Burma’s refugee numbers means census just scratches surface – The Irrawaddy/RTÉ World Report
June 20th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21524
audio - http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2011/0619/worldreport.html#
Landmine victim Than Tin recuperating at Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
MAE SOT/MAE LA – Oblivious to the late afternoon downpour, six children chase around near the roadside fence at Mae La camp, the biggest of nine refugee camps along the Thailand-Burma frontier.
“Please, no photos of the people”, implores a man standing nearby, sheltering against the wall of one the thousands of timber huts running along the roadside. Three of the children are his, though he refuses to give his name, saying only that he crossed to Thailand from Burma’s Karen State “more than one year ago” and has been confined to the camp since.
Acting on the orders of Tak Provincial Governor Samart Loifah, Thai officials started a headcount in Mae La and in Umpiem Mai and Nu Pu, the two other camps in Tak province. The census is ongoing, with roughly 40% of the estimated total 140,000+ Burmese refugee population in Thailand unregistered.
The Thai government stopped screening and registering new arrivals in 2005, meaning that there are around 60,000 unregistered refugees from Burma currently inside Thailand, according to Sally Thompson of the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), a grouping of 12 NGOs that assists the Burmese refugees in the border camps
In total Thailand hosts just over 96,000 registered refugees, according to figures released by the United Nations refugee commission (UNHCR) in its 2010 Global Trends Report, which was published today to mark World Refugee Day. Worldwide, Pakistan, Iran, and Syria have the largest refugee populations at 1.9 million, 1.1 million, and 1 million respectively, numbers swollen due to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (more…)
A Grim Trade: Burma’s ethnic women trafficked to China – The Irrawaddy
June 14th, 2011
http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21486
BANGKOK – A mix of unscrupulous traffickers, Burma’s economic decline and militarisation, and a shortage of males caused by China’s one-child policy contribute to the trafficking of women from the Palaung region of Burma into China, says a locally-based activist group.
“Since 2007 we documented 72 cases of actual and suspected trafficking involving 110 people” said Lway Moe Kam of the Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO), adding that her research showed that 11 children under ten years of age were among the victims.
25% of the women trafficked were forced to marry Chinese men and 10% of the caseload were coerced into the sex trade, according to the PWO, which grimly concluded that 90% of trafficking victims do not escape. (more…)
Ahmadiyah release offers hope for Rohingya – The Irrawaddy
June 7th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21444
Overjoyed Ahmadiyah embrace as they get ready to depart Suan Plu detention centre (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK – “We are so happy this day to be released”, said Haraan Sidique, boarding a bus at Bangkok’s Suan Plu Immigration Detention Centre on Monday morning, after spending almost 7 months behind bars at refugee prison in central Bangkok.
He is part of a group of 96 Ahmadiyah refugees and asylum seekers from Pakistan that have been released from detention by Thai authorities, a landmark development in a country that does not formally recognise refugees. Thailand is currently coming to the end of its tenure as President of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The released Ahmadiyah are members of a minority Muslim group that is oppressed in Pakistan, where they are not recognised as Muslims and are often victims of sectarian violence. As women carried infants and ushered older children toward the waiting buses, males in the group thanked Thai officials and police at the IDC, all clearly relieved at being released from the IDC. (more…)
Land Activists Face Prison in Vietnam – Asia Sentinel
May 28th, 2011
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3221&Itemid=188
Board games in Saigon. Vietnam's dissidents play a much more dangerous game with the country's Government (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Ho Chi Minh City – Late on a Tuesday evening, sitting four floors up in a Ho Chi Minh City cafe overlooking the city’s landmark opera house, a worried man who used the pseudonym Long had the look of someone who thought he was being watched.
“I drove around the city for 45 minutes before heading here,” he said, hunched over and leaning forward on his seat in a restaurant that was almost empty. Looking around edgily, he said softly, “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being followed.”
At the heart of Long’s problems, and that of his fellow members of a Mennonite Church offshoot, is what they deem to be unfair land seizures that are then turned over to major companies for development by the Vietnamese government. The state maintains sole ownership of land and confiscation in the name of economic development is a continuing irritation. Landowners frequently complain about unfair compensation and criticize the laws on land use, which they say are often abused by corrupt local officials. (more…)
Thailand’s lèse-majesté laws under scrutiny – The Diplomat
May 27th, 2011
http://the-diplomat.com/2011/06/03/free-speech-in-thailand/
Redshirts against Article 112, pictured on May 19 (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK – Public debate around Thailand’s lèse-majesté laws and related restrictions on freedom of expression appears to be growing, even as the country’s election-focused political parties steer clear of the issue in advance of July 3 polls.
The head of the Thai Army, Gen Prayuth Chanocha, recently warned political parties against involving Thailand’s royal family in the election campaign. However, a number of separate civil society requests to amend the relevant section of the country’s Criminal Code are underway, with some writers and scholars – the latter known as the Nitirassadorn group – recently proposing amendments to the lèse-majesté laws, which would seemingly bring Thailand in line with constitutional monarchies elsewhere.
Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code concerns offences deemed to defame, insult or threaten the King, the Queen, the Heir Apparent or the Regent. Lèse-majesté carries a jail sentence of 3-15 years. (more…)
UN Envoy Doubts Burma Govt Commitment – The Irrawaddy
May 23rd, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21342
UN envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana pictured at Thailand's Foreign Correspondents Club (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK—Speaking in Bangkok on Monday at the end of his week-long mission to Thailand, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, said that “the situation of ethnic minority groups in the border areas presents serious limitations to the government’s intention to transition to democracy.”
Expressing some optimism about recent political developments in Burma, the special rapporteur said that “these democratic institutions are very new, and I see some positive signs in them,” mentioning discussions of possible prisoner amnesty and the convening of an anti-poverty conference which took place in Naypyidaw on Monday.
However, he said that the “electoral process excluded several significant ethnic and opposition groups,” and despite the government’s claim that the parliament is “the only venue for discussion of national reconciliation,” added that violence continues in many ethnic minority areas. (more…)
Scars from brutal regime still run deep in Cambodia – Sunday Business Post
April 10th, 2011
http://www.sbpost.ie/news/world/scars-from-brutal-regime-still-run-deep-in-cambodia-55599.html
Downtown Phnom Penh at rush hour (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
SIMON ROUGHNEEN IN PHNOM PENH – For Norng Sarath, the story about a girl named Chea who was kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge and gang-raped in a woodland outside Phnom Penh brought back memories of similar atrocities in Pursat, where he lived during the KR’s brutal 1975-79 rule.
“They took many people, babies, the young, the old, and shot them in the forest”, he said. “No-one knows how many died there”. Around a quarter of Cambodia’s population were murdered by the Khmer Rouge before the invading Vietnamese Army felled Pol Pot’s regime.
At the end of March, the only man so far convicted of crimes committed during the terror appealed the 18 year sentence handed down last July. Comrade Duch, the head of the S-21 detention centre in Phnom Penh, now a museum, says he was compelled to murder by the Khmer Rouge leaders. Norng Sarath disagrees: “Duch ought to get a life sentence”, he said, speaking just hours after the appeal concluded last Wednesday. (more…)
Cambodia’s NGO blues – The Diplomat
April 9th, 2011
http://the-diplomat.com/2011/04/09/cambodia%E2%80%99s-ngo-blues/
PHNOM PENH – ‘This isn’t right at all’, says Mr Ponlok, owner of a waterfront cafe at Boeung Kok lake in Phnom Penh. ‘People are being forced out and the compensation is way too small’.
At the lakeshore, Boeung Kak in Phnom Penh (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Lakeside residents are being driven from their homes as developers try to fill the landmark lake in Cambodia’s capital with earth and sand, prior to turning it into a residential and shopping complex. In deal signed between Shukaku Inc. and the Cambodian Government, a 99-year lease to the 103-hectare lake site was granted to the developers, a location that sits under the noses of the nearby British and French Embassies. (more…)
Echoes from the Killing Fields – The Irrawaddy
March 31st, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21047&Submit=Submit
As an appeal hearing ends in the case of the only person convicted so far for crimes committed under the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia awaits the trial of the still-living KR leaders
Section of billboard showing interrogation rules for detainees at S-21 (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
PHNOM PENH – Clad in a blue shirt under a cream jacket, Kaing Guak Eav sat back, seemingly relaxed to the point of boredom. The judge, prosecution and defence debated the finer points of the relationship between Cambodia’s penal code and the tribunal set up to examine crimes committed under Khmer Rouge rule, while the man known as Comrade Duch, sitting alone two rows behind his legal team, punctuated a usually impassive stillness with the occasional bout of fidgety restlessness.
As head of the S-21 torture camp, Duch – pronounced ‘Doik’ – oversaw the torture of around 16,000 prisoners at the former school, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Most of the detainees were later murdered at Choeung Ek, one of the country’s thousands of mass graves or “Killing Fields”, around 15 miles outside the city centre. S-21 was only one of over 190 similar detention, torture and murder camps set up all over Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era.
Duch was not part of the Khmer Rouge leadership and is the only one of the five accused to have expressed remorse for his crimes, offering at one point to face a public stoning and to allow victims to visit him in jail. But he made a u-turn on the final day of his trial in November 2009, asking to be acquitted and freed, which left many wondering if his contrition was sincere.
After being sentenced to 35 years in prison last July, both defence and prosecution launched appeals, the former saying the sentence is too long, and the latter claiming an unwarranted lenience. In effect the sentence means that Duch will serve around 18 years, or roughly 11 hours jail time for each person killed at S-21. “We reiterate our request that the sentence be increased to something more appropriate to the crimes committed”, said prosecution lawyer Chea Leang, speaking in Khmer. (more…)
Freedom of association laws a litmus test for ‘new’ Burma – The Irrawaddy
March 25th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21011
BANGKOK—After a one-day strike by factory workers in Rangoon earlier this week proceeded unimpeded by Burmese police, thoughts are turning to the possible introduction of trade union legislation in the military-ruled country.
The recent downing of tools by around 500 mostly female workers at a Rangoon shoe factory follows a number of strikes during 2010 in a country where large public gatherings are rare and peaceful dissent is usually not tolerated. (more…)
