Asia

Malaysia’s Trafficking in Persons Report Ranking is Upgraded, While Thailand Remains on the Worst Offender List

By Christine Khamis

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia —

Malaysia has been upgraded to the Tier 2 Watch List on the U.S. State Department’s yearly Trafficking in Persons Report ranking. This means that the United States no longer considers Malaysia one of the worst offenders when it comes to human trafficking. Thailand, on the other hand, is ranked among the worst offenders.

Countries are placed in one of four tiers on the Trafficking in Persons Report. Tier 1 includes countries that fully comply with the United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Tier 2 includes countries that do not fully comply with the TVPA, but who are making significant efforts to comply. The Tier 2 Watch List includes countries who do not fully comply and still have negative indicators, yet who are are making significant efforts to comply. Tier 3 includes countries who do not fully comply and are not making significant efforts to do so.

Thailand remains in Tier 3, the lowest ranking group, for a second consecutive year. Only two other countries from the Asia region, North Korea and the Marshall Islands, were placed in Tier 3. In part, Thailand was downgraded from the Tier 2 Watch list in last year’s report because of labor abuses in its fishing industry. There is also a U.S. State Department Rule that countries have to be either upgraded or downgraded after two years on the Tier 2 Watch list.

Both Malaysia and Thailand have been internationally criticized this year for their trafficking of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants on overcrowded ships. Human traffickers transported the migrants,then leaft thousands stranded at sea with meager supplies.

Graves of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants were also found about two months ago in abandoned camps on both sides of the Thai-Malaysian border, along with pens that appear to have been used as cages for the migrants.

One of the many migrant graves found in Thailand

The Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs has released a statement that Thailand’s ranking is not an accurate portrayal of the efforts Thailand has made to decrease human trafficking. For instance, Thai state prosecutors brought charges against more than 100 people last week who have been suspected of trafficking migrants.

Lawmakers and human rights groups have criticized Malaysia’s upgrade, claiming that Malaysia was upgraded from Tier 3 to the Tier 2 Watch List for politicized reasons. They believe that the upgrade is politicized because it enables Malaysia to be a participating country in the Asia-Pacific trade agreement, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). In June, the United States Congress approved legislation that limits President Obama’s ability to make free trade agreements with Tier 3 countries.

To counter those claims, Sarah Sewall, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights has stated that Malaysia has made the effort to reform its trafficking victim protection system as well as to increase the number of investigations and prosecutions connected to human trafficking. However, convictions of human traffickers have decreased in Malaysia. Ms. Sewall denies that Malaysia’s upgrade was politicized.

Human rights groups assert that Malaysia has not sufficiently improved its handling of human trafficking issues to justify its upgrade from a Tier 3 country. They also claim that Malaysia’s upgrade diminishes the reliability of the Trafficking of Persons report.

 

For more information, please see:

CNN – Who’s Fighting Human Trafficking? U.S. Releases Rankings – 28 July 2015

Associated Press – Malaysia, Cuba Taken off U.S. Human Trafficking Blacklist – 27 July 2015

New York Times – Key Shift on Malaysia Before Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal – 27 July 2015

Reuters – U.S. Softens View of Malaysia, Cuba in Human Trafficking Report – 27 July 2015

 

Esteemed Tibetan Monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche Dies in Chinese Prison

By Christine Khamis

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

 

BEIJING, China–

Tibetan monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche died on July 12th in a prison in the Sichuan city of Chengdu. His death occurred while he was serving a 20-year sentence on separatism and terrorism charges. Prison officials have not explained the cause of his death.

Tenzin Delek was highly esteemed among Tibetans in Sichuan, where he helped establish medical clinics, monasteries, and schools. He promoted Tibetan culture and had many followers.

Tenzin Delek Rinpoche. (Photo Courtesy of BBC)

Tenzin Delek was one of China’s most famous political prisoners. He was convicted of involvement in a bombing in Chengdu in 2002 but maintained his claims of innocence throughout his sentence. The United States, European Union, and human rights groups claimed that his arrest was politically motivated and called for his release.

Tenzin Delek was originally given a suspended death sentence when he was convicted, but the sentence was decreased to life imprisonment and then to the 20-year sentence. Another monk, Lobsang Dhondup, was also charged with involvement in the Chengdu bombing and was executed in early 2003.

Tenzin Delek’s relatives applied for medical parole on his behalf last year due to his development of a heart condition and other health problems. Prison authorities never responded to the relatives’ request. Tenzin Delek’s family members believe that his heart ailment resulted from abuse that he endured during his imprisonment.

Upon his death, Tenzin Delek’s relatives requested that his body be returned to them so that they could perform customary Tibetan Buddhist death rites, but prison officials refused to give up the body and instead cremated it.

Radio Free Asia reports that four Tibetans were able to retrieve the ashes from the cremation and that they intended to carry them to his home county of Nyagchuka in China. However, a Tibetan with connections to Tenzin Delek’s family told Radio Free Asia that Chinese authorities came to where the four Tibetans were staying overnight on their way to Nyagchuka and forcibly took the ashes back.

Relatives have stated that Chengdu prison officials have repeatedly declined to give a cause of Tenzin Delek’s death. Dolkar Lhamo, Tenzin Delek’s sister, stated that the family was not permitted access to see his death certificate and medical records.

According to advocacy group Students for a Free Tibet, Dolkar and her daughter, Nyima Lhamo, have now been arrested. Dolkar was one of nearly 100 Tibetans who had previously staged a sit-in protest outside the Chengdu building where Tenzin Delek was thought to be held.

Human rights groups have claimed that China has suppressed Tibetan culture and detained monks who have shown support for the exiled Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader.

 

For more information, please see: 

Radio Free Asia – Chinese Authorities Snatch Tenzin Delek Rinpoche’s Ashes From Tibetans – 20 July 2015

New York Times – China: 2 Relatives of a Tibetan Monk Who Died in Prison Have Been Arrested – 18 July 2015

New York Times – Chinese Cremate Body of Revered Tibetan Monk, Ignoring Pleas – 16 July 2015

Associated Press – Family Fails to Get Tibetan Lama’s Body After Prison Death – 15 July 2015

BBC – Tibetan Monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche Dies in China Prison – 13 July 2015

Several Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Believed to be Detained by Police

By Christine Khamis

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

 

HONG KONG, China—

Chinese authorities detained human rights lawyer Li Heping on Friday. Police searched Mr. Li’s home in Beijing, seizing computers and documents. They then took Mr. Li away. His detainment is only the latest in a series of crackdowns on lawyers who defend dissidents and human rights advocates.

Mr. Li has worked on behalf of some of China’s most well known dissidents and rights advocates. His clients included Chen Guangcheng, a blind civil rights activist and legal advocate who escaped house arrest in 2012 and later moved to the United States.

Within the 24 hours preceding Mr. Li’s detainment, three other human rights attorneys disappeared, as well as a paralegal. It appears that the lawyers were detained as part as a growing investigation by Chinese authorities, but the details surrounding their disappearances remain unclear. Police have yet to confirm that they have the four lawyers and paralegal in custody.

Zhou Shifeng, Wang Yu, and Li Shuyun, all lawyers at the Fengrui Law Firm, disappeared on Thursday and Friday. The Fengrui Law Firm’s offices were searched, and police carried away at least three computers. As of Friday afternoon, some of the firm’s other lawyers had also gone missing, as well as its financial director and driver.

Mr. Zhou had just successfully won the release of a client, a news assistant for a German newspaper who had been detained by authorities for nine months. He is said to have been led away from his Beijing hotel by what appeared to be plainclothes police. His colleagues and wife have not heard anything from him since.

Ms. Yu, a human rights attorney, disappeared from her home on Thursday. Before being taken, Ms, Yu made it known through texts and social media that her power and internet had been shut off and that people were attempting to enter her home. Security guards at Ms. Yu’s apartment complex stated that police surrounded Ms. Yu’s building, saying that it was a drug bust. About a week before, while representing a client, Ms. Wu was thrown out onto the street by court bailiffs because she insisted on being at a cross examination.

Ms. Yu. (Photo courtesy of the Epoch Times)

Maya Wang, a Human Rights Watch researcher, has stated that Fengrui’s lawyers and paralegal could have been detained because of the Fengrui Law Firm’s employment of Wu Gan, an activist who publicized controversial cases on the internet. Mr. Wu was detained by police in May.

Other lawyers and human rights advocates in the region believe that the crackdown on human rights lawyers is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to use criminal investigations to destroy China’s rights defense movement. The movement has challenged restrictions on freedom of expression as well as restrictions on the Chinese legal and political systems.

 

For more information, please see:

The New York Times – Chinese Authorities Appear to Detain 4 Human Rights Lawyers – 10 July 2015

Radio Free Asia – Beijing Rights Lawyer ‘Missing’, Believed Detained: Lawyer – 10 July 2015

The Epoch Times – Chinese Rights Lawyer Taken From Home By Police – 9 July 2015

Amnesty International – Urgent Action: Seven Missing in Feared Attack on Law Firm – 10 July 2015

 

 

 

Still No Clear Solution for the Rohingya Migrant Crisis

By Christine Khamis

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar –

More than a month has passed since the Rohingya migrant crisis made international news headlines, but there is still no apparent progress in finding the migrants a permanent home. There is also no sign that Myanmar will seek to correct the conditions from which the Rohingya migrants fled.

In May, international attention was drawn to the Rohingya crisis after journalists took photos of migrants crowded onto boats and stranded in waters near Thailand and Malysia. The migrants were a mix of Rohingya fleeing from persecution in Myanmar and Bangladeshis fleeing from economic hardship in Bangladesh.

Myanmar did allow over 700 migrants to come back ashore in early June. Two of the migrants told Reuters that 200-300 of the migrants who came ashore were Rohingya. The rest were Bengladeshis. The Rohingya were kept inside a warehouse upon coming ashore and the Bangladeshis were driven away in buses. Journalists covering the story were asked to leave.

Migrants brought ashore in Myanmar in early June. (Photo Courtesy of Reuters)

Myanmar denies that it discriminates against the Rohingya, despite the fact that it does not grant the Rohingya citizenship rights. In the 1990s, Myanmar began issuing “white cards” that gave the Rohingya temporary residence and other limited rights, but not citizenship. White card holders were permitted to vote in Myanmar’s 2008 constitutional referendum and 2010 general elections. In a constitutional referendum earlier this year, however, Myanmarese President Thein Sein cancelled the white cards in response to pressure from Buddhist nationals.

Myanmar has also stated that persecution of the Rohingya is not the cause of the migrant crisis. Myanmar’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Wunna Maung Lwin has pointed to the number of Bangladeshis on the ship that was allowed to come aboard in May as proof that the crisis was a problem related to human trafficking in the region.

At an international meeting on the migrant crisis in May, the United Nations raised the issue of citizenship and other United Nations delegates blamed Myanmar for the crisis. Myanmar responded that it could not be singled out in regard to the crisis.

In early June, President Obama stated that Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya needed to come to an end in order for Myanmar to achieve its transition to democracy.

So far, Gambia and the United States have offered to help resettle the migrants.

Australia stated that it would not resettle the migrants. While Japan dedicated $3.5 million in emergency assistance to the migrants, it did not offer to resettle any of the migrants.

Neither China nor India, Asia’s two most populous countries, have offered to help the migrants either. Both China and India border Myanmar and are major trading partners with Myanmar. Neither country has put pressure on Myanmar to reevaluate its discriminatory policies against the Rohingya Muslims.

For China, Myanmar is a top source of foreign investment. Also, since the Rohingya do not have Chinese ethnicity, they are not of much concern to China. At a United Nations Security Council meeting last month, China stated that Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya is an internal issue for Myanmar to resolve.

In the past, India has offered aid and resettlement to refugees fleeing from Myanmar, and currently hosts more than 10,000 Rohingya.

Many in India and other Asian countries view the problem of refugees as stemming from Western imperialism. There is therefore a sense in such countries that responsibility for the refugees should be left to the West and institutions like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Not many of the Asian countries are members of international conventions protecting refugees.

For more information, please see:

New York Times – China and India Are Sitting Out Refugee Crisis – 28 June 2015

Council on Foreign Relations – The Rohingya Migrant Crisis – 17 June 2015

Reuters – Myanmar Says Persecution Not the Cause of the Migrant Crisis – 4 June 2015

Reuters – Myanmar Lands 700 Migrants, U.S. Says Rohingya Should be Citizens – 3 June 2015

 

Attack by Ethnic Uighurs was Likely Fueled by China’s Religious Controls

By Christine Khamis, Impunity Watch Reporter

 

BEIJING, China –

A clash between Ethnic Uighurs and Chinese police on Monday led to the death of an estimated 18 people in Kashgar, a city in the Xinjiang region in western China. The attack by the Uighurs on a police checkpoint was reported by Radio Free Asia.

Radio Free Asia, or RFA, is a Washington-based news service that employs Uighur reporters. Chinese news media fails to report much of what the RFA and pro-Uighur websites report on attacks against Chinese authorities.

RFA has reported that a car attempted to go through the police checkpoint in the Xinjiang region without stopping. A police officer attempted to stop the car and the car backed up, crushing the officer’s leg. Two individuals got out of the car and stabbed two traffic officers. Several other attackers arrived at the scene, as well as armed police officers. 15 of the attackers and 3 police officers were killed during the attack.

The RFA’s report has been corroborated by members of the neighborhood where the attack occurred. A police officer also confirmed the attack but wished to remain anonymous because he was not allowed to speak with foreign news organizations.

There is a long history of tension and conflict between the Uighurs and Chinese authorities. Tensions especially intensified in 2009 when there was ethnic rioting in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s regional capital. Hundreds of people have been killed during attacks throughout the past three years.

The Uighurs are an ethnic Turkish group comprising more than forty percent of the 22 million people in the Xinjiang region. Most Uighurs are Muslim. Beijing has increasingly controlled the Uighurs’ right to practice Islam, including allowing fewer mosques and strict oversight of religious schools.

In July 2014, some Muslim civil servants were not allowed to fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In some areas of the Xinjiang region, Uighurs are subject to fines or detention for wearing veils or having beards.

 

Members of ethnic Uighur population. (Photo courtesy of BBC News)

 

The Xinjiang region has expanded economically and with that expansion, a number of Han Chinese have settled in the region. The Han Chinese are said to have the best employment options in the region and many of them do well financially. This has also fueled animosity among Uighurs.

Some of the Uighurs are separatists who want to create an independent East Turkestan, and some of those separatists commit similar attacks against Chinese authorities.

An Amnesty International report in 2013 stated that Chinese authorities criminalized “what they labeled ‘illegal religious’ and ‘separatist’ activities” and cracked down on “peaceful expressions of cultural identity”.

 

For more information, please see:

BBC – China Police Checkpoint Attack ‘Kills 18’ in Xinjiang – 24 June 2015

Bloomberg Business – Attack in China’s Xinjiang Region Kills at Least 18, RFA Reports – 24 June 2015

New York Times – Deadly Clash Between Police and Ethnic Uighurs Reported in Xinjiang Region of China –24 June 2015

Reuters – Bomb Attack In Restive Xinjiang and Police Response Kill at Least 18: Radio Free Asia – 24 June 2015

BBC – Why Is There Tension Between China and the Uighurs? – 26 September 2014

Amnesty International – Annual Report: China 2013 – 25 May 2013