Day: June 23, 2023

Cambodia’s National Assembly on Friday unanimously approved an amendment to the election law that prohibits those who don’t vote in next month’s elections from running for office in future elections. 

The change appears to be aimed at preventing a large-scale boycott of the July 23 vote by supporters of the main opposition Candlelight Party. 

A boycott would be a way of expressing public anger over the National Election Committee’s decision in May to ban the party from running in the election – essentially blocking the only major party that could challenge Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

The committee blamed the ban on inadequate paperwork, but opposition activists said it was politically motivated. They pointed out that they were allowed to compete in last year’s local commune elections with the same documentation. 

The ban, which was upheld by the Constitutional Council on May 25, means that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party won’t have any major challengers on the ballot next month. More than a dozen minor parties have also qualified for the ballot.

Not a surprise

The result of Friday’s vote in the Assembly, which is made up only of members from the CPP, was not a surprise. All 111 parliamentarians who participated in the session voted to approve the amendment without objections.

Anyone who doesn’t vote next month won’t be able to run as a candidate in next year’s Senate, district and commune elections, according to Minister of Interior Sar Kheng. They also won’t be able to run in the next general election scheduled for 2027, he said.

The amendment also allows for the prosecution of individuals and parties who discourage people from voting, he said in a speech at the Assembly before the final vote.

“The amendment will regulate those who want to run for offices. It won’t affect voters’ rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” he said.  

Hun Sen first proposed the change to the law earlier this month. 

Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director, said earlier this month that Hun Sun is trying to pressure people to vote because he thinks a high voter percentage will bring legitimacy to the election.

Finland-based political analyst Kim Sok said Friday’s amendment will affect opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has been living in exile in France since 2015, and many of his supporters, who also live outside of Cambodia and won’t be able to return to vote in person. 

“The amendment doesn’t serve the country’s interest,” he said. “It is being done according to one person’s wish.”

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

Authorities in Vietnam said Friday they will prosecute 84 people accused of being involved in deadly attacks on two commune offices in central Dak Lak province and ordered them held in pre-trial detention.

It isn’t clear who was behind the June 11 attacks, which left nine people dead, or what motivated them.

On Friday, the Ministry of Public Security said it had confirmed that “organizations and individuals from overseas” had been involved, without getting more specific.

“Materials and evidence collected by security forces show that the incident took place with the support and guidance of several organizations and individuals from overseas,” the ministry said. “They even sent foreign-based people to Vietnam illegally in order to stage and direct the terrorist attacks.”

On Tuesday, Major General Pham Ngoc Viet, the head of the ministry’s Homeland Security Department, said that among those arrested in Dak Lak were members of “a U.S.-based organization” who had been “tasked to enter Vietnam and stage the attacks.”

The attacks occurred in an area that is home to about 30 indigenous tribes known collectively as Montagnards, who have historically felt persecuted or oppressed. But authorities have not said those arrested were Montagnards.

RFA interviewed several overseas Montagnard organizations who denied involvement in the incident and even condemned the violent attacks.

In the days immediately following the attack, authorities had said those involved were young people who harbored delusions and extremist attitudes and had been incited and abetted by the ringleaders via the internet.

Charges

In an announcement, the Dak Lak Provincial Police’s Investigation Agency said it will try 75 of the 84 defendants on charges of “conducting terrorist acts against the People’s government.”

Seven others were charged with “failing to denounce criminals,” while an eighth was charged with “hiding criminals” and a ninth with “organizing and brokering for others to exit, enter, or stay in Vietnam illegally.”

The Dak Lak People’s Procuracy approved the decision to prosecute the 84 and ordered them remanded to the provincial prison ahead of their trial.

The announcement said that security forces investigating the attack have so far confiscated 23 guns, two grenades, 1,199 bullets, 15 detonators, 1.2 kilograms (2.6 pounds) of explosives, a silencer, a landmine training model, and 30 knives. It said 10 flags from the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races, or FULRO, were also seized.

FULRO, founded in the 1950s, was a resistance army that fought on the side of United States and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War before officially disbanding in the 1990s.  

Vietnam has asserted that rights groups working on Central Highlands issues are part of an ongoing separatist movement linked to FULRO, but the groups reject the claims, saying they are working nonviolently for human rights.

Anger and frustration in the Central Highlands has built up after decades of government surveillance, land disputes and economic hardship, RFA reported earlier. In recent months, there have been a number of land revocation incidents by local authorities, police and military forces.

In the ministry’s description of what transpired, about 40 people wearing camouflage vests and equipped with knives and guns split into two groups for a dawn attack on the offices in Ea Tieu and Ea Ktur communes.

Members of the two groups also had broken into Special Forces Brigade No. 198’s barracks in Hoa Dong commune in Dak Lak province to steal weapons, but failed, the ministry told state media.   

Those arrested said they sought to steal weapons so as to make news headlines, which they hoped would give them the opportunity to immigrate to other countries, according to the ministry. 

In their preliminary statements, those arrested said they had been incited by others to kill police officers.

Four police officers, two commune officials and three civilians were killed.

The attackers also kidnapped three civilians, though one of them managed to escape, and the others were rescued later, the ministry said.

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

Three of the five lawyers who defended a Buddhist organization in a case in Vietnam last year – and who were later summoned for police questioning after publicly discussing the case – have fled the country and arrived safely in the United States.

Dang Dinh Manh and Nguyen Van Mieng flew into Washington’s Dulles International Airport last week. A third lawyer, Dao Kim Lan, told Voice of America that he was in “a very safe place” and was arranging his new life.

“When the plane landed, I felt really relieved after 100 days of being hunted down,” Mieng told Radio Free Asia. “With my visa, it took me only around 30 minutes to go through customs. I was so ecstatic that I almost forgot to pick up my luggage.”

The lawyers defended six members of the Peng Lei Buddhist House who were found guilty in July 2022 and sentenced to a combined 23 years and six months for incest and fraud. 

While they were providing legal support to the Peng Lei members, the three lawyers, as well as two others – Ngo Thi Hoang Anh and Trinh Vinh Phuc – also used the YouTube account Nhật ký Luật sư (Lawyer’s Diary) to frequently post information about the case. The account no longer has any video content.

The public discussion of the case could be a violation of Vietnam’s Article 331 – a statute in the penal code widely criticized by international communities as being vague. Vietnamese authorities routinely use it to attack those speaking out in defense of human rights.

Public search notice 

Authorities in the southern province of Long An issued a summons to the five lawyers in March that required them to report to the police for questioning. When the lawyers didn’t appear, police 

followed up with several more summonses. 

Provincial Police on June 11 posted a search notice on its website, saying that Mieng, Lan and Manh had neither attended the meetings nor provided excuses for their absence. 

“The police at their wards of residence confirmed they were not at their places of residence and there was no information about their whereabouts, what they were doing, and they could not be contacted,” the police notice said.

The notice also said that investigators had begun searching for the lawyers and requested that anyone who sees them “immediately report to Long An Provincial Police’s Investigation Agency.” 

The whereabouts and status of the other two lawyers in the Peng Lei case – Anh and Phuc – was unknown.

In an interview with RFA after his arrival in the United States, Manh said that he was aware of the police decision to actively search for him. 

“However, I don’t think I have the responsibility to abide by this decision as it is not aligned with the regulations on criminal procedures,” he said.

Leaving Vietnam was within his rights as a citizen under Vietnam’s Constitution, he said.

“It’s my right to leave the country, travel and choose a place to reside and work,” he said. “I don’t know much about the U.S., but so far, I’ve been fascinated and overwhelmed. I have some projects to do here and have just kicked them off.”

‘Will critical voices still exist?’

The news about the lawyers’ arrival in the United States generated mixed feelings from friends and acquaintances in Vietnam.

“I am happy for my friends but worried for those who still remain,” Hanoi lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan, who has worked as a defense attorney in many political cases, wrote on Facebook.

“The total number of lawyers nationwide who dare to defend clients in political cases was less than the number of our fingers,” Tuan wrote. “Now nearly half have left. The quantity has decreased. I am not sure how the quality has been affected but the spirit of the remaining people has obviously gone down.”

“Will this trend stop, or will people continue to leave the country? Will critical voices still exist or gradually disappear over time?”

Over the last 15 years, Manh defended more than 50 clients, many of whom were human rights and democracy activists and independent journalists.

Manh and Mieng stood out among the modest number of lawyers who dared to work in political cases, according to a young attorney from the Hanoi Bar Association who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons.

It’s now more likely that prosecuting agencies will designate government-aligned lawyers to participate in political cases as defense lawyers, he said.

“Their departure creates a gap in political cases,” he said. “Lawyers now tend to avoid political cases.”

Evidence of a weak judiciary

But another lawyer from Hanoi who did not want to be named said that the three lawyers’ departure wouldn’t significantly affect the situation in Vietnam. 

“Escaping has never been a step forward, nor does it create any impact,” he wrote in a text message to RFA on Wednesday. “It’s simply a way to ensure the safety of those who left.”

However, their departure is more evidence of the weak position of lawyers in Vietnam’s judiciary, he said.

Lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan said that the Vietnamese government should change its treatment of lawyers.

“I asked myself many times: Instead of pushing political dissidents to the corner so that they have to make extremist choices, why doesn’t the government listen to them and have a dialogue with them so that conflicts will be settled and their knowledge can be utilized to make our country more democratic and advanced?”

RFA contacted Long An Provincial Police for comment on the search notice for the three lawyers. A message left with a staff member wasn’t immediately returned. 

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

Zaw Wai Soe, the minister of health and education for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, recently traveled to Washington DC, seeking support from U.S. officials, representatives of government institutions and international organizations, and members of the Burmese diaspora living in America. The NUG is made up of former lawmakers and opponents of the military junta that overthrew the democratically elected government in February 2021 in a coup d’etat.

On Wednesday, RFA Burmese Service reporter Khet Mar spoke with him about the substance of his meetings, his government’s efforts to support Myanmar’s opposition, and the state of the country’s education and medical sectors.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity:

RFA: In an interview in May, you said that during your U.S. visit, you would meet government officials, lawmakers and development partners to explain the situation in Myanmar and how they can provide assistance to the country. I’d like to know about the results of your meetings.

Zaw Wai Soe: I discussed Myanmar’s situation with foundations, [international] NGOs and philanthropic organizations. When I explained to them how the junta uses airstrikes against the people, how our children study [amid conflict], and how we run our hospitals, they expressed a desire to help us. I’m satisfied with the meetings. We established better connections. We also held meetings with State Department officials.

RFA: The National Unity Government has been running schools in Myanmar [as an alternative to junta-run schools]. But students in cities like Yangon and Mandalay cannot go to such schools and won’t attend the junta’s schools either. What do you want to tell those students and their parents?

Zaw Wai Soe: In the border areas, we have set up education online by using internet access from Thailand, China and India. But it is hard to run a school safely in the heart of the country when the military controls the internet. So, in my meetings with U.S. officials, we requested help with communications systems to use in running schools and healthcare systems. But we can’t rely on that assistance alone.

As for the students of Myanmar, I’d like to urge them to get their education. We are implementing a basic education completion assessment. It aims to provide higher education and vocational training for students. A student who is 17 years old can take a test for the assessment. Months ago, some 70,000 students, including members of the [anti-junta] People’s Defense Force [paramilitary group] took the test. The students should know about this assessment. International universities accept scores from the test.

RFA: There are many doctors who have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement and several hospitals and clinics have been forced to shut down [since the coup]. Lots of doctors have been arrested. Amid such a situation, what do you want to tell those seeking medical care?   

Zaw Wai Soe: As most people know, the country’s education, health, economic, and most other sectors were destroyed by the reckless acts of [the military coup leaders]. We must place blame on those who put the country and its citizens in this nightmare situation. But blaming them alone won’t solve the problem and we have to help the people as much as possible. We are trying.

We have been running a new medical school in Kachin state and a nursing school in Kayah state because we need to produce health care workers. We have started a six-month course, which can be extended to a year if necessary, to train experts who can provide primary health care to the people. We have already trained more than 10,000 people as medics. Additionally, we have been building locally-administered health and human resources systems in Kayah and Chin states.

To do more, we need financial support and other assistance from the international community. That’s why I am seeking such support as one of the reasons for this visit. Because of our efforts, six months ago, donors from European countries provided us with US$8.4 million and plan to send another US$20 million next year. We also need to work together with the ethnic groups of Myanmar in order to provide assistance to the country’s border regions.

Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

Beijing issued a “red” alert level Friday, a day after the city’s temperature soared to a record for June, weather authorities and local media said, as northern China suffers a scorching heat wave expected to extend into next week.

Already, several monthly heat records have been broken across China, which has prompted fears of a looming energy crisis.

On Thursday afternoon, Beijing’s temperature reached 41.1 degrees Celsius (105.9 F), a record since data collection started in 1961, according to the municipal weather observatory. It was also Beijing’s second-highest level in history, just below the 41.9 C (107.4 F) registered on July 24, 1999.

This week’s scorching heat has coincided with the annual Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which started on Thursday, when millions of Chinese travel to visit relatives or for tourism.

Authorities urged residents to remain indoors.

“Citizens and tourists are reminded to reduce the time for outdoor activities during high-temperature periods, pay attention to heatstroke prevention and cooling, and replenish the water frequently,” the state-owned China Weather Network said in a warning Friday.

Last summer, China faced its most severe heat wave and drought in many decades, resulting in extensive power deficits and significant food and industrial supply network disruptions.

Humans contributing

According to a scientific report last month, the record-breaking heat wave that hit parts of Asia in April was made at least 30 times more likely due to human-induced climate change.

The temperatures were at least 2 degrees Celsius hotter due to climate change, which has seen average global temperatures rise 1.2 degrees since 1900, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) study said.

Experts have said clear and dry conditions now have exacerbated the current heat wave.

It was the first time that Beijing, home to more than 21 million people, issued a “red” alert in its four-tiered warning system since the new system was introduced in 2015. 

On Friday, Beijing’s temperature hit 40.3 degrees C (104.5 F), the first time on record that China’s capital rose to more than 40 degrees, the Beijing weather observatory’s chief forecaster, Zhang Yingxin, told a press briefing, according to media reports.

China’s National Meteorological Center said temperatures in parts of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong rose rapidly over 40 C (104 F), with a total of 19 observatories in four regions reporting record-high temperatures, Zhang Fanghua, its chief forecaster said, according to CWN. 

In the northern port city of Tianjin, the temperature reached 41.2 C (106.16 F), a record high for the region.

The temperature reached 43 C (109.4 F) in coastal Shandong on Thursday, according to the meteorological center.

Local authorities in northern and eastern Chinese cities have issued heatstroke and dehydration warnings, advising people not to work outdoors during the hottest parts of the day.

Meanwhile, in southern China, authorities issued the lowest “yellow” alert for rainstorms on Friday, with heavy rains projected to hit parts of Guangxi Zhuang, Fujian, Guangdong and Yunnan in the coming days.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

In showcasing two recent official visits to the Uyghur Region, China sent a chilling message to Uyghurs and their allies: Chinese President Xi Jinping’s oppressive policies are correct, and Arab countries support them. 

In a May 22-24 inspection visit to Kashgar and Urumqi, top policy advisor Wang Huning exhorted local officials to “completely and accurately implement” Xi’s Xinjiang policies, according to state-run Xinhua News. 

Those policies have included more than six years of mass detentions, long prison sentences and forced labor. They have been condemned by the United States as genocide, and by the United Nations as potential crimes against humanity. 

Shortly after Wang’s inspection, a delegation from the Arab League, a 22-member body of Arab nations that coordinate on regional issues, visited Xinjiang from May 30 to June 2. 

According to China’s Foreign Ministry, “members of the delegation said that Xinjiang’s society is harmonious, the economy is prosperous and Muslims freely exercise their ethnic and religious rights in accordance with the law.” 

The group visited Kashgar’s Id Kah Mosque, which has been open to tourists but largely off-limits to Muslim worshippers for years, as well as Kashgar’s Old Town, which the government has largely demolished in the name of earthquake prevention.

National interests 

The visits dismayed overseas Uyghurs and human rights activists, who said they underlined China’s confidence in its course of repression, and the eagerness of much of the world, including many Muslim nations, to cheer China on.

“It’s disappointing to see Muslim leaders from Islamic countries allow China to use them to hide [the] genocide of Turkic Muslims and other minorities,” McCaw said.

Siding with China – and remaining silent on the government persecution of the mostly Muslim Uyghurs – is apparently more in their national interests.

“Every country operates in their perceived best interest, said Robert McCaw, Government Affairs Department Director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  “Right now, Muslim countries are covering for China because they think it’s in their economic interests.”

The Arab League did not respond to requests for comment. 

Setting the tone

Wang Huning is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top political body, as well as chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Analysts have long viewed him as a close advisor and confidant to Xi Jinping. This was his first visit to the Uyghur region since taking direct charge of Xinjiang policy, as head of the Chinese government’s Central Xinjiang Coordination Group. 

Wang emphasized to local officials that Xinjiang policies were “part of Central Party strategy, centered around Comrade Xi Jinping,” according to Xinhua. 

Wang added that Xinjiang’s stability and public order is of paramount importance, employing an idiom which literally means “heavier than Mount Tai,” a sacred peak in Shandong Province. He also told officials to “steadfastly advance the normalization and legal institutionalization of counterterrorism and stability maintenance,” Xinhua reported.

“What Wang Huning says is compatible with the fact that the regime is trying to portray a normalization on the surface, and a reduction of security on the surface,” said Adrian Zenz, senior fellow and director in China studies at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. “But underneath, the emphasis on total security is very much upheld.”

Wang also called the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a state-run paramilitary conglomerate sanctioned by the United States for rights abuses, “an important strategic force in achieving the overall goals of [the Party’s] Xinjiang work” whose functions should be given “full play.” 

According to researchers at Sheffield Hallam University, those functions have included extrajudicial internment and imprisonment, land expropriation, forcible migration of people, repressive, preemptive policing, social engineering, religious persecution and forced labor. 

Wang’s visit demonstrated both the confidence and the rigidity of the Communist Party’s Xinjiang campaign, according to David Tobin, lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield.

“The Party-State now sees itself in command and is now acting more confidently,” Tobin said. “However, the fact that they have to send leaders to remind regional leaders to implement policy shows they are aware that this balance, this current peace, is precarious and potentially temporary because the problems the arbitrary detention system has created are massive”.

Cheering China on

The Arab League’s delegation to Xinjiang comprised 34 members from 16 countries, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. 

“The Xinjiang they saw was completely different from the portrayals of Western Media, [and] discourses like so-called ‘genocide’ and ‘religious repression’ are complete lies,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. 

Arab nations have long endorsed China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. Non-Arab Muslim countries, meanwhile, have a more mixed record in speaking out for Uyghurs. 

Analysts peg this support largely to economics as well as authoritarian leadership. 

“We respect and support China’s rights to take counter-terrorism and de-extremism measures to safeguard national security,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said during a 2019 visit to China. 

China is the top importer of Saudi crude petroleum. It has also stepped up investments in the Middle East and North Africa under its Belt & Road Initiative.

Earlier support has faded

Earlier in China’s economic development, however, adherents of Salafism – the conservative school of Sunni Islam which predominates in Saudi Arabia – sought to build ties with Muslims in China. 

Through the 1990s and early 2000s, Saudis financed mosque construction in China and encouraged Chinese Muslims to join in the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. 

Some Uyghurs took advantage of new access to the Muslim world, and relatively laissez-faire Chinese policies, to deepen their practice of Islam. But when China changed course, and started imprisoning Uyghurs for the religious practices Saudis and others had encouraged, Arab governments at best stayed silent, and at worst collaborated with China’s oppression.

At least six Arab governments – Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates – have detained or extradited an estimated 292 Uyghurs at China’s behest, according to a joint 2022 study by the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society for Asian Affairs. 

In July 2017, Egypt arrested more than 200 Uyghur residents, mostly students at the Islamic Al-Azhar University, and deported some to China. 

The Arab League delegation visited “an exhibition on Xinjiang’s anti-terrorism and deradicalization work” and praised “Xinjiang’s remarkable achievements in respecting and safeguarding human rights,” according to Xinhua. 

During his visit to Beijing last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas voiced support for China’s Uyghur policies. A joint statement issued by Xi and Abbas declared that “Xinjiang-related issues are not human rights issues at all, but anti-violent terrorism, de-radicalization and anti-separatism.” 

Translated and edited by Nadir; edited by Malcolm Foster.