Day: July 20, 2023

Myanmar is experiencing a rising number of explosions in cities and towns across the country, but no group is claiming responsibility.

This month, the blasts, which appear to be mostly homemade bombs, have injured more than 20 civilians and killed one.data compiled by Radio Free Asia shows. They have gone off in Yangon, Mandalay, in the northern Sagaing region as well as in Shan state.

They come amid intensifying fighting between the junta, which took over the country in a 2021 coup, and armed rebel groups.

On July 15, a homemade bomb exploded in front of the Zwe Htet jewelry store in Lashio, Shan state killing a man in his twenties and injuring at least 10 others. The survivors were treated as emergency patients at Lashio General Hospital, residents told RFA’s Burmese Service.

“No one can say whether it was done by the junta, the PDF, or an armed organization,” said a Lashio resident on condition of anonymity. PDFs, or public defense forces, are small citizen militias that emerged after the military took over the country in a coup in February 2021. 

“What I want to say as a citizen is that we don’t want this to happen again. Bombs exploded in front of a hotel and a jewelry store in Lashio where people were passing. We don’t want things like that,” the resident said.

The city of Lashio is a hotbed of covert activities for both local armed groups and junta troops, and bomb explosions have become more frequent after the military coup, he said.

One day after the Lashio blast, eight people, including a monk, were injured when a bomb exploded in Shwebo Myoma market in the Sagaing region. It is reported that a seriously injured woman in her twenties has been sent to Mandalay General Hospital.

Residents blamed this particular blast ons junta troops stationed at U Aung Zeya Palace, west of Shwebo market. But the military council’s propaganda channels have accused the PDFs of attacking the area with drones.

‘Scared to go out’

A Shwebo resident told RFA that there were no such incidents before the military took over and people now are no longer safe.

“It’s not easy to make a living here,” the Shwebo resident said. “Although livelihood is difficult, we dare not go to work safely. I am too scared to go out as there is no sense of security for us.”

A Shwebo PDF official said that the organization does not harm the public.

“The main reason why we are rebelling is because we cannot accept dictatorial rule,” he said. “We want to gain independence and a true federal democracy for the people. We are fighting because we love the people, and we only focus on the interests of the people.”

RFA called the junta’s spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the explosions but his phone rang unanswered.

Armed organizations should avoid injuring civilians who are not military targets, said Ye Tun, a political analyst.

“Civilians who are not military targets cannot avoid this kind of accidental injury,” he said. “Such things often happen. However, deliberate targeting of these innocent civilians is a war crime. I think both sides of the revolution should abstain from doing so.”

Harming innocent civilians is a war crime, no matter which side is responsible, said Kyaw Win, director of Burma Human Rights Network.

“If the tension has reached the level of an armed revolution, it can be said that this is the worst situation in a country, ” he said. 

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Tearing down tents and destroying a colorful sand mandala, Chinese authorities on Wednesday stopped a gathering where a Tibetan Buddhist lama was scheduled to preach – and tried to block online photos and descriptions of the incident, two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said.

The actions in northwestern China’s Qinghai province are the latest efforts by China to suppress Tibetan religious and cultural expressions. 

In recent years, authorities have strengthened laws to control the behavior of religious teachers in an effort to curb the spread of Tibetan Buddhist teachings, demolished Tibetan religious sites and closed down religious schools.  

Chinese government officials canceled the Kalachakra teaching by Lama Kalsang Tashi Gyatso, abbot of Athi Monastery in Tsolho, or Hainan, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’s Mangra (Guinan) county, the sources said. The event was scheduled to begin on Wednesday, the sources said.

“The authorities have erased and wiped out all the related photos and news of the Kalachakra teachings online,” said a Tibetan from inside western China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. “The authorities have also started interrogating those who have already shared news and photos about the Kalachakra.” 

The Kalachakra, which literally means “infinite wheel of time” in Sanskrit, is a sacred event where key Buddhist teachings are passed on to devotees. Only a very few qualified Tibetan Buddhist masters, including the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, can impart such teachings.

Preparations for Kalachakra teachings can take days to set up because large numbers of devotees come from near and far to attend, said a second Tibetan who lives inside the region.

Organizers paid more than 200,000 yuan (US$27,700) to secure the venue for the event and had already bought food supplies and other necessities that have now gone to waste, said the source, who declined to be named for the same reason.

Tibetans in the region had long appealed to Chinese authorities to grant them permission to organize a Kalachakra teaching by Lama Kalsang Tashi Gyatso, sources said. 

“Though Qinghai’s Department of Religious Affairs had already granted permission to organize this Kalachakra teaching, now there are so many Chinese police deployed all over the venue where it was supposed to take place, and people have been forced to leave the premises,” said the first Tibetan source, who declined to be identified so as to speak freely. 

The Chinese government canceled a similar event last week where a prominent lama was scheduled to give a Kalachakra teaching in Tsoe, or Hezuo in Chinese, in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where he was born, though organizers had obtained permission from authorities in advance, RFA reported. 

“The local Tibetans are certain that the central Chinese government has instructed the local authorities to curb such large religious gatherings,” said the first Tibetan source. “And this last-minute cancellation of Kalachakra has really disappointed and infuriated devotees who have come from far and nearby areas.”

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has reappeared on Facebook, just three weeks after declaring that he was permanently leaving the popular social media site following a disciplinary finding from the company’s oversight board.

With the apparent help of an aide, Cambodia’s leader began posting on a different page on Wednesday. 

The page has many of the same photos and old posts from his official page and also includes newer messages about campaigning ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, which the ruling Cambodian People’s Party is expected to easily win.

“The Cambodian People’s Party is the trusted hope of Khmer citizens in all walks of life and political trends,” one post from Thursday read. “The Cambodian People’s Party win is a Cambodia win.”

There were several dozen photos of campaign workers distributing fliers and voters marking their ballot. Many of the posts included a note that stated they were “Managed and Published by Doung Tara,” his aide.

There were also multiple posts urging people to watch a television program that tells the story of his younger years.

A June 29 announcement from the Meta Oversight Board ruled that a video in which Hun Sen threatened violence against his political opponents had violated Facebook’s guidelines against prohibiting incitement. Meta is Facebook’s new corporate name.

‘Addicted to Facebook’

Hun Sen, in power since 1985, has regularly taken to social media to deliver lengthy tirades against his opponents and threaten them if they defy him.

The board of independent experts ordered the removal of the video and recommended that his account be suspended. The prime minister reacted by deleting all content from his official page and declaring the 22 people on Meta’s oversight board “persona non grata,” which barred them from entering the country. 

He later told his social media followers that he was switching to Telegram and TikTok, and urged them to follow his posts there.

But the switch back to Facebook shows that Hun Sen’s usage of Telegram wasn’t reaching enough Cambodians, said Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director.

Meng Sotheara, an opposition activist who lives in Thailand, told Radio Free Asia that Hun Sen is also likely worried that pro-democracy groups and opposition party supporters will post messages on Facebook that are critical about Sunday’s election, which will not include candidates from the main opposition Candlelight Party.

“I know that he is addicted to Facebook,” Meng Sotheara said. “So he cannot be disconnected because the opposition party officials still use Facebook.” 

Controlling access points

The renewed presence on Facebook comes a week after Hun Sen’s government ordered internet service providers to block the websites of Radio Free Asia and other news outlets.

The outlets were accused of misrepresenting the government’s reputation and prestige and of failing to meet the Ministry of Information’s conditions for doing business, according to a July 12 letter from the Telecommunication Regulator of Cambodia.

“What he wants to do is to control all access points,” Robertson said. “He realizes that people don’t just read the newspaper and listen to TV, but they are also getting a lot of information via the internet.”

The blocked sites include RFA’s Khmer and English websites and RFA’s Khmer language Twitter page. 

The regulator also ordered the blocking of the Kamnotra website, produced by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, or CCIM. The website posts information, data or documents that people can use. 

“There has been an ongoing effort by the Cambodian government to censor the internet to try to control what Cambodians are seeing on the internet and this is part of that,” Robertson said. “It is showing that Hun Sen has a thin skin for any kind of criticism that he is refusing to have someone saying something against him.”

‘Disturbed’

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Wednesday that he was “disturbed” by reports that the Cambodian government was stepping up efforts to control access to information ahead of the election. 

The move to block RFA and other media outlets was also condemned by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, who said that only dictatorial leaders are afraid of a free media.

CPP spokesman Sok Ey San insisted that the government’s decision has popular support.

“Overall, we have freedom of expression, but when the freedom of expression affects the tradition, culture and the rights of people in a country, or affects the national security, we have the right to cancel,” he said.

In February, the government closed independent news outlet Voice of Democracy. Several other independent media outlets were forced to shut down prior to the last general election in 2018. 

Most remaining media outlets in Cambodia only write about the government in a positive light, said Nop Vy, executive director of the Coalition of Cambodian Journalists. They don’t report on government shortcomings, he said.

Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

Vietnam has arrested Duong Van Thai, a blogger and YouTuber who mysteriously went missing in Bangkok, Thailand, in April, his family told Radio Free Asia.

In a letter sent to the family this month, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security confirmed the arrest, saying he was in Vietnam’s custody and was charged with creating “propaganda against the state” in violation of Article 117 of the penal code, a vaguely written law that rights organizations have said is often used by Hanoi to silence dissent.

Duong Thi Lu, Thai’s mother, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that the document she received from authorities is the first news of her son that she has heard since he went missing on April 13 in what many believe to be an abduction. 

Vietnam has neither confirmed nor denied that he was abducted and taken back to Vietnam.

Thai had fled to Thailand in 2019 fearing political persecution for his many posts and videos that criticized the Vietnamese government and leaders of the Communist Party on Facebook and YouTube. He had been granted refugee status by the United Nations refugee agency’s office in Bangkok.

According to the document, Thai had “collected information and documents to edit and write articles, recorded video clips with illegal content and distributed them on the Internet, violating Article 117 of the Penal Code.”

The document also explained that he would be detained until Aug. 12 at Detention Center B14 in Hanoi. It also listed his permanent residence in Hanoi, but listed his Thai address as his “current residence.”

The notice did not specify when and where Duong Van Thai was detained, but RFA reported several days after he disappeared that Vietnamese police said they caught him trying to enter Vietnam illegally.

Release demanded

Rights groups have clamored for Thai’s immediate release since his disappearance.

Organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have condemned Hanoi for how it has handled his case.

It was a “clear case of transnational repression,” and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen should raise the issue during her trip to Vietnam this week, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“This outrageous and unacceptable action by Vietnam showed yet again the inherently rights abusing orientation of the government that makes Vietnam one of the worst rights abusing countries in Southeast Asia,” said Robertson. “Hanoi should apologize publicly to Thailand for its act that clearly violated Thai sovereignty.”

He said that Thai should be released immediately and called for those responsible for abducting him to be punished.

Amnesty International’s Joe Freeman, the interim deputy regional director of communications, said Thai’s alleged abduction shows the “real dangers those who dare to have an opinion against the government in Vietnam face, at home, or when seeking safety in other countries in the region, such as Thailand.”

He called for Thailand to launch an investigation on the case to determine exactly how Thai ended up in Vietnam, emphasizing that it was a clear violation of Thailand’s Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act.

A lawyer in Hanoi who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA that the announcement of custody and prosecution of the accused to the family in the case of Mr. Duong Van Thai was inconsistent with laws on detention and criminal procedure.

“Police have an obligation to notify the family as soon as they take measures to detain and prosecute the accused and take him into custody,” the lawyer said.

Thai’s case has drawn similarities to that of RFA blogger Truong Duy Nhat, who applied for political asylum in Thailand but disappeared in 2019. He later resurfaced in Vietnam and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “abusing position and power while on duty.”

Translated by Hanh Seide. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

A Hong Kong court on Thursday imposed a three-month jail term on a man for insulting China’s national anthem after he paired footage of a Hong Kong athlete winning a medal with audio of the banned protest song, “Glory to Hong Kong,” and posted the clip to YouTube.

Cheng Wing-chun, a 27-year-old photographer, became the first person to be convicted of insulting the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China under a new law banning disrespect to the anthem – called “March of the Volunteers” – in the city when he was found guilty by Magistrate Minnie Wat at Eastern Magistrate’s Court on July 5.

Cheng was accused of creating and uploading a video clip of Hong Kong fencer Edgar Cheung winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in July 2021 in which the soundtrack of China’s national anthem had been replaced with the banned protest anthem used widely in the 2019 protest movement in the city.

He was also accused of “desecrating the national flag.”

Handing down a three-month jail term on Thursday, Wat told the court that Cheng had edited the footage in a way that made it seem as if people were applauding it.

‘Glory to Hong Kong’

Wat dismissed Cheng’s claim that he didn’t understand the meaning of the song, saying he had once worked for a political party, and had taken part in demonstrations during the 2019 protest movement.

Cheng’s clip had also attracted comments mentioning “Hong Kong independence” and calling “Glory to Hong Kong” the city’s national anthem, she said.

“Not only did the defendant’s behavior disrespect the athlete who won the medal — it also encouraged others to commit acts damaging to national dignity,” Wat told the sentencing hearing.

She said the sentence should serve as a warning to others not to imitate Cheng’s actions. The defense had argued for leniency due to the fact that the video had merely replaced the national anthem, and hadn’t insulted it in any way.

Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China’s national anthem on pain of up to three years’ imprisonment, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem.

In November 2022, Hong Kong police launched a criminal investigation into the playing of “Glory to Hong Kong” at a rugby match in South Korea instead of the Chinese national anthem. A similar gaffe took place days later at a weightlifting competition in Dubai.

E-sports player banned

Cheng’s jailing came as the authorities banned a top e-sports player from competing in the Asian Games after he used the word “Glory” in an online team title.

Lam Kei-lung was issued with a three-year ban after a recent tournament with mainland Chinese players in which he called himself “Eazy D.L. 光復,” a reference to a banned slogan from the 2019 protest movement that is typically rendered in English as “Free Hong Kong,” or “Liberate Hong Kong,” but it is more fully translated as “restore Hong Kong to its former glory.”

The slogan is so taboo under an ongoing crackdown on dissent in the city that motorcyclist Tong Ying-kit was jailed in July 2021 for nine years for “terrorism” and inciting “secession” after he flew the slogan from his bike during a street protest, the first person to be sentenced under the national security law that took effect from July 1, 2020.

“The Association announces that player Lam Kei-lung is disqualified from participating in the Asian Games due to the use of sensitive words in his gaming name,” the Asian E-Sports Association said in a July 17 statement on its Facebook page, adding that the ban would extend through July 16, 2026.

An e-sports player who gave only the nickname Shanguang said the three-year penalty would likely end Lam’s career in what is a very fast-moving area of online competition.

“The value of a gamer comes from the fact that they keep playing in different competitions, and people are expecting to see them play,” Shanguang said. 

‘Completely irrational’

The 19th Asian Games in September will include e-sports as an official event for the first time, and Hong Kong will send 35 players to take part.

Current affairs commentator and sociologist Chung Kim-wah said the ban was about the sports association showing loyalty to Beijing.

“We’ve gotten to the point where these institutions act in completely irrational ways in order to show loyalty to Beijing,” Chung said. “They would be better off coming up with a list of sensitive words that you can’t use.”

“There aren’t any regulations about which words you can use.”

The gaming world is seen as potentially subversive by the authorities because young people played such a key role in the street resistance movement of 2019, current affairs commentator Yu Fei said.

In 2020, an esports player was removed from a Hong Kong gaming tournament after he shouted “Free Hong Kong, revolution now!” during an interview after a game. 

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Manila monitors and plans every day for the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the new Philippine defense secretary said Thursday.

Taiwan is a key economic partner of the Philippines and hosts around 150,000 Filipinos, whose safety would be in jeopardy should China invade the island, which it considers a renegade province.

“That is something we continue to monitor daily, and hopefully, the engagements bilaterally between the United States and China leads to the diffusion of tensions in that theater,” Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro told reporters.

“First and foremost, we really have to make an assessment whether such [an attack] is likely or not. Nonetheless, we continue to plan on all contingencies, not merely any flashpoint between China and Taiwan, but any contingency within the theater.”

Earlier this year, China renewed its warnings about invading Taiwan, news agencies reported. And in January, an American general predicted that war would likely break out in 2025, although regional analysts pooh-poohed his forecast.

Among the United States’ security allies in the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippines is geographically the nearest to Taiwan.

In February, in a move that angered China, Manila granted the United States expanded access to its military bases, an agreement seen by analysts here as central to Washington’s aim of deterring any plan by Beijing to attack Taiwan.

The Philippines also allowed large-scale joint exercises with U.S. troops in areas that face Taiwan.

In his comments on Thursday, Teodoro said these moves were part of the government’s long-term strategy to develop a “credible deterrent posture.” Manila is locked in a territorial dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea.

China claims nearly the entire sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

“[I] must stress that this strengthening of our bilateral [Philippine-U.S.] ties in terms of credible deterrent posture upgrade is purely focused on Philippine interests,” said Teodoro, who was appointed defense chief by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in June.

“For me, we should do everything within our power to assert our rights in the West Philippine Sea responsibly and in a calculated and sustainable manner and not in a knee-jerk manner,” he said.

The West Philippine Sea is Manila’s name for South China Sea waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Manila and Washington are signatories to a decades-old Mutual Defense Treaty, which is the basis for their military cooperation.

Under that accord, the two allies will come to each other’s aid if either is attacked by an outside power. The treaty allows for U.S. troops to take part in large-scale joint exercises on Philippine soil – something the local defense establishment believes is necessary for protecting the country’s shores from threats from China, especially in the South China Sea.

A survey released by pollster Pulse Asia earlier this week showed that 75% of Filipinos were in favor of working with the U.S. to confront territorial disputes with China over the West Philippine Sea.

Incidents at sea ‘could have been avoided’

Meanwhile, a change in military leadership this week resulted from a decision by the Marcos administration to home in on issues in the West Philippine Sea, outgoing military chief Gen. Andres Centino said.

He was named presidential advisor on the West Philippine Sea on Wednesday. Army chief Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner takes over from Centino as head of the armed forces.

“There was a need to bring focus on matters in that part of the country,” Centino said, referring to the West Philippine Sea.

“Our leadership has deemed it important to give focus and importance, the way we address the issues there, on a bigger scale. That’s why they thought of creating an office of the presidential adviser.”

Centino was asked which were the specific issues the government wanted to address in the West Philippine Sea. He replied, “reports of incursion.”

“In the past months, we had incidents there. Perhaps, if addressed properly, these could have been avoided,” he said.

Centino was referring to a close call between Chinese and Philippine ships in Manila’s EEZ in the South China Sea earlier this month. Additionally, the Chinese coast guard ship in February pointed a laser at a Philippine vessel, causing temporary blindness to the Filipino crew.

There are “geopolitical issues that have to be addressed more appropriately,” and that is why the office of the presidential adviser on the West Philippine Sea was created, Centino said.

“What is clear is that there should be more focus on how we handle or address the problems there,” he said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.