Day: February 2, 2024

A blogger who last year went missing from Thailand and later resurfaced in Vietnamese police custody was finally allowed to meet his mother for the first time since his disappearance, his family told Radio Free Asia.

Duong Van Thai, 41, was living in Thailand when he disappeared on April 13 in what many believe was an abduction. 

Vietnam has neither confirmed nor denied that he was abducted and taken back to Vietnam, but shortly after his disappearance, authorities announced that they had apprehended him for trying to sneak into the country illegally.

On Tuesday afternoon, Thai’s mother Duong Thi Lu, 70, received an unexpected phone call from the police, saying that she would be allowed to see her son the next day at the B14 Detention center in Hanoi’s Thanh Tri district, she told RFA Vietnamese on Friday.

On Wednesday morning, she visited the detention center and talked to her son through a thick glass window – the first time she had seen him in nine months.

“For about half an hour we talked about his health, the family and our village,” she said. “Police had warned me at the gate not to talk about [problematic] issues.”

It’s a rarity that she was allowed to see him while the investigation was ongoing.

Abduction 

Thai had fled to Thailand in late 2018 or early 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. He was interviewed to resettle in a third country right before his disappearance near his rental home in central Thailand’s Pathum Thani province.  

By mid-2023, the Security Investigation Agency under the Ministry of Public Security announced that Thai was under investigation for anti- State charges under Article 117, a vaguely written law that rights organizations say is used to silence dissent..

Health

The last time Lu saw Thai in person was when she visited her son in Bangkok one year ago around the Tet holiday, Vietnam’s version of the Lunar New Year. She said that he looks different after his time in custody.

”I could not recognize him because his skin is fairer. When he was in Thailand it was dark,” But he looked very healthy and hasn’t lost a lot of weight.”

Duong assured her that in the detention center he was adequately fed and well treated, she said.

Regarding the investigation, she said that police did not give any details about it, but encouraged her in a general way. 

”When I was back at the gate, the detention guard said, ‘Be calm. He does not face any problems here. He will soon be at home with you From now until Feb. 20, if there is not any change, we will send you confirmation.’”

Lu said that they were not allowed to freely talk, so she did not know her son’s thinking about hiring defense lawyers, and that she was also too old to know how to do anything like that.

RFA attempted to contact the Security Investigation Agency under the Ministry of Public Security to inquire about Thai’s case, but the officer in charge refused to respond.

Under the Penal Code of Vietnam, the defendants in National Security cases are only allowed to see their family and lawyers when the investigation is complete.

Translated by An Nguyen. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

A Cambodian former political prisoner and two other activists associated with the country’s opposition Candlelight Party were arrested in Thailand on Friday, in what they think is the latest example of their government exercising its influence across borders, they told Radio Free Asia.

Kong Raiya, who was jailed twice for his outspoken activities against the government, senior Candlelight member Lim Sokha and opposition activist Phan Phana were caught in an immigration roundup at an apartment complex in Bangkok.

The three activists had recently fled to Thailand to seek asylum and had been granted refugee status, according to Phan Phana, who has ties to the Cambodia Youth Network. 

They had planned to hold a protest rally next week on the day Prime Minister Hun Manet is scheduled to arrive in Thailand on an official visit.

“I am afraid that I will be deported back to Cambodia,” Phan Phana told RFA Khmer before his phone was confiscated. “The [ruling Cambodian People’s Party] were behind this arrest because the police are asking for details about other activists.”

Kong Raiya told RFA that he was sent to an immigration police station. He said that Thai police worked with the Cambodian government to arrest him because he had criticized Hun Manet, who became Cambodia’s prime minister after his father, longtime leader Hun Sen, stepped down in August.

“The government was angry so I got arrested,” he said, explaining that Thai police might have known his location by tapping his phone or tracking him on the internet. 

Fellow Candlelight Party Activist Khem Monykosal, who is also seeking asylum in Thailand, told RFA that the three activists are detained in immigration detention center in Bangkok. 

“The situation is tense now. Police are patrolling buildings,” said Khem Monykosal. “If we go down there, they will arrest us. I beg the Thai government to give more consideration to refugee rights and stop harming us.”

Thailand should not arrest people who have been granted refugee status, Yin Mengly of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association told RFA.

“The Thai government can’t deport those activists based only on their politics or freedom of expression,” he said. 

The immigration roundup was made just ahead of Hun Manet’s scheduled visit to Bangkok Feb. 7, where he will meet with his Thai counterpart Srettha Thavisin for trade and border talks.  

Dozens of pro-democracy Cambodian activists have fled to Thailand to seek asylum in recent years as the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, has used intimidation and the courts to neutralize the political opposition.

RFA was not able to reach government spokesman Pen Bonaa for comment on Friday’s arrests. 

Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong.

Authorities in Myanmar’s second city Mandalay have arrested at least three people for taking part in a “silent strike” protesting the third anniversary of military rule, according to residents.

People in Myanmar staged a nationwide silent strike on Thursday, forgoing work and staying inside their homes to demonstrate their opposition to the Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat that saw the military seize control of the country.

The protest was held from 10 am to 4 pm in several major cities, including the commercial capital Yangon, and marked by noticeably reduced vehicle and foot traffic, while security appeared heightened, following the deployment of additional junta troops and security vehicles.

Sources told RFA Burmese that authorities in Mandalay arrested Kyaw Soe Oo, a 48-year-old English teacher, and two as-of-yet unidentified people who joined the silent strike or posted messages in support of the protest.

A source close to Kyaw Soe Oo’s family, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said he knew something was wrong when the teacher failed to show up at either his 4 pm or 8 pm classes on Thursday.

“I only found out about his arrest when his students called me,” the source said, adding that Kyaw Soe Oo’s phone was turned off when he later tried to contact him. “He is just a tuition teacher, who is also a member of the board of trustees for the Ein Daw Yar pagoda. He was never actively involved in politics.”

After learning of his arrest, Kyaw Soe Oo’s family members went to the No. 6 Police Station in Mandalay’s Chan Aye Thar Zan township to see him, but were told that he was not there, according to the source.

Arrested for FB posts

Ahead of Thursday’s protest, Kyaw Soe Oo posted a message on his Facebook account urging people to stay at home after 10 am. Pro-junta channels on the social media platform Telegram claimed that he was arrested for his posts.

Other reports on pro-junta Telegram channels claimed that a 25-year-old man and a woman from Mandalay were also arrested on Thursday. The woman had allegedly taken part in silent strike activities on Mandalay’s U Pein Bridge, but no other details were provided.

An official from the group that organized the strike in Mandalay, known as the Mandalay Strike Force, told RFA that the arrested woman “was not one of our members.”

Sources in Mandalay suggested that the number of arrests related to the strike could be higher, as “nearly everyone” took part.

Most of the shops at the city’s normally bustling Maha Aung Myay wholesale gem market were closed on Thursday, prompting municipal officers and the police to investigate and force owners to open, residents said.

There were similar reports of authorities forcing shops to open on Thursday in Yangon and Ayeyarwaddy regions, as well as forced attendance at pro-junta rallies.

Yangon blasts

Meanwhile, residents of Yangon reported that anti-junta groups detonated at least six bombs in three townships of Yangon on Wednesday and Thursday in a bid to undermine military rule on the third anniversary of the coup.

On Wednesday night, three explosions occurred at the North Okkalapa Township Electricity Office near a roundabout where junta security personnel were stationed, sources in the city told RFA.

Another two explosions took place at a sawmill in Kyimyinedine township’s Thardukan West ward on the same day, they said.

The last explosion occurred on Thursday near a traffic checkpoint where police were inspecting cars at the corner of 5th Street Hlaing River in Hlaingtharyar township, sources said. 

A member of the anti-junta organization Operation Flame said the attacks were jointly carried out by rebel groups that included Company 2 of the People’s Defense Force in North Okkalapa, the Kyimyinedine Township Operation Flame, the People’s Defense Organization of Yangon’s West District and the Yangon Army.

“We conducted the missions to mark the three-year anniversary of the military coup on behalf of all revolutionary forces, in response to junta oppression,” the Operation Flame member said. “We will continue to fight together with the people until the junta is removed from power.”

Reports indicated that four soldiers on security duty were seriously injured in the explosions in North Okkalapa and Kyimyindine townships. However, RFA was unable to independently verify the claims.

The junta did not release any statements related to the bombings and attempts by RFA to contact Htay Aung, the junta’s attorney general and spokesperson for the Yangon region government, went unanswered Friday. 

Residents told RFA that the junta has tightened security by deploying soldier and vehicle convoys in Yangon in response to the blasts.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

A famous Vietnamese lingerie model known as the “Underwear Queen” was sentenced to one year’s suspension for “disrupting social order” by posting videos of herself performing risky motorcycle stunts on Facebook.

Tran Thi Ngoc Trinh, 34, was freed shortly after receiving her sentence from the Ho Chi Minh City Court Thursday morning. 

Police arrested her for her viral video clips of herself lying down on a motorcycle, kneeling on the seat, driving hands-free and placing both legs on one side of the vehicle, Vietnamese media reported.

Legal experts told RFA that the charges against her were unfounded, especially because she wasn’t driving on a street, and was not in any way criticizing the government.

During the trial, Trinh testified that she had been training with a teacher, Tran Xuan Dong, to get a driver’s license for a large-displacement motorbike.  She asked Dong to teach her some driving stunts and she imitated other video clips posted online.

Dong was sentenced to one-and-a-half years for “disrupting social order” and “using fake documents” on the same day.

“In my opinion, the verdict of one-year suspension is appropriate and humane,” a Hanoi lawyer, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA Vietnamese.

“However, her act should have not led to arrest, and the media that ran her photos should have blurred her face so as not to affect her personal image.”

He said that through this case, authorities wanted to warn people who have large followings on social media.

“The judges should observe the law, not follow someone else’s instructions,” he said. 

Prior to the trial, Trinh published an apology video clip filmed at the Police Station and advised others not to follow her actions.

 Translated by An Nguyen. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

In an incident captured on video, Chinese soldiers confronted Tibetan herders in a remote, rugged border region near the border of India and Chinese-controlled Tibet, claiming they were in Chinese territory and denying them access to traditional grazing land.

The Jan. 2 video, taken by a Tibetan nomad named Kunsang Namgyal, shows about a dozen People’s Liberation Army soldiers in desert fatigues talking with herders, gesturing and pointing, while sirens from armored vehicles can be heard in the background.

The herders are heard shouting back shouting in Tibetan: “Why have you come here? Why have you brought your vehicles here? This is our ancestral land. We graze our livestock here.”

One herder used his sling to throw a stone at an armored vehicle, but otherwise there was no violence. No Indian security forces were in sight at the time.

The video was shared with Radio Free Asia and shared on Instagram.

The incident occurred in a rugged border area used by nomads as their winter grazing grounds called Jangthang, or “Northern Plains” in Tibetan, situated between Ladakh, in northern India, and the Chinese-occupied Tibetan Autonomous Region.

The area has seen occasional skirmishes between Indian and Chinese troops. In June 2020, Indian soldiers clashed with Chinese soldiers in an incident that left 20 Indian troops dead. 

Buffer zones

To avoid such eruptions, many areas in eastern Ladakh, such as the Kakjung Jangthang area, have been designated as “buffer zones” along the border, with forces from both sides typically refraining from patrolling. 

But the buffer zones have taken away the livelihoods of local residents, said Sriparna Pathak, a professor of China studies at the O.P. Jindal Global University in Haryana, India, and a former consultant at India’s foreign ministry.

“Owing to never-ending Chinese incursions, the grazing land has been decreasing,” she said. “If nomadic activities were to decrease further, then further security concerns for India would rise, and there is an urgent need for India to step up defenses and infrastructure in the region.” 

The region has three traditional grazing areas, Belung, Daklung and Melung, said Namgyal, who took the video. China has already blocked access to Melung, and now it claims Belung and Daklung, too, he said.

“In the latest incident, the Chinese forces chased away the shepherds from the Belung and Daklung grazing areas and ensured no animals were allowed to graze there,” he said in an interview with RFA Tibetan.

Following the Jan. 2 incident, officials from the Indian army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the local sarpanch – the elected head of a village-level constitutional body – and sub-divisional magistrate, visited the site, said Ishey Spalzang, councilor of the Nyoma constituency that governs Kakjung.

“The growing tensions on the Indo-Tibet border between India and China has resulted in the loss of grazing land for the nomads along the border,” Spalzang said.

Border dispute unresolved

Confrontations between nomads and Chinese troops have occurred in the past, particularly in grazing areas where herders in the Kakjung Jangthang and nearby villages such as Nyoma and Chushul usually tend livestock, locals said. 

“Disturbances of this kind caused by the PLA soldiers to nomads take place frequently,” Spalzang said, referring to Chinese troops. “However, no harm has been reported from such incidents.” 

Indian forces typically allow the nomads to graze their animals in the areas where they have traditionally done so, but the Chinese always deny the shepherds access to different areas at different times, he said. 

“The Indian government must take an earnest look at helping the nomads in their times of need by allowing them to herd their animals like they have done in the past,” Spalzang added.

Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said during a press conference, said that “the two sides are aware of the traditional grazing areas in the border regions,” and that “any incident of friction is dealt with through established mechanisms as appropriate.”

Several rounds of talks to resolve the border issue between India and China have since ensued, but new details revealed during a recent Indian army gallantry award citation showed that Indian and Chinese troops clashed at least two times in 2022, the most recent of which took place in November 2022. 

In that incident, Indian soldiers reportedly pushed back a group of 40-50 Chinese soldiers who were trying to enter Indian territory in Ladakh. 

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

Recent battlefield setbacks and little apparent public support are raising the question of whether the leader of Myanmar’s junta can expect to maintain influence within the military and his hold over the country, several observers told Radio Free Asia this week.

Myanmar’s two other post-independence military dictator generals – Than Shwe and Ne Win – ruled the country for decades following their own coup d’etats. 

But just three years after Sen. General Min Aung Hlaing and the military took control of the government in February 2021, the junta continues to be faced with regular reports of military officers and soldiers who have either surrendered to rebel groups or voluntarily switched sides.

“There aren’t many choices left for them,” said Jason Tower, country director for the Burma program at the United States Institute of Peace. “At some point, the Burmese military will have to surrender or find some way to escape from the current situation.”

Entire regiments and numerous senior military officers switched to the opposition in the months after the 2021 coup  – something that wasn’t true following the 1962 and 1988 military coups, both of which encountered some armed resistance.  

Since then, junta troops have abandoned more than 30 border towns and hundreds of military outposts, including several strategic regional headquarters. 

Junta battlefield losses have accelerated since the rebel ethnic armies that make up the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched a coordinated offensive in October.

In November, Min Aung Hlaing warned that the recent attacks – known as Operation 1027 – could “break Myanmar into pieces.” The comments at an emergency meeting of the National Defense and Security Council in the capital Naypyitaw seemed to be a plea for public support of the military for the sake of stability.

‘No public legitimacy’

But regular air force and artillery bombings of civilian populations that have killed thousands have pushed public opinion of the military to unprecedented lows.

Since the coup, nearly 80,000 homes have been burnt down or destroyed, more than 20,000 people have been arrested, and 2.5 million residents have fled their homes, according to the United Nations and human rights groups.

“The Burmese military has no public legitimacy. They have also lost international support,” Tower said. “And on every battlefield, they are facing losses.”

Discontent within the military is also driven by long standing corruption practices that the current regime has continued and in some cases even increased, according to Hla Kyaw Zaw, a political analyst based in China. 

“Min Aung Hlaing is different from Than Shwe and Ne Win,” he said. “He’s more notorious for his corruption.”

A soldier affiliated with the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, or CDM, told RFA that every member of Myanmar’s junta is expected to contribute a certain portion of their salary to Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited, a fund managed by junta leaders. 

They also must pay a monthly fee to a life insurance company owned by top junta leaders under threats of punitive actions, the CDM soldier said.

‘The mood is so dark’

Much of Myanmar’s current turmoil and chaos could be blamed on Min Aung Hlaing’s ambition to be president, several observers told RFA.

He wasn’t content to just be the country’s top military leader, and apparently couldn’t accept the poor showing that the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party received in the 2020 election, said Win Htein, a senior aide to Aung San Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the junta in 2021.

Suu Kyi is the former de facto leader of Myanmar and Nobel laureate who was also sentenced to prison by a junta court.

Junta leaders may have also been surprised by the response to the 2021 coup from ethnic armed organizations, anti-junta People’s Defense Forces and pro-democracy groups, said Ko Naung Roo, a member of the CDM military. 

“Without understanding the changes in the modern system, they went with the tradition of a coup d’état,” he said. “Min Aung Hlaing should be called the weakest dictator rather than the worst dictator.”

Attempts by RFA to contact a junta spokesperson for comment went unanswered this week.

Former lawmaker Tint Swe told RFA that if things get worse, Myanmar’s leader could face a fate similar to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed in 2006, or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who was captured and killed in 2011.

“It is still difficult to predict how Gen. Min Aung Hlaing will end up,” he said. “But I do see that the entire military power and economic system is headed for collapse.”

Tun Kyi, a former political prisoner, predicted that Min Aung Hlaing will eventually be put on trial for war crimes.

“The last breath of dictators is ugly, and the mood is so dark for the country,” he said. “If you look at the world, from Hitler to Saddam Hussein, and so on, if you look at their essence, their paths are the same at the end of time.”

Translated by Aung Khin. Edited by Matt Reed.