Category: General

BANGKOK — A lawyer for Danny Fenster said Myanmar authorities have provided no explanation for new charges against the American journalist that could see him imprisoned for as much as 30 years.

The ruling military junta leveled the new charges of sedition and terrorism on Tuesday, crushing hopes for an early release of Fenster, who has been in custody since May 24 after being arrested for lesser alleged offenses.

Than Zaw Aung, Fenster’s lawyer, told VOA on Wednesday that he could not explain why the new charges were made, or what the authorities are accusing Fenster of having done.

“Yesterday, we had a two-minute meeting via mobile phone, videoconference, and in that time, the judge didn’t explain the deal (or) why they have charged him with the new cases,” he said.

Fenster, 37, originally from Detroit, Michigan, was already facing as much as 11 years imprisonment on the earlier charges of incitement, unlawful association and visa breaches.

The latest charges were filed under Section 124A of Myanmar’s penal code, which prohibits sedition against the government, and under Section 50A of Myanmar’s counterterrorism law, which criminalizes contact with “terrorist groups.”

Original charges

Fenster had been working as the managing editor for Yangon-based Frontier Myanmar magazine. He was arrested at Yangon International Airport in May as he boarded a flight to the United States, via Malaysia.

“They (police) thought he was working for Myanmar Now. At the airport arresting time, the police found his Myanmar Now name tag,” Than Zaw Aung told VOA.

Myanmar Now was one of five media outlets that had their licenses revoked by the junta in April.

Fenster worked for the news organization from 2019-20 but ended his position months before the military coup, details which were confirmed by Myanmar Now.

Fenster will be sentenced Nov. 15 but will return to court on November 16 for the first notice regarding his two recent charges. The stress of being in jail is affecting the American, his lawyer says.

“He looks thin physically, and he is mentally down. He is disappointed with the new charges. He recovered from COVID-19, but he (has) long hair and depression.

“Yesterday, he told me he wants to go to the United States for Thanksgiving time,” Than Zaw Aung added.

US reaction

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price told VOA on Wednesday that Fenster should be released immediately.

“We are aware that the regime has brought additional charges against Danny. The profoundly unjust nature of Danny’s detention is plain for all the world to see. The regime should take the prudent step of releasing him now. His continued detention is unacceptable. Journalism is not a crime.”

In response to a question asked by a VOA reporter earlier this week, Price said seeing Fenster released is an “absolute priority.”

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has seen most of its modern history governed under military rule.

The military claimed unsubstantiated electoral fraud in the November 2020 elections. On Feb. 1, it removed the democratically elected government; leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were detained and charged.

Anti-coup protests began shortly after, with thousands taking to the streets and refusing to work under military rule. But the military violently cracked down on dissidents, and at least 1,252 people have been killed since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group.

More than 100 journalists and media staff have been arrested during the crackdown, according to Reporting ASEAN, a monitoring website for news in Asia.

Risky reporting in Myanmar

Reporters in Myanmar have said it’s almost impossible for journalists to cover news without high risks.

Myanmar freelance journalist Cape Diamond, an assumed name he uses to protect his identify, told VOA it’s no longer a shock that journalists like Fenster are facing such charges.

“The journalists in Myanmar have already acknowledged that there’s no press freedom in the country. The local journalists are already aware that those charges could come to them anytime,” he added.

Aye Chan Naing, editorial director for Democratic Voice of Burma, a Myanmar broadcaster currently banned by the junta, told VOA in July that being a journalist in Myanmar is a “ticket to get arrested.”

The veteran journalist said the military has a “wish list” of targets.

“It is based on their own wills,” Aye Chan Naing said. “The judges are just following the orders from the military — it’s nothing based on the rule of law. (The charges against Fenster) are more to scare other people and the local journalists to show that even the foreign journalists can go to prison.”

“He hasn’t broken any rules and regulations, it’s pretty clear. There are no rules of law in the country,” he told VOA.

Rights groups call for release

John Quinley, a senior human rights specialist at Fortify Rights, told VOA that his organization has been monitoring those arrested in Myanmar since the coup, and it’s clear journalists like Fenster have been targeted deliberately.

“Danny Fenster should be immediately and unconditionally released from prison along with all other political prisoners detained by the junta,” Quinley said.

Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, said he believes the additional charges against Fenster are a wake-up call for further action against the military by the U.S. government.

“They need to do more to reduce the flow of money and arms to the military, including stopping gas revenue,” Farmaner told VOA via email.

Possible release

Myanmar analyst Aung Thu Nyein said he believes Fenster’s new charges are a “direct threat to press freedom” and that the prospect of heavier sentences is a new scare tactic the military government is using to deter contact with anti-military groups.

But the analyst told VOA he thinks Fenster still could be released.

“Danny could be sentenced for long-term imprisonment by political motivation, but he can be released any time soon, as the regime satisfies some form of diplomatic trade-off in relation with Western power.”

 

Source: Voice of America

Scorched-earth military operations in Myanmar’s southern Shan state and Sagaing region have forced nearly 40,000 people to flee their homes in the past two days, sources said Wednesday.

Around 30,000 residents from 30 villages in Sagaing’s Depayin township and 10,000 from 20 villages in nearby Shan state’s Pekon township sought refuge as government soldiers conducted raids in the area from Nov. 8-9, setting buildings alight under the pretext of fighting terrorism, members of the pro-democracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) militia and residents told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

The 50 villages are centers of dogged resistance to the military regime, which has waged an offensive against ethnic armed organizations and anti-junta forces in the country’s remote border regions since seizing power from the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government in a Feb. 1 coup.

A member of the Depayin PDF told RFA Wednesday that the military raided several villages on Tuesday morning, torching homes and arresting residents.

“We could see through our binoculars as they were burning several houses,” the militia fighter said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“What worries us is that most of our wooden houses were [coated] with oil [leftover from crude oil refining] and they could catch fire very easily.”

Depayin PDF leader Ko Thukha said a fire the military started on a haystack in Wunyan village spread to nearby homes during Tuesday’s raid. He added that at least six buildings in Kone Yoe and Tat Tae West villages were torched by the soldiers. At least three middle-aged women were taken hostage from Kone Yoe, he said.

The military acknowledged that it had raided several villages in Western Depayin township beginning on Monday evening after sending troops to the area aboard three helicopters.

Additionally, government troops stormed a PDF camp in Pekon township on Monday and set fire to nearby Latu village, according to a local militia who declined to be named.

“They set fire to a PDF camp and as the camp was close to the village, they also set fire to the village,” the PDF fighter said.

“I don’t think there are many houses left in the village. We couldn’t get close to the village and could only view it from a distance.”

The militia member said fighting had intensified in the area in recent days with the army attacking “in great numbers,” forcing the PDF to withdraw from its camp.

Severe rights violations

Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun dismissed the reports as “allegations,” telling RFA that the military “has no reason to burn villages.”

“We are working to secure the area in Sagaing region, but we didn’t set any villages on fire — there’s no reason to do that,” he said.

“[On Tuesday], there were clashes with about 15 PDF militants in the southwestern part of Pekon. We seized some ammunition and their training grounds, and tents were confiscated.”

Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said that if true the allegations would represent severe human rights violations.

“We have received hundreds of thousands of complaints about this, but we have to thoroughly investigate everything before we can take legal action,” he said, adding that reports were being systematically documented.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in September that more than 120,000 people have been displaced by fighting since May 21 in Kayah and southeastern Shan states, in addition to tens of thousands in Chin, Kachin, and Kayin states, as well as Magway and Sagaing regions.

In late August, OCHA announced that the number of people who need humanitarian aid in Myanmar had increased to nearly two million since the military coup. Those displaced by the recent fighting join more than 500,000 refugees from decades of conflict between the military and ethnic armies who were already counted as war refugees at the end of 2020, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, a Norwegian NGO.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

China’s campaign against ethnic Uyghurs extends well beyond its borders, according to a new report from a rights advocacy group that says Chinese agents have tracked, harassed and threatened members of the Muslim community in 22 countries.

“The scale of China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs is breathtaking. From the rendition of individuals to the everyday online threats, there is no peace for Uyghurs living overseas,” said Omer Kanat, executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP).

The 64-page report — released jointly by the UHRP, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., and the academic exchange group Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs — is based on survey data from Uyghurs living around the world.

The report adds more than 5,500 instances of warnings and threats to individuals and their family members in 22 countries to an existing dataset that tracks incidents of surveillance, harassment and intimidation against ethnic Uyghurs.

Peter Irwin, senior program officer for advocacy and communications at the UHRP, said the tactics used by Chinese agents include cyberattacks, online harassment and public smear campaigns.

The scale and scope of China’s state-backed hackers and intelligence operatives have expanded in countries that host Uyghurs since 2014, said Bradley Jardine, director of research at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs.

In May of that year, the Chinese government launched its “strike hard” campaign against “terrorist” attacks in the western region of Xinjiang, including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.

Since 2017, China has held as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention camps that Beijing claims are vocational training centers. The camps are the center of a campaign of repression that also includes enforced birth control and forced labor and has drawn charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in the West.

“If democracies do not act to ensure the civil liberties of vulnerable communities within their borders, a vital China policy constituency will be forced into silence — emboldening the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to continue challenging the fundamental human rights that impact us all,” Jardine said in a statement.

The organization surveyed 72 Uyghurs living Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America, with 74 percent saying they had experienced digital risks, threats or online harassment.

The report recommends that governments take in more Uyghur refugees and sanction Chinese citizens responsible for acts of transnational repression.

“Governments have a role to play,” Irwin told RFA. “They have an obligation to ensure that in some cases their own citizens are protected from this kind of intimidation and harassment.”

The report also says the private sector should monitor digital threats on online platforms in all relevant languages — including Uyghur, Chinese and Turkish — and develop tools to identify state-actor harassment.

Reported by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Thai power authorities have agreed after a long delay to buy electricity from three hydropower projects in Laos, pushing aside objections from Thai NGOs who say the dams’ operations will harm the ecosystem along the Mekong River.

The Nov. 5 decision by the Thai National Energy Policy Committee opens the way for the country to buy power from the Nam Gneum 3 Dam and from the China-backed Pak Beng Dam and Pak Lay Dam, both located 60-80 km (35-50 miles) from the Thai border.

Speaking to RFA on Tuesday, an official of the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines called the decision “a step forward for Laos,” as the country had been trying for years to persuade Thailand to buy power from dams built by the one-party communist state either on the Mekong or on its tributaries.

“Laos is going to build all planned dams, including these two dams on the Mekong River,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Right now, our ministers are meeting and discussing our plans to sell all our power to Thailand.”

“The Pak Beng Dam and the Pak Lay Dam are ready now to be built at any time,” he said.

Laos had initially planned to sell its power to Vietnam, “but the market there is too small,” the official said, adding, “That’s why construction of these two Mekong River Dams, the Pak Beng and the Pak Lay, had been delayed, but now we’re ready to begin construction.”

Thai environmentalists and other concerned groups quickly responded to the government’s announcement, with one conservation NGO saying that the decision to buy power from Laos had been rushed.

“The Thai government made the decision to buy power from these two dams too quickly,” the Thai Mekong River People’s Network from Eight Provinces said in a Nov. 8 press release, adding that the Commission’s decision was of no help to Thailand, which already enjoys a 50 percent surplus in available power.

The Pak Beng and Pak Lay dams will also lie too close to Thailand, and will harm the Mekong’s ecosystem and the livelihoods of people living along the river, according to the group. “The region and the Mekong River have already been seriously affected by existing dams, more specifically by abnormal and fluctuating flows of water and by droughts and floods,” the Network said.

“The decision to buy power from these three dams shows that the Thai government doesn’t care about the people or the environment in the Mekong River region,” agreed Niwat Roykaew, a member of the Thai conservation group Love Chiang Khong—a district in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province bordering Bokeo province in Laos.

“They, the dams’ developers and the Thai government, have overlooked the dams’ impact. [The region] is already in crisis. Our people have been fighting against this for years,” he said.

‘Serious impacts’

All dams including those built along the Mekong have “serious impacts” on the environment and on people living nearby, a social and environmental expert from the National University of Laos said, also asking for anonymity in order to speak freely.

“The Lao government sees only the financial benefit, but not the social and environmental impact,” he said, adding, “Dams don’t benefit the locals very much.”

“It’s impossible to stop the Lao government from building dams, but the government should better manage and control their impact and pay fair compensation” to those displaced by their construction, he said.

The Pak Beng Dam is expected to displace around 6,700 people living in 25 villages in the Pak Beng district of Oudomxay province in northern Laos, while the Pak Lay Dam—located in the Pak Lay district of northern Laos’ Xayaburi province in northwestern Laos—will force the relocation of more than 1,000 residents of 20 villages, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Laos has built dozens of hydropower dams on the Mekong and its tributaries under its plan to sell around 20,000 megawatts of electricity to neighboring countries by 2030.

Though the Lao government sees power generation as a way to boost the country’s economy as the “batter of Southeast Asia,” the projects are controversial because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers without adequate compensation, and questionable financial and power demand arrangements.

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Myanmar’s military regime has been snubbed once again on the international stage, this time by the organizers of the United Nations climate change conference, who turned its five-person delegation away at the door to the summit in Glasgow, Scotland, this week.

The move to bar the delegation comes just a month after reports that the U.N. credentialing committee delayed acceptance of the junta’s appointed envoy to the General Assembly as part of a U.S.-China-brokered deal that would have the representative of Myanmar’s deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) government “take a low profile” until a formal decision is made later this year.

Sources close to the military government recently told RFA’s Myanmar Service that Hla Maung Thein, the junta’s director general of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, had planned to send a five-member delegation to the Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 conference, known as COP26. The group was to be led by Ambassador Tun Aung Kyaw of the Myanmar Embassy in London.

However, Myanmar pro-democracy groups learned of the plan and protested the junta’s inclusion, which they said would allow it to raise its international profile despite its violent repression at home of opponents to its Feb. 1 coup.

Kyaw Swa Tun, a third secretary at the Myanmar Embassy in Washington, told RFA that the delegation had been denied entry to the 192-member nation conference when it arrived in Glasgow.

“The military council was trying to get [global] recognition. A delegation of five people, led by the junta’s Ambassador Tun Aung Kyaw and Councilor Chit Win, traveled to Glasgow,” he said.

“At the U.N. there is a group that accepts nominations and there’s another group that deals with credentials. At the time of the nomination of the five, travel expenses were paid by the U.N. nominating group. However, the credentials group rejected their nomination and so they were not allowed to attend the meeting and had to return home from Scotland.”

It was not immediately clear which group or individual objected to the junta’s participation at the COP26. Junta representatives were even barred from taking part in the conference virtually.

RFA learned that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) had paid for the travel expenses of at least three of the five delegates when the junta was initially invited.

RFA was unable to contact the UNFCCC for comment on the decision to block the junta from attending the conference.

Nine months after the Feb. 1 coup, the junta’s security forces have killed 1,252 civilians and arrested at least 7,091, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Many of the deaths and arrests have occurred during crackdowns on anti-junta protests.

The junta claims it unseated the NLD government because the party had engineered its victory in the 2020 election through widespread voter fraud, though international observers rated the vote legitimate. Military leaders have yet to present evidence backing up their allegation, and protests against the regime continue.

‘A victory for the people of Myanmar’

Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) said it had also attempted to send a delegation to COP26 but was rejected.

“As we all know, our government was formed on behalf of the people, so I think U.N. officials should recognize our government’s representation and allow us to attend such major conferences,” NUG Deputy Foreign Minister Moe Zaw Oo told RFA.

“Otherwise, our country will miss a lot of opportunities because of non-participation at meetings on important issues,” he added, saying that the NUG would continue its efforts to represent Myanmar on the world stage.

Moe Zaw Oo said the decision to ban the junta from attending the climate conference was “a victory for the people of Myanmar.”

“They are trying to attend U.N. meetings, but U.N. officials and host countries are also working to prevent them from being represented,” he said.

“It will teach them the lesson that an organization that does not represent the people will not be allowed to attend such meetings.”

Arkar Myo Htet, an NLD lawmaker, said refusing the junta representation at COP26 was a blow to the military regime.

“It is a blessing for our uprising and our people that the junta was not allowed to attend such an important conference,” he said.

“This shows that the global community stands with our people. … The military is slowly failing in the international arena.”

Attempts by RFA to reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment regarding the delegation were not successful.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

A married couple trying to sell tofu said they were assaulted by police Wednesday when they began filming a raid of a temporary wet market in the southern Vietnamese province of An Giang.

According to Nguyen Hoang Nam and his wife Lam Thi Nguyen Trinh, residents of My Phu hamlet, which is part of Vinh Chau commune, the incident began when they initially attempted to cross a bridge to reach the commune’s large marketplace on the other side of a canal.

Authorities had shut down the bridge as part of a lockdown imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Local sellers set up a smaller, temporary market on their side of the bridge in response.

The couple said they interpreted a recent announcement that Vietnam would lower restrictions as an invitation to cross back over the bridge to the larger marketplace. But they were blocked once again from crossing.

“Before the government said that anyone who was fully vaccinated would be allowed to cross the bridge. But after we got our two shots, they asked for us to submit a travel permit,” Nguyen Hoang Nam, a resident of An Giang, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“This morning I told them that the prime minister issued Directive 128, which lifts movement restrictions as the country transitions to a strategy of living together with the pandemic. It’s supposed to facilitate trade. So, I asked them why they are putting up the checkpoint to block movement again.”

Nam said that when the police still would not allow him to cross the bridge, he and others returned to the site of the temporary market and set up shop there only to be confronted by the officers once again, he said.

“They snatched our stuff like robbers. This is suppression, not an act for the people,” Nam said.

“If they really think for the people, they should have let us do business and only block the affected areas. This is a deliberate crack-down to push people into economic exhaustion,” he said.

Vietnam was relatively successful in containing the pandemic in 2020 and the first few months of 2021, but it has been struggling with a fourth wave that began in April. As confirmed cases climb, authorities have instituted and extended temporary lockdowns in the provinces and cities.

Nam and Trinh had been running a small tofu stand at the temporary market over the past few days. When the police came to shut down the market, officers asked the couple to move.

Trinh told RFA that her husband began filming while they argued with the police about their right to cross the bridge.

“They got out of their police car to ask him to stop filming. My husband responded that he had the right to film and asked on what grounds they forbid him to do so. Then they came closer and snatched my husband’s phone,” she said.

“I saw it all when I was frying tofu. I got angry and I stood up and grabbed the collar of the guy who snatched my husband’s phone and demanded he return it. I told them they had no right to take it because my husband hadn’t done anything wrong,” Trinh said.

After that, another officer jumped onto Nam and held him by his neck, pushing his head to the ground and crushing his body against the pavement, she said.

Trinh said she also was pushed down when she tried to get Nam’s phone back. She said she suffered a scratch to the knee.

Nam said that the police let him go after he banged his head on the ground and the police became aware that a crowd of townspeople were witnessing the confrontation.

RFA attempted to contact the Vinh Chau Commune People’s Committee to verify the incident, but repeated calls went unanswered.

To date, 94 percent of the province’s population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 30 percent are fully vaccinated.

As of Wednesday, Vietnam has confirmed 984,805 cases of the coronavirus, with more than 15,000 appearing in An Giang province.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.