Engnews May 2016

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RFA Breaking News: Lao Police Publicly Confirm Arrest of Trio of Workers For Criticizing State

by Paul Eckert

Lao Police Publicly Confirm Arrest of Trio of Workers For Criticizing State May 27, 2016 - Lao police have publicly acknowledged that the arrest of three Lao workers who returned home from Thailand to renew their passports for the offense of criticizing the government and the ruling communist party via social media while abroad. Somphone Phimmasone, 29, his girlfriend Lod Thammasong, 30, and Soukane Chaithad, 32, disappeared after returning to Laos earlier this year to renew their passports, their family and friends told RFA’s Lao Service in a previous report. “Special police forces suppressed a group of bad people who have campaigned to accuse and condemn the direction of the state and party through Facebook,” the Ministry of Public Security and police announced on a state security television channel on Wednesday. “It’s true that the three of them were arrested,” a policeman who works at the TV channel told RFA’s Laos service on Friday. “They were at the press conference which was held only for the state security TV channel and newspaper yesterday,” he said. “Other media were not allowed to cover the event.” The security channel showed the three making what appeared to be public confessions. They apologized to the communist party, government, Lao people and their relatives for making the mistake of getting involved with the group that protested against the country’s policies. “For me, from now on I will improve myself, change my ideas, not go against the government and not be traitor to the country,” Somphone said. He also said that no authorities or agencies had threatened or coerced him into speaking to the press at the conference. “We admit our mistake,” he said, speaking on behalf of the other two at the end of the press conference. Apprehended for political campaigning Police arrested Somphone and Lod at her home at Navatai village of Nongbok district in central Laos’ Khammouane province on March 5, said a relative of the couple, who declined to be named, in an earlier report. Police initially told the couple’s relatives that the pair had been arrested for drug possession, but two weeks later the policeman in charge of the jail informed them that they had been arrested for political campaigning. Somphone and Lod were being held in the province’s Khamkhikai jail as of April, but later the police told their families that they had transferred the pair to the capital Vientiane for detention, the relative said. Soukane Chaitad disappeared on March 22 while he was renewing his passport at a police station in Savannakhet province, south of Khammouane, according to his wife who now works in Thailand. Police denied seeing him there, although a witness told his family that someone drove off with Soukane in a truck after he had arrived at the station, she said. While working in Thailand, the three strongly criticized the Lao government on social media for its human rights abuses and lack of democracy, sources told RFA in an earlier report. They and some friends also protested outside the Lao embassy in the Thai capital Bangkok on Lao National Day on Dec. 2, 2015 calling on the Lao government to respect human rights and democracy, they said. Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. View this s tory online at: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/lao-police-publicly-confirm-arrest-of-… Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news , information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA ’s broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave(a)rfanews.org . To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join(a)rfanews.org . ##### All media inquiries may be sent to Rohit Mahajan at mahajanr(a)rfa.org .

8 years, 7 months

RFA Breaking News: Shootout Between Lao Soldiers And ‘Bandits’ Leaves One Dead, Others Injured

by Paul Eckert

Shootout Between Lao Soldiers And ‘Bandits’ Leaves One Dead, Others Injured MAY 11, 2016 - An exchange of gunfire between Lao soldiers and unidentified armed forces along a new road between Vientiane and Luang Prabang provinces on May 6 left one soldier and eight of members of the unknown group dead and others injured, a relative of the deceased soldier and a local health official said. The shootout occurred on the thoroughfare connecting Kasy district of central Laos’ Vientiane province’s and Luang Prabang province’s Nanh district, where two other deadly attacks by unknown assailants referred to by government authorities as “bandits” took place in March. Second Lieutenant Santhi, a soldier who died during the attack, was from Nanh district’s military division, said one of his relatives who declined to be named and did not provide the soldier’s surname. The assailants shot Santhi dead while he was walking in front of the other soldiers, the relative said, adding that he didn’t know if the soldiers were in pursuit of the gunmen. “Brothers and sisters at home informed me that Santhi had passed away during the exchange of fire,” he said, adding that others were also killed. Authorities later sent Santhi’s body to his hometown in Thinkeo village, Xieng-ngun district, in Luang Prabang province, the relative said. But authorities have not issued an official report on the others who were killed and injured, he said. A health official at the hospital in Luang Prabang told RFA that eight members of the unidentified armed group were killed and others arrested after they purchased medicine in the town to treat their injuries. “But I don’t know how many people were arrested afterwards,” she said. Government soldiers wounded in the shootout were sent to military hospital 103 in Vientiane for treatment, she said. Lieutenant Colonel Peankham Boutchanpheng, deputy chief of Luang Prabang’s military headquarters told RFA that he had no further information about the shootout. “Santhi’s funeral was on May 7, but I cannot provide more details,” he said One of many incidents The incident is one of many shootings by unidentified armed groups that have occurred in Vientiane province, north-central Xaysomboun province, and Luang Prabang province since last November. In March, a bus shooting by unknown assailants left one Chinese national dead and six others wounded on the stretch of road between Tham and Houasan villages in Kasy. Another attack in January on a public bus traveling along Route 13 North in Kasy injured one of about a dozen passengers, but caused no deaths. Military and police officials in Vientiane province have arrested 30 people suspected of being involved in the bus shooting. A shooting in Phoukhoun district of Luang Prabang province in early March killed a Chinese man and injured three other Chinese nationals, all of whom worked for a logging company clearing land for the Nam Ngum 3 hydropower dam project. On the same day as the shooting near the dam, gunmen mounted two separate attacks on a public bus and a truck traveling along Route 13 North in Phoukhoun, injuring five people. An exchange of gunfire between a Lao anti-government resistance group and local troops in Xaysomboun last November left three government soldiers dead and some others injured, a retired Lao soldier close to a high-ranking officer in the Ministry of Defense told RFA in an earlier report. A month later, 15 attackers shot two motorcyclists in the province’s Anouvong district, killing one and injuring the other. The alleged bandits shot at a truck transporting beer in the district three days later, injuring two people in the vehicle. Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. View this s tory online at: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/shootout-between-lao-soldiers-and-band… Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news , information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA ’s broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave(a)rfanews.org . To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join(a)rfanews.org . ##### All media inquiries may be sent to Rohit Mahajan at mahajanr(a)rfa.org .

8 years, 8 months

Tibetan Mother of Five Burns to Death to Protest Chinese Rule

by Richard Finney

Tibetan Mother of Five Burns to Death to Protest Chinese Rule MAY 6, 2016 - A Tibetan mother of five has burned herself to death in southwestern China’s Sichuan province in a challenge to Beijing’s rule in the second such protest in a Tibetan area of China this year, a source in the region told RFA’s Tibetan Service. Sonam Tso, believed to have been in her 50s, self-immolated on March 23 near a monastery in Dzoege (in Chinese, Ruo’ergai) county in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. News of Tso’s protest was initially delayed in reaching outside contacts due to communications clampdowns imposed by Chinese authorities in the area, but her self-immolation followed by almost a month a similar burning in Sichuan’s Kardze prefecture that killed a young monk. Tso, a native of Akyi township’s Tsa village, launched her protest outside Dzoege’s Sera monastery after telling her husband, who was walking with her, to go ahead, saying that she would join him later, RFA’s source said. “A young monk heard her call out for the return of [exiled spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama and for freedom for Tibet as she burned,” he said. Tso’s husband and the monk tried to put out the flames, and an elderly monk named Tsultrim, Tso’s uncle, then brought her inside the monastery. “She was later put into a vehicle to be taken to a hospital, but she died before leaving the monastery,” the source said. Speaking separately to RFA, a Tibetan source in exile confirmed the incident had occurred, citing contacts in the region. Police detained Tso’s uncle for eight days for discussing the incident with other people and forced him to delete the photos he had taken of Tso’s protest, the source said, adding that her husband, Kalsang Gyaltsen, was called in for questioning three times. “She leaves behind five children—two boys and three girls,” he said. Tso’s protest brings to 145 the number of self-immolations by Tibetans living in China since the wave of fiery protests began in 2009. Most protests feature demands for Tibetan freedom and the return of spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since an abortive national uprising in 1959. A handful of self-immolation protests have been over local land or property disputes. Reported by Sonam Topgyal for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney. View this story online at: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/mother-05062016131403.html Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA’s broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news releases, send an e-mail to <mailto:engnews-leave@rfanews.org> engnews-leave(a)rfanews.org. To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to <mailto:engnews-join@rfanews.org> engnews-join(a)rfanews.org . ##### All media inquiries may be sent to Rohit Mahajan at <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> mahajanr(a)rfa.org.

8 years, 8 months

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Engnews May 2016