China is under fire for attempting to prevent the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile from giving a speech at the Australian National Press Club in Canberra, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Chinese Embassy representatives met with press club chief Maurice Reily last week and voiced their opposition to Penpa Tsering’s scheduled appearance on June 20, requesting that his invitation be revoked.
China has controlled Tibet since it invaded the region in 1949, and rejects any notion of a Tibetan government-in-exile, particularly the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharamsala, India. Beijing has also stepped up efforts to erode Tibetan culture, language and religion.
Speeches given at the National Press Club are broadcast on Australian TV and attended by prominent members of the press, so Beijing may be worried about the wider exposure Penpa Tsering would get..
“China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to Australia, in disregard of China’s position and concern, allowing him to use the NPC platform to engage in separatist activities,” the newspaper quoted a letter from the embassy to Reily as saying.
“The Chinese side urges the Australian side to see through the nature of the Dalai clique, respect China’s core interests and major concerns, and take concrete actions to remove the negative effects so as to prevent the disruption of the sound development of China-Australia relations and media co-operation.”
Free Speech
Despite Beijing’s pressure, Reilly told local media that there were no plans to cancel the appearance, and tickets remain on sale on the website of the press club.
He said he told the Chinese Embassy officials that the press club was “an institution for free speech, free media and public debate.”
The National Press Club is a stage where everyone is allowed to share their views, Kyinzom Dhongdue, a human rights activist and a former member of the Tibetan parliament in exile, told Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan Service.
“We all know how China has worked to build its influence and dependence through trade and economic ties with Australia,” she said. “In the last decade we have seen Australia’s top educational institution cancel a talk by the Dalai Lama, apparently due to pressure from China. But this time, putting pressure on the National Press Club is unimaginable because the National Press Club stands for Freedom of Speech.”
Karma Singey, the representative for the Dalai Lama in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, said Australia would not cave to Chinese influence.
“Australia is a democratic country so we are confident that Australia will not let the Chinese government expand its influence and undermine Australian institutions,” he said.
Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
Myanmar’s junta has sentenced at least 156 people to death – including four teenagers and manyl in their 20s – since seizing power in a coup d’etat, according to a group monitoring prisoners of conscience in the country.
Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) said in a report that the junta has increasingly sentenced political activists to death since the Feb. 1, 2022, takeover as a warning to opponents of its rule. Some 42 of the convictions have been in absentia.
The real total may actually be much higher, an official from the group told Radio Free Asia, speaking on condition of anonymity citing security concerns.
“The military junta deliberately gives death sentences to instill fear in the people,” he said. “However, the people of the spring revolution will continue to fight against the junta no matter how hard they try to scare them.”
The list includes 18-year-old Hein Min Naing from Mon state’s Ye township and three 19-year-olds from Yangon region’s Thingangyun township named Zaw Lin Naing, Khant Zin Win and Khant Lin Maung Maung.
Also on the list is Kaung Set Paing, a member of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions in his 20s, who was charged with incitement and terrorism on April 25 and sentenced to death, in addition to life imprisonment. Kaung Set Paing, who also runs the anti-junta North Okkalapa Township Student Union, was arrested in December.
Kaung Set Paing’s friend, who gave her name as Yatu, said that she was heartbroken to learn that he was tortured for a month during interrogation prior to his sentencing.
“A 20-year-old like him would have been enjoying his studies if the military coup hadn’t taken place,” she said. “But now, he is in a hopeless situation in prison. Since he has been sentenced to death, he could be executed … at any time and I worry about him everyday.”
The junta executed four prominent activists in July – the first judicial executions in Myanmar in more than 30 years.
Kyaw Thet, a 27-year-old resident of Mandalay’s Wundwin township, was similarly sentenced to 225 years in prison in addition to a death sentence.
After being arrested in Meiktila township in January 2022, he was indicted under more than 10 counts of criminal and terrorism charges.
A person close to Kyaw Thet’s family, who declined to be named, told RFA that he is in poor health in Myingyan Prison due to injuries he sustained during interrogation.
“He suffers a lot of pain in his legs and faints often, as he sustained head injuries when he was beaten during interrogation,” they said. “His family cannot send him any food or necessities as they are fleeing junta arrest.”
The family friend said Kyaw Thet’s other relatives are “too scared to go to see him” and that the young man has been forced to “survive on the kindness of fellow prisoners, who share their food and personal items with him.”
‘Murders in prison’
Nay Phone Latt, spokesman for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, accused the junta of committing “murders in prison” with the sentences handed to Kyaw Thet, Kaung Set Paing, and others.
“The terrorist military junta is killing many people in many ways outside prisons in order to stay in power,” he said. “In the same way, they are committing murders in prisons, too. A legitimate government would hand out death sentences like that.”
From left: 88 Generation student leader Jimmy, National League for Democracy MP Phyo Zayyar Thaw, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw have been executed by the Myanmar junta. Credit: Citizen journalist
Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, composed of former military officials, claimed that the sentences are necessary, given that the military government controls the three branches of power in the country.
“From a legal standpoint, we cannot complain about such judgements and sentences given under the law,” he said. “There certainly is the right to appeal, but whether or not to grant it to those given death sentences depends on crimes they have committed.”
Junta Deputy Minister of Information Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun, who is also the spokesperson of the military, told the media in December that those sentenced to death “will be executed.”
No proper defense, appeal process
But a justice lawyer told RFA that the sentences are illegitimate as those convicted were tried in military tribunals and denied a proper defense in court.
“There is only one military court of appeal and if it rejects the appeal, the only option left for the defendant is to file a petition for mercy from [junta] chief [Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing],” said the lawyer, who also spoke anonymously.
“Their death sentences are final, as their cases could not be reviewed thoroughly in such a short time. That’s why I believe … [they] had very little right to defend themselves.”
According to the justice lawyer, those sentenced to death have the right to appeal in civilian, district, and plenary courts – including to the chief justice and the supreme court.
However, he said, since seizing control of Myanmar’s judicial system, the junta has manipulated the law to severely punish those who oppose it with lengthy prison sentences and death penalties.
Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
The United States and China are taking part this week in a multilateral naval exercise, which kicked off in Indonesian waters on Monday, despite tensions growing between the two superpowers over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
The three nations are joining 33 others in the Multilateral Naval Exercise Komodo, which Indonesia is hosting through Thursday in the Makassar Strait, a strategic waterway that connects the Pacific and Indian oceans.
The drills will focus on maritime cooperation, disaster relief and humanitarian operations, officials said. The Komodo Exercise is a series of non-combat drills to build trust and solidarity among naval forces, the Indonesian Navy said, according to a report from BenarNews, an online news outlet affiliated to Radio Free Asia.
“This activity is intended to strengthen naval diplomacy and I think this must continue to be nurtured,” Adm. Yudo Margono, commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces, said during an opening ceremony at Soekarno-Hatta Port in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province.
The drills also are intended to foster cooperation in securing the Indonesian sea areas that border 10 countries, Yudo said.
The Indonesian Navy said the drills involve 41 warships, 17 of which are from foreign countries, including the United States, China and Russia.
The drills are taking place against a backdrop of heightened tensions between China and the United States in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.
China claims most of the waterway as its sovereign territory. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have territorial claims in the sea. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of the waterway that overlap Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone.
‘Navigational hegemony’
Beijing has repeatedly accused the U.S. of “navigation hegemony” in the South China Sea.
This past weekend, the U.S. military accused a Chinese navy ship of sailing dangerously close in front of the bow of an American destroyer during an intercept in Taiwan Strait waters.
China’s defense ministry issued a dueling statement saying that Chinese forces had been tracking the movements of the U.S. destroyer, which was sailing with a Canadian warship. Its forces had conducted themselves “lawfully and professionally,” the ministry said.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring the island under its control.
Indonesian Navy sailors stand on the deck of the ship KRI Bawal-875 during the International Fleet Review part of the Multilateral Naval Exercise Komodo 2023 event in the Makassar Sea, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, June 5, 2023. [Antara Foto/M Risyal Hidayat/via Reuters]
The biennial Komodo drills, which began in 2014, also consist of an international symposium, bilateral meetings and a maritime exhibition. Other participants this year include Australia, Brazil, France, Japan, Pakistan and the United Kingdom.
The United States embassy in Jakarta said the exercise would allow it to “join together with like-minded countries, our allies and partners to work together to solve common challenges” such as humanitarian response and disaster.
China’s Ministry of National Defense said last week that it would send a destroyer and a frigate at the invitation of the Indonesian Navy.
On Monday, Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto met with his counterparts from Australia and Germany in Jakarta to discuss defense cooperation.
Prabowo said Indonesia’s relationship with Australia was supported by mutual trust, transparency and a joint commitment to a stable, peaceful, resilient and prosperous region.
“Indonesia’s cooperation with Australia can provide an important contribution to regional peace and stability,” he said.
He also said Indonesia and Germany had enjoyed good bilateral relations and defense cooperation for more than a decade.
“We are determined to continue strengthening cooperation and I promise to make an honorary return visit to Germany,” he said.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that he and Prabowo had discussed some issues that were topics at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security forum held in Singapore over the weekend. He declined to give details.
BenarNews is an online news agency affiliated to Radio Free Asia.
A Chinese woman killed herself in late May after her first-grade son was fatally struck by a teacher’s car on school property, sparking outrage among residents and netizens who blamed cyberbullying and government pressure for her death.
The specific reason for her death remains unclear, but in a video recorded before she died, the woman, surnamed Yang, said that national security officers had told her to keep quiet about her son’s death.
Yang also was criticized by netizens who commented on her interviews with Chinese media by blasting her for dressing too well and seeking more compensation for her son’s death.
Her son was killed on May 23, when a car driven by a teacher surnamed Liu hit him on the grounds of Hongqiao Primary School in Hanyang District in the city of Wuhan. His parents rushed to the scene and were devastated by what had happened.
Two days later, Yang jumped from her apartment building and died. Her husband also wanted to jump off, but he was stopped by family members, a resident surnamed Qin who knew the family, told Radio Free Asia.
“This is the power of online harassment,” Qin said.
He Peirong, an educator familiar with the situation, told RFA that Yang’s suicide was not only caused by cyberbullying, but by Wuhan officials who tried to “maintain stability” and prevent her from speaking out. She said Yang’s friends hinted on TikTok that the police had put pressure on her.
‘He didn’t apologize’
In a video that circulated on the Douyin online platform, Yang could be seen standing outside the gate of her son’s school that a security officer named Zhou Jun from the Wuhan Municipal Public Security Bureau had scolded her and her family for making trouble and didn’t apologize or ask about her son.
“He didn’t apologize to me, didn’t apologize to my child and accused us of causing trouble here,” she says on the video.
Under interviews Yang gave to the media, online readers posted a large number of malicious comments, Cover News reported. The Xiaoxiang Morning Post also reported that the incident had attracted attention from many media outlets and some that there were negative comments about Yang.
He Peirong said that an account called “Hubei Has Positive Energy,” with more than 1 million followers and which attacked Yang, was likely a government account. She said Yang was a victim of “stability maintenance,” and called for truth and justice.
The Hanyang District Education Bureau of Wuhan City issued a statement on May 25, expressing grief and self-blame for the boy’s death and saying that the teacher, Liu, had been detained and the school’s principal and vice-principal had been dismissed.
A Wuhan resident who asked only to be identified as Xu said every time a local group or or individual demands rights, the national security officers will suppress online speech.
“I believe it is true. They want to maintain stability,” he said. “I know that the cost of stability maintenance is higher than military spending.”
In addition, 27 Chinese poets wrote poems to express their voice for Yang.
Among them, a poet who goes by the name of “Night Kangqiao” wrote that only a mother grieved when a child died and that since ancient times Chinese have been educated to only sweep the snow from their own front doors.
Translated by Chris Taylor. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has issued a secret order for local authorities to prevent suicides after data showed an increase in people taking their own lives this year, government officials told Radio Free Asia.
Though RFA was not able to confirm North Korea’s tally, the South Korean National Intelligence Service reported at the end of May that suicides were up about 40% compared to last year.
“There are a lot of internal unrest factors in North Korea due to the hardships of people,” the spy agency said, adding that violent crimes are also on the rise as people struggle to make ends meet.
Kim officially defined suicide as an “act of treason against socialism,” and ordered local governments to take preventative measures.
The confidential suicide prevention order was delivered in emergency meetings in each province of the party committee leaders at the provincial, city and county levels, an official from the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“Our meeting was held at the provincial party committee’s building located in Pohang district, in the city of Chongjin,” he said. “The large number of suicide cases in the province was revealed and some officials … could not hide their anxious expressions.”
Criticism of social system
Statistics delivered at the North Hamgyong meeting showed that there were 35 suicide cases this year in Chongjin and nearby Kyongsong county alone, the official said, adding that most of the cases involved whole families ending their lives together.
“[The attendees] were shocked by the disclosure of suicide notes that criticized the country and the social system,” he said.
At the meeting in Ryanggang province, the attendees were told that suicide has had a greater social impact than starvation, an official there told RFA on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
“Despite the suicide prevention policy ratified by the General Secretary, the officials were not able to come up with an appropriate solution,” he said. “Most of the suicides were caused by severe poverty and starvation, so no one can come up with a countermeasure right now.”
The meeting described several shocking cases in detail, according to the official.
“In the city of Hyesan, a 10-year-old boy was living with his grandmother after his parents died of starvation, but they took their own lives by eating rat poison,” he said. “It brought great sadness to all who saw it.”
The official described other shocking cases revealed at the meeting, including a couple in their 60s who hung themselves from a tree in the mountains, and a family of four who, after eating their final family meal together, ingested potassium cyanide, a highly toxic chemical often used in gold mining.
“Family suicide is a final act of defiance against a hopeless system,” he said.
Kim Jong Un’s order emphasized that the local government officials must take responsibility for prefenting suicides in their jurisdictions.
“It was emphasized that the responsible officials will be held jointly accountable, because ‘suicide is a clear social challenge and treason against the country.”
Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
Chinese students in Britain, the United States and elsewhere outside their homeland led vigils and rallies over the weekend marking the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen massacre despite threats and potential violence from agents and government supporters.
A group of overseas students in London called the “China Deviants” staged a rally in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, displaying posters and photos of the massacre, alongside plastic tanks and other props.
In actions that imitated the banners, headband slogans brought by the young people who once congregated in their thousands on Tiananmen Square 34 years ago, the students’ slogans also spoke eloquently to their own generation in the wake of the “white paper” protests of November 2022.
The overseas protests came as families of the victims were escorted by armed police and state security officers to a cemetery outside Beijing to pay their respects to those who died in the massacre, and amid tight security on Tiananmen Square itself.
Six members of the Tiananmen Mothers group including Huang Jinping, Yuan Ren and Hao Jian were escorted to Wan’an Cemetery, later posting a short video of themselves bowing in respect at the graves of the victims, clad in black.
“We mark the 34th anniversary of June 4,” Huang Jinping, whose husband Yang Yansheng died in the crackdown, says in the video. “On this unforgettable date, we relatives gather here at Wan’an Cemetery in the western suburbs to commemorate the tragic massacre that took place on June 4, 1989.”
‘Crushed them with tanks’
The group said in a statement: “Thirty-four years ago today, the government of the day used field troops with machine guns, tanks and armored vehicles to run amok and crush [citizens].”
“They fired live ammunition into the crowd and crushed them with tanks. Our relatives were killed by criminally fired bullets on that bloody night, and sacrificed their precious lives for their ideals.”
At Beijing’s Wan’an Cemetery on Sunday, Huang Jinping [speaking] and other members of the Tiananmen Mothers group pay their respects to loved ones killed in the Tiananmen crackdown. Credit: Provided by the families of the June 4th victims in Wan’an Cemetery
“I’m in Beijing, and there are facial recognition cameras all around Tiananmen Square,” a passer-by surnamed Li told Radio Free Asia on Sunday. “As you pass by, the police yell at you, and they stop you and check your ID.”
“The suppression [of public mourning] has been particularly severe this year.”
An activist from Hunan province surnamed Tian said some people had fasted for a day in protest at the massacre, following a call for a national day of fasting from jailed dissident Xu Zhiyong.
“People in our group fasted for a day in protest but we haven’t been allowed to change our profile pictures [on social media] since last night,” he said on Sunday.
Repeated calls to the phones of Tiananmen Mothers members You Weijie and Zhang Xianling rang unanswered on Sunday.
‘If we do not cry out, who will?’
Back in London’s Trafalgar Square, protesters of a similar age to the victims were reading out the May 13 declaration made by the students occupying Tiananmen Square in 1989, announcing the start of their hunger strike.
“Our country is in a critical state,” the declaration said. “Prices are soaring, official profiteering is rampant, power is concentrated in the hands of the few, and the bureaucracy is corrupt.”
“If we do not cry out, who will? If we do not act, who will?” it said, adding: “Democracy is the highest of human aspirations, freedom the innate birthright of all human beings.”
“But today these must be bought with our lives.”
People attend a candlelight vigil outside the Chinese Embassy in London, Sunday, June 4, 2023, to mark the anniversary of China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Credit: Associated Press
Many participants stood silently, wearing slogans as headbands, or holding flowers.
“Don’t let the truth be hidden in the dust,” read the slogan carried by one young woman, who gave only the nickname Chengzi.
She cited the recent “white paper” protests as an inspiration to many of the young people at the rally, who weren’t even born when the People’s Liberation Army cleared the city center of protesters using tanks and machine guns.
She said that while many present fear retaliation against loved ones back home, or fear for their own safety if their identities are discovered, they still want
A Hong Konger who gave only the nickname Billy said it was hugely significant for Chinese students to stand up and take part in annual events marking the massacre.
“There are still a lot of people of conscience in mainland China,” he said.
Chinese students also marched alongside Hong Kongers, Tibetans and Uyghurs to the Chinese Embassy in London in an annual event organized by Amnesty International marking the June 4, 1989, military crackdown that ended weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing and other Chinese cities.
Many held electronic candles and banners in support of jailed Hong Kong barrister and rights activist Chow Hang-tung, who had pledged to fast for 34 hours – one hour for every year since the massacre – to mark the anniversary in prison.
In San Francisco, protesters gathered in the Chinatown section of the city on Saturday evening, June 3, 2023, to mark the Tiananmen anniversary. Credit: Sun Cheng/RFA
In San Francisco’s Chinatown, hundreds of protesters gathered to light candles and lay floral tributes around a replica of the 1989 “Goddess of Democracy” statue on Saturday evening. Former student leader Feng Congde told them in a speech that the wounds caused by the bloodshed that year weren’t only physical.
“The deeper violence [perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party] was cultural — it took the form of the thorough brainwashing and propaganda they engaged in afterwards,” he said, as participants gathered around a replica of the “Pillar of Shame” memorial sculpture, the original of which has been seized by national security police in Hong Kong.
Former Wuhan student leader Zhao Bingxian said attempts to cover up the truth of the massacre in mainland China would fail.
“The lies they write in ink can’t cover up the facts that have been written in blood,” Zhao said. “The democratic demands of the students in Tiananmen Square were turned into a massacre of the most barbaric and brutal kind by the Chinese Communist Party.”
“Today, we denounce this regime of butchers,” he said, amid shouts of “Down with the Communist Party!” “Down with Xi Jinping” and “Long live freedom and democracy!”
No more candlelight vigils
Kory Powell McCoy, a representative of the office of former U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, told the rally that Beijing had only accelerated its atrocities since the events of 1989, imprisoning dissidents who dare to speak out, committing genocide against the Uyghur community, intimidating and destroying freedom and democracy in Hong Kong and threatening democracy in Taiwan.
A U.S.-based Hong Kong activist said Hong Kong can no longer host such vigils since Beijing imposed a strict national security law on the city in 2020, in the wake of the 2019 protest movement against the erosion of the city’s promised freedoms.
“Today, 34 years later, we in Hong Kong can no longer light candles, because to do so would already be a violation of the national security law,” the activist told the rally.
Instead, protesters on the democratic island of Taiwan appear to have taken up the role once played by the vigils in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, staging a rally marking the massacre at the weekend, but also calling for the defense of freedom and democracy worldwide.
A man places a candle at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to mark the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, in Taipei on Sunday, June 4, 2023. Credit: AFP
“Taiwan is a democratic country, and China doesn’t seem to have reached that point yet,” a participant who gave only the surname Ho told Radio Free Asia on Sunday. “I wouldn’t want that kind of thing to happen to my own children.”
Prominent 1989 student protester Wuer Kaixi, an ethnic Uyghur now based in Taipei, told RFA that June 4 needs to be remembered every year because “we have not forgotten their sacrifices. We have not forgotten the unfinished business that they had started and we’re continuing.”
“It is also important to tell the whole world, especially Western democracies, that they have failed to hold the mass murderers of Tiananmen massacre accountable.”
“So commemoration of the Tiananmen massacre basically tells the Western democracies that their China policy is not acceptable in the 21st century,” he said.
With contributions from RFA Uyghur. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
