Day: June 7, 2023

Russian authorities have issued a missing persons alert for the family of a North Korean diplomat, in what local and international media reports said could be an attempted defection. 

According to a public notice issued Tuesday, Kim Kum Sun, 43, and her son Park Kwon Ju, 15, were last seen on Sunday leaving the North Korean consulate in Vladivostok, in Russia’s far east, and their whereabouts are unknown. 

They are the wife and son of a North Korean trade representative in his 60s surnamed Park, sources in Vladivostok told RFA’s Korean Service. Park, considered a diplomat, had returned to North Korea in 2019, they said.

Park and his family were dispatched to Russia prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, where they were assigned to earn foreign currency for the North Korean regime by running the Koryo and Tumen River restaurants in Vladivostok, a source in Vladivostok who declined to be named told Radio Free Asia.

The missing woman was identified as Kim Kum Sun, who was the acting manager of both restaurants on behalf of her husband, according to a Russian citizen of Korean descent familiar with confidential news involving North Korean state-run companies in Vladivostok. He spoke to Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Rode off in taxi

On the day they disappeared, the mother and son rode a taxi and got off on Nevskaya Street, which is not far from the consulate, Russian Media reported. The consulate reported to authorities that they had lost touch with the pair after they were not able to contact them.

“[The mother and son] had been detained in the North Korean consulate in Vladivostok for several months and then disappeared during the time they had once per week to go out,” the  Russian citizen of Korean descent said.

“Park said he would return after the restaurant’s business performance review, but he was not able to return because the border has been closed since COVID hit,” he said, adding that the pandemic was rough on business at the Koryo restaurant, that Kim Kum Sun was running in her husband’s stead.

“In October of last year, the assistant manager, who oversaw personnel escaped,” the Korean Russian said.

The assistant manager of the Koryo restaurant, Kim Pyong Chol, 51 attempted to claim asylum but was arrested. 

Shortly afterward, the consulate closed the restaurant fearing that others would also attempt to escape, he said.

“The acting manager and her son were then placed under confinement inside the consulate in Vladivostok,” said the Korean Russian. “They were allowed to go out only one day a week since they did not commit any specific crime, they just did chores inside the consulate and were monitored.”

Fear of returning

Rumors about a possible reopening of the North Korea-Russia border have made North Koreans stranded in Russia by the pandemic anxious that they might have to return to their homeland soon, another North Korea-related source in Vladivostok told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. 

“They fear that when they return to North Korea, they will return to a lifestyle where they are cut off from the outside world,” the North Korea-related source said.

The fear of returning to one of the world’s most isolated countries is palpable among the fledgling community of North Korean dispatched workers and officials in Vladivostok, said Kang Dongwan, a professor at Busan’s Dong-A University, who recently visited the far eastern Russian city.

“The North Korean workers I met in Vladivostok were in a harsh situation and were quite agitated,” he said. “If [a border reopening] happens, there is a high possibility that North Korean workers and diplomats’ families will return to North Korea. So they may have judged that the only chance to escape North Korea is now.”

According to South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, the presidential office in Seoul has confirmed that the mother and son have gone missing, and the related South Korean agencies are actively searching for their whereabouts. They have not made contact with South Korean authorities.

An official from the office told Dong-A that the case is “not yet at the stage where they are trying to seek asylum in South Korea, as far as I know.”

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. 

Cambodia’s election authority has threatened fines and prison terms for those who urge a boycott of July 23 national elections, while Western diplomats voiced concern over the exclusion of the main opposition party from the vote.

The National Election Committee said in a statement Tuesday that those who “urge voters not to go to vote, recreate mistrust in the election and disturb the electoral process” could face fines of between 5 million-20 million riels (US$1,200-4,800) and prison terms. It did not specify the possible length of prison term. 

The committee said that there had been leaflets, pictures and video clips distributed on social media urging voters not to vote or to destroy their ballots because the opposition Candlelight Party, or CLP, isn’t allowed to contest the election. 

The committee last month excluded the CLP on a technicality – although it was allowed to contest commune elections just last year. The ruling meant Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won’t have any major challengers on the ballot next month.

On Monday, French Ambassador Jacques Pellet and German Ambassador Stefan Messerer met with Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng to register their concern over the party’s exclusion and to call for free, transparent and multiparty elections.

“They expressed their concerns about the CLP’s absence from this important democratic exercise,” Noemie Pinta, press counselor at the French Embassy in Cambodia, wrote in an email to RFA Khmer.

“The absence of the main opposition party can only undermine the democratic nature of the vote,” she said. “France will continue to call for the holding of free, transparent, pluralistic elections in accordance with the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements and the Cambodian Constitution.”

The peace agreements ended more than 20 years of conflict and internal strife that laid waste to Cambodia, and provided a framework for democracy, later recognized in the country’s constitution. However, Hun Sen, who has led Cambodia since the mid-1980s, has shrunk space for dissent.

In the run-up to this July’s vote, his government has used a combination of legal action, threats and harassment to target the political opposition, independent media and civil society groups. He’s also co-opted former opposition supporters and activists to ensure the continuing dominance of his Cambodian People’s Party, which currently holds all the National Assembly seats after the last flawed elections in 2018.

At Monday’s meeting with the ambassadors, Sar Kheng, who is also deputy prime minister, stressed the maintenance of public order and a secure, nonviolent electoral environment for the upcoming election, The Phnom Penh Post reported.

The Candlelight Party is vowing to continue political activities although it is excluded from the election. In response to the NEC statement, it said it’s not a crime if voters don’t cast ballots. 

“Voters have the full right to decide whether they want to vote or not without any pressures, threats or incitements from any political parties,” the party said in a statement. 

Kang Savang, a coordinator with the independent Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, or Comfrel, agreed, saying that Cambodians have the right to choose parties that they like, and voting is not an obligation.

The United States has said it is “deeply troubled” by Cambodian authorities barring the CLP and does not plan to send official observers for the elections on the grounds that experts say the vote won’t be free or fair.

Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Mat Pennington.

A Uyghur hatmaker and his wife detained in 2017 amid mass arrests in Xinjiang of members of the mostly Muslim minority group by Chinese authorities have been confirmed as having died in prison while serving their sentences, people with knowledge of the couple’s situation said.

Haji’ahun and his spouse Mehpiremhan, residents of Maralbeshi county in Kashgar prefecture, were each sentenced to 10 years in Tumshuq Prison in 2019 for “illegal” religious activities, according to the sources. 

The prison housed others arbitrarily arrested during the 2017 crackdown on prominent and ordinary Uyghurs alike, jailing them in “re-education” camps and prisons for alleged extremist behavior, such as previous trips or contacts abroad or religious activities. 

China has come under harsh international criticism for its severe rights abuses of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, including forced labor.

The U.S. government and several Western parliaments, including the German Bundestag, have declared that the abuses amount to genocide or crimes against humanity.

Tumshuq Prison authorities released the bodies of several jailed Uyghurs who had died to their families in secret one week before the Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, in late April, according to an émigré from Maralbeshi in a previous RFA report.

Based on that information, RFA confirmed that the body of Uyghur motorcycle repairman Memettursun Metniyaz was among those returned to relatives. The Maralbeshi county resident had been jailed in early 2017 for completing the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, years before. 

Maralbeshi police contacted by RFA also confirmed the return of corpses of dead prisoners to their families a week before the Eid holiday, but they said they did not know the exact number or the causes of death.

An employee at a police station in Maralbeshi country, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the number of inmates who have died in Tumshuq Prison has been exceptionally high, and that the hatmaker was among those who passed away before Eid.

The staffer also said that a rumor had been circulating that inmates who died before the holiday had eaten contaminated food in prison, though RFA could not determine the accuracy of the information.

Another employee at a police station in Maralbeshi confirmed that Haji’ahun, who was in his 70s, and his wife, who was in her 60s, died together in prison where they had been serving time since their sentencing in 2019. 

“They were an old couple. Both passed away,” she said.   

Translated by the Uyghur Service. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Paul Eckert.

Myanmar’s military has stepped up attacks on schools run by anti-junta paramilitaries and ethnic armed groups, according to a Thai-based NGO, in what an aid worker says is a bid to force children to study under its education system.

While the military began using airstrikes against schools following its successful coup d’etat in February 2021, the number of attacks increased ahead of the start of this year’s school season on June 1, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said in a statement.

Several of the airstrikes took place in Kani and Kale townships in Sagaing region, as well as in Tanintharyi region – two hotbeds of anti-junta resistance since the takeover – the June 5 statement said, labeling such attacks “war crimes.”

“The junta has definitely been committing war crimes like these – everyday they violate what the International community has prohibited,” said an AAPP official, speaking to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. 

“The schools they attacked are in areas controlled by the [People’s Defense Force] and other revolutionary forces where they have no authority.”

Among the attacks was one by military helicopters on a school in Kale’s Shu Khin Thar village on June 5 that a local PDF group known as the CNO Upper Chindwin Region said took place while village elders were holding a meeting. The attack killed one person and injured four others, the group said in a statement, adding that the junta has ordered such strikes to “threaten families” who send their children to village schools run by anti-junta groups.

The AAPP said it had also documented a June 5 attack by a junta Mi-35 helicopter on a school in Sagaing’s Kani township that injured two children and damaged the building, as well as nearby homes. There was no fighting or military activities taking place at the time.

And early in the morning of June 6, military fighter jets dropped bombs on San Pha Lar village in Kayin state’s Kawkareik, destroying the village school and four houses. Local media reported that teachers and students in the village are now too frightened to go to school. 

A resident of Kani township who is aware of the incident but declined to be named called the junta’s deliberate targeting of schools “a heinous act.”

“Children are entitled to freedom of education,” the resident said. “School buildings can never be military targets.”

In the months of April and May alone, the AAPP said the military carried out 31 airstrikes and fired 184 barrages of heavy artillery into areas controlled by the rebel Karen National Union’s 6th Brigade, damaging three schools, a monastery, two Christian churches, two clinics and 387 civilian homes. The attacks forced 23,021 civilians to flee, according to the KNU.

Targeting non-junta schools

Japan Gyi, co-chair of the Relief Group for People Displaced by Conflict (Kale), told RFA that the military regime is intentionally targeting schools that are not under its control.

“Their education system is a complete failure and the people know it very well,” he said. “But, just as all dictators, they are forcing people to study under their system and live under their management.”

Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the school attacks went unanswered on Wednesday.

Residents of Sagaing and Magway regions and Chin and Kayin states have told RFA that they are being forced to build bomb shelters at schools because of the threat of airstrikes and urged the international community to intervene.

Armed resistance groups and NGOs have called for a ban on companies that sell jet fuel to Myanmar’s military, but the junta continues to carry out airstrikes across the country.

In a statement earlier this week, Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government said that junta forces killed 129 civilians in the month of May alone, including 19 children. The civilians were killed by junta airstrikes, artillery or while in detention, the statement said, in Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Chin, Mon and Shan states, as well as Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway and Bago regions.

An information official in Sagaing’s Khin-U township who declined to be named told RFA that civilian deaths have increased there and other regions as anti-junta forces have become better armed and more successful in ground engagements with the military.

“Due to junta aggression, innocent civilians including the elderly, pregnant women, mothers with newborn babies and children have had to flee their homes when fighting breaks out,” the official said. Many elderly residents have died while trying to flee or were burned to death in military arson attacks, he added.

According to the AAPP, authorities have killed at least 3,622 civilians since the coup.

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

In a hearing that opened Wednesday in Argentina, Rohingya Muslims appeared in person in a court of law for the first time to provide eyewitness testimony about alleged crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by senior Myanmar officials.

The hearing is being held in Argentina under the principle of “universal jurisdiction” enshrined in the country’s constitution, which holds that some crimes are so heinous that alleged perpetrators thousands of miles away can be tried.

“This is a historic fight for justice,” said Tun Khin, president of the London-based advocacy group Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, or BROUK, which filed the complaint with the Federal Criminal Correctional Court in Buenos Aires.

The hearings, which will run through June 13, will call seven Rohingya witnesses to testify before federal prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan, who is gathering evidence in the case.

The 46-page criminal complaint centers on violence in 2012 and 2018 that drove about 1 million Rohingyas from Myanmar, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh, where many live in squalid refugee camps to this day.

In harrowing detail, the document describes rapes, beheadings and the slaughter of Rohingya civilians committed by Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, and their civilian supporters.

It describes “the gang rape of women, girls and boys” and includes “the virtually total destruction of their towns and villages by intentionally setting them on fire.”

Goal: Arrest or extradition

Ultimately, the complaint calls for the perpetrators to be identified “and the necessary measures be adopted” for them to be interrogated by a judge, “including their arrest and/or extradition if necessary.”

“The idea is that someone will be caught and brought trial. It forms part of a longer arc of accountability and truth-telling,” said Akila Radhakrisan, head of the New York-based Global Justice Center, a group specializing in human rights and sexual violence against women.

But cases like these can take decades to be resolved, Radhakrisan said.

For example, it was only on May 23 that a key fugitive in the 1994 Rwandan massacre was found in South Africa and arrested following a warrant issued by the United Nations’ International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

The public shaming and a pending arrest warrant for perpetrators in Myanmar could limit their travel, and also deter others around the world that might engage in similar human rights abuses, officials said.

Prosecutor Marijuan is technically still in the phase of collection of evidence. 

Aside from the courtroom testimony, evidence includes detailed information collected by a 2017-2019 UN-backed Independent International Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar, which interviewed hundreds of witnesses in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Those named in the accusation include Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, head of Myanmar’s armed forces and the ruling junta, which overthrew the civilian government in a coup two years ago, senior officials in the police and border guard, and radical Buddhist monks including Ashin Wirathu.

The accusation also names pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto head of Myanmar’s civilian government between 2016 and 2021, as being complicit in the genocide. Removed from power in the coup, she is now serving a lengthy prison term in Myanmar on charges that supporters say are politically motivated.

Anonymous testimony

Fearing retaliation from agents of Myanar’s military government, the Rohingya witnesses coming to the court have taken strict measures to remain anonymous. The hearings will be held behind closed doors. 

The Rohingya are represented in court by Tomas Ojea Quintana, an Argentine attorney who has served as U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar between 2008 and 2014.

Argentine prosecutors may travel to a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh if they deem that more information is needed, he said.

Argentina has held previous cases about alleged crimes committed elsewhere.

A 2010 case examined crimes committed in Spain during 1939-1975 fascist rule of Francisco Franco; a 2014 case against Israeli authorities for crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip; and a 2018 case against Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed bin Salman for crimes against humanity committed in Yemen.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Hong Kong authorities sought a court injunction prohibiting the dissemination and performance of the banned protest anthem, “Glory to Hong Kong,” prompting downloads of the song to surge.

The anthem was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protest movement, which that ranged from peaceful demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between “front-line” protesters and armed riot police.

It was banned in 2020 as Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on the city.

The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.

“It is very unreasonable to ban the broadcast of ‘Glory to Hong Kong’,” said a Hong Kong resident who gave only the nickname May for fear of reprisals. She said had downloaded the song in the past 24 hours. “As a citizen, I feel very uneasy about this.”

“I want to listen to it more, now  — I want to hear it again before it is taken off the shelves, or there is no way to listen to it any more — to commemorate the social events of that time,” May said.

Played at sports events

The lyrics of the song contain speech ruled by the court as constituting “secession,” a government statement said, referring to recent broadcasts of the song in error at overseas sports events featuring Hong Kong athletes.

“This has not only insulted the national anthem but also caused serious damage to the country and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,” it said. 

“The Department of Justice of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) applied to the Court … to prohibit four items of unlawful acts relating to the song “Glory to Hong Kong,’” the statement said.

In November, Hong Kong police announced a criminal investigation into the playing of “Glory to Hong Kong” at a rugby match in South Korea.

If the court injunction is granted, it will outlaw the broadcasting, performing, publishing or other dissemination of the song on any platform, especially with “seditious” or “pro-independence” intent, the government said.

It will also become harder to track down the song online, as global platforms could seek to conform with the ruling simply by taking it down.

The news prompted a spike in digital downloads of the song from iTunes, with different versions of the song featuring in nine of the top 10 download spots for the Hong Kong market.

Meanwhile, keyword searches for “Glory to Hong Kong” in Chinese surged following the government statement, remaining at a new high on the Google Trends tracking app at 7.00 a.m. local time on Wednesday.

‘Attack on freedom of speech’

Former pro-democracy District Council member Carmen Lau, now in exile in the United Kingdom, said the move is part of an ongoing crackdown on public expression in Hong Kong since the national security law took effect that has seen hundreds of titles removed from public libraries and bookshops, as well as bans on the screening of some movies in the city.

“As far as I know, this is the first time that the government has used a court procedure to apply specifically to the release or broadcast of this song in Hong Kong,” Lau said. “This is a precedent, and is a serious attack on the freedom of speech, and on artistic freedom.”

“Now this precedent has been set, many other freedoms of the press, and cultural freedoms, will be suppressed too,” she said.

Benson Wong, former assistant politics professor at Hong Kong Baptist University who is now in Britain, said the ban, if issued, will send a strong message to the international community.

“If the court really does issue an injunction banning the playing of ‘Glory to Hong Kong,’ this will be the first song ban in Hong Kong,” he said. 

“It will also become clear that there is nothing left of the rule of law or judicial independence in Hong Kong,” Wong said.

He said the move was likely prompted by massive official embarrassment over the playing of the wrong anthem at recent sporting events, adding that Hong Kongers would likely have to turn to circumvention software to access the song in future.

The spirit of Hong Kong

U.K.-based former pro-democracy councilor Daniel Kwok said the song remains hugely popular among Hong Kongers.

“Everyone likes this song very much, protesters and the international community alike,” Kwok said. “Hearing this song is like hearing the spirit of Hong Kong.”

“It represents Hong Kongers as an ethnic group far better than [the Chinese national anthem],” he said. “This is a song that belongs to and represents the people of Hong Kong.”

Executive Council member Ronny Tong said anyone found downloading the tune could face up to seven years’ imprisonment for “contempt of court,” if the injunction is granted.

He called on residents of Hong Kong to delete the tune if they have downloaded it already, just to be on the safe side.

Lau said she still expects to hear the song at overseas protests by Hong Kongers, however.

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the Hong Kong authorities are unlikely to be able to enforce the ban outside the city.

“Injunctions granted by a Hong Kong court are only applicable to Hong Kong,” Sang said. “Many overseas versions have been posted overseas, to accounts on YouTube and Instagram, so how will they implement it there?”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.