Month: August 2023

For a country closed off from the global internet, North Korean does offer its citizens at least a few high-tech conveniences. 

In the Miraewon electronic library system, for example, far-flung rural residents can visit their local library to read an electronic copy of any book in the national collection in Pyongyang.

The service was free of charge – until now.

Authorities are telling patrons that starting in September, they must pay 1 million won, or US$120, a year – a huge sum in North Korea – angering people who use it most frequently, a resident of South Hamgyong province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“These measures were recently delivered to each city and county Miraewon through local party organizations, ” she said.

The Miraewon, which can be translated into English as the “Future Institute”, has a portal in every city and county in North Korea, and residents can use it to access books housed in Pyongyang’s Grand People’s Study House via the intranet, an online system separate from the global internet.

For some residents, this is the only way they can access materials on science and technology.

The system has been a godsend for agriculture students looking to read up on farming techniques, animal husbandry, or for factory technicians in search of technical manuals or ways to improve efficiency.

So the move would deprive readers of knowledge they need to more effectively do their jobs, a resident of the eastern province of South Pyongan said.

“Here in Sukchon county, we’re an agricultural district, so there are farm technicians and students studying things like breed cultivation and wetland farming,” she said. “The Miraewon has physical copies of propaganda novels and the country’s masterpieces like the Complete Collection of the Works of [former leader] Kim Jong Il, but for anything related to science or technology, they must be read through the National Data Communication Network.”  

College students and technicians are complaining that the country prioritizes the propaganda pieces, which aren’t useful to their daily lives.

“They complain … that the authorities are monopolizing the most important science and technology books and force them to access them only through the National Data Communication Network, and now they are even charging fees for it,” she said. “How can a county that hides knowledge like this ever develop economically?”  

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.

An appeal filed by lawyers for Aung San Suu Kyi has been rejected by the military junta’s Supreme Court – a decision that comes a month after a junta pardon reduced her total prison sentence from 33 years to 27 years.

But the whereabouts of the 78-year-old former de facto leader of Myanmar remains unclear.

A month ago, a National League for Democracy official told Radio Free Asia that she would be moved from Naypyidaw Prison to “a more comfortable state-owned residence” in a residential area in the capital.

And a source with connections to the prison also told RFA in late July that the former State Counselor had been “relocated.” 

But junta officials haven’t commented on her location, and they’ve barred her lawyers from meeting with her since January.

“We don’t know exactly where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is. She hasn’t been allowed to see her son for over two and a half years,” NLD spokesman Kyaw Zaw said, using an honorific for Suu Kyi.

“In Myanmar, there have been arbitrary arrests and disappearances of individuals, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, without any trace of information,” he said.

Not being allowed to see family members is a violation of the “fundamental principles of human rights,” Kyaw Zaw said as the United Nations and civic groups marked the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on Wednesday.

Using all legal measures

The military detained Suu Kyi and other top leaders of the NLD in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. She was kept under house arrest in Naypyidaw for several days before the junta moved her to a secret location.

In June 2022, she was transferred to Naypyidaw Prison, where she was held in solitary confinement. She was found guilty of corruption charges and in violation of election and state secrets laws in December 2022. Her supporters say the charges were politically motivated.

The junta has brought a total of 19 cases against Suu Kyi since the coup. In July, the Supreme Court began hearing an appeal for five of those cases, which include a charge related to walkie talkie devices found at her home and two charges for allegedly breaching the COVID-19 safety regulations during the 2020 election campaign.

As part of a broader amnesty to mark a Buddhist holiday, the junta on Aug. 1 pardoned her in those five cases. That cut her prison sentence by six years. 

But the appeal trial in those cases continued forward, and on Tuesday the Supreme Court rejected the appeal, as well as a separate appeal of convictions in two other cases for Suu Kyi. 

Sources close to Suu Kyi’s lawyers told RFA that her legal team is using all legal measures to defend her in every case, regardless of the recent pardon.

Junta’s biggest political fear

“Aung San Su Kyi is the person most feared politically by the junta that claims to be 500,000 strong,” political analyst Than Soe Naing said.

That’s why she’s mostly being kept in the dark, away from media attention, he said. The junta has granted some meetings, including with the Thai foreign minister in July, but only as a way to improve its public perception, he said.

Three military officers visited her at Naypyidaw Prison on May 27 and June 4 to enlist her help in peace negotiations with the armed resistance, a source with knowledge of the situation at the prison told RFA. She rebuffed their request, the source said.

RFA called junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun on Thursday to ask about where Suu Kyi is currently being held, but he couldn’t be reached.

“She has been sentenced to prison for her charges, and therefore, realistically, she must be in prison,” said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers.

“She could be somewhere, but not under house arrest,” he said. “But no one can say anything for sure as the details have not been announced.”

A Yangon resident told RFA on Thursday that people are always keeping their ears open for any news about Suu Kyi. 

“If they dare to, just let the people see her on state television – or anything about her,” he said. “Everyone wants to hear her news. I pray for [her] good health. Most of all, I pray for her release as soon as possible.”

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned two individuals and a company accused of helping the North Korean regime raise funds for its ballistic missile program, according to a statement released on Thursday.

The sanctions come “in response to the DPRK’s Aug. 23 attempted launch of a reconnaissance satellite into orbit,” the statement says, using an acronym for the North Korean government. 

They target two Russia-based individuals, Jon Jin Yong and Sergey Mikhaylovich Kozlov, it says, and the company that they ran, Intellekt LLC.

“Russia-based Jon Jin Yong worked with Sergey Mikhaylovich Kozlov (Kozlov) to coordinate the use of DPRK construction workers in Russia and served as a director of one of Kozlov’s companies,” it says.

“Kozlov has assisted Jon Jin Yong in the procurement of items commonly used in the ship-building industry. Jon Jin Yong led a team of DPRK information technology (IT) workers in Russia and worked with Russian nationals to obtain identification documents to validate the DPRK IT team’s accounts on freelance IT work platforms.”

Jon Jin Yong, Kozlov and their company have been added to the Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals list, which prohibits American citizens and companies from doing business with them.

The U.S. Treasury said they were being sanctioned for their role in supporting the development of weapons of mass of destruction.

The sanctions target “the facilitation networks that enable the DPRK’s ballistic missile and WMD programs, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” Brian Nelson, undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, was quoted saying in the statement.

North Korea on Aug. 23 attempted to launch a spy satellite into orbit for the second time in two months. However, the launch again failed. 

Amid military drills held in response by the United States and South Korea off the Korean peninsula this week, Pyongyang on Wednesday night launched two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast. The regime said it was to test its defense against a nuclear attack.

Two Vietnamese fishermen were injured when a Chinese Coast Guard vessel fired a water cannon at their boat near the contested Paracel Islands, the latest casualties in China’s aggressive campaign to expand its control in the South China Sea.

Tuesday’s incident, ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Vietnam on Sept. 10, happened as the fishing boat was moving from Woody Island to Observation Bank in the waters surrounding the Paracels, Vietnamese state media reported.

The ship’s owner, Huynh Van Hoanh, 43, suffered a broken right arm while fisherman Huynh Van Tien sustained a head injury during the attack by Coast Guard ship 4201.

The Paracel Islands, known as the Xisha Islands in Chinese and the Hoàng Sa Archipelago in Vietnamese, comprise about 130 small coral islands and reefs. 

Claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan, they have been occupied entirely by Beijing since 1974 after the Chinese navy defeated the then-South Vietnamese navy in a brief sea battle. Triton is the closest island in the chain to Vietnam.

Researcher Nguyen The Phuong from the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia, said he expected to see more tensions between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea as the date of Biden’s trip approached. 

Regardless of whether Vietnam and the U.S. upgrade their relationship to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” or “strategic partnership,” China will continue its maritime strategy of “rocking the tree to threaten the monkey,” he said.

Marine Traffic data

Meanwhile, the same Chinese Coast Guard vessel and an unspecified Vietnamese boat, Ly Son 62908, have been chasing each other since Aug. 19 in the waters around Triton Island, where China recently built a 600-meter (2,000-foot) military airstrip.

China’s Coast Guard in recent years has ramped up its attacks on Vietnamese fishing boats by ramming them or firing water cannons to assert Beijing’s territorial claims in the resource-rich waters of the South China Sea.

The Coast Guard ship was operating in the middle of the Paracel Islands on the day of the attack, according to the automatic identification system, or AIS, data from maritime analytics provider Marine Traffic. The self-reporting system lets vessels broadcast their identification information, characteristics and destination.

Raymond Powell of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University and a former U.S. defense official, told Radio Free Asia that the position of the Coast Guard vessel coincided with the location of the attack reported by the fishing boat owner.

Marine Traffic data also indicated that the second Vietnamese ship had been moving around Triton Island. Since Aug. 19, the Coast Guard ship and Vietnam’s Ly Son 62908 have been following each other closely, and at one time were only 300 meters (1,000 feet) apart in distance.

On Aug. 27, the Chinese Coast Guard ship left the Triton Island area, headed northeast and arrived in the middle of the Paracel Islands, where it assaulted the other Vietnamese fishing boat, QNg 90495TS, two days later.

After the attack, the Coast Guard ship returned to the Triton Island area and continued the chasing game with Vietnam’s ship, Ly Son 62908. To date, the two ships are still following each other in the area.

Into the zone

Researcher Hoang Viet pointed out that China has intensified its aggressive actions since a phone conversation between U.S. President Joe Biden and Vietnamese General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in March and the visit to Vietnam by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in mid-April. 

China had repeatedly sent its survey ship Xiang Yang Hong 10 into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, which extend 200 nautical miles (230 miles) beyond a nation’s territorial sea, he said.

Powell told RFA he believed it was a small militia vessel, and that the fishing boat had gone further east than the regular route of Vietnamese Coast Guard or militia ships. He also said although Vietnam claimed sovereignty over the Paracel Islands, it rarely sent security vessels to the middle of this archipelago. 

“In fact, I’ve never seen them do that,” he said.

The attack on the fishing boat also followed an Aug. 5 incident in which a Chinese Coast Guard ship shot water cannons at a Philippine boat en route to providing food and supplies to Philippine forces on the Second Thomas Shoal. 

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

A young Cambodian man was kicked out of a state-run school for physical education teachers because he was too short – and then beaten by police for protesting in front of the Ministry of Education in a video that went viral on social media.

Keo Sovannrith said he gained admission to the National Institute of Physical Education last November despite standing 162 centimeters (5 foot 4 inches) tall, under the 165 centimeter (5 foot 5 inch) minimum requirement for applicants.

In December, shortly after participating in an entrance ceremony at a Phnom Penh stadium later used to host the 2023 Southeast Asian Games, he was removed from enrollment with no explanation, along with 11 other prospective students.

For the past several weeks, Keo Sovannrith and some friends had gone each Monday to protest in front of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, demanding he be readmitted to the teacher training program.

Last Monday, Aug. 21, police surrounded them and started beating them.

Video of the incident was posted on Facebook, which is enormously popular in Cambodia, and went viral.

Keo Sovannrith told RFA Khmer that police officers kicked him in the chest and knocked his friend Leap Prathna unconscious before bundling them into a car and taking them to the Daun Penh Police Station for questioning.

“[At the station] they asked me what I was doing and I explained [my protest], but they said they didn’t understand,” he said. “Then they tried to make me sign a contract [to stop protesting] which I refused to do. They said if I do not sign it and if I protest again, they will arrest us.”

He and his friends were eventually released without signing the document, but said he is still in pain from the beating.

On Wednesday, he told RFA that ministry representatives invited him to “discuss his case” over the weekend.

‘Discrimination and partisanship’

Ouk Chhayavi, a member of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, said that authorities had violated the rights of Keo Sovannrith and others by attacking and detaining them during a peaceful protest.

He said the former students were right to protest as their removal had cost them time and money, and negatively impacted their mental health.

“This is discrimination and partisanship, with a total lack of transparency on how the decision was made,” he said.

Repeated attempts by RFA to contact the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports Spokesman Ros Sovacha have gone unanswered.

Keo Sovannrith said that the institute’s enrollment requirements are too opaque and randomly applied.

“The requirement for age is 17-25 years old, but some people were admitted who were 30 or 40,” he said. “I was called to apply and participated for a month, but then I was removed, while the people who are 30 or 40 years old are still allowed to train.”

He and others had been holding protests in front of the Ministry of Education each Monday for several weeks, calling for the ministry to clarify the reason for his removal, before they were confronted by police.

Earlier this week, the ministry issued a letter stating that the institute adheres to enrollment requirements that were made public prior to the selection of candidates for the stadium ceremony, without providing further information.

Last year, the Ministry of Education had invited members of the public to apply for 150 spots at the institute for either a two-year physical educator course or a four-year course for physical trainers.

According to the announcement, candidates must be between the ages of 17 and 25, hold a high school diploma or equivalent, not be currently employed by the government, must remain unmarried until the end of the training courses, and be in good health and shape based on a physical examination.

Female candidates must be at least 155 centimeters (5 foot 1 inches) tall and male applicants 165 centimeters, it says, adding that the height and age requirements will be waived for those who are “selected for the SEA Games and win a gold medal.”

Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

A Chinese court on Thursday handed down a four-and-a-half-year jail term to an outspoken economics professor who had estimated the high personnel costs of the Chinese government, finding him guilty of “incitement to subvert state power,” according to rights website.

The Guiyang Intermediate People’s Court handed down the sentence to former Guizhou University professor Yang Shaozheng in a trial behind closed doors on July 29, a post on the Weiquanwang rights website said.

“Yang Shaozheng expressed dissatisfaction with the judgment in court and filed an appeal,” the group said. “The reason for the appeal was that this was an illegal trial.”

Yang’s appeal argued that members of the Chinese Communist Party had presided over the case from start to finish, including the investigation, the prosecution and the trial itself.

“The actions he was charged with fell under freedom of speech and expression, and to criminalize a citizen for exercising those rights was a violation of the constitutional right to freedom of expression,” the report paraphrased Yang’s appeal as saying.

A key member of Yang’s defense team, Zhang Lei, declined to comment when contacted by Radio Free Asia, indicating that he was under a lot of pressure from the authorities, while repeated calls to another member of his defense team rang unanswered on Thursday.

Cost to Chinese taxpayers

Yang, 53, lost his job at Guizhou University’s Institute of Economics in November 2017, on the orders of someone “higher up” the government hierarchy, and was subsequently investigated by police amid a purge of outspoken academics and the adoption of President Xi Jinping’s personal brand of ideology across higher education.

Hunan-based dissident Chen Siming said an article in which Yang calculated that party and government personnel cost the Chinese taxpayer an estimated 20 trillion yuan (US$2.75 trillion) annually was likely the trigger for his arrest.

“These questions [he was asking] hit home,” Chen said in an interview last month. “He was later expelled from Guizhou University, and then secretly arrested. During this period, lawyers and family members weren’t allowed to meet with him.” 

Yang spent some time on the run in 2019 after being shackled to a chair and interrogated by state security police for eight hours, around the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Just before that stint in detention, Yang had criticized a new wave of ideological training being launched in China’s colleges and universities.

He was arrested in secret in May 2021 and placed under incommunicado detention for six months on suspicion of “incitement to subvert state power,” before being formally arrested and prosecuted. He is currently being held in the Guiyang No. 1 Detention Center.

His lawyers filed an administrative complaint with the Guizhou provincial state prosecutor on March 3, alleging that state security police were trying to force a “confession” from Yang through torture, which caused him to lose consciousness several times and lose some 25 kilograms (55 pounds) in weight.

The complaint said the abuse took place during the six months he was held under “residential surveillance at a designated location,” a type of incommunicado detention frequently used to target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in “national security” cases.

A Guizhou-based lecturer who gave only the surname Yu said Yang, whom she counts as a friend, is a “rare” person in today’s China.

“I think Yang Shaozheng knows very well what he was bringing down on his own head when he spoke out like that, but he did it anyway,” Yu told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. “He is a politically brave person, which is a rare thing in our society.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.