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RFA Breaking News: Uyghur Detainees from Xinjiang ‘Placed in Nearly Every Prison’ in Shandong Province

by Paul Eckert

Uyghur Detainees from Xinjiang ‘Placed in Nearly Every Prison’ in Shandong Province March 19, 2019 - Ethnic Uyghurs held in political “re-education camps” in northwest China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region (XUAR) are being sent to jail in Shandong province, prison officials have confirmed, as new details emerge of the system authorities use to transfer detainees out of the region. In October last year, RFA’s Uyghur Service reported that authorities in the XUAR had begun covertly sending detainees to prisons in Heilongjiang province and other parts of China to address an “overflow” in overcrowded camps, where up to 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas have been held since April 2017. And last month, RFA spoke to officials in both Shaanxi province and neighboring Gansu province, who confirmed that Uyghur and other Muslim detainees from the XUAR had been sent to prisons there, although they were unable to provide specific numbers or dates for when they had been transferred. As global condemnation over the camp network has grown, including calls for international observers to be allowed into the XUAR to investigate the situation there, reports suggest that authorities may be transferring detainees to other parts of China as part of a bid to obfuscate the scale of detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the region. After receiving information from an RFA listener who said that Uyghurs were also being relocated from the XUAR to detention centers in Shandong province on China’s eastern coast, RFA contacted a provincial prison official who confirmed the claim. “There are many criminals who have been transferred from Xinjiang,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They have been placed in almost every prison [in Shandong],” he added, without providing additional details. RFA was also able to contact an official on duty at the Provincial No. 1 Prison in Shandong’s Jinan city, who confirmed that at least four Uyghurs named “Asimujiang, Aili, Maimaiti and Yiliyar” had been transferred from the XUAR to the facility. The official, who also requested to remain unnamed, said he was unable to provide an estimate for the number of Uyghurs held at the prison because “it is impossible for me to check,” without providing any further information. While Beijing has acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in the XUAR, it has never officially admitted to transferring Uyghurs out of the region to other parts of the country. Bitter Winter, a website launched by the Italian research center CESNUR that focuses on religious in China, last month cited “informed sources” as confirming for the first time that detainees from the XUAR are being sent to prison facilities in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. The website previously cited sources as saying that prisons in Inner Mongolia have also accepted camp detainees from the XUAR, and that authorities plan to disperse and detain “an estimated 500,000 Uyghur Muslims” throughout China, although these reports could not be independently confirmed by RFA. At the end of last year, a police officer in the XUAR’s Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture told RFA that he was aware of more than 2,000 Uyghur detainees who had been transferred from his area of the region to other parts of China. “Those who are considered to be serious offenders or have received long-term prison sentences are being moved to Mainland China,” he said at the time, adding that the deputy commissioner of the prefectural Public Security Bureau had accompanied the detainees during their transfer. “We tell [the detainees] that they will receive a better education as the facilities there are better and that there is no capacity to hold them in the XUAR because of the very high number of prisoners in the region.” Camp network Though Beijing initially denied the existence of re-education camps, Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the XUAR, told China’s official Xinhua news agency in October 2018 that the facilities are an effective tool to protect the country from terrorism and provide vocational training for Uyghurs. China recently organized two visits to monitor re-education camps in the XUAR—one for a small group of foreign journalists, and another for diplomats from non-Western countries, including Russia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Thailand—during which officials dismissed claims about mistreatment and poor conditions in the facilities as “slanderous lies.” 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. Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, earlier this month said that some 1.5 million people are or have been detained in the camps—equivalent to just under 1 in 6 members of the adult Muslim population of the XUAR—after initially putting the number at 1.1 million. Michael Kozak, the head of the State Department's human rights and democracy bureau, in an apparent reference to the policies of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union, last week said people "haven’t seen things like this since the 1930s" and called the internment of more than a million Uyghurs "one of the most serious human rights violations in the world today." In November 2018, Scott Busby, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. Department of State, said there are "at least 800,000 and possibly up to a couple of million" Uyghurs and others detained at re-education camps in the XUAR without charges, citing U.S. intelligence assessments. Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by RFA's Uyghur Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. View this story online at: [ https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/transfer-03192019150438.html | https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/transfer-03192019150438.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 ] .

5 years, 10 months

RFA Breaking News: China Spiriting Uyghur Detainees Away From Xinjiang to Prisons in Inner Mongolia, Sichuan

by Paul Eckert

China Spiriting Uyghur Detainees Away From Xinjiang to Prisons in Inner Mongolia, Sichuan Feb. 21, 2019 - Ethnic Uyghurs held in political “re-education camps” in northwest China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region (XUAR) are being sent to prisons in Inner Mongolia and Sichuan province, officials have confirmed, adding to the growing list of locations detainees are being secretly transferred to. In October last year, RFA’s Uyghur Service reported that authorities in the XUAR had begun covertly sending detainees to prisons in Heilongjiang province and other parts of China to address an “overflow” in overcrowded camps, where up to 1.1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas have been held since April 2017. And earlier this month, RFA spoke to officials in both Shaanxi province and neighboring Gansu province, who confirmed that Uyghur and other Muslim detainees from the XUAR had been sent to prisons there, although they were unable to provide specific numbers or dates for when they had been transferred. The first report, which was based on statements by officials in both the XUAR and Heilongjiang, came in the same month that XUAR chairman Shohrat Zakir confirmed to China’s official Xinhua news agency the existence of the camps, calling them an effective tool to protect the country from terrorism and provide vocational training for Uyghurs. As global condemnation over the camp network has grown, including calls for international observers to be allowed into the XUAR to investigate the situation there, reports suggest that authorities may be transferring detainees to other parts of China as part of a bid to obfuscate the scale of detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the region. RFA recently spoke to an official at the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Women’s Prison who said that detainees from the XUAR had been transferred to detention facilities in the region, but was unable to provide details without obtaining authorization from higher-level officials. “There are two prisons that hold prisoners from Xinjiang—they are Wutaqi [in Hinggan (in Chinese, Xing'an) League’s Jalaid Banner] Prison and Salaqi [in Bogot (Baotou) city’s Tumd Right Banner] Prison,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. When asked how many Uyghur detainees are held in the prisons, the official said she could not disclose the number “because it is strictly confidential.” The official said she had attended a meeting on transfers of detainees from the XUAR and that prior to the meeting attendees had received notices informing them that “we are not allowed to disclose any information regarding the transportation program.” “Regardless of who is making inquiries, we cannot disclose any information unless we first obtain permission from our superiors,” she said. An official at the Wutaqi Prison Command Center also told RFA that detainees from the XUAR are being held at Wutaqi, as well as a second one in Inner Mongolia, without specifying which one. The official, who also declined to provide his name, said the detainees had been transferred to the two prisons as early as August last year, but was unsure whether they were being permanently relocated to the two prisons or being held there temporarily before they are transferred elsewhere. “The prisoners are placed in two prisons, but [the officials at the facilities] don’t report to us about what is happening inside,” he said, before referring further inquiries to his supervisor. “Regarding the number and the exact location of where they are held [in the prisons], I am unable to say,” he said. The official said he was unsure of whether any detainees from the XUAR had been sent to Inner Mongolia recently, as information about the transfers is closely guarded. “It is impossible for me to tell you how many prisoners have been transferred here this month or last month,” he said. “The authorities are keeping all the information very secret—even we don’t know the details.” Sichuan transfers Reports of detainee transfers from the XUAR to Inner Mongolia followed indications from officials in Sichuan province that prisons there are also accepting those held in XUAR re-education camps. When asked which prisons XUAR detainees are being sent to in Sichuan, an official who answered the phone at the Sichuan Provincial Prison Administration told an RFA reporter that if he was calling to “visit them,” he would first have to make an official request. One official at a prison believed to hold detainees from the XUAR in Yibin, a prefectural-level city in southeast Sichuan, told RFA that he “can’t discuss this issue over the phone” and suggested that the reporter file an official request for information. But when asked about whether there had been any “ideological changes” to procedures at the facility, a fellow official who answered the phone said “these detentions are connected to terrorism, so I can’t answer such questions.” “The transfer of Xinjiang detainees is a secretive part of our work at the prison, so I can’t tell you anything about it,” she added. The statements from officials in Inner Mongolia and Sichuan province followed recent reports by Bitter Winter, a website launched by the Italian research center CESNUR that focuses on religious in China, which cited “informed sources” as confirming that detainees from the XUAR are being sent to prison facilities in other parts of the country. The website, which routinely publishes photos and video documenting human rights violations submitted by citizen journalists from inside China, cited “CCP (Chinese Communist Party) insiders” as saying that more than 200 elderly Uyghurs in their sixties and seventies have been transferred to Ordos Prison in Inner Mongolia. Bitter Winter also cited another source in Inner Mongolia who said one detainee was “beaten to death by the police” during his transfer, and expressed concern that the victim’s body “might already have been cremated.” The website has previously said that authorities plan to disperse and detain “an estimated 500,000 Uyghur Muslims” throughout China, although this report could not be independently confirmed by RFA. Call to action Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress exile group, told RFA he was “deeply troubled” by the reports of secret transfers of detainees from the XUAR to prisons in other parts of China, saying the move signalled a “very dark intent” by authorities. “We simply cannot imagine what kind of treatment they are enduring at the hands of Chinese guards in these prisons, as this is shrouded in complete secrecy,” he said, adding that he was concerned for the well-being of the detainees. Isa called on the international community to turn its attention to the transfers and demanded that the Chinese government disclose the total number of detainees who had been moved, as well as the location of the prisons they had been sent to. “If the United Nations, U.S., EU, Turkey and other Muslims nations do not voice their concerns over this troubling development in a timely manner, I fear these innocent Uyghurs will perish in Chinese prisons without a trace,” he said. China recently organized two visits to monitor re-education camps in the XUAR—one for a small group of foreign journalists, and another for diplomats from non-Western countries, including Russia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Thailand—during which officials dismissed claims about mistreatment and poor conditions in the facilities as “slanderous lies.” 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. Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, has said that some 1.1 million people are or have been detained in the camps—equating to 10 to 11 percent of the adult Muslim population of the XUAR. In November 2018, Scott Busby, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. Department of State, said there are "at least 800,000 and possibly up to a couple of million" Uyghurs and others detained at re-education camps in the XUAR without charges, citing U.S. intelligence assessments. Citing credible reports, U.S. lawmakers Marco Rubio and Chris Smith, who head the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, recently called the situation in the XUAR "the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today." Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Alim Seytoff. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. View this s tory online at: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/detainees-02212019162142.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 ] .

5 years, 10 months

'Vietnam Takes Aim at Radio Free Asia' -- Libby Liu in WSJ (OpEd) 2/20

by Rohit Mahajan

In case you missed it . The Wall Street Journal published an opinion-editorial by Libby Liu, Radio Free Asia <https://www.rfa.org/english/> 's President, titled, "Vietnam Takes Aim at Radio Free Asia <https://www.wsj.com/articles/vietnam-takes-aim-at-radio-free-asia-1155061 9921> ," yesterday (2/20). Some excerpts: "When President Trump goes to Hanoi next week for a summit with his North Korean counterpart, he should raise with the host nation the fate of two Vietnamese journalists working for Radio Free Asia[.]" . "Popular blogger Truong Duy Nhat has been missing for more than three weeks since he fled his home in Da Nang, Vietnam, for neighboring Thailand to seek asylum. We fear Mr. Nhat was abducted and taken back to Vietnam for imprisonment and interrogation." . "Not surprisingly, Vietnam has been silent about the case. Vietnam holds many political prisoners-200, says Nguyen Kim Binh of the California-based Vietnam Human Rights Network. One of those prisoners is Radio Free Asia's Nguyen Van Hoa." . "A strong message in Hanoi from Mr. Trump about the plight of these Radio Free Asia journalists would resonate in Vietnam and beyond. It's a message that needs to be heard; governments across the region use repressive tactics to try to intimidate our network." Rohit Mahajan | Radio Free Asia | Director of Public Affairs and Digital Strategy <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> mahajanr(a)rfa.org | O: 202.530.4976 | M: 202.489.8021

5 years, 10 months

BREAKING NEWS: Radio Free Asia Vietnamese Blogger Missing Amid Abduction Reports

by Richard Finney

Radio Free Asia Vietnamese Blogger Missing Amid Abduction Reports Feb. 5, 2019 - A Radio Free Asia blogger from Vietnam is missing after he fled to Thailand to seek political asylum with a UN refugee agency, fueling fears in the exile community that he has been abducted by Vietnamese security agents. There has been no word from Truong Duy Nhat, a weekly contributor for RFA’s Vietnamese Service’s blog section, since Jan. 26. He last communicated with Washington-based RFA editors two days earlier over his commentary on the growing opposition movement in Venezuela and the prospects of change in Communist-ruled Vietnam. “We are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of Truong Duy Nhat," RFA President Libby Liu said on Tuesday. "We hope to hear from him as soon as possible about his whereabouts and to be assured that he’s not in any danger,” she said. Nhat’s disappearance has sent a chill through the Vietnamese refugee community in Thailand and prompted a call from Human Rights Watch for Thai authorities to investigate. RFA has also reported his case to the State Department and staff of several U.S. lawmakers. Exile sources said that Nhat had gone to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees, or UNHCR, in Bangkok on Jan. 25 to apply for refugee status and they subsequently lost contact with him. Thailand-based associates of Nhat, who requested anonymity because they feared for their own safety, said that he went missing on Jan. 26 during a visit to Future Park, a huge mall on the outskirts of Bangkok. One of the sources said Nhat was “arrested” at an ice cream shop on the third floor of the mall. Thai police said they don't have Nhat in custody. “We’ve checked through the list of detainees, we don’t see him, Truong Duy Nhat, on the list,” Police Colonel Tatpong Sarawanangkoon, who is in charge of the detention section at the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok, told RFA. The UNHCR was tightlipped, citing privacy concerns. Associate external relations officer Jennifer Harrison said: “Due to reasons of confidentiality and data protection, we are unable to comment on [or even confirm/deny the existence of] individual cases.” Afraid to talk Nhat's wife, who is in Vietnam, and their Canada-based daughter are afraid to talk about his fate, exile sources said. The family believes Nhat left Vietnam for Thailand about three weeks before they heard he had gone missing, according to thevietnamese.org, an online magazine run by a group of Vietnamese activists and independent journalists. The authoritarian Vietnamese government of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is at present holding more than 200 political prisoners, including rights advocates and bloggers deemed threats to national security, according to Nguyen Kim Binh of the California-based Vietnam Human Rights Network. The government controls the news media, censors the internet, and restricts basic freedoms of expression. Nhat himself served a two-year-imprisonment in 2014-2015 for his activism after being arrested in May 2013 and held in detention until his trial. Human Rights Watch, or HRW, said Thai authorities have to investigate the case of Nhat, noting that he had come to Bangkok for the sole reason of applying for political asylum. The U.S.-based group called for the authorities to “consult with his family until he is found." HRW said Vietnam’s embassy in Bangkok may also be able to shed light on the blogger’s whereabouts. "[T]he Thai authorities have an urgent obligation to seriously investigate this disappearance,” Phil Robertson, HRW's Bangkok-based deputy Asia director, told RFA, noting that the group itself did not yet know what had happened to Nhat. "If it turns out that Vietnam and local Thai officials are found to be involved in his disappearance, there needs to be serious consequences for everyone responsible,” he said. Surveillance, harassment Robertson accused Vietnam of "consistently engaging in hostile surveillance and harassment of Vietnamese and Montagnard [minority] who fled the country to escape political and religious persecution, and this includes activities in Bangkok." "Pursuing dissidents and demanding the Thai government shut down events about human rights and democracy in Vietnam is just part of what makes Hanoi stand out as one of the worst rights abusing regimes in ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations],"he said. "So there is every possibility that the Vietnam Embassy may know much more about Truong Duy Nhat’s mysterious disappearance than they are letting on," Robertson said. The circumstances of Nhat’s disappearance in Bangkok remain murky. But California-based blogger Nguyen Van Hai, who served in the same prison with Nhat before Hai’s release in 2014, and Germany-based blogger Bui Thanh Hieu said they suspect Nhat was abducted by Vietnamese security agents in Thailand. "We are looking at the possibility that he has been abducted," Hai, who writes under the name Dieu Cay, told RFA. "We know he arrived at Bangkok and went to the UN’s office to apply for refugee status. If for any reason Nhat now appears in Vietnam, it must be against his will," he said. Sources say that Vietnamese exiles have inquired about Nhat's whereabouts with hospitals and various district offices in Bangkok but to no avail. An associate of Nhat’s said his disappearance was also reported to Thai police late last week. Fighting in the Party Nhat is based in Da Nang city, next to Prime Minister Phuc's home province of Quang Nam where there is infighting within the Vietnamese Communist Party. He may have been privy to information that could be detrimental to the prime minister, activists said. Nhat had previously worked for a police newspaper in Da Nang, also Phuc’s stronghold. Blogger Hieu said he suspected that Vietnamese military agents abducted Nhat from Bangkok on the orders of the prime minister. "I think the prime minister wanted Nhat arrested at any costs because he has information about his faction in Quang Nam province [in Da Nang]," Hieu, who writes under the name 'Wind Trader,' said on his Facebook page. This is not the first time the Vietnamese government has been accused of abducting its citizens from abroad. Last year, a German court jailed a Vietnamese man almost four years for helping his country’s secret services kidnap a former oil executive from a Berlin street in 2017 and smuggle him back to Vietnam. Ex-oil executive Trinh Xuan Thanh was seeking asylum in Germany at that time and his disappearance soured bilateral relations, with the German foreign ministry accusing Vietnam of breaching international law. Thanh was subsequently tried and jailed for life on corruption charges in Vietnam. Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service and BenarNews. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai and Matthew Pennington. View this story online at: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/missing-02052019111653.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.

5 years, 11 months

Radio Free Asia Hires New Managing Director for Southeast Asia

by Rohit Mahajan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 3, 2018 Contact: Rohit Mahajan 202 530 4976 mahajanr(a)rfa.org <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> Radio Free Asia Hires New Managing Director for Southeast Asia WASHINGTON - Radio Free Asia <https://www.rfa.org/english/> (RFA) today announced the hiring of veteran journalist Matthew Pennington as its new Managing Director for Southeast Asia. Pennington, an award-winning former Associated Press (AP) reporter with an extensive journalistic background in Asia, will oversee RFA's coverage of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. "Matthew brings a deep interest and expertise in Radio Free Asia's region, having more than two decades of experience covering Asia for the Associated Press and other esteemed news services," said Libby Liu, President of RFA. "His extensive background as a reporter, editor, and bureau chief make him a great addition to our team. With his leadership, I am confident RFA's Southeast Asian services will continue to grow and thrive." "I'm very excited to work with RFA," Pennington said. "I've always admired its ability to provide a vital source of independent news in countries where the free press is restricted. That mission is as important as ever in Southeast Asia." As Managing Director for Southeast Asia, Pennington will work closely with the directors of four language services to manage daily and long-term operations of RFA Vietnamese, Khmer, Lao, and Burmese. He will focus on enhancing the services' operations to meet audience needs, while advancing RFA's congressionally mandated mission of bringing objective, timely news and information to people living in closed countries under authoritarian rule in Asia. Pennington will report to RFA's Vice President of Programming, Parameswaran Ponnudurai. Pennington comes to RFA from the AP where he was most recently covering U.S. foreign policy in Asia, including North Korea and U.S.-China relations, and overseeing the AP's national security coverage in Washington. His new role brings him back to his journalism roots. He first wrote for AP in 1995 as a stringer in Laos, before relocating to Bangkok, where he shifted from free-lancing to become a staff writer, first for Agence France-Presse and then the AP. He covered Thailand, Burma, Laos and Cambodia, but had other assignments across Asia. He covered the Asian financial crisis in Thailand, student protests and Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest in Burma, and the demise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In 2003, he was transferred to Islamabad, where he became bureau chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan. He led the team that won the Society of Professional Journalists award for breaking news for coverage of the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pennington, after returning to Bangkok, later went to the AP's Washington, D.C. bureau in 2011, where he took every opportunity to cover human rights issues in Southeast Asia, including the plight of the Rohingya, the political crackdown in Cambodia and the clampdown on dissent in Vietnam and Laos. # # # 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 United States Agency for Global Media. Rohit Mahajan | Radio Free Asia | Director of Public Affairs and Digital Strategy <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> mahajanr(a)rfa.org | O: 202.530.4976 | M: 202.489.8021

6 years, 1 month

RFA Breaking News: Vietnam’s ‘Consistent Policy’ is to Pressure Political Prisoners Into Exile: Freed Blogger

by Paul Eckert

RFA Breaking News: Vietnam’s ‘Consistent Policy’ is to Pressure Political Prisoners Into Exile: Freed Blogger Nov. 14, 2018 - Vietnam’s government regularly encourages political prisoners to relocate overseas in the hopes of using their release to improve its standing in the global community, according to a Vietnamese blogger and activist who moved to the U.S. last month after being suddenly freed from jail. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh—known by her blogger handle Me Nam, or Mother Mushroom—won a surprise release from a 10-year jail term for “anti-state propaganda” on Oct. 17 and flew to the U.S. city of Houston a day later with her elderly mother and two young children. International rights groups had long championed her cause, and while they welcomed her release, they said that she should never have been jailed for her work blogging about human rights abuses and corruption in Vietnam, and more recently voicing criticism over Vietnam’s policy toward China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Speaking to RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Tuesday, the 39-year-old said she and other political prisoners were pressured by the government to leave Vietnam. “The Vietnamese government’s consistent policy is to encourage political prisoners to move overseas,” she said in an interview. “Depending on the situation, [authorities] select who would be released so that they might receive economic benefits or an improved standing on the world stage.” Arrested in October 2016, the 39-year-old Quynh was sentenced in June 2017 to jail on charges of spreading “propaganda against the state” under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code. Quynh's detention, during which she staged several hunger strikes, was one of the more high profile cases of activists handed heavy sentences as part of an ongoing crackdown by the one-party state in the Southeast Asian nation, which holds more than 100 political prisoners and adds more to the list every week. Quynh told RFA that during her detention, prison authorities “used my relatives to pressure me.” “[The security agents] told me what I had done would be a burden to my mother and [my children], and tried to make me think that what I did was wrong,” she said. “They tried to persuade me to leave the country. I thought that deep inside they still had human sympathy and were speaking truthfully … But when I was imprisoned, I realized that none of them were good.” According to Qunyh, she tried hard not to think about her family while she was held in pre-trial detention, because otherwise she “might do whatever they want to be released as soon as possible.” “The important thing was not letting the person [monitoring me] know how happy or sorrowful I was,” she said, adding that she “had to ‘be like water.’” Activism in exile But when Qunyh was sentenced to 10 years in jail and assigned to a prison labor detail, she could not help but think of her children growing up without a mother, and she began to question herself. “When I was sentenced to 10 years, I prayed and thought that maybe I had gone too far,” she said. “I had done so much because of my beliefs, but I began to wonder if it was time to think of the children, and I thought that I might have been wrong.” When Qunyh was suddenly released last month, she took the opportunity to protect her family by relocating them to the U.S., where she has vowed to keep speaking out on human rights back in her communist nation. She said Vietnam’s policy of sending political prisoners out of the country “won’t make any impact on social and political campaigns” and could actually serve to “help the movement inside Vietnam.” “It’s not important whether one is inside or outside Vietnam,” she said. “What is important is what we want to do and how we carry it out.” Other Vietnamese bloggers have echoed Qunyh’s claims that Vietnam appears to have adopted a policy of sending critics into exile or using them as diplomatic bargaining chips. China’s communist regime used a similar tactic with jailed dissidents in the 1990s as it lobbied to enter the World Trade Organization and to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. View this s tory online at: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/prisoners-11142018132931.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 ] .

6 years, 2 months

RFA Breaking News: Interview: ‘I Did Not Believe I Would Leave Prison in China Alive’

by Paul Eckert

RFA Breaking News: Interview: ‘I Did Not Believe I Would Leave Prison in China Alive’ Nov. 1, 2018 - Mihrigul Tursun is a 29-year-old Uyghur woman from northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) who gave birth to healthy triplets in Egypt while her husband was working there in 2015. Soon after her children were born, she returned to China seeking help from her parents to raise them, but was arrested by XUAR authorities upon arriving by plane in the regional capital Urumqi, and the triplets were taken from her. She was released on “parole” weeks later after learning that her children were suffering from a severe respiratory illness that required surgery, but one of her sons died under mysterious circumstances while being cared for in a local hospital. In the years since the boy’s death, Tursun was taken into custody several times, including at one of a network of political “re-education camps,” where Chinese authorities began detaining Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas in April 2017. Tursun said she was targeted because she had lived in Egypt—one of a number of countries blacklisted by authorities in the XUAR because of a perceived threat of religious radicalization. While she was able to relocate to the U.S. in September, Tursun’s other son and daughter have developed health complications that require constant monitoring, and she has lost all contact with her husband and other family members. She recently spoke with RFA’s Uyghur Service about the struggle she endured during the three years she spent in the XUAR before fleeing China. RFA: What happened to you and your children after you returned to the XUAR from Egypt? Tursun: I had triplets—two boys and one girl—in Egypt in 2015. My husband was working there, so I had nobody to help me with the kids and I had to return home [to Cherchen (in Chinese, Qiemo) county, in the XUAR’s Bayin’gholin Mongol (Bayinguoleng Menggu) Autonomous Prefecture] to get help from my parents … When my kids were given a medical checkup in Egypt, their health was in a great shape. I entered the Urumqi airport with my three kids when they were about two months old, on May 13, 2015. At passport control, they asked me to go with them to a different room and questioned me, saying that police would watch my children while they briefly spoke with me, but the questioning lasted three or four hours. At the end, they put a hood over my head and handcuffed me, and brought me out through a different door. My tickets and other belongings were confiscated and I was taken straight to a prison, where I was held until July. [The prison authorities] eventually told me I had been “paroled” because my kids were sick, and that I should be with them until their health improved. They also said that I was still under investigation, and that they would contact me whenever they had additional questions for me to answer. They held onto my passport, identification, cellphone—everything. I went directly to the hospital where my children were … and demanded to see my boy [who was in the emergency care facility], but they wouldn’t allow me to—I could only view him from afar. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not … The next day, they called me in and told me they couldn’t save him … They gave me his corpse. They had operated on his neck. The reason they gave for his death was that the treatment hadn’t worked, and that he had been unable to breathe. The other two kids were okay—all three of them had been given operations on their necks. I was told that since they could not eat, they had to be fed with a tube. I didn’t understand. The babies had been breastfeeding without any issues. I couldn’t communicate with my husband after I arrived [in the XUAR]. I was told not to communicate overseas. I wanted to let him know what had happened, but I didn’t know how to tell him. I buried my dead child and then I was left to deal with the trauma of losing one child, all while nursing two others and seeking medical treatment for them, in addition to needing surgery performed on my daughter’s eye … The health of my two kids has been poor ever since—especially my son. RFA: Did the authorities ever take you into custody again? Tursun: I was detained again in April 2017 [while living at home in Cherchen county], and released soon after. They wanted to interrogate me about what kinds of things I did in Egypt. I was unable to return to Egypt before this detention because all of my documents were in the hands of the authorities, and I had been blacklisted. I was tortured for seven days and nights without sleep by members of the national security department … They examined me and shaved my head. I was locked up until August, when I was released [to a hospital] because I was frequently suffering seizures and losing consciousness … Later, it was determined that I be sent to the No. 4 Mental Hospital … but my father was able to take me home for treatment, and I recovered. I was detained [the last time] in [January] 2018 … When I was sent home [after being interrogated] before this detention, I was able to go out only with the permission of the local neighborhood committee, which demanded to be informed of my comings and goings. Normally, I couldn’t even enter a store [without permission]. I couldn’t even leave our neighborhood because I would be identified as a person who had committed an unspecified crime when swiping my ID [at a checkpoint], as I had been blacklisted. When they interrogate me, they basically ask the same questions: “Who are you close to? Who do you know overseas? For which overseas organizations did you work? What was your mission?” They ask these questions because I lived overseas and because I speak a few foreign languages, so they are trying to label me as a spy. When I entered the cell, there were more than 40 women in it, but when I left, there were 68 … All of them were people I knew from the past. The cell had no windows … it was built underground … We were never taken outside to get fresh air. They would only open a hole in the ceiling for ventilation … There were cameras on all four sides—they have to see every corner of the room. I witnessed nine deaths in my cell alone. They told us that some of them had previous illnesses, while others they said died because their hearts stopped beating … We had sick people, but they were never taken to the hospital. RFA: How did you obtain your freedom? Tursun: The day I was freed [about three months later], I was told to collect my belongings in the cell and come out … They gave me back my own clothing and took the prison uniform. Two hours before my release, I was given an injection. They made me swear a lot of things and took a video of it. I swore, “I am a citizen of China. I love China. I will never do anything to harm China. China has raised me. The police never interrogated or tortured me, or even detained me.” I read the statement and signed it. I was brought to see my kids, who were staying at my neighbor’s house. They looked skinny and bruised. I was told they had bruises on their faces because they had fallen down. I took them and their belongings while being monitored by the police. I didn’t see my parents anywhere. The police told me to return after taking my kids back to Egypt [where they had been born and have citizenship]. They asked me when I would return. They warned me that my parents, siblings and other relatives were at their mercy. They said they were the ones protecting me. Then, they took my fingerprints, blood sample, recorded my voice, and documented my movements, as well as everything else. I was released on April 5 and left Cherchen three days later. I stayed in Beijing for 20 days because I was prevented from boarding my plane three times by authorities [who said I didn’t have the correct documents] … I was able to leave only on the fourth attempt. I landed in Cairo, Egypt on April 28 … I looked for [my husband] as soon as I arrived, but I learned from his coworker that he returned to China in 2016 to bring his family back and was detained at the airport in Beijing. He was later sentenced to 16 years in prison. Since leaving, I was once able to contact the teacher of my sister, who was studying in eastern China, and the teacher told me that authorities in the XUAR had arrested her while she was there during a break from classes. I haven’t been able to reach the teacher again. In July this year, I received a message from my father saying I should return to China as soon as possible because our family members missed the kids. After that, all communication ceased. I arrived in the U.S. on September 21, 2018. I have no words to express my feelings about coming to America. Sometimes, I wonder if I really arrived in America or if I entered heaven after dying in a Chinese prison. I did not believe I would leave prison in China alive. I was abused, persecuted and tortured in my own homeland where I grew up. America saved me from death. Reported by Gulchehra Hoja for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma and Alim Seytoff. View this s tory online at: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/detentions-11012018100304.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 ] . Reported by Gulchehra Hoja for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma and Alim Seytoff.

6 years, 2 months

RFA Breaking News: Xinjiang Authorities Secretly Transferring Uyghur Detainees to Jails Throughout China

by Paul Eckert

Xinjiang Authorities Secretly Transferring Uyghur Detainees to Jails Throughout China Oct 2, 2018 - Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are secretly transferring Uyghur detainees to prisons in Heilongjiang province and other areas throughout the country to address an “overflow” in the region’s overcrowded political “re-education camps,” according to officials. Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas have been jailed or detained in re-education camps throughout the XUAR, where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule. Sources say detainees face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers in the camps and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities. While investigating claims from members of the Uyghur exile community, official sources in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Kona Sheher (Shufu) county confirmed to RFA’s Uyghur Service that authorities have been moving Uyghurs from detention centers in the XUAR to prisons in other parts of China. “Based on the seriousness of their crime, inmates are being transferred to other major prisons in the region and also to inner China,” an officer at the police department in Kona Sheher’s Tashmiliq township told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I think they are being transferred to inner China because they can be educated better there, and another reason is that since there are too many prisoners here and we are experiencing an overflow of inmates.” The officer said that authorities began relocating Uyghur inmates to other parts of China at “the beginning of this year.” “We have a political officer named Najmidin Bedelhaji who took some inmates to a Chinese city last month, but most of the time a unit of the Public Security Bureau escorts them there,” he said. “Yasin Abla, the deputy chief of the county police department, and the local head of the Public Security Bureau, is the person in charge of carrying out the transfers.” The prisoner transfers add another layer of opacity to extrajudicial detention in the XUAR, where family members are rarely provided with information about why their loved ones are arrested and where they are held. Tailai Prison Among the facilities that Uyghur detainees have been taken to is a prison with a maximum capacity of 4,300 inmates in northeast China’s Heilongjiang province’s Tailai county, where officials confirmed a transfer had occurred in recent weeks. When asked how many detainees were transferred to Tailai Prison, an official with the county Political Consultative Conference told RFA, “I don’t know the exact number,” but said they had been sent there “around one month ago,” citing information he had received from local residents. A secretary at the Tailai County Government office, who gave his name as Zhao, also said he was aware that Uyghur detainees had been sent to the county prison, but was unsure of how many. “A part of the group came in a week ago,” he said, before referring further questions to Tailai Prison officials. A Han Chinese resident of Tailai county told RFA the Uyghur detainees were sent to the local prison as part of a “prisoner exchange.” “The prisoners from Xinjiang were transferred to our county prison, and the prisoners in our prison were sent to Xinjiang,” said the resident, who asked to remain unnamed. “It seems the Uyghur prisoners were removed to prevent unrest in Xinjiang. As a result, the prison guards [here] are demanding a pay raise, citing the risks they now face at their work.” According to the resident, Tailai Prison normally interns prisoners who have been sentenced to 15 years or more in jail for serious offenses. “I believe the prisoner swap has been completed,” she said, adding that she had learned about the transfer from the family members of guards at Tailai Prison. “The People's Armed Police chartered trains and delivered the prisoners for the swap.” Train ticket moratorium Information about the prisoner swap came amid a Sept. 26 report by the Urumqi Evening News that sales of train tickets will be suspended indefinitely from Oct. 22. "The Xinjiang railway administrative departments will stop selling tickets on all passenger services leaving Xinjiang, and also for intraregional services, from Oct. 22, 2018," the newspaper reported. "A separate announcement will be made regarding when ticket sales will be resumed," it said. Meanwhile, several anonymous sources in the XUAR gave anecdotal evidence to RFA suggesting that the authorities are preparing to move large numbers of prisoners in and out of the region in the coming weeks, estimating that as many as 300,000 inmates could be transported across Xinjiang’s road and rail networks. "The prisons are overflowing all across Xinjiang, that's one reason [for the ticket sales ban]," an anonymous source told RFA. "The other reason is secrecy; because a lot of the people in the camps, such as the police, the administrators or the workers ... have connections with the local population." "Some of the staff in the jails have close relatives who have been locked up there, and they leak information to the outside world," the source said. The same source said the authorities are stepping up efforts to impose an information blackout around the camps, many of which have been identified by online researchers using satellite imagery. "There was a directive about strengthening management of the re-education camps," the source said. "There are a lot of tangled relationships in the camps, with the friends, relatives and former colleagues of camp staff locked up in there." "They are now bringing in administrators from outside the local areas, and at the same time they are transporting the prisoners outside of their local area," the source said. Thousands transported An overseas source who asked to be identified only as a Muslim, said several thousand ethnic Muslims were transported from Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasaake) Autonomous Prefecture’s Ghulja (Yining) city near the border with Kazakhstan, to Altay, in the same prefecture, while the inmates at Altay were sent to detention facilities in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture. The source said Uyghurs from Kashgar and Aksu in the south of the region were meanwhile being transferred to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or bingtuan, prison facilities in Ili. The authorities have also begun recruiting large numbers of personnel from the western region of Gansu in a bid to replace local staff and guards in the camps, the source said. In Ili's Kunes (Xinyuan) county, several hundred army and police personnel were dispatched to escort several thousand inmates of a "re-education camp for extremists" to Yining railway station, where they were put on a train for an unknown destination. Passers-by were banned from taking photos, private vehicles were banned from the streets and businesses along the route were ordered to close during the operation, a source in the region said. And a separate source said that large numbers of people had been converging on the regional capital, Urumqi, in recent days aboard buses with the windows blacked out. "It's because there are so many of them locked up; they are being taken to other parts of China, one busload at a time," she said. Route closure Meanwhile, the Aksu Highway Administration shut down the Tielimaiti tunnel along with a large section of nearby highway, citing a large snowfall in the area, according to a notice of closure shown to RFA. "Owing to recent weather conditions, the section of highway near the Tielimaiti Tunnel has seen a large snowfall over a wide area ... and are unsuitable for traffic," the notice said. National highway G217, an arterial and, in parts, a former military restricted road linking the northern and southern parts of Xinjiang across the Tianshan mountains and the Taklamakan Desert, was therefore announced closed until the end of April 2019, it said. "Traffic is prohibited to all vehicles," the notice, signed by Kucha and Aksu county highway agencies and traffic police, said. "We apologize for any inconvenience caused." A source in Xinjiang said the Duku section of the highway linking Dushanzi and Kucha could have been ordered closed to enable the secret transportation of prisoners across the region, or their transfer to railway stations for transportation to other parts of China. Another source said it may be needed to send armed police reinforcements to Ili and Kashgar, or to send detainees to other provinces. An official who answered the phone at the Xinjiang regional government press office in Urumqi on Monday declined to comment when contacted by RFA, saying it was the wrong number. Repeated calls to the police department, local police stations and guesthouses in Guma county (in Chinese, Pishan) in Xinjiang's Hotan prefecture rang unanswered during office hours on Monday. Camp network Western governments have increasingly drawn attention to re-education camps in the XUAR in recent months as media reports detail the stories of Uyghurs who have been detained in the facilities. U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert recently said the U.S. government was "deeply troubled" by the crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, adding that “credible reports indicate that individuals sent by Chinese authorities to detention centers since April 2017 number at least in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions.” The official warned that “indiscriminate and disproportionate controls on ethnic minorities’ expressions of their cultural and religious identities have the potential to incite radicalization and recruitment to violence.” A group of U.S. lawmakers, in a recent letter, asked President Donald Trump’s administration to “swiftly act” to sanction Chinese government officials and entities complicit in or directing the “ongoing human rights crisis” in Xinjiang. The position of China's central government authorities has evolved from denying that large numbers of Uyghurs have been incarcerated in camps to disputing that the facilities are political re-education camps. Beijing now describes the camps as educational centers. Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, has said that some 1.1 million people are or have been detained in the re-education camps, which equates to 10 to 11 percent of the adult Muslim population of the region. Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, called the reported prisoner transfers “China's attempt to eliminate the Uyghur detainees through cultural genocide coupled with ethnic cleansing.” China’s treatment of Uyghurs in the XUAR amounts to “crimes against humanity,” he said, urging the international community to “urgently respond” to the situation there. Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service and by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated by Alim Seytoff, Mamatjan Juma and Luisetta Mudie. Written in English by Joshua Lipes and Luisetta Mudie. View this s tory online at: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/transfer-10022018171100.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 ] .

6 years, 3 months

Radio Free Asia Launches Documentary on Former Uyghur Detainees

by Rohit Mahajan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 20, 2018 Contact: Rohit Mahajan 202 530 4976 <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> mahajanr(a)rfa.org Radio Free Asia Launches Documentary on Former Uyghur Detainees 'Behind the Walls' Describes Re-education Camps through Firsthand Accounts WASHINGTON - Radio Free Asia <https://www.rfa.org/english/> (RFA) today unveiled a video documentary interviewing former Uyghur inmates of the notorious "political re-education camps" in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Titled " <https://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/uyghur-detention/> Behind the Walls: Three Uyghurs Detail their Experience in China's Secret 'Re-education' Camps," the multimedia project features recent interviews with three former detainees, who describe conditions for the men, women, and even children arbitrarily detained in these facilities -- which have been estimated to hold or to have held in excess of 1 million <https://www.vox.com/2018/8/15/17684226/uighur-china-camps-united-nations> people from the XUAR. "Among those suffering human rights abuses around the world, the current plight of the Uyghur people stands out," said Min Mitchell, Managing Director for East Asia, who produced the project. "RFA has been among the first to shine a journalistic light on the situation to ensure Uyghurs are not forgotten." "These interviews with people who were once behind the walls capture more than their suffering. Their personal stories help us to come to grips with a reality of vast proportions affecting millions." The subjects of this documentary series are a Uyghur businessmen from the city of Korla, who was detained for a month after traveling to Malaysia and Turkey - two countries blacklisted by Chinese authorities; A Uyghur woman in her 20s from Kashgar, who was held for four days after studying in Turkey; and a former business owner from Hotan city who was held for six months beginning in late 2016 because his family members were known to be practicing Muslims. All of these individuals were released in early 2017 and are now living outside of China in Turkey. While China continues to deny the existence of such camps at the United Nations and in official statements, the testimonies of these three detainees make clear not only the existence of such camps, but also the way they are operated and the detainees are treated as prisoners. RFA's project gives a rare glimpse into a situation that is increasingly drawing global concern over what's being described as a new apartheid state. RFA's project was debuted <https://www.ned.org/events/behind-the-walls-three-uyghurs-detail-their-expe rience-in-chinas-secret-re-education-camps/> this morning at the National Endowment for Democracy <https://www.ned.org/> in Washington. Radio Free Asia's Uyghur Service, the only Uyghur-language news service outside of China, has consistently uncovered the worsening human rights situation in China's Far West, while reporting in one of the world's most difficult media environments. Chinese authorities have long used the pretext of terrorist extremism to ramp up security and surveillance in the XUAR. But in recent years, the efforts have included high-tech surveillance, far-reaching and intrusive restrictions, which include bans on Uyghur cultural and religious expression, setting up checkpoints and "convenience" police stations on nearly every block in cities and in well-populated areas, and biometric screenings. As a consequence of RFA's early reporting of events and developments in the XUAR, six U.S.-based journalists <https://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/uyghurfamilies/> with the Uyghur Service have been targeted by Chinese authorities, who have detained dozens of their relatives in China. # # # 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. Rohit Mahajan | Radio Free Asia | Director of Public Affairs and Digital Strategy <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> mahajanr(a)rfa.org | O: 202.530.4976 | M: 202.489.8021

6 years, 3 months

Statement on Release of Former RFA Journalists in Cambodia

by Rohit Mahajan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 21, 2018 Contact: Rohit Mahajan 202 530 4976 <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> mahajanr(a)rfa.org Statement of Libby Liu, President of Radio Free Asia, on Release of Former RFA Khmer Journalists WASHINGTON - Libby Liu, President of Radio Free Asia, made the following statement today in response to the release of former RFA Khmer Service journalists Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin on bail in Phnom Penh. We welcome their release, but we must also recognize that these former journalists should never have been put in this predicament in the first place. Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin have been jailed for more than eight months, living in abhorrent conditions, without their families, without adequate medical care, without an income, and, for too long, without hope. The targeting and intimidation of anyone who has worked as an independent journalist in Cambodia is a clear violation of press freedom. With today's development, we hope all charges against them are dropped and their case is immediately dismissed. # # # 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. Rohit Mahajan | Radio Free Asia | Director of Public Affairs and Digital Strategy <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> mahajanr(a)rfa.org | O: 202.530.4976 | M: 202.489.8021

6 years, 4 months

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