Day: June 5, 2023

A day ahead of his trial on Tuesday, the wife of a music lecturer arrested in early September on charges of “conducting anti-state propaganda” said he is innocent and called for his release.

Dang Dang Phuoc, 60, an instructor at Dak Lak Pedagogical College in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, often writes on Facebook about educational issues, human rights violations, corrupt officials and social injustice.

Police arrested him on Sept. 8 and charged him with “making, storing, spreading or propagating information, documents and items aimed at opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” He faces up to 12 years in prison.

His case has drawn international attention, including from Human Rights Watch, which also urged Vietnam’s government to release him Monday. 

In a statement, the rights group slammed authorities for targeting those who highlight corruption in the Southeast Asian nation, despite claims that they are working to eradicate graft.

Speaking to RFA’s Vietnamese Service, Phuoc’s wife Le Thi Ha said that her husband’s arrest had caused her family to lose its “primary pillar” and left them in a state of shock.

“In Vietnam, whomever [the authorities] arrest, when the arrests take place, and how many years in prison the arrestees are sentenced to … all are in their hands,” she said. “However, to me, my husband is innocent. My wish is that my husband be released unconditionally.”

Anti-corruption advocate

During the past decade, Phuoc has campaigned against corruption and advocated for better protections for civil and political rights. He has signed several pro-democracy petitions and called for changes to Vietnam’s constitution, which grants the Communist Party a monopoly on power.

After Phuoc’s arrest, police summoned Ha for interrogation at least twice and threatened to have her fired if she shared information about his case on social media.

According to an indictment obtained by RFA, the Dak Lak Provincial Police’s Investigation Security Agency examined a recent recording of Phuoc’s and found it to “slander the government in order to reduce people’s trust in management and administration of the government and the state.”

On Monday, Ha said that her family and close friends plan to attend his trial on Tuesday, but questioned whether the court will allow it.

“Although the authorities said the trial would be open to the public, there are many precedents in Vietnam that show that even family members were not allowed to attend trials for political dissidents and activists,” she said. “I don’t know how my husband’s trial will go.”

Home under surveillance

In the meantime, she said, police have kept a close watch on her household, sending plainclothes officers to document the activities of her family members over the weekend.

“Their people are still stationed at the road leading to my house,” she told RFA. “Being aware of many previous cases in which family members of prisoners of conscience received invitations but were still prevented from attending the related trials, I have left my home to increase the chance of being able to attend my husband’s trial.”

On Monday, Phuoc’s defense lawyers met with him and said that he has been “well-treated” in detention, describing him as “optimistic, positive, healthy, and showing no signs of depression or psychological crisis at all.”

“Of course he admitted to the act, but as for the crime, he said he was exercising his right to speak the truth,” lawyer Le Van Luan said. “For tomorrow, he prepared the content of his defense. Basically, the defense is strong, covering the entirety of his case.”

In a statement on Monday, Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson echoed Ha’s call to set Phuoc free.

“The Vietnam government makes use of its abusive and overly broad laws to prosecute people who call for reforms,” said Robertson. “The authorities should immediately drop the charges against Dang Dang Phuoc and other activists who play a critical role in rooting out the malfeasance and corruption that the government claims to oppose.”

He slammed the government for its contempt for freedom of expression, noting that it is extended “even to activists who sing a few songs criticizing them.”

“The European Union, which concluded a free trade agreement with Vietnam containing human rights conditionality, and other trade partners, should call out the government for its unrelenting rights violations,” he said.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

Two senior Biden administration officials visited their counterparts in Beijing on Monday for “candid and productive discussions” on the state of U.S.-China ties, according to the U.S. State Department.

The trip by Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Sarah Beran, senior director for China and Taiwan affairs on the National Security Council, was meant “to maintain open lines of communication,” said a press release.

It’s the highest-level visit by American officials to China since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in February nixed a trip to Beijing due to the spy-balloon episode, when a Chinese balloon drifted across U.S. airspace. 

It also comes after a weekend war-of-words between the countries’ top defense officials and two high-profile near-collisions between their militaries.

The State Department press release was light on details and noted little more than who Kritenbrink and Beran met with: Ma Zhaoxu, the executive vice foreign minister, and Yang Tao, director general of the foreign ministry’s North American and Oceanian Affairs Department.

“The two sides exchanged views on the bilateral relationship, cross-Strait issues, channels of communication, and other matters,” it added. “U.S. officials made clear that the United States would compete vigorously and stand up for U.S. interests and values.”

Speaking at the State Department press briefing on Monday, deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel also said he could not offer more details, but indicated Blinken had not made any new plans to visit Beijing.

“I’m just not going to get into specifics of the meeting beyond what we already shared,” Patel said. “As we’ve previously said … we hope to have this visit rescheduled, when conditions allow.”

Escalating tensions

Kritenbrink and Beran are the highest-level American officials to visit Beijing since Blinken’s cancellation, which led some Chinese officials to cut off lines of communication with U.S. defense counterparts. 

Blinken’s postponed trip was itself meant to be a moment of thawing in China-U.S. ties after bilateral relations hit a nadir last year following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in August.

Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan and the head of the State Department’s “China House,” in March also visited Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, with the State Department at that time also declining to provide many details.

Besides Waters’ visit, though, U.S.-China ties have seemingly only gotten worse in the four months following Blinken’s nixed trip. 

Near-collisions between American and Chinese vessels and jets in the Taiwan Strait and over the South China Sea, both of which Beijing claims sovereignty over, have also become more frequent, with two such incidents occurring in the past two weeks alone.

Almost accidents

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby blamed China’s military for aggressive maneuvering near American vessels making freedom-of-navigation ops, but said U.S. officials would “continue to keep lines open” to hold talks with their Chinese counterparts.

“It’s part of a growing aggressiveness by the PRC that we’re dealing with and that we’re prepared to address,” Kirby said, referring to the Chinese government. “It won’t be long before somebody gets hurt.”

On the weekend in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – in an apparent reference to China’s decision to cut-off communication after Blinken’s trip cancellation – also accused Beijing of being “unwilling to engage more seriously on better mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries.”

Speaking at the same conference, Chinese Defense Li Shangfu called out “some country” for what he said was a “selective approach” to international law and of “forcing its rules on others.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

A widely used Chinese video surveillance company sanctioned by Western governments incorporates an AI technology that automatically alerts authorities if a person is detected unfurling a banner.

The AI in cameras made by Dahua Technology appears to be explicitly aimed at quelling protests, according to IPVM, a U.S.-based surveillance research company that first reported the technology’s existence.

Dahua deleted references to the system, called “Jinn,” after IPVM asked the company for comment, but an archived version of its website discusses its use for the purposes of “social safety” and “social governance” – terms frequently used by Chinese authorities to justify surveillance and arrests.

The detection system is just one example of the growth of AI and government tracking technologies in China that have proliferated over the last several years amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A series of mass technology procurements by police forces across China have greatly increased authorities’ abilities to clamp down on social freedoms, control citizens and, critics say, abuse groups targeted by the government.

‘An alarm will be generated’

According to Dahua’s archived webpage, the AI system was launched in 2021 and available as of May 2023. 

Its debut appears to have coincided with a wave of police investment in geographic information systems across China in 2020. 

It is not known what police jurisdictions use this particular Dahua AI, but the company is a major provider of police technology, said Charles Rollet of IPVM. 

“With the banner alarm – that’s catering to the Chinese enterprise market: the big, usually police, authorities,” he said. “It’s intended for police or some form of city authority … there’s no reason to track them [banners] automatically unless you want to track protests, basically.”

Perhaps the most recognizable protest in China in recent years – the White Paper protest against strict COVID lockdowns – was started by a man unfurling a banner on a bridge last year — an indication of the possible relevance of the technology for police (though it is not known if unfurling banner tracking was used by police in that particular case).

Dahua, which is sanctioned by the U.S., U.K. and Australian governments, provides a number of predictive policing AI technologies that can surveil civilians using biometrics data. Previously, internal documents from the company showed that it provides facial recognition AI to track Uyghurs, which led to the Western sanctions. Dahua denied racial targeting.

A demo of a banner unfurling that AI filmed in 2020 was also posted on Dahua’s website before being deleted. “If a person holding a banner is detected within the camera field and lasts for a certain period of time, an alarm to police will be generated,” the demo explained. 

Dahua did not respond to a request for comment from RFA.

Policing tech boom

The banner unfurling technology is a continuation of “the development of AI and how that technology is becoming really available” to Chinese police, said Rollet.

China is known to collect vast troves of data on its residents,  and rapidly expanding AI technologies give authorities a new way to gather intel.

A solicitation for proposals for an AI tracking project from Shanghai police also unearthed by IPVM last month lays out some of the ambitions authorities harbor for using the vast data they have gathered.

“Traditional police work needs to be transformed into digital, intelligent and convenient simplified online operation,” it said. “The effective management of the model to make it play its biggest role has become an urgent problem in the development of public security technology.”

The project aims to create automatic alerts to inform police of movements of particular populations in the Songjiang district of Shanghai, a populous suburb with a large population of academics and university students. 

The “target populations” the project seeks to automatically track include Uyghurs; foreigners with illegal residence status; faculty and staff members of key universities; foreign journalists stationed in China; foreigners who have visited Xinjiang or other similar areas; individuals with COVID vaccinations; suspected criminals, sex workers, and drug dealers; and families with abnormal electricity consumption.

According to a notice on its website that was later removed, Songjiang police awarded the project to a technology security firm, the Shanghai Juyi Technology Development Company, that appears to specialize in government contract work.

The Shanghai Juyi Technology Development Company did not return a request for comment.

As with Dahua, the Songjiang police removed the notice after IPVM publicized it in May, and RFA was unable to reach the project’s manager listed on the document.

The limits of Big Brother

The 26 categories of “target populations” in the Shanghai project are what are considered “focus personnel” by Chinese authorities, according to Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch. 

“People who are petitioners, people who have a prior criminal record, people who have psychosocial disabilities and so on, … these groups of people are being monitored by the police” both physically and through technologies, Wang told RFA.

But the way in which AI is used to track people shows both the sophistication and artlessness in how Chinese authorities think about surveillance, said Geoffrey Cain, author of “The Perfect Police State,” a book on Chinese surveillance. 

The parameters they use – tracking the unfurling of a banner or flagging jumps in household electricity use (in the Shanghai police project) – tend to work backwards from behaviors that might only be vaguely connected to censured activities they are trying to pre-emptively clamp down on, such as protesting or cryptocurrency mining.

“It reminds me back when this whole surveillance state really got kicking off around 2016 and 2017,” Cain said. “They were going after people who suddenly start smoking or drinking or people who suddenly, you know, purchase the items being used to make a tent. 

“And it’s not because there’s any specific reason, but the reasons they would give is that those types of behaviors are suspicious. It’s almost like they’ve arbitrarily chosen something that would be unusual,” he said.

“It’s as if the authorities are moving backwards, putting the cause before the fact.”

Discrimination and danger

But there is real impact for the groups targeted.

Mass surveillance of Uyghurs in particular has been a key factor in enabling their persecution, said HRW’s Wang.

“Wherever they go in China, Uyghurs are essentially being singled out for discriminatory and targeted policing,” she said. “And that means that they often suffer – they often are unable to find a place to stay, a hotel. Typically, when they take the train, they are subjected to investigation and interrogation and so on.”

According to a May analysis of Chinese police geolocation systems acquisitions by China Digital Times, a specialist media firm, a wave of police investment in these tracking systems was first seen in 2017, and then again in 2020, increasing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Some contracts coincided with other government purchases of surveillance systems specifically designed to target Uyghurs,” the report noted. “There are also notable concentrations of procurement in regions with significant Uyghur or other minority populations.” 

More broadly, the concern is that “these [AI surveillance] systems are all empowering authorities to violate human rights in different ways, depending on how they are used,” said Wang.

“And when they are so cheap and widely available and in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, given Chinese government Chinese financing, they are spreading with detrimental impact on rights globally,” she said.

Rollet agreed. “I could see this taking off in other countries,” he said. “I think the bigger risk is that it sets a precedent and gives other countries ideas about what they should do, you know?”

Edited by Boer Deng

Hong Kong police have arrested several activists who publicly marked the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in a sign that Beijing will not tolerate freedom of expression to remember victims of the crackdown.

They included British flag-waving protester Alexandra “Grandma” Wong and opposition party leader Chan Po-ying, who was taken away from a downtown shopping street carrying an electric candle and a yellow paper flower.

The arrests Sunday came on the politically sensitive anniversary of the killing of civilians by the People’s Liberation Army, which was once marked annually by candlelight vigils over three decades by thousands of people crowded across several soccer pitches in the city’s Victoria Park.

That commemoration has been banned in Hong Kong amid a citywide crackdown on public dissent and protest under the 2020 national security law.

“At about 7.00 p.m., League of Social Democrats Chairperson Chan Po-Ying stood on Great George Street in Causeway Bay, holding a yellow paper flower and electronic tealight,” the League of Social Democrats said Sunday on its Facebook page.

“Less than 10 seconds later, she was dragged by police into a tent for questioning, before being put into a police vehicle, where she kept hold of the paper flowers,” the statement said, adding the hashtag #NeverForgetJune4th, in a reference to the anniversary.

The 67-year-old Wong, whose ubiquitous waving of a British flag was a common sight during the 2019 protest movement, was taken away from the same district after being surrounded by police officers when she held flowers on the street and made the “five demands, not one less,” gestures from the 2019 protests, according to multiple media reports.

Journalists, artists targeted

Police also took away former Hong Kong Journalists Association chairwoman Mak Yin-ting, the union said in a statement on its website.

“Mak Yin-ting, the former chairperson of the association and a special correspondent of Radio France Internationale, was stopped by the police while reporting in Causeway Bay at 6:00 pm on Sunday (June 4th),” the statement said.

“[Police] told Mak to go into their tent for a routine search, promising to release her afterwards … but she was [instead] taken to a police minibus,” it said. “Police told her she would be charged with obstructing officers in the course of their duty if she didn’t do as they told her.”

She was sent to Wanchai Police Station, where she was held until 11:00 pm before being released, it said. She wasn’t informed that she was being charged with a crime.

“This association urges the police to respect journalists doing their job, and not to detain them unreasonably, which seriously hinders their reporting work, and calls on the police for an explanation,” the June 5 statement said.

On Saturday, police had earlier arrested Hong Kong artist Sanmu Chan in Causeway Bay after he shouted on a busy street: “Hong Kong people, don’t be afraid, don’t forget that tomorrow is June 4!”

Fellow artist Kacey Wong, who attended a vigil marking the anniversary in the democratic island of Taiwan on Sunday, said Chan was “very brave.”

“He shouted out to Hong Kongers not to be afraid, and not to forget that the next day was June 4,” Wong told Radio Free Asia in Taipei. “I think he was demonstrating to us that the secret of freedom is courage.”

34-hour hunger strike

Meanwhile, jailed barrister and rights activist Chow Hang-tung refused food while in prison to mark the anniversary of the crackdown, which is a banned topic in mainland China and in Hong Kong since the national security law took effect in 2020, according to a page dedicated to supporting her on Facebook.

“34-Hour Hunger Strike in Prison,” the group said in an annotated photograph. “Wherever there is candlelight, there is a Victoria Park.”

Chow is currently serving a 15-month sentence for “inciting” people to hold a vigil for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. 

She also stands accused of “incitement to subvert state power,” with the prosecution claiming that she and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China used the now-banned vigils to incite the overthrow of the Chinese government.

Police said on Saturday they had arrested four people for “sedition or disorderly conduct” in Causeway Bay.

“The police are highly concerned about some people attempting to incite and encourage others to commit illegal acts that endanger national security, public order and public safety,” they said in a statement dated June 3, warning that they would “strictly enforce the law.”

Candles in consulates

According to Hong Kong media reports, at least eight people were arrested over the weekend, including former National Taiwan University student Lau Ka-yee, who had been wearing a T-shirt depicting a candle and the Chinese word for “truth” while declaring her intention to go on hunger strike.

The head of the National Taiwan University’s student union, Sun Yu-chien, said Lau had been “arbitrarily” arrested for sedition for peacefully expressing her opinion.

Graduate student association head Hsu Kuan-tze called on the university to stand up for Lau and “safeguard freedom.”

The university said the 1989 Tiananmen massacre was “a major historical event of concern to the whole world and people of all generations,” and that it was in contact with “relevant departments” in a bid to offer Lau some kind of support and assistance.

Candles also appeared in the windows of the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong and the Office of the European Union on June 4, with accompanying statements on the diplomatic missions’ Facebook pages linking them to the anniversary.

The U.S. Consulate General posted a photo of the candles in every window of the building, with the comment: “In memory.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Myanmar’s military regime has shut down more than 700 mobile bank accounts for allegedly funding anti-junta paramilitary groups in the month of May alone, according to data compiled by Radio Free Asia, industry insiders and account holders.

The move is the latest bid by the junta to cut off the flow of assistance to Myanmar’s armed resistance, which the military has vowed to eradicate in the aftermath of its Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat, but which has made increasing gains on the ground in key areas of the country.

An investigation by RFA Burmese found that last month the junta closed at least 721 accounts it accused of ties to anti-junta forces with mobile banking providers including KBZPay, WavePay, AYAPay, and CBPay. The junta shuttered similar bank accounts prior to May, although the number was not immediately clear.

Account holders who were locked out of their accounts told RFA that the military had ordered Myanmar’s Central Bank to monitor “irregular” money transfers and deposits and to crack down on associated accounts.

While some of the closed accounts may have been used by individuals funneling money to anti-junta organizations including the People’s Defense Force paramilitary group and shadow National Unity Government, others belonged to ordinary civilians running small businesses, some of those affected said Friday.

Yangon resident Wai Oo said his KBZPay account, which he opened in 2019 to run his online shopping business, was closed by the junta last week with nearly 2 million kyats (US$950) still in it. He said he went to his bank to explain the mistake, but was forced to leave without his money or account reinstated.

“If they want to cut off support to the PDF, they should do their due diligence first,” he said. “Online shopping businesses like mine make bank transactions on a daily basis and they should investigate them more carefully. We are being hurt by this baseless closure of our accounts.”

Amar Myint, a woman from Monywa, also had her KBZPay account frozen on the order of the central bank with no explanation given, even though she only used it for regular banking activities.

“I’m just an ordinary citizen who minds her own business and I don’t get involved in any complicated activities,” she said, adding that she mostly used her account to pay for her internet access and shop online. “When I talked to the bank, they didn’t say anything beyond that they were instructed to do so by the central bank.”

Transactions monitored daily

RFA also spoke with employees of private banks who said that, since the coup, they have had to report their institution’s online and mobile bank account transactions to the central bank on “a daily and monthly basis.”

“Among the accounts, those with at least 10 daily transactions and or that make transfers of 2 million kyats or more are monitored separately,” said an official at one bank who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. “When an account is suspected of transferring money to other regions, they close the account permanently.”

Attempts by RFA to contact central bank officials regarding the closure of mobile bank accounts went unanswered Friday.

Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun said at a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw in September that the imposition of such strict rules was done to “prevent financial fraud and violence.”

Making lives difficult

Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a group formed by former military officers, told RFA that the account closures are key to protecting the nation from terrorism.

“If you look at it from a national security standpoint, it’s worrying that some huge amounts of money are transferred from one place to another for suspicious activities by using modern technology and no one can trace them,” he said. “If these transactions can’t be strictly controlled, the resistance groups will continue to receive support, which will lead to more rebellion and chaos for the people.”

But Sayar Kyaung, the leader of the anti-junta Yangon UG Association, said that the regime’s closing of mobile bank accounts impacts not only PDF groups but also the livelihoods of regular civilians.

“The junta knows that people will not be able to pay attention to the revolution if making ends meet becomes more and more difficult,” he said. “The junta is trying to cripple people’s businesses so that they will be less willing to support the revolution.”

 

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