Day: February 12, 2024

This is the third article in a three-part series on the Prince Group. For Part I of RFA’s investigation, click here. For Part II, click here. 

Panha has an idea of the horrors that take place within the Golden Fortune Science and Technology Park in Cambodia’s southeastern border town Chrey Thom. He has witnessed what happens to those who try to leave.

“When they recapture escaped workers they beat them until they’re barely alive. I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” Panha told RFA, declining to give his family name. His brother, he said, is head of security at the 15-acre (four-hectare) facility, and Panha has watched him hunt down escapees. “If you don’t beat them they will stop being afraid and more will try to escape.”

While the compound is ostensibly open to the public, and billed as an industrial park, it is surrounded by a 10-foot-high (three-meter) concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Its heavy, metal front gate is manned by uniformed security guards, who bar entry to ordinary visitors. 

Built by the powerful and well-connected Prince Group, the facility now counts cyberscam operations among its businesses, according to witnesses, staff and former employees. While the group denies any involvement in the park, it is run by a company headed by Prince executives and bears several other indicators of connections to the group.

Inside, locals allege, trafficked Vietnamese, Malaysian and Chinese nationals are forced to carry out cyberscams. They are part of an enslaved workforce that the U.N. estimates numbers approximately 100,000 people across Cambodia – a claim the government denies.

Fourteen local residents – among them current and former employees working at the Golden Fortune compound – separately told RFA they had witnessed security guards violently subduing escaped workers before returning them to the compound. For security reasons, witnesses requested their names not be used. At least two other Prince Group-linked properties have previously been connected with human trafficking and cyberscam operations, according to local and international media reports. 

Prince Group spokesperson Gabriel Tan told RFA that while the conglomerate built the Golden Fortune compound, it did so at the request of a client, whom he declined to identify. Asked about allegations of trafficking and cyberscam operations within the compound he added, “we are unaware of the incident you mentioned.” 

Cambodian corporate records suggest that the park’s parent company, Golden Fortune, is run by Ing Dara, a businessman with extensive ties to the Prince Group. He holds directorships in a number of Prince companies, including one cited by the Prince Group’s founder as the ultimate source of his wealth in disclosures to an offshore bank. Ing Dara and Golden Fortune could not be reached for comment. 

RFA has previously revealed that Chinese police have established a special task force to investigate the Prince Group’s alleged money laundering and illegal online gambling operations run from Cambodia. In part two of our series, RFA explored how illicit funds appear to be washed and funneled into legal Prince Group-affiliated businesses. 

This final installment in the three-part investigation into the company explores allegations that one of its facilities holds victims of Asia’s blossoming cyber-slavery industry. 

Dirty jobs

Chrey Thom is a one-road town abutting the Bassac river just a few hundred yards upstream from Vietnam. Like many border communities in Cambodia, the town is thick with casinos built to service foreigners who face restrictions on gambling in their own countries. 

A Cambodian government crackdown against online casinos in 2019 forced many to close. In some cases, the empty real estate has been taken over by criminal gangs that force trafficked workers to perform cyber fraud. Such frauds have exploded in recent years, in particular “pig butchering” in which victims are lured into putting large sums of money into phony investment schemes. However, those performing the scams are often also victims held against their will and forced to find people to dupe using various online platforms. 

As cyberscam operations have proliferated, they’ve also been found operating in office blocks, apartment complexes and what appear to be purpose-built compounds. 

Set on 15 acres of land and surrounded by concrete walls topped with barbed wire, the Golden Fortune facility hosts a soccer field, a basketball court and 18 large dormitory style buildings, all of which were constructed since mid-2019, according to satellite imagery reviewed by RFA. 

Metal bars cover the dormitory windows on each of the five floors, suggesting they are designed to keep people in.

Those allegedly imprisoned inside are mostly Vietnamese and Chinese, locals said. Cambodians work inside the compound, too, in security roles. Online Khmer-language advertisements for jobs within the compound seen by RFA called for Cambodians who speak Vietnamese, offering a salary of $600-800 a month on top of three meals a day and accommodation. 

Though relatively well-paid, such work is wholly unappealing to 60-year-old Moeun, who asked that her full name not be used. She spoke with RFA reporters while standing in the thigh-high oily water of a drainage canal, catching fish with her bare hands.

“If we don’t do good work and torture they will cut our salaries, so we prefer to come here and catch some fish to get some money,” said Moeun, whose children had worked inside the compound. “Besides working for them, what else can we do?” 

Her account was confirmed by a current Golden Fortune employee, who told RFA that disobedient or unproductive workers are detained on the first floor of a building named B1 and violently punished. Many female workers in the complex are forced into prostitution and pornography, the staffer added.

The employee compared the situation inside Golden Fortune to the Chinese thriller “No More Bets,” in which Chinese nationals are trafficked into a Southeast Asia scam compound, where they are abused and forced to help run illegal online gambling scams. 

“The problems in there are like what the Chinese movie has revealed,” the staffer said. “Scams and extortion exist in there.”

According to the employee, besides the scams, prostitution and pornography, extortion is another business model. Victims are released only if their families pull together adequate ransom – a common hallmark of scam compounds. 

“If ransom was not provided as demanded, mistreatment, beating and electrocution would be used and video clips [about the torture] are sent to the family to see,” the staffer said. 

Another local resident, who lives near the compound told RFA that he had seen security guards knock escapees to the ground with a car and tase them with electric cattle prods before driving them back to the compound. He claimed local police are employed as security guards at the compound. 

Local Sampav Poun commune police chief Khuth Bunthorn told RFA that he was unaware of any cases of detention or forced labor in his commune.

A former security guard at the Golden Fortune compound told RFA that trafficked scam employees worked 12 hours a day and would usually be sold on to another compound within six to 12 months. The former guard added that while they were no longer employed at Golden Fortune, they would still occasionally hunt down escaped workers from the compound. Local residents told RFA that Golden Fortune doles out $50 bounties for returned escapees.

Interior Ministry Secretary of State Chou Bun Eng, who is secretary general of the National Committee for Counter Trafficking, told RFA that she was unaware of any trafficking cases in Chrey Thom.

A bustling compound

RFA reporters were barred from entering the Golden Fortune compound when they visited Chrey Thom last year, with security guards declining to say why. 

Footage posted to social media in September showcases an array of restaurants, massage parlors and even a small hospital within its walled kingdom. Both the videos and satelite imagery indicate it is home to more and higher quality paved roads than the surrounding village. In one video, a billboard within the park can be glimpsed advertising 6,700-square-foot (622-square-meter) villas in Phnom Penh. 

The Golden Fortune compound is listed on the official website of Prince Huan Yu Real Estate – a subsidiary of the Prince Group – and its location is pinpointed on its “property distribution map.” 

The Prince Group bills itself as one of Cambodia’s hottest conglomerates, with interests in everything from real estate to film production. It was founded a little under a decade ago by Chen Zhi, a politically connected Chinese émigré who became a naturalized Cambodian in 2014. Chinese court documents have termed his conglomerate a “notorious transnational online gambling criminal group” and alleged at least 5 billion yuan ($700 million) of its revenue came from illegal online gambling. 

In 2022, a court in the Chinese county of Wancang announced that 45 individuals had been found guilty of establishing illegal online casinos in collaboration with the Prince Group. The announcement listed three locations in Cambodia where this had taken place, among them was “Caitong City,” the Chinese name for Chrey Thom.

The eyewitness testimony related to RFA would suggest that like so many online gambling operations in Cambodia, the Prince Group has pivoted to forced labor. 

In a 2022 documentary by Al Jazeera, a victim explained how he had been held captive and forced to scam poor Chinese farmers over messaging apps in a property held by Cambodian Heng Xin Real Estate. That company was founded by Chen; in leaked banking records shared by whistleblowing non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets, the company is listed as the source of Chen’s wealth. Today, Cambodian Heng Xin Real Estate has two directors, both of whom have extensive links to the Prince Group. One of them, Ing Dara, is listed as the chairman of Golden Fortune Resorts World, whose name and address matches the Chrey Thom complex.

Months before it was shut down by the government, local news outlet Voice of Democracy reported on a human trafficking raid on another Prince Group-linked property.  

Such linkages between Prince Group property and cyberscam operations could prove awkward for Prince’s political patrons. These include recently retired Prime Minister Hun Sen, former Interior Minister Sar Kheng, former National Assembly President Heng Samrin, as well as the current Prime Minister Hun Manet – each of whom Chen serves as an officially appointed political adviser.   

China, Cambodia’s most forceful sponsor on the world stage, has made clear its intention to crack down on cybercrime overseas. In October, Cambodia’s newly appointed premier, Hun Manet, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Buried on the third page of a press release issued by Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry after the meeting was a commitment, “to further enhance cooperation in law enforcement, particularly in combating cross-border gambling, drug and human trafficking, cybercrime and fake news.”

For some in Chrey Thom, though, that cooperation could not come soon enough.

One resident of Chrey Thom said he and his neighbors would always try to help whenever they encountered an escapee. He remembered one time in particular, when cries of, “Thief, thief, thief,” preceded a bedraggled man crashing into his home.

“He put his hands together and begged for mercy,” he recalled, adding that he gave the man five dollars before sending him on his way, wishing he could have done more for him.

“We pity them and the injustice they suffer, but we cannot do anything,” he said.

Young Burmese called up to join the military under a conscription law said they would team up with resistance fighters or leave Myanmar rather than serve as soldiers for the ruling junta that seized power in a coup d’état three years ago. 

Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Feb. 10 that the People’s Military Service Law, enacted in 2010 by a previous military regime though it had never been enforced, would go into effect immediately. 

Enforcement of the law comes as anti-junta forces and ethnic armies have scored significant victories against junta forces in Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, which escalated in October 2023 when the groups joined together and launched new offensives against the military that caused significant casualties.

Min Aung Hlaing’s directive has stoked fear and concern among Burmese men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27, who face up to five years in prison if they refuse to serve for two years. 

Professionals – such as doctors, engineers and technicians – aged 18-45 for men and 18-35 for women must also serve, but up to five years, given the country’s current state of emergency, extended by the junta on Feb. 1 for another six months.

“If they are forced to serve, they will only fight to end the military dictatorship,” a resident of Yangon told Radio Free Asia.

“It’s probable that [the junta] will push city dwellers to join the resistance forces,” she said.

Min Min, 24, said he would refuse to serve in the military.

“I will not live in the country anymore, and will find a suitable way out,” said the young man, who also lives in Yangon.

Sandar, 22, from Mandalay, said that she was angered when she heard about the law taking effect because it would force the people to fight against each other. 

Instead, she is considering joining the People’s Defense Force, or PDF, of ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the junta’s military forces. 

“We need to support this revolution and put an end to the dictators,” Sandar said.

Losing battles

In northwestern Sagaing region’s Khin-U township, where armed conflicts break out nearly every day, residents said the junta has turned to forcibly recruiting civilians because its ground troops are losing battles and need front-line reinforcements. 

“In this situation, they are using the law as the ‘last bullet,’” said a resident named Hein. “Junta supporters are not exempted from this law, so even they will have to fight against the military [if they don’t agree with it].”

The junta had previously used prisoners and former servicemen to fight, but is now conscripting civilians to serve after suffering mounting defeats and troop losses, said Maung Maung Swe, deputy secretary of the shadow National Unity Government’s Ministry of Defense.

“The public opposes [the junta] whenever they get an opportunity,” he said. “If they are forced to serve under the compulsory military service law, this will be a sword for them, and [the junta] will be overthrown immediately.”

Myanmar junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said via state-controlled media on Monday that the mandatory conscription law was introduced because of the need for defense forces, given limitations of the military to handle high-tech weapons and military equipment.

His comment came a day after he urged every eligible citizen to participate in military service to protect the country. Quoting Myanmar’s 2008 constitution, drafted by a previous military junta, he said the military service law was being enforced in line with the stipulations for basic duties of citizens.

Although the State Administration Council — the junta’s formal name — has activated the compulsory military service law, bylaws for its practical enforcement have yet to be determined, Zaw Min Tun said.

A desperate attempt

Burmese legal and political analysts have criticized the move as a desperate attempt to bring the public into the conflict.

Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a political commentator, believes that the law will fuel armed conflict in Myanmar.

“Amid military tension among armed groups and escalation of public hatred and suspicion of the [junta], the order of military service law is very dangerous, and it will lead to high-tension armed conflict,” he told Radio Free Asia.

He also predicted that the enforcement of the law will cause people between the ages of 18 and 35 to flee abroad to avoid military service.

Legal analyst and human rights lawyer Kyee Myint said the junta’s enforcement of the law is illegitimate because the regime violated the 2008 constitution when it seized power from the democratically elected government in the coup.

Min Aung Hlaing violated the 2008 constitution during the 2021 coup by arresting President Win Myint and voiding the results of the 2020 election won by de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, Kyee Myint said. 

“So, his enactment of the military service law is illegal,” he said.

Translated by Aung Naing and Htin Aung Kyaw for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.

Ethnic Hmong villagers in remote areas of northern Laos are continuing to grow opium poppies despite government eradication efforts, due to long-held beliefs about the crop’s medicinal properties, according to officials and residents.

In recent weeks, Lao authorities announced that they had destroyed 2,590 square meters (two-thirds of an acre) of Hmong-grown opium poppy fields in Luang Namtha province, which lies along the border with China and Myanmar, and another 11,000 square meters (2.7 acres) in Xieng Khouang province, on the Vietnamese border.

However, they acknowledged that there are many poppy fields that are too remote to access in other areas of Xieng Khouang, as well as in Phongsaly province, which borders China and Vietnam.

In its World Drug Report 2023, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC, said it had documented 5,700 hectares (14,100 acres) of opium poppy cultivation in Laos, mostly in the country’s seven northern provinces of Phongsaly, Hua Phane, Luang Prabang, Oudomsay, Bokeo, Xieng Khouang, and Luang Namtha. Opium can be used to make heroin.

An official from the National Defense Unit in Luang Namtha who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA Lao that the cultivation and consumption of opium remains common among the Hmong in rural northern Laos, and is “difficult to control.”

“There is a lot growing for local consumption and even though the region has set up rehab centers for people, there aren’t enough,” he said. “There are also still a lot of people who use opium as a medical treatment when they are sick.”

The official said that the Hmong communities that continue to grow opium poppies and smoke opium are extremely remote, preventing authorities from accessing them or regularly patrolling the areas.

“The areas where they live are far from other communities; 30-40 kilometers (19-25 miles) off the main roads, and only motorbikes can navigate the paths, so it’s hard to carry out inspections” he said. “It’s mostly ethnic villagers living there.”

Use in treating sickness

An official from the Natural Resources and Environment Unit in Xieng Khouang said that part of the reason ethnic communities still grow opium poppies and smoke opium in the province is due to their belief that it can help cure them when they are ill.

Opium has a long history of medical use in relieving pain, inducing sleep, and treating bowel conditions.

The official said ethnic communities in Xieng Khouang mostly grow opium for personal consumption, and not in large quantities.

While the overall amount that is grown can vary, he said, “the Hmong grow opium for use, not for sale.”

A villager from Hua Phane told RFA that cultivation of opium poppies had decreased significantly in the province in recent years due to government and NGO campaigns educating residents about the dangers of opium.

But he said that while the use of opium is down in Hua Phane, “that doesn’t mean it has ended.”

“Some [ethnic] groups … grow it in remote areas, far away from the cities,” he said. “They grow it to use as medicine for their families.”

Laos was the third-largest illicit opium poppy producing country in the world until 1998, but the UNODC says eradication efforts by the government and international partners “have reduced cultivation to marginal levels.”

Nonetheless, the agency said, the northern part of Laos remains known as one of two opium producing countries in Southeast Asia, with the main driver of cultivation in the region being “primarily related to poverty.”

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.

In the three years since she fled Hong Kong, Sister Wan has become a familiar figure in the markets of the Taiwanese coastal town of Tamsui, as she seeks to recreate the foods that will recreate the tastes of home.

Like thousands of others, Wan left Hong Kong amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent to settle in democratic Taiwan, leaving behind a popular market stall in the city’s Tuen Mun district where she had sold tea and savory rice congee for six decades, to start afresh somewhere new.

Congee, known in Cantonese as juk, is known in many East and Southeast Asian cultures as a comfort food associated with sickness, and has historically also been associated with ritual fasting.

But in Hong Kong, it has diversified into a one-stop meal for all seasons, served up across the city by outlets ranging from cheap diner chains to neighborhood mom-and-pop operations made famous by their unique twist on the familiar recipe.

Leaving behind the family business was a wrench, and Wan hung on as long as she could, she told RFA Cantonese while shopping in Tamsui ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.

“I kept working in Hong Kong and ignored the [political] waves that were happening,” she said, adding that she started making plans to leave during the 2019 protest movement and the subsequent crackdown on thousands of those who took part, most of them peaceful.

“I really started thinking about [leaving] in 2019,” she said. “The thing I regretted most was that my father started the stall and built it up from scratch into a family business.”

“It was small, but it supported two or three generations of our family,” said Wan, who didn’t give her full name for fear of reprisals. “A lot of people knew about us.”

“It’s a shame that it’s no longer there, but if I’d carried on, I wouldn’t have enjoyed a healthy old age,” she said. “That’s the way it goes – you have to make choices.”

Now a regular at Tamsui’s Yung Leh Lane market, Wan started out not even knowing the common local words for some of her key ingredients, nor where to buy them.

While many Hong Kongers pick Taiwan as a destination due to the cultural similarities – traditional Chinese culture, freedom of speech and a fondness for city life and street food – the two places have very distinct culinary traditions.

“A lot of the ingredients that we Hong Kongers take for granted aren’t very popular in the markets [here],” said Wan, who is on a mission to make a specific kind of Hong Kong snack that is typically eaten at Lunar New Year – water chestnut cake.

Except that it’s not that easy to source water chestnuts, known as “馬蹄 mǎtí,” or horse’s hoof, in Chinese.

“Even Taiwanese people don’t know that you can buy water chestnuts here,” Wan said. “Today there is only one stall [in Tamsui].”

Feeling homesick

Tamsui, tucked like Hong Kong between lush green hills and the sea, has been a favorite destination for Hong Kong exiles in Taiwan for several years now.

As shoppers throng Yung Leh Lane market ahead of Lunar New Year, the sound of Cantonese, Hong Kong’s lingua franca, mingles with the Mandarin and Taiwanese spoken by local people.

Wan’s goal is to put in a little extra effort this year to make the snack because it’s authentic food that will bring her friends and family in exile just that bit closer to home.

“This is the kind of thing we’re used to eating, and so these are our tastes,” she said. “I’ve made them before, so there’s no reason to give up just yet.”

She is determined to offer her loved ones in Taiwan a moment of food-based nostalgia.

“People all say when they taste them that they taste exactly the same as the [water chestnut cake] in Hong Kong,” Wan said. 

“When I see [Hong Kongers] in Taiwan, I make them feel homesick,” she said. “They say ‘I haven’t had this in a long time.’”

Hong Kong police said last week that they have made 290 arrests so far under the national security law, which bans public criticism of the government and has resulted in the mass arrests and trial of dozens of former opposition activists and the trial of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai.

The government has said “national security” will remain at the top of a list of police priorities for 2024, when the city’s legislature is expected to pass a second national security law critics say will potentially criminalize more peaceful activities, including making critical or protest-related comments on overseas websites or interviewing exiled activists like Chow.

For Wan, who says she may never be able to return to Hong Kong, food is a way of preserving her links to home.

“I love to cook, and the most important thing is that I am satisfied with it, and that others say it tastes good.”

“That’s why I keep working hard at it,” she said.

Steering her shopping cart through the packed Tamsui market, Wan said she hopes other Hong Kongers will follow her example, and take good care of themselves in exile.

“Hang in there … there will always be a dawn,” she said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

As North Korea prepares for two important holidays, authorities declared an “emergency security period” and began cracking down on people who turn their homes into lodging for holiday travelers, a move that residents told RFA was also aimed at curbing prostitution.

Seollal, the Korean version of the Lunar New Year celebrated all over East Asia fell on Saturday. This year, that’s less than a week before the Day of the Shining Star on Feb. 16, a day on which North Koreans remember Kim Jong Un’s father, the late “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, who ruled the country from 1994 until his death in 2011.

As the two days are in such close proximity, the period between will serve as kind of an extended holiday this year, and travelers will need a place to stay. People with room to spare in their homes can open them up for a little extra cash.

But the government in the northern province of Ryanggang launched a surprise police inspection to root out the informal lodgings this week, a resident living there told RFA Korean.  

The resident said this was the second holiday lodging inspection this year, following one that happened ahead of Kim Jong Un’s birthday on Jan. 8.

“The purpose of accommodation inspections is stated to be related to the ‘war on spies,’ but the actual purpose is to detect and eradicate private inns and prostitution,” he said, explaining that these private inns were very popular around train stations and marketplaces prior to the pandemic, and “anti-socialist” activities like prostitution went hand-in-hand, with them.

“Even before the pandemic … strong controls were implemented against private inns,” he said. “But private inns have not been eradicated because the elderly residents have no other way to make a living.”

Even staying in the house of a friend during the holidays can get a traveler in trouble, another Ryanggang resident told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

Official accommodations

Travelers are supposed to stay in officially registered inns and other lodging places that send a portion of their money to authorities. But homeowners offering private lodging can avoid paying that money to the government.

“Quite a few people were caught in this inspection because they did not register for official accommodations,” she said. “They were mostly relatives or acquaintances living in Ryanggang Province. Close relatives were released once their residence was confirmed, but acquaintances were released with a fine of 3,000 won (35 U.S. cents).” 

The farther away from Ryanggang the person was from, the stiffer the fine, she said.

“If guests from outside of Ryanggang Province were brought in, unless they were relatives, it was considered running a private inn and 300,000 won ($35) fine was imposed on the landlord,” she said. “Even if they had a travel document, a fine of 300,000 won was imposed on out-of-town guests who stayed without registering their stay.”

Those caught running a private inn more than once not only have to pay the hefty fine, they must also spend three months in a disciplinary labor center, the second resident said.

“The same fine and punishment are also applied to women who engage in prostitution with foreign guests at a private inn,” she said.

The risk is high and the money one can earn from Ryanggang’s version of Airbnb is very low in comparison. 

“In Ryanggang Province, if you only sleep at a private inn, the cost of lodging is 4,000 won (47 cents),” she said. “If you include a bottle of alcohol and a meal, the cost is 15,000 won ($1.78).”

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

Some 47 political prisoners at a Mon state prison went on a hunger strike to protest recent harsh treatment of inmates and a decision to keep two inmates in solitary confinement, the Political Prisoners Network-Myanmar told Radio Free Asia.

The hunger strike at the military junta-operated Kyaikmaraw prison in Mawlamyine city began at around 11 a.m. on Feb. 6, according to the network.

“None of the 47 prisoners have been taken to the hospital yet, but it is known that they have become so weak that there are worries about their health,” network official Thike Tun Oo told RFA on Friday.

Prison authorities, police and soldiers found two mobile phones during an exhaustive search at the prison on Jan. 28.

Guards then began taking the prison’s political prisoners for severe interrogations almost every day, Thike Tun Oo said. Two political prisoners were sent to solitary confinement on Feb. 5.

Inmates responded by launching a hunger strike with several demands, including that the two prisoners be removed from solitary confinement and given a medical exam. 

They also asked that interrogations of all prisoners be conducted legally and in accordance with basic human rights, that prisoners be brought back to their cells after an interrogation and that interrogations only take place during official hours, according to Thike Tun Oo.

The Political Prisoners Network-Myanmar, or PPNM, publicized the hunger strike on Friday, saying it would continue until prison authorities agreed to the demands.

It was unclear why the two political prisoners were being kept in solitary confinement.

One of the inmates is serving a five-year sentence while the other was sentenced to 20 years. Both were convicted of violating the country’s counter-terrorism laws, which are often used to target pro-democracy activists, the PPNM said.

The junta has arrested and jailed thousands of pro-democracy activists since taking power in a coup d’etat on Feb. 1, 2021.

RFA attempted to contact the office of the deputy director general of the junta’s Prison Department to askabout the hunger strike, but there was no response.

Several junta-affiliated media outlets on Friday denied any report of a hunger strike at Kyaikmaraw prison. 

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.