Vietnamese police have been harassing a former prisoner of conscience released from jail in December 2022 after serving most of a five-year sentence on charges of distributing materials against the state and participating in protests against the government. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Suong, 55, told Radio Free Asia on Friday, that the harassment began after she attended the appeals trial of activists Nguyen Thai Hung and his spouse, Vu Thi Kim Hoang, at the People’s Court in the southern province of Dong Nai on March 29. Authorities asked her to leave the courtroom.…
Month: March 2023
North Korean hacker group poses as journalists and experts to steal intel
A criminal cyber spy group believed to be backed by the North Korean government poses as journalists, academics and experts to trick its victims into giving out information that can be used for espionage. It also spoofs websites of legitimate organizations to trick targets into giving out information that can be used in cybercrimes the group carries out to fund itself, according to a new report that tracked the cyber attackers’ operations over five years. Google Cloud’s cybersecurity subsidiary firm Mandiant classified the group, which it calls APT43 and which…
Tibetan street vendors in Lhasa targeted amid ‘clean up’ the streets campaign
China has increased video surveillance and inspections of street vendors in and around the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in an effort to clean up the city, though sources inside the autonomous region say the measures are meant to get Tibetan hawkers off the streets. Local authorities began implementing the “Clean Up Lhasa” campaign on March 20 in the city of about 560,000 people in which they are inspecting all street vendors in and around the Jokhang Temple, or Tsuglagkhang, said the sources who declined to be identified for safety reasons.…
Cambodia faces July election without international observers
The United States, European Union, France and Japan say they have no plans to send electoral observers or to provide assistance to Cambodia’s election committee for July‘s general election. The parliamentary election has been marred by threats and recent arrests of activists as the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and Prime Minister Hun Sen work to silence and intimidate opposition figures. “France does not intend to send national observers to monitor the July elections,” the French Embassy in Cambodia said on Twitter on Wednesday. “We keep encouraging the establishment of a…
The Common Thread Between a Chinese Collaborator and the Chinese Communist Party
Advertisement On March 30, 1940, 83 years ago this week, the wartime Japanese occupiers of China established a new “Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China,” otherwise known as the RNG, in Nanjing, the former capital of the Republic of China. At the head of this puppet government the Japanese were delighted to be able to install no less of a personage than the former head of the Chinese Nationalist Party, Wang Jingwei. Wang had been a protégé of Sun Yat-sen (the father of the Chinese revolution that overthrew…
China’s Wild Spaces Have a Major Garbage Problem. Tech May Be the Solution.
Advertisement Last summer, my family and I found ourselves among the throngs of Chinese urbanites departing the country’s shiny metropolises and heading outdoors. After spending more than 60 days trapped inside during Shanghai’s rigid COVID-19 lockdown earlier in 2022, we were eager to spend time in nature. We answered this “call of the wild” with a camping excursion to the edge of the mighty Tibetan plateau in southwest China’s Sichuan province. Unlike North America and parts of Europe, where camping trips have been a summertime ritual for middle-class folks since the…
North Korean bootleggers targeted in raids, home searches
North Korean authorities are searching homes and arresting people who are secretly making moonshine, accusing them of misusing corn while the country continues to struggle with food shortages, sources told Radio Free Asia. A resident of Anju city in South Pyongan province said that of the 25 households in their neighborhood-watch unit, five were caught by security agents and had their homemade alcohol confiscated. “Residents who were quickly able to hide the alcohol before the unexpected house searches were able to avoid getting caught,” the resident said. Many families in…
UK’s Labour Party to recognize Uyghur genocide if it wins elections
UPDATED at 9:45 A.M. EDT on 03-31-2023 The United Kingdom’s opposition Labour Party will aim to declare the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs a genocide if it wins the next general election. Labour Member of Parliament David Lammy, who serves as Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, said he “would act multilaterally with our partners” to get China’s actions recognized as genocide through international courts, he told Politico. “What we’ve seen from China is that they continue to be more internally repressive and obviously there…
Vietnam releases 2 prisoners of conscience before jail terms end
Vietnam granted early release to two prisoners of conscience, each serving a five-year sentence following separate arrests and convictions in 2019 under a law frequently used by authorities to stifle dissent, activists with knowledge of the situation said. The two were convicted of violating Article 117 of the country’s penal code, which criminalizes “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents and items” against the state. Violators can be sentenced to from five to 20 years in prison. Authorities on Tuesday freed Huynh Thi To Nga, 40, about 10 months earlier…
Yes, China Can Quit Coal. Here’s How.
Advertisement Fifty-three miners remain missing or dead after a vast section of wall collapsed at an open-pit coal mine in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on February 22. The wave of earth and rock – over a third of a kilometer wide by one geologist’s estimate – buried dozens of heavy mining vehicles and their operators in a landslide tens of meters deep. The tragedy shines a spotlight on China’s coal mining sector, where hundreds of coal miners perish each year in accidents. Combined with the toll that coal use…