RFA Reports (January 2012)

2012-02-01

(Washington, DC — Feb. 1, 2012) Radio Free Asia broadcast the following stories, and more, in January:

RFA Reports on abandonment of Tibetan monasteries

Jan. 31 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on monks and nuns abandoning their monasteries in a Central Tibetan county. The exodus comes amid an increasing crackdown by Chinese authorities following Tibetan protests highlighting rights abuses and unprecedented self-immolations mostly by monks fed up with increasing religious curbs.

RFA Reports on Burmese refugees pouring across China border

Jan. 30 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on tens of thousands of Burmese refugees flooding across the border into the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, sparking a shortage of crucial supplies. Armed clashes between Burmese government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) began last June, but have escalated into large-scale conflict since the beginning of the year, despite efforts by both sides to initiate a ceasefire agreement.

RFA Reports on Chinese activist trial on Jasmine anniversary

Jan. 30 – RFA Cantonese and Mandarin aired story [text in English/Cantonese/Mandarin] on authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Hangzhou announcing plans to try a prominent dissident for subversion as Chinese activists mark the first anniversary of online calls for an Arab World-style “Jasmine Revolution.” The beginning of the Arab Spring in Tunisia last year sparked online calls for Chinese activists to begin their own Jasmine Revolution, prompting the detention and surveillance of hundreds of dissidents and rights defenders across the country.

RFA Reports on clampdown of Tibetan regions

Jan. 29 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on Beijing ramping up security across Tibetan areas—from Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, to the Amdo and Kham regions—following deadly protests. As Tibetans grieved over the deaths of protesters gunned down by Chinese security troops in the Kardze and Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures in Sichuan province, Chinese security forces clamped down on activities in Tibetan areas.


RFA Reports on public outcry over Chinese toxic spill

Jan. 27 – RFA Mandarin and Cantonese aired story [text in English/Mandarin/Cantonese] on residents of the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi panic-buying bottled water following a toxic cadmium spill in their local river. Official media’s reports of the spill of mining waste came weeks after local residents complained of dead fish in the Longjiang river.

RFA Reports on China press freedom worsening

Jan. 26 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on China falling once again in world press freedom rankings, following a year marked by crackdowns on free speech. Hangzhou-based rights activist Chen Shuqing said the “Jasmine” uprisings of the Arab Spring had resulted in a huge crackdown on both activists and independent media professionals, including netizens and citizen journalists.

RFA Reports on sentencing of Uyghur asylum seekers

Jan. 26 – RFA Uyghur aired story [text in English/Uyghur] on the sentencing to life imprisonment of two Uyghur asylum seekers who were deported back to China by Cambodia. The duo were among 18 Uyghurs from China’s volatile Xinjiang region who were believed sentenced to various prison terms since Cambodia deported them on December 19, 2009.

RFA Reports on Burma changes inspiring Lao debate

Jan. 26 – RFA Lao aired story [text in English/Lao] on Lao citizens beginning to question the benefits of living under one-party communist rule prompted by changes in neighboring Burma. Laotians have taken note that the Burma’s status as a once isolated state is changing with the enactment of democratic reforms.

RFA Reports on death of Vietnamese evictee

Jan. 26 – RFA Vietnamese aired story [text in English/Vietnamese] on the death of a rice farmer in northern Vietnam after being beaten into a critical condition by police and other groups during a land grab. The man’s wife told RFA shortly after her husband died that the family could not afford to send him to hospital.

RFA Reports on plans to abolish Burma censorship office

Jan. 25 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on Burma’s censorship chief insisting the country’s censorship board will be abolished in “a matter of months,” despite recent reports of a rollback on press freedoms in the lead-up to elections. Tint Swe, director of the Press Scrutiny and Registration Department, repeated the claims he had made in an interview with RFA three months earlier that the department would be abolished.

RFA Reports on dispute over appointment to Khmer Rouge tribunal

Jan. 24 – RFA Khmer aired story [text in English/Khmer] on an announcement from the government of Cambodia that it stands firm on vetoing the appointment of an international judge to the U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal. The announcement came after talks with an expert from the world body failed to break the latest stalemate on the war crimes hearing. The United Nations has disputed the country’s authority to veto the appointment.

RFA Reports on Gao Zhisheng’s wife pressing for his release

Jan. 20 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on the exiled wife of jailed Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng writing an open letter to her husband, as hundreds of millions of people traveled home to be with their families ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. Convicted of subversion and put on probation for five years, Gao has been “disappeared” and tortured several times.

RFA Reports on Burma ceasefire negotiations

Jan. 19 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on the Burmese government meeting with ethnic Kachin rebels in an effort to initiate a ceasefire agreement. If successful, a deal could end months of fighting along the country’s northern border, as President Thein Sein’s government attempts to forge pacts with various armed ethnic groups.

RFA Reports on real-name online ID in China

Jan. 19 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on China announcing it will expand controls on 330 million users of the country’s hugely popular Twitter-like services. The move, critics say, will curb microblogs as a vital source of news and unofficial opinion. Real-name registration is necessary to ensure the “rapid and healthy growth of the Internet,” Wang Chen, head of China's cabinet-level Internet management office, told reporters.

RFA Reports on popularity of mobile devices in North Korea
Jan. 19 – RFA Korean aired story [text in English/Korean] on North Korea seeing a quantum leap in mobile phone imports. Many experts however do not see this development as an indicator that the country is opening up following the death of dictator Kim Jong Il. The latest UN statistics showed that in 2010, North Korea imported 430,000 mobile phones from China, its primary ally and biggest trading partner, a six-fold jump from imports the previous year.

RFA Reports on shootings in Cambodian eviction protest

Jan. 18 – RFA Khmer aired story [text in English/Khmer] on the wounding of as many as six villagers in eastern Cambodia by a group of military personnel hired by a developer to carry out a forced eviction. The incident immediately drew condemnation from Cambodian rights groups who said the government should review its policy of allowing members of the military to serve as private security guards.

RFA Reports on baby trafficking in Laos

Jan. 18 – RFA Lao aired story [text in English/Lao] on Laos lacking legal protections that could help to prevent the smuggling of newborn babies. A loophole in the country’s current laws allows human traffickers to pose as adopting parents, making it difficult for officials to distinguish them from genuine adopting parents and more difficult to prosecute.

RFA Reports on Chinese Christian activist alleging torture

Jan. 18 – RFA Mandarin and Cantonese aired story [text in English/Mandarin/Cantonese] on a prominent writer and dissident who fled China with his family providing a brutal account of torture at the hands of state security police. Yu Jie, 38, and a former vice president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, told RFA he was taken on Dec. 9, 2010 with a black hood over his head to an undisclosed location where he was subjected to routine beatings and abuse by undercover officers.

RFA Reports on Tibetan protests spreading

Jan. 17 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on protests spreading across Tibetan-populated regions of western China amid calls for freedom from Chinese rule. Sixteen Tibetans, most of them young monks, have set fire to themselves since March last year in protest against Chinese rule with calls for Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to return from exile, resulting in a security crackdown by Beijing.

RFA Reports on official recognition of Wukan protest leader

Jan. 16 – RFA Cantonese and Mandarin aired story [text in English/Cantonese/Mandarin] on one of the protest leaders in the rebellious Guangdong village of Wukan being appointed head of the village by Beijing. Lin Zuluan, who has been a Party member since 1965, was named village Party chief on Sunday, in an official endorsement of protesters’ demands during December’s rebellion, in which he played a key role.

RFA Reports on shooting of two Tibetans after self-immolation

Jan. 14 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on Chinese security forces shooting and killing an elderly Tibetan woman during a confrontation in southwestern Sichuan province following a self-immolation protesting Chinese rule. At least one other person was also shot and several others were injured, some seriously, in the clash between hundreds of Tibetan protesters and police.

RFA Reports on secret sentencing of Tibetan

Jan. 13 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on Chinese authorities in Sichuan province sentencing a Tibetan protester to prison after holding him for nine months. During his detainment, he was allegedly tortured. The individual was detained in March following the self-immolation death of a monk in Ngaba’s Kirti monastery who set himself ablaze in protest against Chinese rule in Tibetan areas.

RFA Reports on Chinese tourists’ reactions to Taiwan polls

Jan. 13 – RFA Cantonese and Mandarin aired story [text in English/Cantonese/Mandarin] on thousands of mainland Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan during presidential elections. Many have expressed surprise at the vigor of the island's democracy.

RFA Reports on freeing of Burma political prisoners

Jan. 13 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on Burma freeing some of its most prominent political prisoners. The move is yet another sign that the government is moving to meet Western demands for lifting long-running diplomatic and economic sanctions.

RFA Reports on Aung San Suu Kyi gearing up for Burma election

Jan. 11 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi scrambling to rebuild her National League for Democracy party ahead of crucial April parliamentary elections. “We participate in politics to be able to form the future the way we want to have it, and to be able to do so, we need the people’s support,” said the 66-year-old Nobel laureate who was released from years of house arrest in November 2010 just after general elections that her party boycotted.

RFA Reports on Chinese artist’s protest for blind activist

Jan. 9 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on an activist in the Chinese capital entering the third day of an art installation and hunger protest, locking himself into a transparent cage. The demonstration is meant to show support for blind Shandong activist Chen Guangcheng, who has been held under house arrest along with his family since September 2010.

RFA Reports on thousands of Tibetans attending funeral

Jan. 9 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on thousands of Tibetans gathering in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province to honor a respected religious leader who died in a self-immolation protest against Beijing. The high-ranking lama set himself ablaze and died in front of the police station of Darlag county in the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture after shouting slogans calling for freedom for Tibet.

RFA Reports on more Tibetan self-immolations

Jan. 6 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on two Tibetans setting themselves on fire in China's Sichuan province. They were protesting against Chinese rule and calling for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. The incident marks the first acts of self-immolation for 2012.

RFA Reports on detention of Vietnamese activist without trial

Jan. 5 – RFA Vietnamese aired story [text in English/Vietnamese] on Vietnamese authorities sending a land-rights activist to a reeducation camp without any trial. The move has been challenged by her lawyer and criticized by human rights groups.


RFA Reports on Vietnamese journalist’s arrest

Jan. 3 – RFA Vietnamese aired story [text in English/Vietnamese] on Vietnamese authorities arresting a journalist who wrote a series of exposes on corruption for allegedly bribing a traffic cop. The official Thanh Nien newspaper said Hoang Khuong, 37, whose real name is Nguyen Van Khuong and who writes for the Tuoi Tre newspaper, was detained. He will be held for four months while authorities investigate his case.

RFA Reports on Uyghur children in crossfire

Jan. 2 – RFA Uyghur aired story [text in English/Uyghur] on the concern of neighbors and teachers over the wellbeing of five ethnic Uyghur children. The children are believed injured and among those detained by police in China's troubled Xinjiang region following recent deadly clashes. “We missed a student for five days. His name is Memet Ablikim, and he is nine years old and a third grade student,” Mukula Village Elementary School director Abdumijit Yasin told RFA.