mosque was open for Eid prayers in Bulung town, Bay county, an officer at the local police station said, though only residents over 60 years old were allowed to pray if they wanted.

The government issued a notice that people younger than 60 could not pray on the Eid holiday, he added. 

Only a dozen Uyghur elders in Bulung attended Eid prayers in a mosque as three police officers and several auxiliary police staffers observed and wrote down the Uyghurs’ names, said the officer from the town’s police station. 

“The mosque was open yesterday, and we went there to surveil people,” the police officer said, adding that he told residents under 60 not to go to the mosque.

One local resident, who like others in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons, told Radio Free Asia that authorities destroyed almost all the mosques in Nilka and Kunes counties, so that even if the government allowed people to pray during Eid, they could not go to a mosque to do so.

A staffer at the Aktope police station in Tokkuztara county told RFA that no permission was granted for residents, including senior citizens, to hold holiday prayer gatherings at their homes, and no exceptions were made.

A resident of Peyziwat county in Kashgar Prefecture told us that she did not visit anyone for the Eid celebration or prepare sangza, a special fried dough that Uyghurs eat during Eid celebrations. 

A woman from a residential area in Maralbexi county in Kashgar Prefecture said none of her neighbors or relatives the held Eid prayers or celebrations

“The mosque was not open,” she told RFA. “My husband is a policeman, and he went to work on Eid. There was no Eid al-Fitr prayer here. It was quiet.”

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol condemned North Korea on Thursday for its nuclear ambitions and called for a stronger trilateral security relationship between Seoul, Tokyo and Washington to counter North Korean nuclear threats.

Yoon’s remarks came during a speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress that celebrated the 70-year South Korea-U.S. alliance that helped defend South Korea as it rose from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War to become one of the world’s leading economies.   

“But even as [South Korea and the U.S.] walked in unison for freedom for 70 years, there is one regime determined to pursue a wrong path. That is North Korea,” Yoon said. “North Korea’s nuclear program and missile provocations pose a serious threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula and beyond.”

The Yoon administration has been less willing to grant concessions to North Korea than that of his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, and other previous administrations.

Yoon borrowed a Cold War-era quote from a previous U.S. president to illustrate his point that the alliance must stand united against North Korea’s “reckless behavior.”

“As President Reagan once said: ‘There is a price we will not pay. There is a point beyond which they must not advance,’” Yoon said. “We must make his words clear to North Korea,”

Yoon spoke of his summit meeting with President Joe Biden on Wednesday, where the two leaders agreed to strengthen nuclear deterrence. 

“Along with close Korea-U.S. coordination, we need to speed up Korea-U.S.-Japan trilateral security cooperation to counter increasing North Korean nuclear threats,” Yoon said. 

Yoon’s stance on cooperation with Japan is controversial in South Korea due to their turbulent historical relationship.

Yoon vowed that Seoul would respond firmly to North Korean provocations, but stressed that South Korea and its allies were open to dialogue on denuclearization and would work toward that end.

“North Korea’s obsession with nuclear weapons and missiles is throwing its population into a severe economic crisis and human rights abuses,” he said, as he called for the international community to pay attention to North Korea’s human rights situation.

“We must not shy away from our duty to promote freedom for North Koreans … I ask for your help in improving North Korea’s grim conditions,” said Yoon.

Yoon arrived in Washington on Monday for a six-day official visit. He participated in a summit with Biden on Wednesday and attended an official state dinner that night.

Yoon will head to Massachusetts on Friday to visit two universities and will fly back to Seoul on Saturday. 

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

China led the electric vehicle market last year with 60% of total sales globally, a new report said on Wednesday.

Electric car markets are seeing “exponential” growth as sales in 2022 exceeded 10 million globally, or 14% of all new cars sold last year, according to a report by the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization.

That’s up tenfold from 1 million sold in 2017. In 2021, the share of electric vehicles in global car sales was 9% and 4% the year before. 

“Electric vehicles are one of the driving forces in the new global energy economy that is rapidly emerging – and they are bringing about a historic transformation of the car manufacturing industry worldwide,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.

“The trends we are witnessing have significant implications for global oil demand,” he said. “The internal combustion engine has gone unrivaled for over a century, but electric vehicles are changing the status quo.”

Sales are seen growing another 35% this year to reach 14 million, which means almost one in five cars sold this year will be electric, IEA projected.

By 2030, more than one in three new vehicles sold globally will be electric, the report predicted, which will reduce oil demand by 5 million barrels of oil a day, or around 5% of global oil demand today. 

That would mean an emissions cut of 700 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by the end of the decade, roughly the annual emissions of Germany or Saudi Arabia. 

‘Frontrunner’

The total number of electric cars on the world’s roads today is around 26 million. The figure includes both battery-only models and hybrids that plug in to charge. 

China is the “frontrunner” in the electric vehicle market, the report said, mainly due to a government subsidy program. 

EVs accounted for 29% of Chinese domestic car sales last year, up from 16% in 2021. That means the world’s second-largest economy has already exceeded its 2025 national target of achieving 20% new energy vehicle sales.

In Europe, the second-largest market, electric car sales increased by over 15% in 2022, while in the third-largest market, the United States, sales jumped 55% in 2022, reaching a sales share of 8%.

The gains come amid a contraction in the overall automotive market. Total vehicle sales last year dipped 3%, the report said.

In Thailand, electric car sales doubled to 21,000, slightly more than 3% of the total car sales in 2022. Chinese carmakers have a monopoly in the Southeast Asian kingdom, primarily due to low prices. 

Tesla is planning to enter this year the Thai market, along with building Superchargers. 

In India, over half of the country’s three-wheeler registrations in 2022 were electric, according to the study. The government is funding a $3.2 billion incentive program, which attracted $8.3 billion of investment.

By 2035, the European Union plans to discontinue most car sales powered by combustion engines. Meanwhile, the U.S. aims to have 50% of car sales come from electric vehicles by the end of the current decade.

IEA said measures such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which offers generous subsidies to consumers to switch to electric vehicles, would further boost sales in the coming years.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Transgender women in China are facing fresh obstacles after a government ban in December 2022 on onlines sale of cyproterone acetate, a widely used antiandrogen drug, and estradiol, a widely used estrogen drug. The ban on drugs needed for people who were born male to transition to female is driving trans Chinese women to the black market where they are vulnerable to being scammed, and has compounded a mental health crisis gripping the community.

The defense lawyer for ‘Onion Leaf Bae,” an activist whose online video mimicked a Turkish chef in apparent mockery of a senior government official, said he was kept from seeing his client this week.

Bui Tuan Lam, who runs a beef noodle stall in Danang, achieved some notoriety in 2021 when a video that went viral showing him imitating the Turkish chef known as Salt Bae. 

The video was widely seen as a mockery of Vietnam’s minister of public security, To Lam, who was caught on film being hand-fed one of Salt Bae’s gold-encrusted steaks – by the chef himself – at a cost of 1,450 pounds (U.S.$1,975). 

Critics wondered how the official could afford the extravagant meal on a monthly salary of $660.

In Bui’s video clip, he refers to himself as “Onion Leaf Bae” and dramatically sprinkles spring onions into a bowl of soup at his noodle stand, mimicking the signature move of the celebrity chef.

Bui was later summoned by Danang police for questioning and was arrested in September 2022. He has since been charged for violating Article 117 of the country’s Penal Code, frequently used by authorities to restrict freedom of expression and opinions deemed critical of the government.

The Danang People’s Court on Monday approved Le Dinh Viet’s registration to be Bui Tuan Lam’s lawyer for the upcoming first-instance trial. 

Viet said he then went to Danang Police’s detention facility where Bui Tuan Lam was being held, but staff didn’t allow him to see his client, saying the judge hadn’t had time to review the recently completed investigation report. 

Monitoring meetings?

He said he was told to “advise the court of the timing” of any proposed meetings with the defendant in the future so that the court could arrange for the meeting to be monitored.

The 2015 Criminal Procedure Code and the 2015 Law on Temporary Custody and Detention doesn’t have any provisions requiring prosecuting agencies to monitor meetings between defense lawyers and their clients, Viet said.

But an interagency circular from 2018 and another circular issued in 2019 by the Ministry of Public Security said prosecuting agencies can assign staff members to supervise meetings between defense lawyers and their clients if needed, he said.

Over the past 10 years of professional practice, Viet has participated in four cases related to national security. Bui’s case was the first time he was prevented from seeing a client, he said.

According to Danang People’s Procuracy’s indictment, Bui posted 19 articles on his Facebook account and 25 videos and articles on his YouTube account from April 17, 2020, to July 26, 2022. The articles and videos included content “distorting, defaming people’s government” and “fabricating and causing confusion among people.”

The link to the Facebook account alleged in the indictment to have contained the 19 articles no longer functions. There are only three videos currently on the YouTube channel allegedly used by the activist – all three were posted recently. The channel doesn’t contain the videos and posts listed in the indictment.

If convicted, Bui could receive a prison term of five to 12 years.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.