Engnews October 2019

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RFA Breaking News: Police, Uyghur Twitter Campaign Contradict China’s Claim to Have Emptied Camps

by Paul Eckert

Police, Uyghur Twitter Campaign Contradict China’s Claim to Have Emptied Camps Aug. 1, 2019 - China’s assertion that it has released 90 percent of the million-plus Uyghurs held in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) internment camps was refuted by police in the region and by members of the Uyghur community living in exile who launched a twitter campaign challenging the claim. China presented the two top ethnic Uyghur officials in the XUAR at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday to deliver a surprising claim that the vast majority of Uyghurs had completed training in re-education camps and rejoined their families. “The majority of people who have undergone education and training have returned to society and returned to their families,” Erkin Tuniyaz, the vice chairman of the XUAR government, told the news conference. “Most have already successfully achieved employment,” he said. “Over 90 percent of the students have returned to society and returned to their families and are living happily,” said Tuniyaz, who was flanked by Shohrat Zakir, the XUAR government chairman. The two Uyghur men work under XUAR Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, the architect of the system that has incarcerated up to 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas since April 2017. The claims, which were presented without evidence, were met with dismissal and derision by leading human rights experts and Uyghur diaspora groups, who described the statements as the latest in a long history of Chinese disinformation about Xinjiang. One expert warned that released detainees could be drafted for forced labor in factories. “China is making deceptive and unverifiable statements in a vain attempt to allay worldwide concern for the mass detentions of Uyghurs and members of other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” said Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International’s regional director for East and South-East Asia. “Given China’s record of heavy censorship, outright falsehoods and systematic obfuscation about the situation in Xinjiang, it remains imperative that UN human rights investigators, independent observers and the media be given unrestricted access to the region as a matter of urgency,” he added. The Germany-based World Uyghur Congress while slamming the Chinese claim noted that Zakir’s own sister and several other relatives have received political asylum in Western countries after fleeing Chinese repression. #prove90% hits Twitter In a view consistent with other human rights and Uyghur groups, Bequelin said Amnesty had “received no reports about large scale releases – in fact, families and friends of people who are being detained tell us they are still not able to contact them.” In an effort to verify the XUAR officials’ assertions RFA’s Uyghur Service, conducted telephone interviews with police in the region. “I did not hear that anybody was released from the education. We would have been informed if anybody had been released,” said a policeman at a village police station in Hotan (Hetian in Chinese). “There are 1700 people in the village, and about 250 of them are in the education camps, and so far we have only one person, aged between 40- 50, who was released,” said the policeman, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to the risk of punishment for talking to foreign media. A Uyghur woman in Hotan City told RFA that seven of the 12 houses on her street have been left “ empty and padlocked” by the re-education campaign. “All of them were sent to the education camps for about two years,” she said, describing the detained Uyghurs as all business people from Karakax (Moyu, in Chinese) county in Hotan. “There are fewer people everywhere, even in the city. Stores are open, but there are very few people who are shopping and there is a money shortage,” added the woman. In Kumul (in Chinese, Hami) prefecture, one official in the Kumul city neighborhood committee said he didn’t know that any inmates had been released. Asked about the XUAR government figure presented in Beijing, he then stated: “maybe 90 percent.” Another person from the Kumul city neighborhood committee told RFA, however, that: “We have about 100 people undergoing ‘education’ from our district and three of them were released so far.” Meanwhile, the Uyghurs living in exile with relatives incarcerated in the XUAR have conducted a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #prove90%. “ China show me my parents, my cousin Ilzat and my other relatives. #prove90 % (of) concentration camp detainees (are) being released as you stated. It’s been years since I last heard my parents’ voice,” wrote a man calling himself Alfred Uyghur. ‘Where the hell is my father-in-law?’ Another Uyghur man on Twitter, Arslan Hidayat, wrote “#China says they’ve released 90% of #Uyghurs from “Re-Education” camps, then where the hell is my father-in-law, prominent actor and comedian ‘Adil Mijit’?” Adil Mijit, a well-loved Uyghur comedian, went missing in late 2018, and social media sources as well as anonymous reports shared with RFA confirmed he was now serving a three-year prison term for making a trip to the Muslim holy city of Mecca without authorities’ permission. The latest campaign follows a similar one in February, when after China showed a video of a Uyghur mistakenly thought to have died, the Uyghur exile community had launched a social media campaign under the hashtag #MeTooUyghur, calling on Chinese authorities to release video of their relatives who were missing and believed detained in the vast camp network. Beijing initially denied the existence of internment camps, but changed tack earlier this year and started describing the facilities as “boarding schools” that provide vocational training for Uyghurs, discourage radicalization and help protect the country from terrorism. Reporting by RFA’s Uyghur Service and other media outlets that those in the camps are detained against their will and subjected to political indoctrination, routinely face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers, and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities. RFA has also discovered repeatedly that many of the Uyghurs forced to go through vocational training were already highly educated, accomplished professionals in various fields. The mass incarcerations of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Kirgiz have prompted increasing calls by the international community to hold Beijing accountable for its actions in the region, and Tuesday’s claim that many Uyghurs were released was seen as an effort to blunt that criticism. The Global Times , a tabloid published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, doubled down on the “vocational education” propaganda on Thursday in an editorial praising the purported release of “trainees.” “This time, the autonomous region released a great amount of crucial information on the vocational education and training centers. Information received by the Global Times through other channels also shows that a great number of trainees have indeed graduated and returned to the society,” it said. “Although officials have yet to publish detailed figures, the improving situation of Xinjiang is expanding to all spheres. As a powerful interim measure, the vocational education and training centers play a pivotal role in making these achievements possible,” said the daily. Reported by Mamatjan Juma and Alim Seytoff for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert. View this story online at: [ https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/twitter-campaign-08012019163200.html | https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/twitter-campaign-08012019163200.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 U.S. Agency for Global Media ( [ https://www.usagm.gov/home/ | USAGM ] ) . 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 ] .

4 years, 7 months

RFA Breaking News: At Least 150 Detainees Have Died in One Xinjiang Internment Camp: Police Officer

by Paul Eckert

At Least 150 Detainees Have Died in One Xinjiang Internment Camp: Police Officer Oct. 29, 2019 - At least 150 people have died over the course of six months while detained at an internment camp for mainly ethnic Uyghurs in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), according to an official source, marking the first confirmation of mass deaths since the camps were introduced in 2017. A police officer confirmed the figure while RFA’s Uyghur Service was investigating unconfirmed reports that more than 200 people from a township in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture’s Kuchar (Kuche) county had died in detention. The officer at the Kuchar County Police Department said that at least 150 had died at just one of the county’s four internment camps—the No. 1 Internment Camp in the Yengisher district of the county seat, about 10 kilometers (six miles) from Kuchar city center. “No, you cannot say that [200 died from Ucha township]” said the officer, who declined to be named, but previously served for six months as an administrative assistant at the camp in Yengisher. “Not that many—it’s more like 150 or so [from No. 1 Camp],” he said, adding that the deaths had occurred from June to December 2018, during the time he was assigned to the facility. He was unable to provide information about any deaths that might have occurred at the camp prior to the time he worked there or after he left. The officer’s claim represents the largest number of detention-related deaths at any one internment camp since RFA first reported the existence of the XUAR’s vast network of camps, where authorities have held up to 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas beginning in April 2017. His numbers also appear to corroborate those attributed to Himit Qari, the former police chief of Ucha township, who sources recently told RFA was detained after attending a gathering at a friend’s home earlier this year where he criticized policies that have led to mass incarcerations in the region. A source in Kuchar, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA that Qari was accused of “revealing state secrets” because he said during the party that “many people,” and possibly more than 200, had died in camps who were residents of Ucha, where he had been responsible for a crackdown on the Uyghur population prior to 2017 and enforcing mass internment policies in the years after. Qari did not provide details about the alleged deaths, and it was unclear over what time period and at which camps they had occurred. Strict monitoring According to the officer from the Kuchar County Police Department, who was transferred at the end of last year, the bodies of those who died at Camp No. 1 were shown to family members and buried in “normal graveyards,” albeit under strict police monitoring. “The local police would be in charge of these kinds of cases,” he said, adding that village officials would have issued “warnings” to family members to keep quiet about the deaths. “I did not observe any situation [in which family members expressed anger].” The officer said that the relatives of those who had died in the camps are “treated equally, with no discrimination,” although the children in their families are “given special attention” at school, without elaborating. When asked how many detainees from all of Kuchar county had died in camps, the officer said he was unsure and referred further questions to his superiors. Previous reporting by RFA revealed that Kuchar county is home to four large internment camps that can hold between 10,000 and 50,000 detainees, three of which are located in Yengisher district. According to census figures from 2013, some 470,000 people live in Kuchar county. Another police officer who previously worked at No. 1 Camp in Kuchar told RFA he could not confirm the 150 deaths, or whether anyone had died during an interrogation or as the result of failing to receive medical treatment. He also refused to comment on whether any of the dead included women or children. “I can’t tell you anything about this,” he said, referring inquiries to the public relations department of the local Public Security Bureau. A staff member of the Kuchar County Judiciary told RFA that he did not have the authority “to answer political questions of this magnitude,” when asked whether 150 people had died in No. 1 Camp, and whether the number included any government officials or other employees. “We have a county-wide directive—firstly, to never provide answers to pretend journalists, and secondly, to never take phone calls of unknown origin,” he said. Earlier reports While Beijing initially denied the existence of internment camps, China this year changed tack and began describing the facilities as “boarding schools” that provide vocational training for Uyghurs, discourage radicalization, and help protect the country from terrorism. Reporting by RFA’s Uyghur Service and other media organizations, however, has shown that those in the camps are detained against their will and subjected to political indoctrination, routinely face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers, and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities. RFA has not previously reported on deaths at internment camps in Kuchar county, however, in August last year, a staffer at the Kuchar County Police Department said that the county’s camps held “more than 45,000 … [or] slightly less than 10 percent [of Kuchar’s population].” That report came two months after a Han Chinese staff member at a crematorium in Kuchar county told RFA that the Aksu government was investing in “burial management centers” in the prefecture and had earmarked funding to expand the size of the facility where he was employed. Among the ethnic minority corpses brought to his crematorium were those who had died in internment camps, he said at the time, adding that he and other staff members “have no right to get involved in these matters, and we have no knowledge of any details of the arrangements—only the officials know.” Mass incarcerations in the XUAR, as well as other policies seen to violate the rights of Uyghurs and other Muslims, have led to increasing calls by the international community to hold Beijing accountable for its actions in the region. In September, at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan said that the U.N. had failed to hold China to account over its policies in the XUAR and should demand unfettered access to the region to investigate reports of the mass incarceration and other rights abuses against Uyghurs. Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. View this story online at: [ https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/deaths-10292019181322.html | https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/deaths-10292019181322.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 U.S. Agency for Global Media ( [ https://www.usagm.gov/home/ | USAGM ] ) . 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 ] .

5 years, 2 months

RFA Breaking News: Group of 13 North Koreans Cross Mekong into Thailand After Long Trek Through Four Countries

by Paul Eckert

Group of 13 North Koreans Cross Mekong into Thailand After Long Trek Through Four Countries Oct. 21, 2019 - A group of 13 North Koreans secretly crossed the Mekong River into Thailand from Laos at the weekend, ending a grueling two-month journey which spanned 6,000 kilometers (more than 3700 miles) and traversed four national borders in a quest for asylum in South Korea. Among the group that reached Thailand on Saturday were a two-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, while the rest ranged in age between their teens and 50s. Their journey took them first through China, where they had to hide out for more than a week to avoid surveillance. Through China, Vietnam and Laos, they used 13 means of transportation and crossed seven mountains in the darkness of night. Their fates were uncertain even as they were crossing the Mekong on a tiny boat in the pitch black darkness, because they had no clear idea who they were supposed to meet once they crossed. Once on the other side, they were met by officials from the South Korean human rights group Now Action Unity Human rights (NAUH), who had been searching for them. Eight of the 13 left North Korea with the intent to travel all the way to Thailand, while the remainder had first settled temporarily in China before joining the others, according the asylum seekers who hope to be eventually resettled in South Korea told RFA's Korean Service after they crossed into Thailand. A female member of the group, identified by the pseudonym Kim Jin-hye because she is concerned for her safety, told RFA’s Korean Service she left North Korea in July because she was being forced to join the military and had to give up her dream of becoming a doctor. “Should I say I am in distress [after this journey?]” Kim asked. “It’s only harder if you keep thinking about how hard it is. It wasn’t hard for me because I kept thinking this is the only way I can achieve my dream and [secure] my future,” she added. Incompetence and corruption Another woman in the group, in her fifties, identified by the pseudonym Lee Chun-hwa, said she decided to seek asylum because she hated the incompetence of North Korean authorities, who she said make strong crackdowns on minor infractions. She also disliked the rampant corruption in North Korean society and said it was her wish to travel to other countries as she pleased. She said that even North Korea’s rich are looking for ways to get out. “People think that the state just drains money from us. It would be nice if the state would let us be in charge of our own business,” said Lee. “So it means that the people are all saying ‘Let’s leave. We will be able to be in charge of our own affairs in South Korea, We can enjoy freedom. Let’s go look for our freedom there.’ Many of the rich people want to come because [the authorities] are giving them a hard time,” Lee said. After the NGO picked up the group, they spent one night in Thailand. They then boarded three-wheel tuk-tuk motorbikes to turn themselves in at the local police station. One of the them held a cell phone with the English phrase “I want go [sic] to South Korea.” written phonetically in Hangul, the Korean alphabet. Another female member of the group, identified as Lee Jung-sim, is the mother of the 2-year-old. Her 12-year old niece, small enough to pass for a much younger child, was also a part of the group. Lee’s mother had escaped into South Korea 13 years ago. “Now that I’m here, I break into tears just thinking of seeing my mother. It’s been 13 years. I have tears just thinking about meeting her for the first time in 13 years,” Lee said. Before leaving for the police station, a 20-year-old member of the group identified as Park Soo-young vowed that the group would make something of their lives in South Korea. “I’m so happy that you all helped us when we arrived and after all we’ve been through. Thank you to all who helped us,” said Park. “Because of you, we were able to make it here safely to prepare for our trip to South Korea. We will live our best lives in South Korea. We’re not afraid. I know we’re on the right path,” she said. 'Tearful goodbyes' Ji Seong-ho, founder of NAUH, who himself escaped North Korea in 2006, led the effort to rescue the 13. He told RFA that many people that attempt to leave North Korea are arrested in China, as Beijing intensifies crackdowns on those who try to flee. He noted that the number of North Koreans fleeing to Thailand has declined in recent years, but that many still make the journey hoping to escape to freedom. Ji said the latest rescue was nerve-racking and moving. “Everything’s done. We were all so nervous and we were deeply moved — to tears,” said Ji, adding, “There were also tearful goodbyes. But this is like a gateway to South Korea, a free country.” Thailand is a popular destination for North Korean asylum seekers who usually request that they be given permanent resettlement in South Korea. Based on previous cases, the 13 defectors are likely to be incarcerated for illegally entering Thailand as they wait to be granted asylum. They will undergo background checks and questioning by Thai and South Korean authorities, a process expected to last two months. It was not immediately clear how the group were able to contact the NGO and arrange a spot to meet after crossing the Mekong, but usually NGOs are contacted by asylum seekers in China to get assistance in finding brokers that can help them reach Thailand. According to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification more than 33,000 North Koreans have entered South Korea to date, including 546 as of June this year. Thai authorities were not immediately available for comment. Reported by Jungmin Noh for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. View this story online at: [ https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/nk-defectors-20191021-10212019182657… | https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/nk-defectors-20191021-10212019182657… ] 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 U.S. Agency for Global Media ( [ https://www.usagm.gov/home/ | USAGM ] ) . 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 ] .

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Engnews October 2019