Month: February 2024

Hanoi authorities arrested the creator of two popular YouTube channels on Thursday on anti-state charges under Article 117, Vietnam’s vaguely written law that human rights organizations say is used to silence dissent.

Nguyen Chi Tuyen will be detained while an investigation is conducted into the charge of “disseminating information, materials, items and publications against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” Hanoi’s Security Investigation Agency said in a statement.

Tuyen is a founding member of the “No-U group,” which rejects a U-shaped line that China puts on maps of the South China Sea. He has also been a prominent member since 2011 of an anti-China group that has organized numerous demonstrations.

Tuyen’s latest YouTube channel is named “AC Media” and focuses on coverage and commentary on Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Tuyen’s live chat discussion about Sweden joining NATO and the downing in Ukraine of two Russian Su-34 fighters attracted nearly 60,000 followers.

His previous channel, “Anh Chí Râu Đen” (translated as “Mr. Chi with a black beard”), attracted nearly 100,000 followers for its commentary on hot-button social and political issues in Vietnam. 

Tuyen is also known as Anh Chi. For unknown reasons, he stopped maintaining the “Anh Chí Râu Đen” channel around two years ago.

Tuyen’s wife, Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet, told Radio Free Asia that her husband hasn’t carried out any activities against the state.

“He has always been a person who expresses his opinions on wrongdoings in society,” she said. “He has only expressed his own viewpoints and has done nothing to oppose the Party or the state as accused.”

Summoned and searched

About a year ago, Hanoi security forces summoned him for several days of questioning about live streams that were broadcast several years ago on the “Anh Chí Râu Đen” channel, Tuyet said.

Authorities followed up by sending a notice banning him from leaving the country. Earlier this year, police sent another exit ban notice, she said.

In mid-January, Hanoi police sent a letter stating that they had received a crime report from Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention Division.

The letter states that Tuyen showed signs of committing the crimes of “anti-State propaganda” under Article 117 and “abusing the rights to democratic freedom” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code. 

Tuyet told RFA that her husband received a summons to attend a meeting with Hanoi police on Thursday morning. However, he felt unwell and asked to postpone the meeting, she said.

Instead, police searched the family home on Thursday, read out a long arrest warrant and confiscated Tuyen’s mobile phone, laptop and some handwritten pages, Tuyet said.

“This morning, amid the chaos, I couldn’t hear all the details since it was very long,” she said. “I only remember some specific parts, such as the accusation that he was arrested for conducting propaganda and spreading anti-party materials.”

The warrant stated that he would be temporarily detained for four months at Hanoi’s Detention Facility No. 2, she said. 

RFA called Hanoi police to ask for a response to Tuyet’s remarks, but no one answered the phone.

Tuyen is the third person to be arrested on charges of “anti-state propaganda” since the beginning of this year. 

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

North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un has received a new title, “Great Comrade,” signaling that the leadership wants to emphasize his achievements over his predecessors, father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung, residents told Radio Free Asia.

The shift from “Great Leader” to “Great Comrade” occurred sometime this month, as the country circulated a five-point oath – shared exclusively with RFA Korean – that must be sworn by all North Koreans to pledge their loyalty.

The oath, sent to all organizations and institutions in the country, is read by officials at various events, including holidays and national anniversaries, and repeated by the people, said a North Korean resident who requested anonymity for security reasons

Each of the five parts of the oath contains the title “Great Comrade.”

The promise commits the speaker to “support and defend” Kim Jong Un “politically and ideologically,” and pledges that they will remain “loyal and obedient” to his sole leadership “at all costs,” and will only follow the “Mt. Paektu bloodline,” which refers to the Kim Dynasty.

National founder Kim Il Sung and the ruling Kim family is said to have strong connections to Mt. Paektu, the tallest mountain on the Korean peninsula and a sacred peak in Korean mythology.

The oath goes on to say the speaker is armed with the “revolutionary ideology of Great Comrade Kim Jong Un” and commits them to “vigorously participate in the construction of socialism,” and fight against anti-socialism.

It concludes by pledging to dedication “to the final victory of the Juche revolution and National Unification.” Juche is North Korea’s founding ideology of self-reliance.

Elevating his status

The five points are preceded by a singular statement about working towards the socialist theory known as “Great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism” – but after that, neither Kim’s father nor grandfather are mentioned.

The lack of emphasis on Kim’s predecessors suggests that the government wants to elevate his status above them, according to Jiro Ishimaru of the Osaka-based Asia Press, a news outlet that specializes in North Korea.

“In the past there were consistent messages saying that we should not forget the leadership of Grand Marshal Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and carry out their instructions,” Ishimaru said. 

“But in this oath, these messages have almost disappeared. It refers to ‘Great Comrade Kim Jong Un’ and only mentions that Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is to be maintained,” he said. “It certainly seems like a lot has changed.”

The new oath places unique emphasis on Kim Jong Un, whereas previously the government included adherence to the ideologies of the predecessors to project a sense of continuity to enhance the perception of his legitimacy, Cheong Seong-chang, the director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Strategy at the Sejong Institute, told RFA. 

“In the past, they expressed their stance to inherit the ideology and policies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. But there are many differences between Kim Il Sung-Kim Jong Il’s policies and Kim Jong Un’s policies,” he said. “This oath basically puts Kim Jong Un’s instructions and guidance forward as the absolute standard. So, it seems that Kim Jong Un’s leadership is firmly rooted now.”

Dropping national unification 

Recently, the North Korean government has reversed its official stance on reunification, and no longer considers it a priority. This makes the fifth clause of the oath, which mentions national unification, obsolete.

Experts therefore believe that this oath was written in 2021 or earlier.

A resident of North Korea who requested anonymity for safety reasons said that instructions were given to officials to skip the part about national unification when reading the oath. 

Experts expect that a revised version of this oath will be circulated soon to reflect the shift away from the South, which in recent months North Korea has defined as its “primary enemy.” 

Additionally, Pyongyang has ended economic cooperation with Seoul, and has stopped using language that considers Koreans on both sides of the DMZ as belonging to the same race of people. 

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

Myanmar military personnel captured by the Arakan Army as part of its campaign against the junta will be investigated and tried — and could be sentenced to death for war crimes, sources told RFA this week. 

Thousands of POWs are being held by the Arakan Army, or AA, which alongside the National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army – which together call themselves the “Three Brotherhood Alliance” – has made significant gains in recent months against Myanmar’s military government.

Prisoners of war are being questioned for any alleged involvement in atrocities. When sufficient evidence is uncovered, prisoners will be charged and tried under the AA’s military and civil law, sources close to Arakan Army leadership told RFA. 

“We will take decisive action to get justice for the victims of war crimes,” said Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the rebel group.

 

Prisoners found guilty of war crimes will be sentenced to death, while those who committed lesser crimes will face imprisonment, according to sources close to the group who declined to be identified because they are not allowed to speak publicly on official matters.

The cases will be carried out in courts that the group has established since 2020, when it first gained control over portions of Rakhine state, according to a former parliamentarian from Rakhine.

“The judiciary sector is also managed by civilian experts,” the parliamentarian said. “The AA has invited civil law experts to ensure independent legal proceedings against POWs without their influence.”

Closed to public, no lawyers

But sources said the proceedings will be closed to the public and that POWs will not be given legal representation. That lack of basic rights appears to put the Arakan Army in violation of international humanitarian law, which requires even non-state actors to follow certain rules of conduct toward detainees. 

Myanmar is one of a few dozen countries to still have the death penalty, although it hadn’t been enforced until the junta removed the civilian government in a February 2021 coup. Military leaders have since come under fire from human rights campaigners and the Myanmar public for carrying out executions for the first time in three decades. 

There are currently 121 prisoners on death row, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. More than 1,500 people have died in military custody since the coup. In the three years since the junta came to power, at least 8,000 civilians have been killed, with the military responsible for the vast majority. 

As fighting has intensified since the start of the “1027 operation” – the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s offensive launched on Oct. 27 – hundreds of thousands of residents of Rakhine state alone have had to flee their homes amid junta bombardments. 

The latest atrocities represent just a fraction of those committed by the junta in recent years, which U.N. investigators said last year were “increasing [in] frequency and brazenness.”

If the AA were to follow the junta’s lead in withholding fair trial rights, however, they could lose both a legal and moral high ground, and undermine efforts to convince further junta defections, said Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, who has advised the shadow National Unity Government – made up of former civilian leaders – on their responsibilities under international law.

“There’s a legal obligation. But secondarily if you believe you are the legitimate government out there, this further binds you,” Abuza said. “Strategically, if you want to encourage defections, that becomes difficult if you’re seen as mistreating POWs and committing war crimes.”

Thousands of soldiers have been arrested or surrendered since the three ethnic armed organizations began gaining significant territory in late October. At least 600 people have been captured in the AA-held territory of Kyauktaw township alone, including soldiers and their family members, sources close to the rebel group told RFA.

“Surrenderees have been sent to safe places,” one of the sources said. “They are well treated and being interrogated. Males and females are held separately. They get meals and medical treatments.”

Another local said that villagers each day prepared food for the POWs and their families, who are being held both in AA-controlled villages and in the custody of AA outposts.

Filmed confessions

On Thursday morning, the AA released a video in which two captured military officers confessed to killing seven people who they had detained, including a reporter and a well-known rapper in Rakhine’s Mrauk-u town. 

RFA cannot confirm the circumstances under which the confessions were obtained nor can we confirm the identity of the named officers, but both said they took the prisoners from their jail cells on Jan. 23 and killed them before having their bodies buried and hidden. 

Khaing Thu Kha, the AA spokesperson, said the officers would be tried under local law but declined to answer questions about the terms of the confession or give details on any forthcoming trial. 

Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, urged the AA to “release the full evidence that they have gathered against the accused officers in addition to the confessions so that all the people of Rakhine state and Myanmar can know what happened. 

“The AA should also state clearly what they planned to do with the accused officers and consult on how to ensure justice is done in the case,” he said. 

The wife of journalist Phoe Thiha, who also went by Myat Thu Tun, told RFA that she wants the perpetrators punished, pointing to the gravity of the extrajudicial murders that took place as the men were awaiting trial. 

“They were taken away in handcuffs, closing their eyes,” said Ohnmar Shwesin Myint. “I dare not imagine how they were shot. My heart has broken. I request justice for the victims.”

Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Abby Seiff and Malcolm Foster. 

A small house church in southern Laos that was attacked by residents and village authorities earlier this month is  opening its doors under the protection of authorities, several churchgoers told Radio Free Asia.

On Feb. 4, a mob of residents and village authorities tore down the house where Chrsitians in Kaleum Vangke village in Savannakhet province’s Xonboury district had gathered for worship. The attackers also burned Bibles. 

Many churches and Christians in Laos have been assaulted despite a national law protecting the free exercise of faith.

But now Ministry of Public security officials are protecting their right to worship, a resident of the village and church member told RFA Lao on condition of anonymity for security reasons, like all other unnamed sources in this report.

“[The officials] announced that from now on, our fellow Christians can resume worship,” he said. “So, starting this week, we’re rebuilding our place of worship. Right now, we’re putting wooden planks back up.”

Another churchgoer confirmed that the higher level authorities overruled the village officials. While the building is being repaired, the church will still meet for worship.

“But the village authorities and other non-Christian villagers are still threatening us, threatening to tear down our place of worship again,” he said. “But we are getting stronger now. We’re not afraid to get together at that house anymore.”

He said that the district level authorities warned the village authorities not to harass Christians again.

The violence that occurred at the beginning of the month was at a time when Christians from other villages were visiting the makeshift church in Kaleum Vangke.

A Christian from the neighboring province of Saravan told RFA that although the authorities are allowing the Kaleum Vangke Christians to worship freely, it is still not safe to travel there for worship.

“The authorities of that village still forbid other Christians from other areas to visit their fellow Christians in that village,” he said. “Other Christians still feel unsafe to go there.”

A district official told RFA that nothing has been done to educate the village officials about the villagers’ rights in this matter.

“The district police haven’t done anything to reeducate or punish those village authorities and the group of villagers who tore down the Christian place of worship yet,” he said.

RFA Lao Service called the district police, but the person who received the call refused to answer any questions.

A Christian in another village in Savannakhet Province said that Christians in his area of the country are still being mistreated.

“For example, when my son died, the authorities of my village wouldn’t allow my family to bury my son in the village cemetery,” he said. “They say it’s against their beliefs because they don’t recognize us or our religion. They want to kick us out of the village and they won’t compromise at all.”

Often harassment against Christians goes unpunished.

In October 2022, Sy Sengmany, a Christian leader from Khammouane province, was gunned down and the suspects remain at large.

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Freedom once again declined globally last year, according to a report by Freedom House released on Thursday, marking almost two decades of consecutive erosions recorded by the organization that has for the past 51 years graded the world on its freedoms.

The leading cause of the global drop was flawed elections and armed conflict, it said.

The annual report gives each country – and many disputed territories – a score from 1 to 100 using 25 specific indicators based on the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and then declares them to be either “free,” “partly free” or “not free.”

In the Asia-Pacific, the freest countries or territories remained New Zealand (99), Japan (96), Australia (95) and Taiwan (94). The worst were China (9), Myanmar (8), North Korea (3) and Tibet (0). Both Myanmar and Tibet lost one point since last year’s report.

Over the past decade, though, Hong Kong has been the worst impacted among all jurisdictions in Asia. Only Nicaragua, Libya, Tanzania, Turkey, Burkina Faso and the disputed Eurasian territory of Nagorno-Karabakh have seen worse declines, the report says.

Yana Gorokhovskaia, research director for strategy and design at Freedom House, said the group deliberately separated out jurisdictions like Hong Kong given they were often home to the worst declines.

“In the last 10 years, the territory has declined by 26 points, [which is] more than a quarter of its entire score,” she said, adding that Freedom House had observed that “conflict over land, over sovereignty, over self determination have really imperiled political rights and civil liberties.”

“Among the biggest perpetrators of this repression is the Chinese Communist Party,” Gorokhovskaia said, linking Hong Kong to the situation in other disputed parts of China, including Tibet.

“In Tibet,” she said, “last year the CCP separated over a million children from their families and put them in state-run boarding schools, where … Chinese language and culture was forcefully inculcated.”

The report itself highlights Hong Kong and Tibet as “among the least free places on earth” due to the “exercise of unchecked power.”

Worsening picture

Globally, the “breadth and depth” of the decline in freedoms last year was significant, with political rights and civil liberties diminished in a total of 52 countries and improved in only 21. 

“I wish I had better news to share,” Adrian Shahbaz, the vice president of research and analysis at Freedom House, said at the launch of the report, noting it was the 18th straight year of declines.

The last improvement was recorded in the report for 2004.

A relatively slower rate of decline in freedoms recorded in last year’s report created hope “for a possible turning point in global freedom” in 2023 but, in the end, that was not to be, Shahbaz explained.

In fact, the 52 countries that saw declines last year accounted for 22% of the world’s population, he said, while the 21 countries that saw improvements “translates to only 7% of the global population.”

“That’s the lowest since the current decline began in 2005,” he said.

Elections and freedom

The general decline in freedom around the world was “driven by attacks on pluralism,” which it defines as the peaceful coexistence of people with different political ideas, religions or ethnic identities.

“Ongoing attacks on pluralism have the potential to fuel voter apathy, further division, and even violence, as they undercut the promise that democracy can deliver for everyone and that diversity of political ideas, belief, and ethnicity is a source of strength,” the report says.

“If democracies do not respond to these challenges, more of the world’s people will be denied fundamental freedoms in 2025,” it says.

Thailand and Myanmar, for instance, were the 20th and 21st worst impacted over the past decade, the report says, having both suffered from military coups in 2014 and 2021 and, in the case of Thailand, the 2017 rewriting of the constitution by the military government.

But Thailand, which held elections that led to a change of government last year, improved slightly in this year’s report and “edged over the line from Not Free to Partly Free thanks to more competitive elections,” even though a military-drafted constitution limited their scope.

Improvements

By contrast, the report lauds Fiji, Bhutan and Nepal as being among few countries in the world where “there were several meaningful improvements” due to the reintroduction of meaningful elections.

Fiji, it says, “experienced the world’s largest score improvement for 2023 thanks to a smooth transfer of power after watershed elections in late 2022,” helping reverse a downward trend since a 2006 coup.

“In Nepal,” it adds, “a new amendment to the Citizenship Act allowed more than 400,000 stateless individuals born in Nepal to officially become Nepali citizens and participate in the country’s politics.” 

It also notes Bhutan, a country of about 730,000 lying between India and China just to the west of Nepal, held competitive elections last year that “featured robust competition among five different parties.” 

The rise of a new party, it adds, and “the defeat of two well-established parties marked a step forward for political pluralism in the kingdom, where freedom has been steadily improving over the past decade.”

Finally, the report highlights Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed as sovereign territory by China, as a beacon of democracy, having organized competitive elections in January this year that even saw the emergence of a new parliamentary challenger to the government.

Supporting democracy

Despite all the bad news, Gorokhovskaia said Freedom House believed the report’s focus on elections contained key lessons for advocates for freedom around the world – especially in a year where nearly half the world’s population is set to head to the polls.

“In this unprecedented year of elections, the most important thing that democracies can do,” she said, “is commit to free and fair elections at home and stand up for the same abroad – that means quickly and forcefully condemning coups, power grabs, any efforts to manipulate elections, as well as any efforts to deny the outcome of elections.”

“Democratic government must champion international law and be advocates of the peaceful resolution of conflict,” she added.