Asia

Doctors Without Borders Removed From Myanmar

By Kevin M. Mathewson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

YANGON, Myanmar – Doctors Without Borders has been kicked out of Myanmar after two decades of caring for sick people in the country. The decision came after the humanitarian group reported it treated nearly two dozen Rohingya Muslim victims of communal violence in Rakhine state.

AIDS patient Ei Ei Phyo, right, talks during an interview while her child takes a rest at HIV/AIDS care center. (Photo Courtesy of Associated Press)

Many of the country’s 1.3 million Rohingya – identified by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world – have been living in the country for generations, but the government insists they are here illegally. Systematic and discriminatory policies limit their freedom of movement, access to health care, right to worship and have children.

The government defended its decision by accusing the group of creating tensions and instability in violence-scarred Rakhine.

Myanmar’s presidential spokesman Ye Htut had criticized Doctors Without Borders in the Myanmar Freedom newspaper for hiring “Bengalis,” the term the government uses for the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Ye Htut also accused the group of misleading the world about the attack last month in remote northern Rakhine, cut off to almost all foreigners, including journalists and aid workers. The United Nations says more than 40 Rohingya may have died when a Buddhist mob rampaged through a village, killing women and children. The government denies the allegation and says one policeman was killed by Rohingya and no other violence occurred.

The humanitarian group said it was “deeply shocked” by Myanmar’s decision to expel it after two decades of work in the country.

“Today for the first time in MSF’s history of operations in the country, HIV/AIDS clinics in Rakhine, Shan and Kachin states, as well as Yangon division, were closed and patients were unable to receive the treatment they needed,” the group said in a statement, using the French acronym for its name.

Due to increasing threats and intimidation from a group of Rakhine Buddhists who have been holding near daily protests against Doctors Without Borders, the organization has said its activities have been severely hampered and that it has not received enough government support.

“We urge the government to continue to work with the international community to provide humanitarian assistance to communities in need and to unsure unfettered access for humanitarian agencies,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington.

Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, one of the most prominent voices in the U.S. Congress on Myanmar, also reacted to the reported expulsion. “It is the responsibility of the Burmese government to protect civilians. This is deeply troubling,” he said in a tweet.

For more information, please see:

arab news – Doctors Without Borders expelled from Myanmar – 1 March 2014

Associated Press – Doctors Without Borders expelled from Myanmar – 28 February 2014

abc NEWS – Doctors Without Borders Expelled From Myanmar – 28 February 2014

Yahoo! News – Doctors Without Borders expelled from Myanmar – 28 February 2014

Chinese Police Rescue 382 Babies from Child Trafficking Ring

By Brian Lanciault
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China–China has put an end to at least four child-trafficking rings and arrested more than a thousand people.  The culprits were apprehended for using websites and instant messaging groups to trade babies, Chinese authorities said Friday.

Chinese police have rescued 382 babies and arrested over 1,000 individuals in an online sting that has shutdown a massive human trafficking ring. (Photo Courtesy of AFP).

On February 19, police from 27 provinces across China rescued 382 babies and arrested 1,094 people suspected of buying and selling infants online, China’s Ministry of Public Security said in an online statement posted to its website earlier this week.

The sting was part of a six-month operation launched after police in Beijing and Jiangsu in eastern China received multiple reports of a suspicious website promoting “private” adoptions. Further investigations uncovered a virtual black market — involving four websites, online forums and some 30 groups on a popular Chinese messaging platform — that connected traffickers with potential buyers, and functioned as the gruesome equivalent of stock exchange.

The ministry said that at least a handful of the people arrested confessed to using the trafficking sites.

According to local media reports, 27 suspects were arrested in the country’s southern Sichuan province.  Thirteen babies were also rescued in the area. Another 43 suspects were arrested and eleven babies rescued in Anhui province, in eastern China.

A woman arrested by police in Leshan, Sichuan admitted to buying two baby girls from Wuhan and Chengdu, in August 2013 and January 2014, respectively, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Another couple in their mid-30’s told CCTV they used a Chinese website to buy a baby from an expectant teenage couple in Chengdu. They paid 20,000 Yuan (US$3,250) for the child.

Reports have yet to indicate where the other arrests took place.

Child trafficking has become a major issue for the Chinese government, as traffickers seek to profit off a mounting demand for healthy babies from potential adoptive parents both in China and beyond.

Last month, a Chinese doctor received a suspended death sentence for selling babies to a trafficking ring. The woman, an obstetrician at a hospital in Shaanxi province in central China, sold seven babies in six separate transactions.  She prompted the exchanges after persuading her patients that their newborns were sick and should be given up, according to statements posted on the local court’s official microblog account.

The ministry said its investigation into the online baby-trading networks is still ongoing. It did not indicate whether charges have been brought against any of the suspects, or if the trafficking extended beyond China.

For more information, please see:

CNN–Chinese police save hundred of babies from online trading racket–28 February 2014

Times of India–Chinese police crush online trafficking, rescue 382 babies–28 February 2014

US News and World Report–Chinese Babies Saved From Human Trafficking Ring–28 February 2014

Global Times–Police save 382 babies in trafficking crackdown–28 February 2014

China Charges Prominent Scholar with “Separatism”

By Brian Lanciault
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China–Security officials in China’s far western borderlands have formally arrested a scholar and hero of the country’s ethnic Uighurs on charges of provoking separatism.

Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uighur scholar, was detained for over a month and is now facing charges of propagating separatism. (Photo Courtesy of New York Times).

Authorities have confirmed that the scholar, Ilham Tohti, was being held in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which is about 2,000 miles from Mr. Tohti’s home in Beijing.

The detention has been anticipated for some time, but the formal arrest of Mr. Tohti underscores the government’s determination to silence one of the few moderate voices for China’s beleaguered Uighurs, a predominantly Sunni Muslim people who speak a Turkic language.

An economics professor in Beijing, Mr. Tohti, 44, was an outspoken but careful critic of Chinese policies in Xinjian.  The energy-rich region that adjoins several Central Asian nations is a bit of a geopolitical minefield.  Tensions between Uighurs and Chinese security forces have turned increasingly more volatile, with almost weekly clashes that in recent months have taken more than 100 lives.

Security officials said Mr. Tohti had contributed to increasing such tensions through his classroom lectures and writings, a charge rejected by his supporters.

“The accusations are baseless,” said his lawyer, Li Fangping.

Mr. Tohti’s wife, Guzaili Nu’er, said her husband’s life was an open book, largely because his every word — like his movements — was closely monitored by the authorities.  “He is a sensible, educated man who just studied human rights, culture and religion in Xinjiang,” she said. “A separatist? Now that’s beyond the pale.”

Speaking from Urumqi, Mr. Li said he had been unable to see Mr. Tohti, who has been held in isolation since the police raided his Beijing apartment six weeks ago.  Security officials in Xinjiang on Wednesday did not respond to inquiries from reporters.

Even in China’s highly politicized judicial system, where political offenders almost never prevail in court, charges of separatism are notoriously and especially difficult to defend, experts say.

Under Chinese law, the mere highlighting of ethnic problems in places like Xinjiang and Tibet can be deemed as threats to national unity because the state refuses to acknowledge that such frictions exist.

Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, said Mr. Tohti was widely known for his advocacy of Uighur rights and autonomy — guarantees enshrined in the Chinese Constitution — but never advocated independence for China’s 10 million Uighurs.

“In the eyes of the authorities, if you are flagging legitimate problems with policies in the region, you are essentially raising the dissatisfaction level of the people who are subjected to these policies,” Mr. Bequelin said. “It’s not a legal test but a political test. There is no defense.”

The penalties range from 10 years to death.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera–China charges Uighur academic with separatism–25 February 2014

New York Times–China Charges Scholar With Fomenting Separatism–26 February 2014

UNPO–East Turkestan: Tensions Over Arbitrary Detention of Ilham Tohti–26 February 2014

Voice of America–Uighur Group Slams China’s Charges Against Intellectuals–26 Feburary 2014

Thailand Political Crisis Turns Fatal

By Kevin M. Mathewson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – Gunmen in a pickup truck opened fire on an anti-government protest in Thailand’s east, killing an 8-year-old girl, and wounding dozens, as violence in the country’s three-month-old political crisis spread outside the capital of Bangkok, officials said Sunday.

A protester injured in an anti-government rally arrives for treatment at a hospital in Trat Province, 300 kilometers east of Bangkok, on Saturday. (Photo Courtesy of AP)

Hours later, an explosion killed two people and wounded more than 20 others near an anti-government protest in the capital of Bangkok. A boy aged 12 and a 40-year-old woman died in the attack near the Central World shopping mall, officials said. A protest leader, Sathit Wongnongtoey, said Sunday’s blast in central Bangkok was caused by a grenade.

Both supporters and opponents of the protesters, as well as police, have been victims of the political violence. Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra condemned the attacks, describing them as “terrorist acts for political gain”.

The attacks are the latest in a string of protest-related violence in Thailand over the past three months, in which at least 16 people have been killed and hundreds injured. The protesters want Yingluck to step down in order to make way for an appointed interim government to implement anti-corruption reforms, but she has refused.

Thailand has been divided by violent political conflict since 2006, when then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck’s brother, was ousted by a military rebellion after being accused of corruption and abuse of power. Thaksin’s supporters and opponents have since then taken to the streets for extended periods in a power struggle.

No group has yet taken claim to either attack. Jonathan Head, BBC’s reporter in Bangkok says it appears to be the start of retaliation by the armed wing of the so-called “red-shirt” movement that backs the governing Pheu Thai party.

Red-shirt leaders organized a mass gathering in north-eastern Thailand this past weekend to decide how they should fight back against the campaign to overthrow the government.

A spokesman for the protesters, Akanat Promphan, described the attacks as “a massacre of innocents” that was “planned and organized terror.”

“The authorities must quickly find those terrorists responsible. Yingluck must show responsibility. Otherwise, we can only assume the government and . . . Yingluck’s involvement in this atrocity,” he said.

Both sides in the ongoing political dispute have blamed the other for instigating violence.

For more information, please see:

The Japan News – Thai political crisis violence spreads beyond capital – 24 February 2014

BBC News – Thailand crisis: Deadly attacks on opposition rallies – 23 February 2013

The Japan Times – Two killed by grenade at Bangkok anti-government protest – 23 February 2014

BBC News – Thailand police and protesters clash fatally in Bangkok – 18 February 2014

Australian Missionary Detained in North Korea

By Kevin M. Mathewson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PYONYANG, North Korea – John Short, an Australian missionary who has been working in Asia for 50 years, has been detained in Pyonyang after apparently disseminating Christian pamphlets at a tourist site.  The 75-year-old carried Korean-language pamphlets advocating Christianity into the East Asian nation, which were later discovered by security personnel.

John Short was detained on Sunday. (Photo courtesy of Times)

Australia has no representation in North Korea, leaving diplomats scrambling to prevent a potentially lengthy detention in the secretive regime. A spokesman from the Seoul embassy said he was seeking more information about his case.

“We are in close contact with Swedish officials in Pyongyang to seek their assistance in confirming the well being of Mr. Short,” the spokesman said.

With no representation in the authoritative country, the Australian government is essentially powerless to help Short directly. Instead, it is left to rely on Swedish officials in the North Korean capital to check on Short’s well being.

“John is still in North Korea in detention and being questioned as to why he was carrying Korean-language Christian materials,” Karen Short said via telephone in Hong Kong, where she co-owns a Christian publishing firm with her husband.

“He wanted to go as a Christian but not do anything untoward or unwise, because it’s a very closed country, the world knows that. He’s not cavalier in any way, but he is a man of faith.”

She said it was her husband’s second trip to North Korea and that he knew it was not a tourist destination, but said he “cares about the people and wants to help.”

It is unclear what charges, if any, Short may face. However, last year North Korea sentenced American missionary Kenneth Bae to 15 years hard labor after convicting him of trying to overthrow the state. Efforts from Washington to secure his release have proven unsuccessful.

Karen Short says that her husband is fit and healthy and has not yet suffered any physical harm.

Short is no stranger to testing circumstances. A former soldier in the Australian military, he arrived in Hong Kong in 1964 and worked at a refugee clinic during the turmoil of China’s Cultural Revolution. Even so, there is no disputing the tremendous peril he currently faces, including a possible 15-year prison sentence similar to Bae’s. “I pray for my husband to come back soon,” says Karen Short, “I miss him dearly.”

For more information, please see:

TIME – Concern, Little Sympathy, for Australian Missionary Detained in North Korea – 20 February 2014

The Australian – Visiting missionary arrested in North Korea – 20 February 2014

BBC News – North Korea detains Australian missionary – 19 February 2014

The Sydney Morning Herald – South Australian man detained in North Korea on suspicion of doing missionary work – 19 February 2014

abc NEWS – Family: Australian Missionary Held in North Korea – 19 February 2014