Uwazi

A digital artist was arrested at her home on Thursday (30 June) on a royal defamation charge, after charges were filed against her for a portrait of King Vajiralongkorn published on Instagram in September 2021.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) reported that 11 police officers from the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) raided the home of 27-year-old Thopad Atanan, an independent digital artist who often posted artwork about the pro-democracy movement, and arrested her for royal defamation under Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code and for importing into into a computer system data which is an offense against national security under Section 14 of the Computer Crimes Act. TLHR noted that Thopad never received a summons in the 9 months since the alleged offence before being arrested.

The police presented an arrest warrant and a search warrant, and confiscated a computer, a painting, and a mobile phone. They declined to let anyone photograph the arrest warrant and the search warrant.

According to the TCSD inquiry officer, the charges are related to a portrait of King Vajiralongkorn which was posted on Instagram on 16 September 2021. The police said that the portrait defamed the King, and that their investigation shows that the Instagram account is likely to belong to Thopad, so they requested the Criminal Court for an arrest warrant. Thopad denied all charges and said she will submit her testimony at a later date.

The inquiry officer then took Thopad to court for a temporary detention request via a teleconference system, claiming that the police still have to interview 4 additional witness, check her computer and mobile phone, and her criminal record. The Court approved the request, but granted her bail on a 90,000-baht security, covered by the Will of the People Fund, a bail fund for people facing charges for participating in the pro-democracy movement.

The Court ordered Thopad to appoint a supervisor and required her to present a letter of consent from her supervisor by Friday (1 July). The Court also set the conditions that she must not repeat her offense and must report to her supervisor every 15 days. She must also report to the court on 17 August 2022.

According to TLHR, at least 208 people has been charged with royal defamation since November 2020, more than half of whom has been charged for their online political expression.

An appellate court in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh upheld a lower court’s decision not to return the passport of Yeang Sothearin, citing an ongoing investigation into the former RFA editor and reporter, he told RFA.

Yeang Sothearin, who also worked as a news anchor for RFA’s Khmer Service, was taken into custody in November 2017 along with Uon Chhin, who was an RFA photographer and videographer.

They were charged with “illegally collecting information for a foreign source” after RFA closed its bureau in the capital in September that year amid a government crackdown on independent media. They have since been charged with additional crimes.

If convicted of the first charge, they could face a jail term of between seven and 15 years. They remain out on bail but in legal limbo after a series of appeals have been rejected by courts.

Yeang Sothearin said the court’s decision would prevent him from visiting his ailing father, an ethnic Cambodian living in southern Vietnam, or participating in NGO activities outside of Cambodia.

“I told the court that it has been five years, it is a long time and I don’t know when it will end,” Yeang Sothearin told RFA’s Khmer Service.

“There is no indication from the judge of when the investigation will end and they won’t tell me when my passport will be returned, so how can I live? I will use my rights to demand [my passport],” he said.

He said that he will appeal again by taking the case to Cambodia’s Supreme Court.

The decision not to return the passport violates Yeang Sothearin’s rights because the case has been delayed for many years and has not yet reached conclusion, Ny Sokha, president of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc) told RFA.

He said the delay affects both Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin.

“We don’t see any indication that they want to avoid the court or flee overseas. They have houses here and they want the freedom to travel to make a living. I don’t see any reason to restrict their freedom,” he said.

The Koh Kong Provincial Court placed seven Botum Sakor residents under court supervision for alleged incitement and occupying state land, after the group returned to land they used to live on before it was given to a sugar plantation.

The court summoned seven people — Pheap Teng, Noy Sok, Ton Lay, Touch Ngann, Khung Roch, Long Moeun and Chhorm Nern — on Wednesday and placed them under court supervision, according to court documents. Only the first five attended the hearing.

They are facing charges of incitement, under articles 494 and 495 of the Criminal Code, and infringement of state property related to articles 17 and 259 of the Land Law.

The group returned to land in Botum Sakor’s Kandol commune in January, which was given in 2006 to a sugar plantation owned by business tycoon Ly Yong Phat. The group said they had not received compensation for the land and were reclaiming it by building small shelters.

The court order states that investigating judge Lor Krem placed them on bail to ensure they would not interfere in the investigation, would attend future hearings and would not change their address without informing the court.

Pheap Teng, a village representative and one of the seven people, said the court’s decision was an attempt to thwart their protests, and was a biased decision.

“I think that the court makes decisions with a bias for the powerful and rich person, because we are victims and really lost the land and they use the judicial system to pressure us,” she said. “Especially when our community heard that they were being sued in court, they worried. They don’t dare to protest even though they unfairly lost their land.”

Koh Kong court spokesperson Vei Phirum could not be reached for comment.

Botum Sakor district governor Hak Leng said officials had repeatedly said they would not find a solution for the group, but the residents kept protesting.

Noy Sok, who is also under court supervision, said authorities had not helped them with a resolution. The disputants were given no compensation and have instead been threatened with violence, he said.

“They said if I dared to protest on that land, they would shoot, they would arrest and imprison [me]. So our people dare not to protest,” she said.

Junta authorities arrested three more Mandalay-based lawyers representing political detainees on Wednesday as they returned home from court hearings inside the city’s prison, according to sources within the local legal network.

The detainees—identified as Tin Win Aung, his wife Thae Su Naing, and Thuta—were reportedly leaving Obo Prison after attending hearings for their clients within the closed court there.

Three of their local colleagues spoke to Myanmar Now on the condition of anonymity and confirmed their arrests to Myanmar Now. At the time of reporting it was not known where they were being held in junta custody or why they had been specifically targeted.

“We still don’t know the details of their arrests. I only heard that Thuta’s vehicle was also seized,” one of the lawyers said.

Following the February 2021 military coup, lawyers representing jailed activists and political opponents of the military have also faced threats to their personal security for challenging the practice of arbitrary detentions in a junta-controlled judiciary.

While the number of lawyers detained across the country is unknown, attorneys in Mandalay said that at least 10 of their colleagues had been arrested since the coup and dozens more are wanted by the military authorities.

Among the detainees is 43-year-old Ywet Nu Aung, a prominent lawyer arrested on April 28. She was representing jailed Mandalay chief minister Zaw Myint Maung and other leaders of the ousted National League For Democracy (NLD) government at the time of her arrest. She was later charged with violating the Counterterrorism Law for allegedly providing funding to an armed resistance group, and was transferred to the Obo Prison in May.

Days before Ywet Nu Aung’s arrest, Si Thu, another lawyer known for helping farmers in land disputes with the military, was beaten by soldiers in front of his wife and children before being taken away from his home in Chanayethazan Township.

Last December, attorney Lwin Lwin Mar and three other lawyers—all women—were also jailed by junta authorities.

Following the series of arrests, lawyers representing junta opponents have reportedly become hesitant to go to their clients’ hearings inside Obo Prison.

Lawyers have been targeted outside of Mandalay as well. In the military’s administrative capital of Naypyitaw, Thein Hlaing Tun—who was representing Myo Aung, the ousted mayor under the NLD—was detained after leaving a court hearing in May 2021. Similarly, two lawyers for deposed Karen State chief minister Nang Khin Htwe Myint were arrested and charged with incitement in June.

The military council has placed a gag order on the lawyers of incarcerated State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and the NLD’s chief ministers in an effort to restrict information released concerning their trials and charges.

As of Friday, Myanmar’s military council had detained more than 14,000 people since the coup, of whom 3,000 had been released.

Raimundos Oki, chief editor of news portal Oekusipost.com, has been accused of breaching judicial secrecy following an investigative report concerning the detention and forced virginity testing of 30 underage girls in 2020. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the charges and calls on the Timor-Leste government to immediately rescind the case.

On June 29, Oki received a telephone call from an officer at the Criminal Investigation Scientific Police (Polícia Científica de Investigação Criminal), instructing him to appear before police the following day. The journalist exercised his right to silence during the minute meeting.

Oki faces charges for allegedly breaching ‘judicial confidentiality’ under Article 291 of Timor Leste’s Timor Code, with a penalty of one to six years imprisonment, for a report that argued several virginity tests were forcibly conducted on inmates at the Topu Honis Shelter in Kutet, Oecusse.

The report centered on evidence-gathering practices during the trial of Richard Daschbach, an American priest in Timor-Leste, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in December 2021 for sexually abusing children under his care.

According to Oki’s report, the public prosecution ordered several local NGOs and police to detain around 30 underage girls for two weeks and performed forced virginity tests in June 2020.

Speaking to UCA News on July 1, Oki said, “When almost all media, including international media, focused on the former priest, I tried to bring up the other side, about the forced virginity test... I happen to be from Oecusse and I found those 30 girls. I spoke to them, and they admitted to being forced to undergo a virginity test.”

In 2017, the Oki faced a year imprisonment for defamation following an article published by the Timor Post published in 2016, which referred to the then Prime Minister of Timor Leste, Rui Maria de Araujo, in his previous role as advisor to the Minister for Finance. According to the article, Araujo recommended the winning bid for a project to supply and install computer equipment for the new Ministry of Finance building in 2014. In June 2017, a Dili judge dismissed all charges against Oki at the Dili Court.

On the last two days of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an order affirming one more time its decision to revoke the certificates of incorporation of Rappler.

“The company registration and monitoring department is hereby directed to effect the revocation of the certificates of incorporation in the records and system of the Commission,” read part of the order dated June 28, and signed by SEC chairperson Emilio Aquino; and Commissioners Javey Paul Francisco, Kelvin Lester Lee, Karlo Bello, and McJill Bryant Fernandez.

What does this mean? “We have existing legal remedies all the way up to the highest court of the land. It is business as usual for us since, in our view, this is not immediately executory without court approval,” said Rappler in its statement on Wednesday, June 29.

In a statement on Wednesday, the SEC said: “In this light, the latest order issued by the Commission En Banc merely puts in effect its earlier decision and those of the Court of Appeals.”

This comes after the National Security Council (NSC) blocked news websites, including Bulatlat.com, using the feared anti-terror law. Reasons

In July 2018, the Court of Appeals (CA) issued a decision siding with the findings of the SEC that Rappler’s issuance of Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDRs) to foreign investor Omidyar constituted some amount of foreign control that was prohibited by the Constitution. The Constitution requires that media companies should have zero foreign control.

But in the same decision, the CA said that when Omidyar donated its PDRs to Rappler’s Filipino managers, “the negative foreign control found objectionable by the SEC appears to have been permanently removed.” The CA remanded the case to the SEC to reevaluate, with a nudge to the Corporation Code’s clause allowing companies to have a grace period to cure their alleged defects.

The SEC stood by its findings in February 2021. Rappler filed a motion for reconsideration before the SEC. This latest order is an action to that motion.

SEC said in this latest order: “Considering that the object of the Donation (the Omidyar PDRs) was void for being contrary to law, the Donation itself was void under Article 1409(1) of the Civil Code for being contrary to law and public policy.”

SEC said that when the CA remanded the case, the appellate court did not order to reinvestigate but only to reevaluate. Rappler asked the SEC to receive additional evidence.

“The Commission’s compliance with the said directive could not have violated the due process rights of Rappler and RHC because, by the very nature and essence of the directive, Rappler and RHC were not entitled to participate in the said legal evaluation,” said the SEC.

In February 2019, the CA affirmed its 2018 decision. By September 2019, the Supreme Court issued a resolution declaring the case closed and terminated. The CA registered its books of entry of judgment, declaring it had attained finality in March 2019.

“Public interest will be served if the revocation of the Certificate of Incorporation of Rappler and Rappler Holdings Corporation is sustained because it will implement the policy of respecting and fully complying with the provisions of the Constitution, to which every Filipino owes allegiance,” said the SEC in its order.

Rappler told its staff in an internal memo sent late night Tuesday: “Clarity, agility, sobriety. Review our drills and the tasks assigned to you.”

“Meantime, it is business as usual for us. We will adapt, adjust, survive and thrive.”

NagaWorld protestors were met with violence by security personnel on the streets of Phnom Penh Monday afternoon, after weeks of their protests proceeding relatively subdued.

Police and district guards pulled and shoved about 100 workers Monday afternoon at the intersection of Sothearos and Sihanouk boulevards, as they attempted to make their way to NagaWorld casino to resume their protests.

The workers walked north on Sothearos Boulevard, arms locked together, when they were met with dozens of police officers and security guards. The protestors resisted as police tried to break through the workers, only managing to pull away one or two at a time. They were shoved into waiting city buses, according to Facebook livestreams taken by the workers.

“I am a woman, I have nothing. We are all women, we have nothing,” one of the workers could be heard saying.

Police continued to pull at the workers and shove them, with people in plain clothes and deputy Phnom Penh governor Mean Chanyada yelling orders at security personnel. In the background of the livestream, district security guards could be seen blocking U.N. observers.

The police officers and city officials could be seen pointing to the pavement and asking the workers to move off the street.

Suddenly, the plainclothes officials ordered police and security guards to retreat behind a barricade and after a few minutes the bus that was being filled with workers was also driven away empty.

The worker stayed behind the barriers, chanting slogans and calling out to Hun Sen to intervene in the case. They left just before 5 p.m. and said they would continue the protest on Tuesday.

The workers have been protesting since December 2021, with recent protests seeing workers reach the casino complex and compliantly board buses. The buses normally drive around the city before workers are let off at the new Freedom Park in Russei Keo.

Keut Chhe, Phnom Penh municipality spokesperson, denied officials used violence against the protestors. He said​​ it was illegal to protest on the streets because it caused traffic and that protestors had been asked to continue their protest at Freedom Park.

Authorities have regularly blocked traffic with barriers to seal off the major intersections to apprehend the protestors, often closing the major roadway for hours at a time.

“The authorities never [used] violence with protestors. But the protestors did not listen to the authorities’ orders,” Chhe said. “The authorities also got small injuries too and lost some of their equipment as well.”

Sin Sreynich, one of the workers, said plainclothes officials were the ones hitting and shoving workers, and were reluctant to listen to the workers.

“They were not listening to us. We tried to compromise with them and talk kindly,” she said.

Has Rithyratana, another worker at the protest, said she was scared but that the workers were united in continuing the strike.

The union, Labor Ministry and NagaWorld have gone through multiple rounds of negotiations, all ending in no resolution. The union’s key demand is for reinstatement of about 200 workers who have refused to accept compensation. The casino company has been more willing to negotiate other demands.

Workers were terminated last year sparking near-daily protests in the capital. Nine union leaders and workers were arrested earlier this year but released on court supervision.

Several people, including activists Kirsten Han and Rocky Howe, are under investigation for three public assemblies held outside Changi Prison Complex and in nearby Mariam Walk.

In a statement on Sunday (June 26), the police said Ms Han and Mr Howe were interviewed on Friday (June 24) as part of investigations into the assemblies.

T-shirts with anti-death penalty slogans that Ms Han and Mr Howe wore on the day of the interview were relevant to the probe, the police added in response to queries.

Both Ms Han and Mr Howe had agreed to hand them over after they were told the T-shirts would be required for investigations, the statement said.

In addition, the police said they were also advised by the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) to investigate if any further offences had been committed by Ms Han and Mr Howe, who are both Singaporean.

"In response to specific media queries, the police can confirm that the AGC, having reviewed the facts, has advised that Ms Han and Mr Howe did not commit any offences, by reason of the T-shirts they wore, when they came for the police interview," the police added.

When asked, the police declined to say who else is being investigated for the three public assemblies, citing the ongoing inquiry.

The police also did not say when the assemblies were held.

In several online posts last week, Ms Han, who is a freelance journalist, said she and Mr Howe were questioned over allegations that they had taken part in two public assemblies without a permit between March 29 and April 25.

Taking part in a public assembly without a police permit is illegal in Singapore and is an offence under the Public Order Act. First-time offenders can be fined up to $3,000, while repeat offenders face a fine of up to $5,000.

According to Ms Han, police said the first alleged illegal assembly was when she and three others had gathered outside Changi Prison the night before 68-year-old Singaporean Abdul Kahar Othman was hanged for drug trafficking on March 30.

The second alleged illegal assembly was when Ms Han and three others had posed for photos outside Changi Prison two nights before the execution of Malaysian Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam on April 27, she added.

For these alleged offences, Ms Han, who is in her 30s, and Mr Howe, wh

Ms Han said the anti-death penalty T-shirts she and Mr Howe wore to the interview were confiscated by the police, who allegedly claimed that the pair had participated in an illegal procession because they walked across the street to the police station while wearing them.

Writing in her online newsletter on Saturday (June 25), Ms Han added: "I was made to call our friend Soh Lung, who was waiting for us in the foyer, to get her to go to the market to buy us new shirts, so that we could change and surrender our T-shirts."

She was referring to Ms Teo Soh Lung, a former political detainee who has also been posting updates about the investigation into Ms Han on social media.

In her post, Ms Han also took issue with a police officer who had asked that she surrender her social media accounts and provide the police with the passwords to access them.

This was after Ms Han had agreed to surrender her phone, but not before she had logged out of, or uninstalled, her social media applications.

Ms Han said when she refused, she was warned that Section 39 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) "might come into play".

The police, in their statement on Sunday, said only that Ms Han's and Mr Howe's mobile phones were seized for forensic examination as part of investigations.

Under Section 39 of the CPC, police officers have the power to access, inspect and check the operation of a "computer" used in connection with an arrestable offence.

The police officer may also order persons using, or who have used, the computer to assist the police in gaining access to it, including providing any username, password or other authentication information required.

Any person who obstructs the lawful exercise of any power under the section by a police officer, or fails to comply with an order under it, can be fined up to $5,000, jailed for up to six months, or both.

Still as usual, agrarian conflicts that never met the bright spot again led to criminalization and the arrest of a number of people.

The latest agrarian conflict in Talisayan, Berau Regency, East Kalimantan involving the Dayak Marjun indigenous community and a palm oil plantation company named PT Tanjung Buyuh Perkasa Plantation (TBPP) which has been going on since 2004 led to the criminalization and arrest of a number of residents by the police.

In a statement released by the National Committee for Agrarian Reform (KNPA) on June 24, 2022, the arrest of Talisayan residents was based on a PT TBPP report accusing residents of harvesting and stealing palm oil belonging to PT TBPP, 6 residents were subject to Article 363 of the Criminal Code regarding theft.

KNPA also spoke loudly through its release which was received by the media crew. KNPA noted in its release that the harvesting of palm oil by the indigenous Dayak Marjun community on their ulayat lands cannot be called a case of theft using a criminal law approach.

Because if you look back, the reason behind the action of harvesting palm oil by the community is because PT TBPP has planted oil palm outside its HGU boundaries and has confiscated the Marjun customary area of ​​​​approximately 1800 hectares.

The struggle of the Dayak Marjun indigenous people has been going on with various attempts to protest and reject the operational activities of PT TBPP which have confiscated customary land and damaged the environment. However, their efforts actually got a bad response.

They were directed to criminal charges. Whereas Article 66 of Law No. 32 of 2009 concerning Processing and Protection of the Living Environment (UU PPLH) explicitly states "Everyone who fights for the right to a good and healthy environment cannot be prosecuted criminally or be sued in a civil manner."

Responding to this incident, the Head of the Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice (IHCS) Jambi Province, Ahmad Azhari, requested that the indigenous Dayak Marjun community who had been arrested by the police be released immediately.

“It is not relevant to criminalize the efforts of the police against the Marjun indigenous people, they are not only subjects that have been regulated and protected by law but also constitutionally the Constitutional Court 35 gives respect, meaning that for social justice there is the right to control the state over objects of agrarian conflict. We ask that our brothers be released," said Ahmad Azhari, Saturday, June 25, 2022.

Regarding the conflict that afflicted the Dayak Marjun indigenous people, KASBI, KPA, Aman, Walhi, and IHCS who are in coalition with the KNPA demanded that the Prosecutor's Office, Polres and Berau Regency Government immediately release 6 residents who were criminalized and arrested by the police and also for legal proceedings against indigenous peoples. Dayak Marjun immediately stopped.

Then, the President immediately instructed the Ministries and related institutions to accelerate the resolution of the agrarian conflict in the Marjun customary area as part of the commitment to implementing agrarian reform and recognizing and restoring the rights of indigenous peoples.

The Observatory has been informed about the conviction, sentencing, and ongoing arbitrary detention of Nguy Thi Khanh, a prominent environmental activist, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018 and a symbol of the campaign against Vietnam’s reliance on coal power.

On June 17, 2022, Nguy Thi Khanh was sentenced to two years of imprisonment for tax evasion under the Article 200 of Vietnam’s 2015 Criminal Code, after being prosecuted and convicted for failing to pay a 10% tax on her Goldman Prize money, which is equivalent to an amount of VND 456 million (around 18,252 Euros).

Ms. Khanh was arrested on January 11, 2022 and detained for investigation at the Police Detention Centre No. 1 in Hanoi, where she remained detained pending trial. The acts of harassment against her began after she had repeatedly raised concerns on Vietnam’s heavy reliance on coal. In October 2021, Nguy Thi Khanh along with several NGOs alerted Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on the necessity to revise Vietnam’s Draft National Power Development Plan for the 2021-2030 period. In October 2019, she had joined 12 Vietnamese NGOs, including Oxfam - Vietnam, in signing the “Hanoi Statement” (Tuyến bố Hà nội), which called on the government to stop funding coal-fired power stations and to conduct a democratic consultation with the Vietnamese people.

At the time of publication of this urgent appeal, Nguy Thi Khanh remains in the Police Detention Center No 1.

Ms. Khanh is the fourth and most prominent environmental activist denouncing Vietnam’s continued heavy reliance on coal-fired power to be arrested this year on charges of tax evasion. On January 24, 2022, Dang Dinh Bach, director of the Law and Policy of Sustainability Development Research Center, was sentenced to five years in prison. On January 11, 2022, Mai Phan Loi, founder and leader of the Center for Media in Educating Community (MEC) and Bach Hùng Duong former director of the MEC were sentenced to our years and two years and six months respectively.

The three environmental rights defenders were accused of corporate tax evasion, although non-profit organizations are exempt from corporate tax in Vietnam. Tax laws regarding NGOs receiving funds from international donors are particularly vague and restrictive. The organisations of the three defenders, along with the VCHR, believed that their arrests were prompted by their work to promote civil society engagement in monitoring the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) which came into force in 2021.

The Observatory expresses its deepest concern about the Vietnamese authorities’ use of legal harassment, especially the use of tax-related charges against environmental activists, as a strategy to criminlise them.

The Observatory strongly condemns the judicial harassment and arbitrary detention of Nguy Thi Khanh, Dang Dinh Bach, Bach Hung Duong, and Mai Phan Loi, as it seems to be only aimed at punishing them for their legitimate environmental and human rights activities.

The Observatory urges the Vietnamese authorities to put an end to all acts of harassment against the above-mentioned human rights defenders and immediately and unconditionally release them.

On June 21, Bulatlat obtained from a reliable source a copy of a government order for all internet service providers to block the website of Bulatlat and 26 others, including fellow alternative news outlet Pinoy Weekly and progressive organizations.

Bulatlat has condemned this move as prior restraint against protected speech, adding that this is based on hearsay of National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr.

“We raise the alarm that such arbitrary action sets a dangerous precedent for independent journalism in the Philippines,” the country’s longest-running online news said in a statement.

This report revisits what the public needs to know about the DNS blocking and what it means for press freedom in the Philippines.

1. How was DNS blocking on Bulatlat and 26 other websites discovered?

On June 17, 2022, Bulatlat received queries from its readers asking why its website was inaccessible. These were forwarded to its web host, Qurium Media Foundation, which confirmed that users of Smart Broadband as their internet service provider were faced with returning errors related to failing DNS resolution. In its initial investigation, Qurium found out that the last DNS request coming from Smart Broadband was recorded on the 16th June at 6:24 UTC. Simply put, the ISP deliberately blocked access to the website.

This prompted Bulatlat to write to PLDT/Smart, the National Telecommunications Commission, and the Department of Information and Communications over the apparent DNS blocking on June 20. A day after, on June 21, Bulatlat was able to get, through a reliable source, a copy of the NTC memorandum and the letter of National Security Adviser and retired general Hermogenes Esperon Jr. requesting the blocking of Bulatlat and 26 other websites of independent media and progressive organizations over allegations that they are “affiliated to and are supporting terrorists and terrorist organizations.”

2. What is DNS blocking?

A DNS (domain name server) block is a mechanism to prevent users from accessing suspicious websites. In this case, however, DNS blocking is being used for internet censorship, similar to what is implemented in Vietnam and Myanmar.

3. What did the NSC “request”?

In its letter, the National Security Council cited as basis for the DNS blocking three resolutions of the controversial Anti-Terrorism Council designating revolutionary organizations and alleged members of the Communist Party of the Philippines Central Committee as terrorists.

Esperon, in his capacity as National Security Adviser, “requested” for the blocking of the 27 websites (28 were listed because perhaps for emphasis, Bulatlat was listed twice), without laying the grounds nor presenting evidence.

4. What did NTC order?

Responding to the so-called request, the National Telecommunications Commission issued a June 8, 2022 “for strict and immediate compliance” order directing the immediate blocking of the reported websites. The NTC gave internet service providers no later than five days upon receipt of the order to carry out the blocking.

Bulatlat and the groups in the NSC list were never informed of the said blocking “request.”

5. Why is it questionable and unconstitutional?

There is no provision in the Anti-Terror Act nor in the Cybercrime Prevention Act which provides authority for the NTC to order the blocking of websites.

The NTC memo violates the right of Bulatlat and other groups to publish, and the people’s right to freedom of thought, free speech and free expression.

6. What does it mean for the Philippine independent news?

In a statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines has denounced the blocking, adding that while reporting may be critical of the government, “it is dangerous to equate this with affiliation or support that the government now claims.”

“Blocking access to these sites leave a gap in discourse and in flow of information and highlights and threats posed by the Anti-Terrorism Act on the freedom of expression and on freedom of the press,” the NUJP said.

The activist group 24 June Democracy has demanded that the Ministry of Justice investigate a prison doctor’s alleged harassment of Nutthanit (last name withheld), or “Baipor,” a monarchy reform activist currently detained pending trial on a royal defamation charge, while the Department of Corrections claims no harassment took place.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) said last week that Natthanit told her lawyer that she was threatened by a prison doctor named Chatri, who was performing a physical exam on her and Netiporn, another detained activist. She said that the doctor said to her “If I had a gun, I would…” and imitated a gun with his hand, pointing it at his chin while laughing, and that he told her that prison officials should separate her and Netiporn. She also said that Dr Chatri asked her about personal matters and criticized her on things unrelated to the physical exam he was performing.

On Wednesday (22 June), members of the 24 June Democracy group, led by activists Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, Jetsada Sripleng, and Shinawat Chankrajang, went to the Ministry of Justice to submit a petition calling for the Ministry to investigate Dr Chatri’s behaviour, to release the evidence related to the reported harassment, and for women doctors to be employed to treat inmates in the women’s prison.

The activists also demanded that legislation be amended to prevent judges from ordering the detention of defendants who should be considered innocent until the court has issued a verdict, and that the royal defamation law be amended as it is being used to restrict freedom of expression.

Their petition was received by Deputy Permanent Secretary Sahakarn Petchnarin, who said that the Ministry must make sure that prisons meet global standards, and that the Department of Corrections will not neglect inmates or allow them to die while in detention. He also met and spoke to representatives of the group about their demands.

Meanwhile, the Department of Corrections’ Public Relations Department issued a press release saying that Nutthanit went to see the prison doctor on 16 June for a physical exam and to receive medication for a stomach ache since she is on a hunger strike, and that the doctor on call at the time was Dr Chatri Chongsiriloet.

According to the press release, Dr Chatri spoke to Nutthanit and examine her symptoms, but Nutthanit told the doctor that she will not be receiving treatment and refused medication. The Department of Corrections also said that Dr Chatri claimed that he was testing Nutthanit’s intelligence and cognitive abilities and was asking her why she is on a hunger strike, and that he claimed he did not threaten or harass her. He also told the Department of Corrections that a nurse was present during the examination.

The Department also said that Dr Chatri has been working at the Women’s Central Correctional Institution for 15 years, during which there has never been a complaint against him.

Nutthanit and Netiporn are both monarchy reform activists from the activist group Thaluwang and have been held in pre-trial detention since 3 May when their bail was revoked by the South Bangkok Criminal Court, which claimed that they violated their bail conditions by causing public disorder by participating in another poll on land expropriation on 13 March 2022 at the Victory Monument, during which a small altercation took place between Thaluwang supporters and members of a royalist group gathering nearby.

Nutthanit and Netiporn have been charged with royal defamation, sedition, and refusing to comply with an officer’s order after they conducted a poll on royal motorcades at Siam Paragon shopping mall on 8 February 2022. They were arrested on 28 April 2022 along with activist Supitcha Chailom and charged with royal defamation for conducting a poll on whether people agree with the government allowing the King to use his powers as he pleases.

In addition to the above charges, Nutthanit was arrested on 22 April 2022 and charged with royal defamation and violation of the Computer Crimes Act for sharing a Facebook post about the monarchy budget.

To demand the right to bail for detained activists, Nutthanit and Netiporn have been on hunger strike for the past 22 days. TLHR reported on Wednesday (22 June) that Netiporn was taken to the prison infirmary on Tuesday night (21 June) after her conditions deteriorated. According to TLHR, Nutthanit told their lawyer during their Wednesday morning visit that Netiporn had a stomach ache, and that she was fainting and throwing up.

Nutthanit also told their lawyer that Netiporn has not eaten anything for over a week and has only been drinking water, and that she wanted Netiporn to be released to receive treatment since she has lost 11 – 12 kg in weight and her condition has deteriorated.

TLHR said lawyers requested bail for Nutthanit and Netiporn again today (23 June), but their request was denied. The South Bangkok Criminal Court said that there is still no reason to change existing court order and that, even though the two activists said they suffer from stomach ache and fatigue, the prison infirmary is capable of treating their symptoms. The order was signed by judge Netdao Manotamkij, Deputy Chief Justice of the South Bangkok Criminal Court.

TLHR notes that keeping Nutthanit in detention would affect her education. She is currently a student at Thammasat University’s Puey Ungphakorn School of Development Studies and has already missed her final examinations, but has filed a request with her department asking to take the exams at a later date after she has been released. Meanwhile, Netiporn was previously found to have a uterine cyst, and keeping her in detention would deny her medical treatment, possibly affecting her long-term health.

The Supreme Court this morning upheld the conviction of land community representative Hoeun Sineath from Tbong Khmum province. Sineath was convicted by the Tbong Khmum Provincial Court in December 2020 of intentionally causing damage with aggravating circumstances of acting as a co-perpetrator under Articles 410 and 411(1) of the Criminal Code. He was sentenced to two years in prison, a decision upheld by the Tbong Khmum Appeal Court in August 2021 and the Supreme Court this morning.

Multiple communities in Dambe district, Tbong Khmum province have faced a decade-long dispute over community farmland with Harmony Win Investment Co. Ltd., a Chinese-owned rubber company. Sineath, along with eight other villagers who are not in detention, were convicted after they protested the company blocking access to and clearing their land. Sineath was the only one to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court. He has spent more than 1 year and 10 months in Tbong Khmum prison since his arrest in August 2020.

Sineath was also convicted in a separate case following his arrest. In that case, he was convicted alongside 14 other people for obstructing public officials with aggravating circumstances under Articles 503 and 504 of the Criminal Code after they filmed authorities implementing a court order related to the disputed land. He was sentenced to spend one year in prison and fined 1 million riel (US$250). The other 14 people received fully suspended six-month sentences. Sineath has also appealed that case to the Supreme Court, with proceedings ongoing.

Around 30 members of Tbong Khmum’s Sre Prang community travelled to Phnom Penh and gathered outside the Supreme Court in support of Sineath during the trial hearing last Wednesday. Daun Penh security guards blocked them from gathering in front of the court and from walking to the National Assembly to follow up on a petition they had previously submitted.

The community of Rejecting the Sangihe Mine was repressed by elements of the joint TNI and POLRI officers who were suspected of protecting PT TMS, which had unloaded heavy equipment to enter the mining location in Bowone Village, Kec. Tabukan South Central, Wednesday, June 15 2022, at approximately 15.00 WITA.

The action of the Community Rejecting the Sangihe Mine by closing the road access is a form of protest against the mining company PT. TMS which has been defeated based on the TUN court decision, to be able to respect the court's decision and the existing legal process, including the prohibition for companies to bring heavy equipment into the building. mine site. Heavy equipment belonging to the company, which was under the direct supervision of the TNI and POLRI, resulted in a conflict between the Sangihe Reject Mining Community and the TNI and POLRI which even led to repressive actions by the apparatus.

It is known that on Thursday, June 2, 2022, the Manado State Administrative Court has won the Sangihe Mining Community's lawsuit with case number 57/G/LH/2021/PTUN.Mdo, namely the Cancellation Decision and the Revocation Order. 503/DPMPTSPD/IL/IX/2020, concerning the Granting of Environmental Permits for PT. TMS Gold Mining Activities in Sangihe Regency, North Sulawesi Province.

That after the decision of the Manado Administrative Court, PT TMS should be able to show a law-abiding and respectful attitude to the court's decision and temporarily stop all forms of mining activities until a court decision has legal force, instead of ignoring and straddling the court's decision. The attitude and actions of PT. TMS are a form of disobedience to the law and harm to us as a state of law.

The protest form of the Community Rejecting the Sangihe Mining has given rise to threats from the Sangihe Police, as can be seen from the video spread on various social media with a duration of ± 58 seconds. The video shows how an individual from the Sangihe Resort Police gives an appeal by using several provisions of the Articles in the Criminal Code that must be obeyed by the community against mining.

In response to this, YLBHI-LBH Manado as the Institute for Human Rights Observer considers that the appeal from the police is a form of real and serious threat and has the potential for criminalization for the people who have consistently defended their living space. The criminal provisions conveyed by the police officers cannot be snared or imposed on the Sangihe community who refuse to mine, because the actions taken have been guaranteed and protected by law. So that the appeal is considered a form of partiality given to PT. TMS, and has tarnished the image of the police as protectors, protectors and law enforcers.

In a press release from YLBHI-LBH Manado received by CYBERSULUT, the treatment of the TNI and POLRI against the community rejecting the sangihe mine has straddled and violated various regulations that have guaranteed the rights of every citizen or community in defending their land rights and living space. Article 28A of the 1945 Constitution guarantees that "Everyone has the right to live and has the right to defend his life and life", Article 28D paragraph 1 "Rights to recognition, guarantees, protection and fair legal certainty and equal treatment before the law", Article 28J paragraph 1 "everyone is obliged to respect the human rights of others", and Article 66 of the PPLH Law explicitly states that "everyone who fights for the right to a good and healthy environment cannot be prosecuted criminally or be sued in a civil manner".

TNI and POLRI as law enforcement officers should be able to act professionally by enforcing the rule of law, in this case providing protection to people who are maintaining their living space as guaranteed and protected in laws and regulations, instead of threatening the community by using Articles of the Criminal Code which have the potential for criminalization. for the community to refuse mining and provide protection for PT. TMS to be able to return to mining activities.

The Kampong Thom Provincial Court has put an indigenous Kuy community representative in pretrial detention for violence against a property owner following a complaint from a local company.

Heng Phen, second deputy of the local Kuy community in Sandan district, was arrested on Tuesday and charged under the Land Law with committing violence against a property owner for alleged illegal encroachment on the company’s land, said provincial court spokesman Say Veasna.

The community has long been in dispute with Sambath Platinum, which received nearly 2,500 hectares in 2011 for a rubber plantation in Boeng Per Wildlife Sanctuary.

Hean Hiek, first deputy of the Kbet Changho Khnar community, rejected the accusations against Phen.

“She has done nothing wrong. She did not do anything affecting the company’s benefit, and her arrest violated the rights of indigenous people because there was no clear reason,” Hiek said, adding that they had seen no arrest warrant.

Hiek said that the company had begun clearing the community’s farmland in 2011. In 2014, the provincial administration told the company to cut off 130 hectares of its concession for the community and stay 100 meters away from a canal they used. But, according to Hiek, the company had not complied. The community alleges the company has cleared about 700 of 1,000 hectares of the community’s land.

A letter issued by the Kampong Thom land management department in August last year ordered Sambath Platinum to stop planting boundary poles, clearing crops, and removing the community’s markers. It also ordered the company to compensate the community for crop damage.

Another community member, Um Bunthorn, alleged that on May 18, eight armed officers had used violence against residents and confiscated their tractors. Now, the company had unfairly filed a court complaint against them, he argued.

“Our indigenous people would like to appeal to the court and national authorities to intervene for the release of Heng Phen,” Bunthorn said.

Chheng Phann, a company representative and the case’s plaintiff, could not be reached on Thursday.

Ngoan commune chief Seth Phouy said the dispute was long-standing, but the matter was resolved.

“Previously, the people feared using land within the map of the company, forests that they had used for many years. [But] the company has never done anything to affect the people,” Phouy said.

Ngoan’s commune police chief, who only gave his name as Sopheak, said he had also not received a court order for the arrest, and instructions had come down from higher levels.

Four protesters who took part in the commemoration of the death of Mako Tabuni which took place at Perumnas 3, Waena, Jayapura City, on Tuesday (14/6/2022) were injured when the police broke up their demonstration. The four people were injured by rubber bullets. The four protesters who were injured were Aris Nepsan and Jon Kadepa, Benedict Tebai and Natan Pigai. They were injured on the forehead, head, hands, and buttocks. The head of the Freedom of Association and Expression Team for the Legal Batuan Institute or LBH Papua, Aristoteles Howay said announcing the death of Mako Tabuni was dismissed by the police at around 13.00 WP. During the dispersal, the police released tear gas, and were expected to fire rubber bullets. “They were dispersed with tear gas and shot [rubber bullets]. There were four people hit by rubber bullets," Howay told Jubi on Tuesday. Howay said Tuesday's demonstration was a commemoration of the death of Deputy I of the Central West Papua National Committee (KNPB), Mako Tabuni. According to him, the police dispersed the flag after the protesters raised the KNPB. Howay said that at least six demonstrators were arrested by the police and taken to the Jayapura City Police Headquarters. "[Besides], four motorbikes and action attributes were also confiscated," he said. Howay said Tuesday afternoon they had not been able to meet the demonstrators until they were arrested by police. According to Howay, the disbandment of the demonstration violated the provisions of the Regulation of the Chief of the Indonesian National Police Number 16 of 2006 concerning Guidelines for Crowd Control. "Everyone has the right to express their opinion," he said. The Director of LBH Papua, Emanuel Gobay asked the Papuan Regional Police Chief in charge of the Profession and Security Sector to arrest the police who used rubber bullets to disperse the demonstration commemorating the death of Mako Tabuni. He assessed that the Jayapura City Police (Polresta) officers tended to carry out repression during demonstrations. Police institutions regulate the implementation of human rights standards in police duties,” said Gobay.

The military has intensified efforts to locate and capture participants in anti-junta flash demonstrations in Yangon, arresting more than 30 young adults on Monday and Tuesday alone, according to a source close to the city’s student activists.

Leo, the on-ground officer for the General Strike Committee, told Myanmar Now that the youth were detained from townships including Kyimindaing, Sanchaung, Tamwe and Yankin.

“Over 30—almost 40—youth were captured. They forced people who had connections with the victims to guide them to the victims at gunpoint,” he said.

A member of the Yangon Revolution Force (YRF) said that two of the people arrested had hung banners on Strand Rd in Kyimindaing on Monday morning condemning the military-led education system and encouraging people to commit to the anti-dictatorship movement.

“One of them was captured first and the military found out about the other one’s whereabouts from the first one,” the YRF member said. “Although we knew that the first one had been taken, the second one couldn’t get away as it was already 1am when he was captured.”

A member of a youth strike committee from Kyimindaing who had gone into hiding at the time of reporting confirmed that several youth from the township were arrested on Monday.

Soldiers and police officers were searching apartments and blocking roads in order to search vehicles and increasing their patrol in an effort to apprehend protesters, according to a recent statement by the online community the Yangon scout group, which warns members of the public of junta surveillance.

A protest leader and student union member told Myanmar Now that junta troops had been checking household registration lists at night for unregistered guests, as part of a push to identify and arrest youth who had participated in recent demonstrations.

“We get really scared at night as we are all at risk of getting arrested. I can’t afford to pay rent alone, so I’m sharing a room with a colleague from the strike committee,” he explained.

Soldiers reportedly beat and arrested two men in Tamwe and three in Sanchaung in addition to the several people apprehended in Kyimindaing, among whom were four protest leaders, another activist said.

“A boy and a girl were taken in Alatt Chaung ward in Kyimyindaing last night and they’re forcing them to guide them to their team members” he added, noting that some 35 junta personnel were present.

Acknowledging the risk of punishment by the military council, Leo, from the General Strike Committee, called on area residents to help shelter protesters in hiding in order to show support for the anti-dictatorship movement.

“We request that, when it is necessary, the public protect the youth who are fleeing,” he said.

Myanmar law students are reporting for JURIST on challenges to the rule of law in their country under the military junta that deposed the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. Here, one of our correspondents reports the suicide of a young Myanmar pro-democracy lawyer whose brother and sisters were taken hostage after junta agents came looking for her. The text has only been lightly edited to respect the author’s voice.

Myanmar lawyer Daw Phyu Phyu Khaing (age-29) took her own life Sunday after military junta troops arbitrarily abducted her family members and held them as hostages.

According to a neighbour, a group of junta armed forces raided her home in Ohn Chaw Village, Patheingyi Township, at 1 pm on 8th June. The military initially intended to arbitrarily arrest her based on reports from their on-ground informants who said that she was actively involved in protest groups in which lawyers protest against the military junta and that she financially supported People’s Defence Force (PDF) members. However, when they found out she had already fled away, the junta severely tortured her family members who remained at home. Junta agents subsequently abducted a total of three of her family members – her brother and her two sisters – to hold them hostage instead of her. According to informants, her siblings were sent to the interrogation centre inside the Mandalay Royal Palace compound where the junta military has a base.

Even after four days of their detention [yesterday, 12th June], there was no further news about her family members. On that day, Phyu Phyu Khaing tried to take her own life by taking pesticides. A neighbour saw the scene and tried to save her, but due to lack of adequate medical support in the area where she was, she passed away, according to the Mandalay Free Press (MFP).

Can you imagine what a 29 year old lawyer could have done to support the rule of law and social justice for her country?

Before doing all those great things, here in Myanmar, lawyer Phyu Phyu Khaing succeeded in taking her own life before Myanmar people succeed in getting Democracy. At least she was able to end her suffering now while we all continue. And maybe she did that in the hope of having her family released.

Once again, the Myanmar juntas have successfully proven their excellence in being the cruelest TERRORISTS.

Even though this news is not published on local or international media, there are many Myanmar lawyers who have been arbitrarily arrested for many absurd accusations. The reason why these stories are not more broadly publicized is a fear, uncontradicted by the junta, that media attention will makes the life of hostages worse. But we desperately need media attention to shine light upon this continuous torture while we risk everything just to tell the world about this.

This is not the first time a lawyer has been chased like prey. This is not the first time that the family members of someone on the junta’s “wanted list” have been held as hostages. I hope no one ever forgets how last year a 20 year old third year Myanmar law student, her mother and her 5 year old younger sister were held as hostages.

And Myanmar is not the only place where we are continuously failing to bring peace and justice. Myanmar’s trouble should be considered the world’s trouble because the Myanmar junta is committing crimes against humanity. It’s going on two years since the coup, but where is our democracy, and how many innocent people are going to get murdered before we get it back? All of us do not have a tomorrow. I wonder what the point of having a tomorrow is when every tomorrow comes with misery.

Progressives denounced the arrest of 68-year old environmental defender Daisy Macapanpan who was arrested on June 11, Sunday.

Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan, called for the immediate release of Macapanpan who, she said, is “a victim of warrantless arrest and unjust detention based on false charges, which are seen as reprisals on her advocacy work for the environment and her community.”

Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment described Macapanpan’s arrest as overkill.

Macapanpan was arrested in her home in Pakil, Laguna reportedly by 24 policemen.

In an online press conference on June 12, Macapanpan’s relative, Ryan, Macapanpan just came from a meeting in a church in their town in Pakil when the police came to their residence.

According to Kalikasan, Macapanpan has been leading the opposition against the construction of Ahunan Pumped-Storage Hydropower Project on top of the mountain in Pakil, Laguna.

Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan, said that there is nothing wrong with airing disapproval and explaining opinions on why the Ahunan Hydropower Project should be shelved.

“The purpose of such discussions that locals have is to raise awareness and discourse over the matter at hand. Is there something that the proponents are trying to hide that Daisy has probably discovered,” Dulce said.

The said project, according to Dulce, will be constructed in Mt. Inumpong of the Sierra Madre mountain range along Pakil, Laguna. He said that the biodiverse area also has water resources flowing from the Dakil river ecosystems, including the Sirena Falls.

He said that the Ahunan Power Inc., a joint venture of tycoon Enrique Razon’s Prime Metro Power Holdings Corp. and JBD Water Power Inc., is one of the proponents of the hydropower project that will affect 300 hectares of land.

The project will result in more flooding brought about by larger typhoons in floodplains along the shores of Laguna de Bay. The location of the said project is also prone to landslide, said Dulce.

Agham (Advocates of Scientist and Technology for the People) said the proposed project is envisioned to produce 1,400-MW electricity. The group said that the water from the Laguna Lake will be pumped into a reservoir on top of the Sierra Madre in Pakil which will be dropped thereafter to produce hydroelectric power.

They said that the residents fear that the hydropower dam will affect their source of drinking water as well as religious practices in the natural pools in Pakil.

“The construction of the Ahunan hydropower dam will also involve the destruction of trees in Sierra Madre, which will also affect wildlife. The destruction of forests will also increase the likelihood of landslides and heavy flooding,” the group said in a statement.

The group recognizes that the Ahunan hydropower dam is seen as a renewable energy source that could become an alternative to coal-fired power plants. “However, the development of such renewable energy sources should not be at the expense of the environment and people. Additionally, such renewable energy would still be under the control of a private corporation, thus cheap electricity prices are still not guaranteed,” the group added.

More arrests foreseen

Ryan denounced the ill-treatment of her aunt by the arresting officers.

“Some of the policemen who did not have name patches and were carrying firearms, forcibly entered the house of my aunt Daisy. She was alone then. I tried to run to her because I was afraid they might kill her and say that she fought back. The police won’t let me. They were able to get my aunt. Male police officers carried her through her arms and feet and forcibly took her to their mobile,” Ryan said.

He added that the police did not wear body cameras and did not present any warrant of arrest.

Karapatan said it was only when Macapanpan was at the Quezon Provincial Police Office in Camp General Nakar, Lucena City when she learned that she was charged with rebellion for an incident in Infanta, Quezon.

Karapatan added that the charges against Macapanpan and other activists in Southern Tagalog were filed in 2008.

“The rebellion case filed before the Regional Trial Court Branch 65 in Infanta, Quezon was the same case levelled against peasant organizer Dana Marcellana, daughter of peasant leader Orly Marcellana and slain human rights worker Eden Marcellana, who was arrested last year,” Palabay said in a statement.

“At this rate, this rebellion charge may be used repeatedly against activists in Southern Tagalog as the government continues its harassment against activists and government critics,” Palabay added.

Agham meanwhile expressed their alarm over the increasing number of rights violations against environmental and land rights defenders as the President Duterte’s term is about to end.

“Prior to Daisy’s arrest, at least 90 agrarian reform beneficiaries and peasant advocates were illegally arrested in Tarlac. With the worsening global climate crisis, it is imperative that the government afford protection on environmental defenders who serve as frontliners in protecting and conserving the environment,” the group said.

Palabay meanwhile said that they believe that the policy of repression and terror will continue under the new government following the mass arrests of farmers and supporters in Tarlac as well as the preparations for president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s inauguration including restrictions on rallies and mass actions.

“Nevertheless, we will continue to call and work for Macapanpan’s release and that of all political prisoners who face trumped up charges and other forms of attacks,” Palabay said.

The commander of the Bangkok police force on Wednesday rejected allegations that its officers endangered anti-government demonstrators by aiming baton rounds at their upper bodies during a recent confrontation.

Metropolitan Police Bureau commander Pol Lt Gen Samran Nualma said in a statement that the use of rubber-tipped bullets complied with all appropriate safety guidelines, a day after he told a group of media representatives that citizen journalists and independent media are free to operate from protest sites, provided they do not encourage violence or break the laws.

“The shoulder firing position is a basic pose and complies with standards in using firearms, because it allows the officers to take [accurate] aims at the targets, and it is less dangerous than firing without aiming at all,” the statement quoted Police Lt. Gen. Samran as saying. “Firing the weapon from other positions, without aiming, may cause injuries to vital organs.”

Samran was responding to images and videos that appear to show riot police aiming their rifles directly at protesters near Din Daeng Intersection on the night of 11 June.

Police critics say such action may cause serious injuries to those struck by the projectiles. They also point to police guidelines on the use of non-lethal weapons, which state that the rubber bullets should only be aimed at non-vital organs and lower parts of the bodies.

Samran said the images don’t tell the whole story since an elevated firing position alone does not indicate where an officer is aiming.

“Furthermore, the environment is also important. Were the demonstrators above or below where the officers were standing?” Samran said in the statement. “Focusing on the firing position and assuming that the officers were aiming high simply lacks sufficient evidence for a conclusion.”

Police were seen firing multiple rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters on 11 June after they tried to march from Victory Monument to PM Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha’s official residence on Vibhavadi Road, sparking the first violent confrontation between police and anti-government demonstrators in months.

The organisers said they were marching to demand the ousting of PM Prayut, who has been in power since the 2014 coup.

Some of the demonstrators responded by throwing fireworks at the officers. Two government vehicles were also torched. There were no official figures on injuries.

Videos taken by bystanders that night also show a group of plainclothes police detaining a citizen journalist who was reportedly filming the protest on Facebook Live.

Comments on social media identify the person as a staff member of a popular Facebook page called “Katoey Mae Look Orn,” which routinely broadcasts live commentary from protest areas. It is unclear why the person was detained and whether he was charged with any offence.

Attempts to reach “Katoey Mae Look Orn” were unsuccessful on Wednesday, but a person familiar with the group said the citizen journalist was released without charges after being searched by plainclothes police officers .

The incident sparked concerns that citizen journalists who report on social media would face further repercussions or arrests from police at protest sites. Police officials have in the past attempted to paint citizen journalists and independent reporters as “unsanctioned media” that need to be controlled or regulated.

In a Monday meeting with the representatives of six media associations, Samran stated that he respected the rights of professional and citizen journalists to report or broadcast news of political demonstrations, provided they obey the law.

A summary of the meeting published by the Thai Journalists Association, one of the organisations present at the discussion, quoted Samran as saying that he “maintained that citizen journalists and members of the public can definitely publish or broadcast the news and images from the protests.”

“But at the same time,” Samran was quoted as saying. “I’d like to ask for cooperation from the citizen journalists and members of the public to refrain from using words that lead to sedition or incitement of violence, or engaging in any unlawful acts.”

A police summary of the meeting did not include Samran’s remarks, noting instead that both parties discussed ways to ensure that the police will not “obstruct or harass the operations of the media other than in instances when a reporter is encouraging or participating in the protest, or in cases where it is necessary for police officers to defend themselves.”

The charred bodies of five members of the anti-coup movement were found by members of a local resistance force amid military raids on villages in northern Yesagyo Township in Magway Region on Tuesday evening.

The township’s People’s Defence Force (PDF) chapter announced that two local guerrilla fighters, as well as three people who had been participating in the general strike associated with the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), were discovered slain near Peik Thin Kat village.

They were burned beyond recognition and buried in a shallow grave, the PDF statement said.

U Naing, a leader of another guerrilla force active in northern Yesagyo described the individuals to Myanmar Now as having been “murdered in a cruel manner.”

“All five bodies were found and accounted for. They killed them, burned the bodies and buried the remains,” he said, noting that the victims were found after the handcuffed hands of one of the bodies was left uncovered by soil.

Among those killed was 54-year-old headmaster Win Kyaw, 27-year-old nurse Zarli Naing, and Khin Hnin Wai, 28, a teacher who was five months pregnant at the time of her murder. Also murdered with them were two armed resistance force members in their 20s: Htay Min Oo and Thae Ei Ei Win.

All five victims were in Myaing Township’s Dan Pin Kan village, located next to Peik Thin Kat, and captured on the evening of June 10, according to U Naing. He added that a bullet was found amongst the bodies, and that the abdomen of Win Kyaw appeared to have been perforated by a sharp object.

Both Khin Hnin Wai and Win Kyaw had been participating in the education program launched by the civilian National Unity Government after refusing to return to work in the junta-controlled school system.

The site where they were killed is located two miles west of the Sin Phyu Shin bridge, where PDFs from Yesagyo, Myaing and Salingyi townships ambushed a junta checkpoint on June 9, killing three military personnel, taking one soldier prisoner, and seizing multiple weapons.

In the days that followed the attack, hundreds of Myanmar army soldiers began raiding the surrounding villages in northern Yesagyo Township, torching homes and abducting civilians.

On June 10, hundreds of villagers were forced to flee into the area’s western forests when junta troops fired indiscriminately towards Dan Pin Kan after encountering explosives planted by the northern Yesagyo guerrilla group in an attempt to stop their advance.

Zarli Naing, the nurse who had been supporting the resistance movement, was working between Yesagyo and Myaing townships after fleeing her home in Pakokku, 30 miles to the south. She was among the fleeing Dan Pin Kan locals at the time she was captured.

“One of our members who attacked the military with explosives got injured after falling down a cliff, so we sent him to the CDM nurse to get his injuries treated,” guerrilla leader U Naing explained. “Another member of our group accompanied him and all five of them were arrested together by the military.”

He told Myanmar Now that Zarli Naing and Win Kyaw had been located in the area by a junta informant, who then guided the troops to the place where she was providing first aid to the injured resistance fighter, at a distance from the other displaced civilians.

“The victims might have thought the junta soldiers were PDF members because they were wearing shorts just like PDF members do,” he said.

Instead, they are believed to have been killed by their captors later that day.

A Vietnamese court on Thursday sentenced a Facebook user to five years in prison for posting stories criticizing government authorities, with an additional five years of probation to be served following his release, state media and other sources said.

Nguyen Duy Linh, a resident of the Chau Thanh district of southern Vietnam’s Ben Tre province, was jailed following a 3-hour trial in the Ben Tre People’s Court. He had been charged with “creating, storing, disseminating information, materials, publications and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

Linh’s wife Nguyen Ngoc Tuyet was present at his trial as a witness, but friends and other political dissidents were barred by authorities from attending and Linh had waived his right to a defense by lawyers in the case, sources said.

Commenting on the outcome of the case, Phil Robertson — deputy director for Asia for the rights group Human Rights Watch — told RFA by email that posting criticisms of government policies and authorities online should not considered a crime.

“All that Nguyen Duy Linh did was exercise his right to freedom of expression, which is a core human right that is explicitly protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that Vietnam ratified,” Robertson said.

Vietnam’s one-party communist government “seems intent on proving that it is one of the most rights-repressing governments in the Asian region,” Robertson added. “The authorities in Hanoi have completely lost any idea of how to rule a modernizing, 21st century country with intelligence and respect for the people.”

State media reporting on the case said that Linh from March 2020 to September 2021 had posted on his Facebook page 193 stories with content “offensive to the Party and State’s leaders or against the government.” Linh had also posted what state sources called false stories about socio-economic issues and the spread of COVID-19 in Vietnam, according to media reports.

Linh is the fifth person accused in Vietnam since the beginning of this year of “spreading anti-State materials” under Article 117 of the 2015 Penal Code or “propagandizing against the State” under Article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code. Both laws have been criticized by activists and rights groups as measures used to stifle voices of dissent in Vietnam.

Four people were hurt in clashes with police as hundreds of mostly female protesters wrapped themselves in Vietnamese flags to rally against a cemetery and crematorium project in central Vietnam, villagers said Friday.

The protest on Thursday targeted Vinh Hang Eco-park and Cemetery, an 80-ha, 500 billion dong ($21.8 million) project in the Hung Nguyen district of central Nghe An province.

Approved by local authorities in 2017, the cemetery has encountered strong objection by local residents due to environmental and water resource concerns.

“There was a clash among the police and local residents. One woman was seriously injured and was sent to Nghe An provincial hospital for emergency care. Two others were sent to a district hospital with less serious injuries,” local resident Phan Van Khuong told RFA Vietnamese.

“They arrested three or four people but released them on the same day,” he added.

A Facebook page titled “Hạt lúa Kẻ Gai” showed dozens of police officers in uniform knocking down protesters’ tents.

“The Commune People’s Committee sent some people to plant markers on a road where local residents put up tents [to block the project] and we all rushed up there to stop them,” Nguyen Van Ky, a resident from Phuc Dien village, told RFA.

“In response, district and commune police officers were deployed and they removed the tents and shoved us down, injuring four people,” said Ky.

The injuries were caused when police officers kicked and stomped on protesters. A fourth protester had a leg injury that did not require hospital treatment.

RFA called authorities from Nghe An province and Hung Tay commune to seek comments but no one answered the phone.

While all land in Communist-run Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation.

Groups condemned the violent arrest of 93 individuals, including agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs), in Hacienda Tinang, Concepcion, Tarlac on Thursday, June 9.

According to the report of the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA), the ARBs together with peasant advocates were peacefully holding a bungkalan or collective farming when members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and regional mobile group patrol came to the area, some bearing long firearms.

Authorities forcibly took peasant leaders of agrarian reform beneficiaries group, Malayang Kilusang Samahan ng Magsasaka ng Tinang (Makisama-Tinang) namely Ophelia Cunanan, Alvin Dimarucot and three others members along with volunteers, supporters, peasant advocates who were members of Sama-Samang Artista para sa Kilusang Agraryo (SAKA, Artists’ Alliance for Genuine Agrarian Reform).

UMA said that those arrested are in police custody and reportedly charged with malicious mischief and obstruction of justice.

Cathy Estavillo, secretary-general of women peasant group Amihan said that the mass arrest and harassment faced by farmers and advocates at Hacienda Tinang showed “the uselessness of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).”

“Deprived farmers are faced with violent reprisal when they assert their rightful claim to land. This exposes CARP as instrumental to landlords while the majority of our farmers remain landless, poor, and hungry,” Estavillo said, adding their call for the immediate release of the farmers and their supporters and holding the police accountable.

Non-installation of agrarian reform beneficiaries

Farmers who are beneficiaries of agrarian reform have made their calls clear when they trooped to the Department of Agrarian Reform office in Quezon City on Tuesday, June 7, demanding the installation of some 236 legitimate ARBs who are all holders of Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs).

They also submitted a manifestation opposing the DAR’s proposal for what they described as a tedious revalidation process, which they said will only favor the family of Tarlac Rep. Noel Villanueva.

The group said Villanueva is claiming ownership of the disputed land.

They added that Villanueva is reportedly attempting to install some 468 members of a local farmers cooperative, half of which already sold their rights to the family of the Tarlac solon.

UMA said that the disputed land is a 200-hectare sugarcane landholding which is part of the more than 1,200-hectares of land formerly owned by Benigno Aquino Sr. and inherited by the Aquino siblings including Antonio Urquico Aquino who later sold the land to Dominican priests.

“In 1988, the said landholding was placed under voluntary land transfer (VLT) by the Dominican Priests of the Phils. Inc. under Cory Aquino’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL). The farmer-tenants then applied to become beneficiaries. They were awarded their CLOAS in 1998,” the group

In an earlier statement, Abby Bucad of Makisama-Tinang said the farmers decided to collectively cultivate the land in 2016 due to decades of non-installation (of land reform beneficiaries).

The following year, they filed a petition for installation and in 2018 and 2019, DAR issued a writ of execution and ordered with finality the distribution and installation of the ARBs. However, Bucad said that the order did not take effect.

“President Duterte’s term and that of DAR Secretary Bernie Cruz are ending but the farmers still do not have their land. DAR and Sec. Cruz only have less than a month to proceed with the installation of farmers in their land, Bucad said in Filipino.

“DAR has been remiss of its duty and obligation to implement a comprehensive and genuine agrarian reform. More than three decades after CARP was enacted, nine out of ten farmers remain landless. ARBs on the other hand, still cannot pay the land amortization under CARP,” UMA said.

Members of the NPA?

Supporters were also accused of being members of the New People’s Army, said SAKA in a statement.

When they asked for the basis of their arrest, one police officer replied: “NPA kayo.”

SAKA is a peasant advocate group whose members are artists.

The group said that “the police cornered them in a hut, dismantled its doors, then forced themselves into it to drive the others out. It was the local police chief, at the time wearing civilian clothes, who ordered that everyone be rounded up and brought to the Concepcion police station.”

“Such land cultivation, called ‘bungkalan,’ is a form of protest in which peasants—usually ARBs—assert ownership of land by planting agricultural products that primarily address their immediate need for food. It is a method of guaranteeing a peasant community’s own food security,” the group said in a statement.

“In the case of MAKISAMA, they aimed to grow rice and vegetables on land granted to them by DAR as early as 1998, but whose collective CLOA was seized by a cooperative run by a local family of bureaucrats, including the incoming Mayor,” they added.

Meanwhile, Agham Advocates of Science and Technology for the People called for the immediate release and dropping of all charges against the 87 persons arrested by the police. They also called on DAR and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to conduct an immediate and impartial investigation on such human rights violations against the ARBs and peasant advocates.

“We also challenge DAR to immediately resolve the chronic problem of landlessness among peasants in the country by fast-tracking the granting of lands. As we face another economic crisis brought by increasing fuel and food insecurity, we demand the government to provide more support to our farmers who provide food to our tables,” the group said.

Filipino environmentalist groups have assailed the new wave of surveillance, harassment, and red-tagging of their members in the past five days..

The Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines (CEC) and Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) said men believed to be police officers in plainclothes knocked on their office on Thursday, June 9, and took photos of their staff.

The groups said their staff did not consent to being photographed and that no search warrant was also presented.

Earlier today, men believed to be police officers were once again seen taking photos of their office, the green groups added in their joint statement.

The wave of harassment and red-tagging happened following the mass arrests of 93 farmers and land reform advocates in Hacienda Tinang in Concepcion, Tarlac, and the recent arrest of an anti-dam activist in Pakil, Laguna.

Apart from the two environmentalist groups, they also noted the spate in red-tagging incidents on progressive partylists.

“We fear that this is the beginning of a crackdown against land and environmental defenders under the incoming authoritarian Marcos-Duterte regime,” the group said.

This is not the first time that Kalikasan and CEC were subjected to red-tagging. In 2018, there was an attempt to raid their office, they said, citing their then collaborations with the Commission on Human Rights and international groups such as the United Nations Human Rights System, Global Witness and the International Union for Conservation of Nature for their work on the issues and challenges being faced by environmental defenders.

They said, “We call on the CHR and the various UN human rights and environmental offices we have worked with in the past years to undertake preventive interventions against these human rights abuses and threats.”

A former journalist from Mandalay who was arrested nearly two months ago has been charged with incitement for a Facebook post, according to lawyers familiar with his case.

Zaw Zaw, a photojournalist who quit his job with news outlet The Irrawaddy after last year’s coup, disappeared after he was taken into custody on April 9.

Last month, it was learned that he had been transferred to Mandalay’s Obo Prison after being held at the notorious Mandalay Palace interrogation centre for more than a month.

He was formally charged with incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code during a court appearance inside the prison on Wednesday, a lawyer told Myanmar Now.

“They couldn’t find any dirt on him even after interrogating him, so they just found one Facebook post and laid the charge against him based on that,” said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The content of the post had not been disclosed at the time of reporting.

Zaw Zaw attended his first court hearing through an online conferencing system on Monday, and the charge was filed at the prison court with him present two days later, according to lawyers.

His former employer, The Irrawaddy, has also been charged with incitement for its post-coup news coverage. Zaw Zaw resigned from his job shortly after the regime forced the outlet to close.

A number of journalists have been convicted on incitement charges. In January, a court in Sagaing Region handed two-year prison sentences to an editor and a reporter from the now defunct Zayar Times.

According to figures compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, there are a total of 10,962 political prisoners currently being held in regime custody, including at least 50 journalists.

Myanmar’s junta charged The Irrawaddy’s former photojournalist Zaw Zaw with incitement on Monday, according to his lawyer.

Zaw Zaw was detained in Mandalay in April and later sent to the city’s Obo Prison. He stopped working for The Irrawaddy last year.

His lawyer U Myo Min Zaw said that the police submitted the case to the court on Monday, charging Zaw Zaw with incitement under Article 505(a) of the Penal Code.

Zaw Zaw appeared in court for the first time on Wednesday.

“He looks fine and in good health,” said his lawyer.

He added that his client thought that he had been charged for a Facebook post in which he denounced the junta.

But U Myo Min Zaw declined to confirm the exact reason for the charge as he was still waiting for access to the police file submitted to the court.

Another court hearing for Zaw Zaw is set for next Wednesday.

Since last year’s coup, the military regime has arrested over 140 media workers, of whom around 60 remain behind bars.

The Mondulkiri Provincial Court questioned four Bunong environmentalists for several hours on Tuesday over alleged defamation and incitement based on a developer’s complaint.

Kroeung Tola, Ploek Phyrom, Ploek Nary and Kloeung Tum were summoned to appear on allegations leveled by Kak Ratana, director of Villa Development, according to one of the accused.

Phyrom said the case was a result of the foursome earlier filing a complaint against the company for deforestation, clearing state land and destroying resin trees in the Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary. The area of forest in question, in Sen Monorom’s Sokdum commune, had been used by the local indigenous community for a long time before the company brought in heavy machinery to clear it, she said.

On Tuesday, court officials questioned them for several hours but they made no immediate decision on the case and let them go home, Phyrom said. The accused requested that the case be dropped, she added.

The company director, Ratana, could not be reached on Tuesday.

“We are protecting our land. They are planning to clear 100 hectares,” Phyrom previously said after receiving the court summons. “We make a living on that land.”

The community had already lost around 1,000 resin trees in the area, she said. “If we lose all of them, what can we do?”

Tola, another of the accused, is a prominent activist and coordinator for the Mondulkiri Indigenous People Network. He has faced previous legal actions against him, including fines for defamation.

The residence of a monk living in a Kampong Speu has been burned down amid a land dispute with soldiers.

Prom Thomacheat, living in Oral district’s Metta forest, said the small hut where he had slept was burned to the ground on Monday. It followed a pattern of violence from soldiers laying claim to the land, he said.

“They’ve fired shots over my head” in the past, he said. “If I die, I die. What can I do in this situation? … People ask me to leave and no one would hurt me. But I won’t go.”

Community members say they were protecting Metta forest for years before the state handed the land to soldiers in August last year. The transfer sparked protests of hundreds and locals camping out in the forest to protect the woods, which is part of the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary.

But satellite imagery shows land clearing ramping up in the past two months, leaving broad scars through the forest. Residents have said they can no longer approach the clearings due to incidences of violence.

A community member, Khorn Khern, said she believed it was soldiers who had burned the monk’s hut, though she provided no evidence.

“Soldiers are now clearing and cutting the forest of the monk,” Khon said. “This is not right. This forest is a place that people and monks have been protecting for a long time. Now the sound of machines cutting down trees is close to the big pagoda.”

Trapeang Chhour commune chief Tep Nem said he had not received any report or information about the burning of the monk’s hut.

Bulatlat condemned the National Telecommunications Commission’s (NTC) latest memorandum targeting alternative media sites and organizations, calling it a “dangerous precedent for independent journalism in the Philippines.”

In a statement released Wednesday, June 22, Bulatlat expressed its shock and rage against the NTC’s memorandum instructing all internet service providers to immediately block access to 28 websites, including Bulatlat.

“Bulatlat […] condemns this brazen violation of our right to publish, and of the public’s right to free press and free expression,” the media outfit said in its statement.

The NTC cites in its memorandum a June 6, 2022 letter from the National Security Council (NSC) listing down over two dozen websites “found to be affiliated to and are supporting terrorists and terrorist organizations.” However, the NSC failed to provide basis for the inclusion of several independent and alternative media outlets in their list.

The letter was written and signed by National Security Advisor Hermogenes Esperon Jr., who is also the Anti-Terrorism Council Vice Chairperson.

Following reports that Bulatlat could not be accessed by readers since June 17, 2022, the news site also wrote a letter on June 20, 2022 addressed to the NTC and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) urging them to investigate Esperon’s claims. Bulatlat has not yet received any reply as of writing.

Bulatlat deplored this most recent state-sponsored cyber attack in its statement and called it “prior restraint against protected speech.”

“It is downright unacceptable as it is based on Esperon’s mere hearsay,” Bulatlat said.

The alternative media organization is no stranger to red-tagging and cyber attacks. Exactly one year ago, June 22, 2021, Qurium released a forensic report linking a 2021 cyber attack on Bulatlat to the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Philippine military.

Bulatlat called on the public to “stand against attempts to muzzle legitimate sources of information” as it continues its coverage.

“No matter who is in power, we have remained fearless in our truth-telling. We will continue our work while we also consider all legal remedies available to question, and stop yet another state-sponsored repression,” it said in its statement.

Meanwhile, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines denounced what they call as arbitrary inclusion of Bulatlat, Pinoy Weekly and other news websites in the said list.

In a statement, the group said Bulatlat and Pinoy Weekly have existed for years and have built a track record of reporting on people’s issues.

“Sometimes, that reporting has been critical of the government and its policies, but it is dangerous to equate this with affiliation or support that the government now claims,” the group said.

“Blocking access to these sites leave a gap in discourse and in the flow of information and highlights the threats posed by the Anti-Terrorism Law on the freedom of expression and on freedom of the press,” the group said adding that what’s even more concerning is the danger that labeling puts the staff and correspondents of the listed websites in.

“We have repeatedly warned against the dangers of red-tagging and how the practice paints groups and people as legitimate targets for threats, harassment and physical attacks. This labeling, in the form of an official government document, magnifies that danger even more,” the group said.

Papua Police Chief Inspector General Mathius D Fakhiri admitted that 17 people were arrested in connection with demonstrations against the establishment of new autonomous regions (DOB) in Jayapura and Merauke regencies. In Jayapura Regency, two people were arrested on Friday (3/6/2022). Meanwhile in Merauke, 15 people were arrested on Saturday (4/6/2022). "When we forced ourselves to hold a demonstration, we arrested several people, after we asked for their information, we sent them home," said Fakhiri in Jayapura, Sunday (5/6/2022) night. Fakhiri explained that the reason the security forces detained the 17 people was because their actions did not have a permit. The police's offer to facilitate vehicles for the demonstrators to their respective DPRD offices was rejected by the masses. "They wanted to hold a demonstration (but) we didn't give them permission because they couldn't fulfill the licensing procedures regulated by law in this country," said Fakhiri. According to Fakhiri, the masses on behalf of the Papuan People's Petition (PRP) have repeatedly held the same demonstrations and have always insisted on a long march to the Papuan DPR office. This wish cannot be granted because it will interfere with the activities of other communities. "Please also respect the interests of other people who want to be active. The police do not hinder the right to express their aspirations, but it must be done according to the applicable rules," said Fakhiri. Demonstrations against the plan to form new autonomous regions have been held four times in a number of regencies/cities in Papua. The last action was carried out in Jayapura City, Jayapura Regency, Mimika, Jayawijaya and Merauke, on Friday and Saturday.

As a result of the arrests, the simultaneous demonstration of the Papuan people against the division, revoking of Otsus volume II and holding a referendum by all Papuan people in Papua and Indonesia who are members of the Papuan People's Petition (PRP) on Friday (3/5/2022), in Nabire district, Papua cancel done. The action will be carried out by holding a free pulpit. It was reported that the action was canceled due to the arbitrary arrests of the joint TNI-Polri apparatus against the mass of action before the action took place at the Gizi park, Oyehe, Nabire. A total of 23 people were forcibly arrested. 22 people were arrested first and one from behind. The 22 people who were arrested were transported by police trucks and taken to the Nabire Police Headquarters for interrogation. Over 10 hours they were interrogated and released. “Initially, 11 of us came to the Gizi park to do a free pulpit action. We brought some pamphlets and a megaphone. At that time there was no security apparatus. But there are already two billboards that say thank you for DOB. One of them is from the Key harmony in Nabire," said a protester who was arrested to Suarapapua.com from Nabire, Saturday (4/6/2022), who declined to give his name. He said starting at 06.00, continued at 06:37. The police with full weapons along with about tens of intel arrived and went straight to them asking to disperse with the excuse that at the nutrition park there would be a joint rally in the morning. “We were lazy to know and stayed. At 06:40, another crowd was arriving. The police chief also arrived with some of his men, then again forced us to disperse with shouts and threatening words, while ordering his men within 10 minutes of the mass action to be disbanded.” At 07:12, the police managed to force them out of the Gizi garden (just behind the Nun Biru Gate monument). Not accepting the brutal actions of the officers, one of the masses took photos of the officers. “He was immediately chased by intelligence and police to the front of the road. After we were in front of the Gizi park main road, the police then pushed us into the Oyehe market and continued to push until we reached the end of the Oyehe terminal.” "We want to disband. But the Police Chief and his men forced us not to go home and had to get into the police truck. We are surrounded. The police chief also threatened us with words that he would take us to a faraway place. The police chief also asked us to take off all the masks we were wearing," he said. When they were surrounded, he said, a woman took a photo but the woman was shouted at and her cellphone was taken by the police. After the police truck arrived, he continued, at around 08:01, they were transported and taken to the Nabire Police Headquarters. At 08:14, they were interrogated. “They asked for our name, address, occupation, status, etc. by yelling at us one by one. Only our friend, Wakakorlap, Adiknas Pekei, was examined with the BAP," he explained. It was said, after the examination, at 16:20 accompanied by the Papua Talent LBH Nabire, they were removed from the Nabire Police Headquarters. Meanwhile, another mass protest from Kalibobo, which initially gathered at the Intan Jaya dormitory together with nine (9) BEM campuses in Nabire to conduct a free pulpit, was also forcibly dispersed by the authorities after the Nabire Police Station deployed hundreds of personnel with full weapons. However, before the officers came down and dispersed, they managed to hold a free pulpit on the street (reading poetry, singing and giving speeches). And also succeeded in reading out the statement of position read by the head of the general field coordinator (Korlap) for the action, Abia Pujau. Seeing the officers coming, all the masses of the action entered the dormitory. The officers broke down the gate and almost chaos ensued. No protesters were arrested. Regarding the assistance carried out by the Papua Talent LBH Nabire, Suara Papua has contacted the director of the Nabire Papua Talent LBH, Richar Danny Nawipa through his phone number twice to ask for information but was not picked up.

Ten members of the peaceful demonstration mass demanding the revocation of Otsus volume II and the rejection of the expansion of the New Autonomous Regions (DOB) for West Papua and Papua were injured as a result of the forced disbandment by police officers from the Sorong Regional Police, in the courtyard of the Sorong City DPRD Office, Friday (3/03/2020). 6/2022).

Three of them were hit by rubber bullets. Aves Susim, 25 years old, was shot by a rubber bullet in the leg. Subi Taplo, 27, was shot in the shoulder, and Agustinus Kamat, 27, hit other body parts.

Meanwhile, seven other people were injured as a result of the forced dispersal of the police and tear gas.

The following are the names of the injured and gunshot wounds of rubber bullets:

Aves Susim, 25 years old (He was shot by a rubber bullet in the thigh). Sriyani Wanane, 30 years old (Wounds on knee and big toe). Mama Rita Tenau, 50 years old (wound on temple) Betty Kosamah, 22 years old (Leg wound). Agus Edoway, 25 years old (Tear gas in the shoulder). Agustinus Kamat, 27 years old (He was shot by a rubber bullet). Subi Taplo, 27 years old (He was hit by a rubber bullet in the shoulder). Amanda Yumte, 23 years old (Swollen legs and tear gas). Jack Asmuruf, 20 years old (Toe wound). Sonya Korain, 22 years old (Leg wound)

Previously, at around 2:25 p.m. Papua time, a peaceful demonstration demanding the revocation of the second volume of Otsus and the rejection of the expansion of the new autonomous regions in Sorong came to the Sorong City DPRD office.

While giving speeches in the courtyard of the DPRD office, they asked the chairman of the DPRD of Sorong City to meet them, but this effort did not materialize. The crowd, disappointed, burned tires at around 15.12 Papua time. As a result, the authorities took action and forcibly dispersed the crowd using tear gas and rubber bullets.

One of the protesters who suffered an injury to the right temple was Mama Rita Tenau (50). He was part of the mass action that came to the Sorong City DPRD office.

During the long march to the Sorong City DPRD office at 11:00 Papua time, the mass of action raised a flag similar to the Morning Star or the Morning Star, but it didn't last long. Only three minutes flew between the masses of action, after that his party again secured the flag which had been the reason for the apparatus to detain Papuan activists.

Previously, the Head of the Ops Section of the Sorong Police, M. Nur Makmur, who had visited the mass of action, explained that his party had carried out the disbandment because the mass of action did not heed the instructions of the officers.

“They have secured the mass of the demonstration to the DPRD building. The DPRD representatives have already left, but the masses of the demonstration refused. We have emphasized that if we burn tires, we will not hesitate to disband them,” explained the Head of Ops.

So far there has been no confirmation from the police regarding 10 people injured.

On 2 June, Sitanun Satsaksit, the sister of Wanchalearm Satsaksit and legal advisors sought an audience with the Cambodian ambassador to Thailand to request an update on an investigation into the political refugee’s abduction in Phnom Penh on 4 June 2020. Their request was denied before they could enter the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok.

With the second anniversary of Wanchalearm’s disappearance a few days away, Sitanun and legal advisors went to the Cambodian embassy on Pracha Uthit Road to inquire about progress in a police investigation ordered by the Phnom Penh Court in 2020 after a disappearance case was filed.

They were not welcomed. The embassy’s front sign was fenced off and dozens of Thai police officers, in both plain clothes and uniforms, were waiting for them to arrive.

At the embassy, Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, a Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF) director and legal advocate against enforced disappearance and torture, asked if they could meet the ambassador to submit their request for an investigation update.

Instead, embassy staff ordered accompanying journalists to stop taking photos and shortly thereafter, Pol Maj Sarot Somhanwong, an inspector from the Wangthonglang police station that oversees the area, told the group that the Embassy advised them to submit their petition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs instead, an action that they have already taken without effect.

It has been two years since Wanchalearm was grabbed by a group of unidentified men in front of Mekong Garden, a luxury condominium in the middle of Cambodia's capital city. Thus far, the investigation has made no progress. Buck Passing

Having filed numerous complaints and petitions with relevant authorities in Thailand and Cambodia, Sitanun questioned why both countries continue to pass the buck about Wanchalearm’s disappearance. After two years, she is angry and exhausted about how little progress has been made, but remains determined to discover her brother’s fate.

“Given what happened to Wanchalearm, don’t we have the right to ask for help? It has been two years. We have submitted so many documents that we no longer know who else to contact. Silence and inaction are all we have gotten from Thai and Cambodian authorities,” said Sitanun.

According a statement from CrCF that was meant to have been submitted to the embassy today, Thailand’s Office of the Attorney General issued a letter on 19 May 2022 asking for an update from the Cambodian National Police Headquarters and Phnom Penh Court via Thailand’s Department of Consular Affairs.

A response was received on 24 February 2022 that further testimony in the case was being acquired. The outcome of the process was reportedly secret and further information could not be immediately provided but the Thai Embassy in Cambodia was to be given further updates.

In Thailand, the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) issued a statement on 1 March 2022, saying that it had accepted Wanchalearm’s case for investigation, listed as case number 13/2564. The DSI also reported that it had received documents and requested additional information from relevant Thai and Cambodian authorities.

According to Montana Duangprapa, a Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) lawyer, although Wanchalearm case is under investigation by the Cambodian police as a result of a Phnom Penh Court ruling, his relatives have still not received any significant updates about the investigation. A plea for justice

Wanchalearm, a former civil society worker and staff member of Pheu Thai Party’s Bangkok gubernatorial election campaign team in 2013, went into self-exile three days after the coup in 2014. He flew out of Thailand, narrowly escaping military arrest.

He was summoned by the NCPO along with 28 other activists to report to a military facility in Bangkok on 1 June 2014. A week later, the junta issued a warrant for his arrest under the Computer Crime Act for political statements he allegedly posted to his Facebook page ‘I must have got 10 million baht from Thaksin’, a pro-Thaksin parody page.

After a short stay in Malaysia, Wanchalearm settled in Phnom Penh, where a sympathetic Cambodian official put him up in Mekong Gardens. Several other Thai dissidents lived there in self-imposed exile at the time.

On 4 June 2020, Wanchalearm, who had been living under the alias of ‘Sok Heng’, disappeared. His friends, family, the United Nations and human rights groups allege that he was abducted by a group of armed men that afternoon while buying food on the street outside Mekong Gardens.

Wanchalearm’s sister Sitanun says she was on the phone with him during the alleged abduction and that she heard him say “I can’t breathe” before the line went dead.

CrCF has issued a statement calling for the Cambodian government to conduct an effective investigation to determine Wanchalearm’s fate and provide information to his family members.

Pham Doan Trang’s mother, Bui Thi Thien Can, was detained at Noi Bai Airport for questioning by security police for four hours. She was detained as she returned to Hanoi from her trip to Geneva to accept the Martin Ennals Human Rights Award on behalf of her daughter on June 2. During the three-week visit, Mrs Bui met with more than 20 representatives from the EU, several international organizations, officials at Switzerland Foreign Ministry, representatives from the UNHCR, a number of UN Special Rapporteurs, the US ambassador to Geneva, and officials from Canada and the Czech Republic. According to one of her children, the octogenarian was finally released after midnight in a state of total exhaustion.

A factory refusing a Labor Ministry order to reinstate fired unionists has dismissed 10 more union members this week.

SYHJ Garment, a Chinese-owned factory in Kandal province’s Ang Snuol district, fired three leaders of a newly emerging union in April, leading to a Labor Ministry directive that the terminations violated Trade Union Law protections for shop steward and union leaders. But the factory has remained defiant.

Hul Sokhim, president of the new union — one of the three fired in the initial round of terminations — said on Wednesday that 10 other workers had been laid off this week. She said it was illegal union busting.

“The owner dismissed them without clear reason. They were voters who supported those who stood as my union’s representatives,” she said. “Frankly speaking, those who were involved with me … were dismissed.”

Ny Mao, one of the 10 workers fired this week, said the termination was unreasonable. He worked overtime and weekends like other workers, and had committed no transgressions of company policies, he said.

“During work, they called me to dismiss me. I did nothing wrong,” Mao said. “I don’t understand how my work was lacking?”

Prum Kosal, an executive assistant at SYHJ, said the factory had dismissed workers because they violated the company’s internal rules on several points. He said the company was not concerned about the union’s complaints.

“The company dismissed them because they had issues with our internal rules, including that they did not cooperate much and did not pay attention to the company’s work.”

Independent Trade Union Federation president Ry Sithinet said his federation would help the factory’s workers file a complaint to the Labor Ministry requesting reinstatement.

“[We] are translating them to English. When we are ready, we will submit them to buyers. We have found that three brands are involved with the factory SYHJ,” but the federation had yet to ascertain who they were, Sithinet said. On Thursday, Sithinet said the brands were Mango and Inditex’s Bershka, both Spanish, and Sinsay, from Poland.

The federation said in a statement that a similar case was ongoing at Walmart shoe supplier Qi Ming Xin, also in Kandal province. The factory had fired five union leaders earlier this year, and the Labor Ministry issued an order on March 16 to reinstate and compensate them. The company had not complied, the statement said.

Around 350 union leaders and active members have been unfairly dismissed since the start of 2020, the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union has estimated.

Around 100 indigenous residents gathered outside the Preah Vihear Provincial Court on Wednesday as five community members were questioned by court prosecutors for alleged threats to kill and damage property.

The five village residents — Thon Sot, Son Savon, Ngorn Him, Thab Sokkey and Rourng Khan — were summoned to court for questioning on Wednesday after Ly Kimsreng, who they have a land dispute with, filed a complaint.

Residents of the Preah Vihear’s Tbeng Meanchey commune have faced persistent issues with their traditional farmlands, first from five Chinese sugarcane companies that were granted around 40,000 hectares of the land in four provinces, often referred to together as Rui Feng. More recently, residents said they had reclaimed their land only to be harassed by alleged representatives of the company and newcomers who were claiming land in the district.

Village residents alleged Kimsreng had been trying to clear their land earlier this year and they only attempted to stop the destruction of their crops.

Savon said all five attended the court hearing and denied all the accusations. He said Kimsreng was attempting to scare the village residents away.

“Where should we do farming?” he said. “We request the court to end these charges against us. This is an injustice for us.”

Savon said he wouldn’t stop fighting for their land even if local authorities got involved in the case.

Am Sam Ath, from rights group Licadho, said the case was another example of the rich and well-connected using the courts to harass people and undermine their rights.

VOD could not reach Kimsreng on Wednesday.

Police briefly arrested three union representatives amid a demonstration of more than 1,000 shoe-factory workers in Kampong Chhnang, saying workers should be only allowed to submit letters, not protest.

At least 5,600 workers at Can Sports Shoe, a supplier for Adidas, gave thumbprints supporting a strike about 35 demands that have accumulated over several years, according to workers and labor rights groups.

Only a few hundred went into work on Tuesday as more than 1,000 workers gathered outside the factory in Samakki Meanchey district’s Sethei commune and blocked a road, they said.

Deputy provincial police chief Ear Bunthoeun said three union leaders had been arrested, but released after they agreed to stop organizing chaos.

“If workers want to demand benefits, just let them do it and submit letters. But we can’t allow inciters to provoke demonstrations and work stoppages,” Bunthoeun said.

Public order could be disrupted by demonstrations, he said. The workers had blocked National Road 5, which could suffer traffic jams even with short disruptions, he added.

Noem Sokhoeun, one of the arrested union leaders, said he had been accused of incitement to commit a felony.

“I think it’s a violation of my rights,” Sokhoeun said, adding that he had not organized the protest himself.

The contract he signed on Tuesday says he promises not to gather workers for protests or demonstrations that cause chaos in the factory, and not to commit any acts in the factory against the law.

According to labor rights group Central, the two other union leaders are Sean Sokleab and Pen Sophorn.

Patrick Lee, legal consultant at Central, said: “My view is that these union leaders have been arrested for the sole purpose of attempting to restrict workers’ fundamental right to peacefully strike. The authorities should be acting as mediators and not use their power to restrict workers’ rights and freedoms.”

A list of 35 demands from the workers details accumulated grievances related to payment schedules and methods, medical facilities at the factory, and the availability of food vendors and allowances.

Factory worker Kan Savy said more than 1,000 workers had protested on Tuesday, while another worker, Nou Sitouch, estimated that most of around 8,000 striking workers at the factory gathered outside from around 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Yang Sophorn, the president of Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions, said Can Sports Shoe had more than 10,000 workers in total, and some grievances stretched back two decades.

Two of the union leaders had been arrested Monday evening even before the protest was held, Sophorn added.

“It’s inappropriate as the authorities have the duty to give justice to people and workers,” she said, adding that the factory union had informed the employer about the peaceful demonstration.

“This is a means of threatening workers who are just peacefully exercising their legal rights as stated in the law.”

A woman who picked up on a number listed with the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia for the factory denied she was part of factory management.

Five teenagers suffered multiple injuries after regime soldiers plowed their vehicle into them following a flash mob protest in Yangon on Monday, according to activist sources.

Myat Min Khant, the Yangon district chair of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), said the incident occurred at around 11am on Thu Mingalar Street in South Okkalapa Township.

“Normally, people just run off on their own when they disperse after a protest, but they stayed together as a small group, which is what raised the military’s suspicions,” he said.

According to Myat Min Khant, four of the injured protesters were boys, and one was a girl. Further information about their identities was not available at the time of reporting.

After running into the teens with their Toyota Mark II, the soldiers beat them with the butts of their rifles, he added.

“We still don’t know how bad their injuries are as they were taken away right after they were hit,” he said. However, they were believed to have suffered serious abrasions to their heads, backs, arms and legs, according to the ABFSU.

“I have been told that they are being held at the South Okkalapa Police Station,” the ABFSU district chair added.

s.okkalapa_protest-2.jpeg Protesters march in Yangon’s South Okkalapa Township on May 30 (Supplied)

Around 30 people took part in Monday’s protest march, which began at the Zarli Taung housing complex on Thu Mingalar Street and ended at the intersection with Yadanar Road.

Three other protesters, all aged 15 or 16, were also pursued by the regime’s forces but managed to escape, according to the ABFSU.

A similar incident occurred last December, when soldiers drove into a crowd of protesters in Yangon’s Kyimyindaing Township, killing several people and injuring a number of others.

On April 20, junta troops riding in a double cab pickup truck smashed into a car carrying three women who had taken part in an anti-regime demonstration in South Okkalapa.

Despite facing such brutal tactics from the military, Myat Min Khan said that protests would continue, albeit in a different form.

“It would be too much for us if we kept running into these situation, so we will continue to protest in other ways,”he said.

The protest against the new NPO bill is now in its 4th day since it occupied the street in front of the United Nations headquarters on Monday (23 May), while concerns are being raised as the police try to convince them to move to make way for an upcoming royal motorcade.

After the activist and NGO network People’s Movement Against the Draft Laws that Undermine Freedom of Association staged a protest on 24 March and getting no response to the petition submitted to Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha and Social Development and Human Security Minister Juti Krairiksh calling for the drafting process to cease, protesters gathered in front of the UN headquarters on Ratchadamnoen Road on Monday to demand that the government withdraw the bill. The network said that they will occupy the area until their demand is met.

The NPO bill has been criticized as a threat to freedom of association and giving state officials the authority to oversee, and possibly obstruct the work of a wide range of civil society organisations, since it defines NPOs as groups “that organise, in one form or another, to collectively pursue activities in society without seeking financial gain, exclusive of groups that stage ad-hoc activities of benefit to group members or political parties.”

The bill also gives state officials the authority to temporarily or permanently shut down any NPO seen as violating the bill’s provisions, which are vaguely worded and can be widely interpreted.

Under this bill, NPOs will be required to register with the government and to comply with all Ministry of the Interior regulations. Once the law is in effect, existing organisations will have 30 days to register. Those operating an unregistered organisation face punishments of up to 5 years in prison or a fine of up to 200,000 baht or both.

The bill prohibits organisations from engaging in activities that threaten national security, economic stability, foreign relations, public order, public safety and the rights and liberties of others.

It also attempts to control NPO funding, prohibiting groups from using foreign funding to pursue activities deemed inappropriate by the Ministry of the Interior. In addition, it gives state agents the authority to search NPO offices and make copies of their online communications. NPOs receiving overseas funding will need to provide authorities with bank records showing where funds are held and what purpose they serve.

After requesting that a government representative come to meet them at the protest site and getting no response, on Tuesday (24 May), the protesters marched to Government House to submit their petition calling for the bill to be withdrawn and for a government representative to also sign a written agreement promising that the bill will not be presented to the Cabinet.

During the march, the protesters faced multiple police blockades. They finally arrived at Chamai Maru Chet bridge next to Government House, which was blocked by razor wire and units of crowd control police. Anucha Nakasai, Minister of the Office of the Prime Minister, then came to receive the protesters' letter stating their demands.

After speaking with Anucha and receiving no answer or commitments, the protesters returned to their camp in front of the UN, where they will continue to stay until their demands are met.

Earlier on Thursday (26 May), police officers came to tell the protesters that there will be a royal motorcade passing through Ratchadamnoen Nok Road on its way to Thammasat University’s Tha Prachan campus for the university’s graduation ceremony on 27 – 29 May, and asked that the protesters move to another location for a few days.

The protest leaders insisted that they will not be moving until their demands are met. Activist Lertsak Khamkongsak said after several negotiations with police officers that they will continue to protest, and told the police to leave and to stop taking pictures of the protesters.

The police’s action caused concerns among protesters that they will be forcibly dispersed. Lertsak, along with activists Juthamat Srihatthapadungkit and Somboon Khamhang, gave a press conference as representatives of the protesters during the afternoon. He reported that police officers have claimed that the protesters are obstructing traffic or are creating a risk of spreading Covid-19. They said that they have explained to the authorities that other groups have used the space for protest, and that traffic can still move normally through Ratchadamnoen Nok Road. The protesters also wear face masks and take Covid-19 tests, while temperature screening points have been set up around the protest site.

According to the three activists, the police’s actions, including walking around the protest site and looking at how the protesters set up their camp, raised questions about what the authorities want with them.

Juthamat said that this is not the first time they have spoken out against the NPO bill, but the cabinet is refusing to consider their demands. She said that if the police are truly concerned about the women, children, and older people at the protest, they should be facilitating the activities, not harassing the protesters. She said that the protest is peaceful and unarmed, and that they have filed a complaint with the Civil Court for a temporary injunction protecting their right to protest, which the Court will give its ruling on Friday (27 May).

Lertsak said that the police might be preparing to forcibly disperse of the protesters. He told the protesters that, if they are dispersed, they will face any police violence without weapons, and anyone who is ready to face the police to come to the tent in front of the protest site. He said that they must be on watch all night, and that it is the police’s responsibility to manage traffic, but they did not do their job and are using it as a pretext to try to get the protesters to leave. He also said that no officer has ever shown up to see whether they have proper disease control measures, but they showed up on Thursday to try to legitimize any dispersal that might take place.

At around 17.00, several protesters dressed in kangaroo costumes went to the Siam shopping district and scattered leaflets about the need to protest against the bill near the Siam BTS station and Siam Square One shopping mall. They also stood on the Pathumwan Skywalk holding a banner saying “People’s Movement Against the Draft Laws that Undermine Freedom of Association” and gave out leaflets to passers-by.

According to the Facebook page No NPO bill, the activity is to show that the government is trying to issue a law to control all kinds of association, which would affect everyone, and to spread information about the bill, the rights to freedom of association and freedom of assembly, and why the bill should be stopped.

iLaw reported today (27 May) that police officers in riot gears lined up along Ratchadamneon Nok road in front of the UN headquarters at around 16.00, blocking the protesters from view as a royal motorcade went by. An officer made an announcement through a sound amplifier insisting that the police will not forcibly disperse the protesters.

After the royal motorcade has gone, Lertsak demanded that the police move to the traffic island and to line up again when the royal motorcade is returning. If not, he asked that they turn their backs to the protesters. He also told the protesters to continue their activities.

Karapatan condemns in strongest possible terms the attempt of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to disperse the peaceful indignation protest today at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) compound using violent force. According to health marshals, at least 10 individuals were reportedly injured after being hit with truncheons and shields while the protest was being bombed with water from a firetruck.

The right to peaceful assembly and protest is a basic right enshrined in our constitution; even our laws guarantee the exercise of this right, especially in a designated freedom park such the CHR’s Liwasang Diokno. Is the violent dispersal today a prelude of things to come under a Marcos-Duterte administration — where exercising our basic rights and freedoms are met with brazen State violence?

We will not take these violations sitting down, and in the face of the looming return of the forces of tyranny and fascism, all the more that we will protest and resist any and all attempts to unleash the horrors of Marcosian martial law and State repression. All the more that we should take to the streets and denounce a despotic tandem that has cheated their way to victory through lies, historical distortions, and mass deception.

We call on the CHR to investigate and condemn the PNP’s attempt to violently disperse a peaceful assembly right within their premises, and to hold the responsible PNP officials accountable for the incident. Above all, we call on all freedom-loving Filipinos to bravely stand to defend our hard-won rights and freedoms, and to reject the Marcos-Duterte tandem.

Do Le Na, the visually impaired wife of Le Trong Hung, took her two sons to visit their father on May 15 as scheduled. But when she got there she was told the schedule was changed, without being given a reason; she was told to come back the next day, which she did. Finally, after 411 days the children were able to see their father for the first time in a brief 30-minute visit. Hung reported he had contracted Covid earlier but was coping well; he said he was also suffering from back pain. Hung mentioned he was not eating food that she bought from the canteen out of concern that prison officials might spike it with drugs in an effort to send him to a psychiatric hospital.

RFA Viet 3 June reported that on 25 May, Mr Hung - currently serving 5 years jail for anti-state propaganda - has been transferred to a further away prison 350km in distance from his home, where his visually impaired wife lives with their two young children.

            Mr Hung's new prison is prison 6, Nghe An province.

            Mrs Le Na told RFA Viet, she wasn't informed of the prison transfer. Only when she came to temporary detention centre no 1, Tu Liem, Hanoi to bring him supplies on 1 June that she was informed of this.

            She said, during the time Mr Hung was transferred to the new prison, Hanoi police even sent people to her place to guard her and her two children, to intimidate them.



            '...My husband's only offence was being patriotic and trusting Party Chief Trong, thinking that he could help the Party Chief in his anti-corruption campaign by raising awareness about [officials'] wrongdoings and gifting copies of the nation's constitution to the people to raise their understanding.

'Yet, for that, my husband was jailed and transferred to a very remote prison, notorious for its harsh conditions, among the worst in Vietnam.' Mrs Le Na said.

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court this morning upheld the baseless September 2018 convictions of four current and former ADHOC staffers - Ny Sokha, Nay Vanda, Yi Soksan, and Lim Mony - and National Election Committee official Ny Chakrya, all of whom were previously imprisoned and convicted on spurious charges of bribery.

Sokha, Vanda, Soksan, and Mony were convicted on 26 September 2018 for bribery of a witness under Article 548 of the Criminal Code. Chakrya, who was serving as deputy secretary-general of the National Election Committee at the time of his arrest, was convicted as an accomplice to bribery of a witness under Articles 29 and 548 of the Criminal Code. The arrests came during a broader crackdown on civil society and the political opposition in Cambodia. All five human rights defenders served 14 months in pre-trial detention before being released on bail in June 2017, and were later sentenced to five years in prison with the remaining time suspended.

Both the defendants and the prosecutor filed appeals, with the defendants seeking to be exonerated and the prosecutor appealing to have the five human rights defenders serve the full five years in prison. The Appeal Court rejected both appeals, upholding the original convictions and suspended sentences of all five defendants.

The five human rights defenders were all current and former staff of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC) at the time of their arrest. They were accused of paying a woman to make false statements regarding another case linked to then-opposition leader Kem Sokha.

None of the witnesses named in the case appeared for the lower court proceedings, during which no credible evidence was presented by the prosecution. Requests by the defence to summons witnesses at the Appeal Court hearing were denied, as was a request to delay the hearing.

Police in Vietnam’s capital on May 21 arrested Hanoi resident and human rights activist Truong Van Dung, charging him under Article 88 of Vietnam’s 1999 Penal Code with “conducting propaganda against the State,” Dung’s wife Nghiem Thi Hop told RFA the same day.

Dung, who was born in 1958, was taken into custody at around 7 a.m. at the couple’s home, Hop said.

“While I was out shopping, I received a phone call from a neighbor telling me he had been arrested, and I came back at 7:30 but they had already taken him away.”

Police in plain clothes then arrived and read out an order to search the house, taking away books, notebooks, laptop computers and protest banners, she added.

Dung had participated in protests in Hanoi including demonstrations against China’s occupation of the Paracel Islands — an island group in the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam — and protests against the Taiwan-owned Formosa Company for polluting the coastline of four central Vietnamese provinces of Vietnam in 2016.

Public protests even over perceived harm to Vietnam’s interests are considered threats to its political stability and are routinely suppressed by the police.

Dung’s arrest under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code is the second arrest on national security charges reported since Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s May 12-17 visit to the U.S. Cao Thi Cue, owner of the Peng Lai Temple in southern Vietnam’s Long An province, was arrested on charges of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy” under Article 331 of the 2015 Penal Code.

Both laws have been criticized by rights groups as tools used to stifle voices of dissent in the one-party communist state.

An ethnic Ede Montagnard minority activist was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday for submitting three reports about human rights violations in Vietnam to “reactionary forces” overseas, another activist who followed his trial said.

A court in Cu Kuin district, Dak Lak province, sentenced Y Wo Nie on the charge of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, said activist Vo Ngoc Luc, who followed the trial developments as they were broadcast over a local loudspeaker.

The article prohibits citizens from abusing “the rights to freedom and democracy to violate the State’s interests and the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals.” Rights groups have criticized the statute as providing authorities widespread latitude to crack down on any criticism of the government.

Nie participated in several online training courses held by “reactionary forces.” The classes included lessons on religious faith, Vietnam Civil Law, international human rights law, the Montagnard experience in Vietnam, and how to document human rights abuses, according to the online news outlet Congly, the mouthpiece of the Supreme People’s Court of Vietnam.

“Learning about human rights is very good — that’s what I told security officers whom I met this morning,” Luc said. “You cannot convict [people] for taking online courses on human rights.”

Prosecutors failed to provide evidence to support a second accusation against Nie for “providing false information,” Luc said.

“They were all general and ambiguous accusations,” he said.

“Saying the sentence was too heavy is wrong,” Luc added. “I would say it was groundless. If we lived in a civilized world, then the court would declare his innocence, set him free right at the trial, and the investigation agency would apologize him.”

In its indictment, the Cu Kuin People’s Procuracy said that in 2020 Nie collected distorting and false information and composed three reports on human rights violations and sent them to “reactionary forces overseas” via the WhatsApp instant messaging service.

The indictment also said Nie met with the delegates from the U.S. Embassy and Consulate General in Vietnam when they visited the Gia Lai province in June 2020.

The judges concluded that Nie’s acts had affected social safety and order, political security and government administrative agencies’ activities, undermining confidence in the regime and at home and abroad.

When Nie was arrested in September 2020, Cu Kuin police officers said that they seized “many materials with false content and images slandering, insulting and defaming the prestige and dignity of the party, state, local authorities, the public security forces in Cu Kuin district and in Dak Lak province.”

Prior to the September 2020 arrest, Nie received a nine-year jail term for “sabotaging the national unity policy.”

In recent decades, many ethnic minority groups in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, including the Montagnards, have been persecuted for their religious beliefs and seen their land confiscated without adequate compensation. The crackdowns tend to ramp up on the groups when they try to fight back and report these human rights abuses, activists said.

Regime forces shot and killed a third-year medical student in Sagaing Region’s Myinmu Township on Friday, according to a source close to the victim’s family.

Kyaw Nyi Zin, 21, died after junta troops opened fire on the vehicle that he and other members of his family were traveling in on their way from Mandalay to Monywa.

“They were going to a wedding in Monywa and the military told them to stop. But then they started shooting before they even had a chance to slow down. Kyaw Nyi Zin was shot in the head,” the source said.

After the incident, the family took Kyaw Nyi Zin to Monywa to receive emergency medical treatment, but he later died of his injuries, the source added.

Kyaw Nyi Zin was a student at the University of Medicine, Mandalay, one of five universities in Myanmar dedicated to the study of medicine.

Since last year, however, he had stopped attending classes at the state-run university in order to take part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule.

A funeral was held for him in Mandalay on Saturday.

“I’m getting used to the horror, but this still breaks my heart,” said a Mandalay-based doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“They do as they please, just because they have weapons.”

Healthcare workers have been at the forefront of the anti-coup movement, making them frequent targets of arrest and regime brutality. An estimated 80% of the medical staff in Mandalay are currently taking part in the CDM.

Dr. Thiha Tin Tun, a Mandalay doctor, was among more than 100 people killed in crackdowns on anti-coup protests around the country on March 27 of last year.

The junta has revoked the licenses of medical professionals who refuse to work in hospitals under its control, and has also threatened to shut down private hospitals that hire doctors taking part in the CDM.

As a result of these moves, hundreds of doctors in Mandalay alone are believed to have lost their livelihood for resisting last year’s military takeover.

Four monarchy reform activists were again denied bail on 20 May, including Tantawan Tuatulanon, who has been on a hunger strike for the past 32 days to demand the right to bail, while a protest caravan visited the Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court and the Bangkok Remand Prison to demand the release of 11 detained activists.

The Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court on 20 May again denied bail to monarchy reform activist Tantawan Tuatulanon, who is currently held in pre-trial detention on a royal defamation charge and has been on a hunger strike for the past 30 days to demand the right to bail for detained activists.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) said that the public prosecutor requested the Court to continue detaining Tantawan for another 7 days, claiming that her case has to be forwarded to the Attorney General Commission to see whether she should be indicted and that this is standard procedure for royal defamation cases.

The Court subsequently approved the request, and scheduled a bail hearing for Tantawan on 26 May after Move Forward Party MP Pita Limjaroenrat posted bail for her using his MP status as security. The order was signed by judge Parit Piyanaratorn, Deputy Chief Justice of the Criminal Court.

Pita previously submitted a bail request for Tantawan on Tuesday 17 May, but his request was denied after the Court claimed that he did not submit a pay slip, even though he submitted a certifying letter from the Secretariat of the House of Representatives, which stated the amount of his salary as an MP.

He said today after filing a bail request for Tantawan that, according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), anyone accused of breaking the law should be presumed to be innocent until they are tried and found guilty. He is also concerned about her health as she has been on a hunger strike for 30 days.

He also said that he was informed that his previous bail request was denied due to a documentation error. He said that he is not so naïve that he wouldn’t know the difference between a pay slip and a salary certification letter, but he believes that the difference is not a significant issue, that he was told by his lawyers that he may submit these documents, and that the matter of Tantawan’s health is more important than documents.

Pita said that the Move Forward Party has a list of activists currently in detention and that its MPs will be posting bail for them. The Party will also propose an amendment to the royal defamation law, but he is not sure when the proposal will go before parliament.

Tantawan, 20, was charged with royal defamation, resisting officers, and violation of the Computer Crimes Act for live broadcasting before a royal motorcade on 5 March, during which she questioned the priorities of the police and the King as farmers protesting in the area at the time were forced to move to clear the route.

She was detained at the Narcotics Suppression Bureau located inside the Police Club from 5 March to 7 March when she was granted bail on a 100,000-baht security on the conditions that she must not repeat her offense or participate in activities which damage the monarchy, and must wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.

She was also charged with royal defamation and sedition for conducting a poll on royal motorcades at Siam Paragon on 8 February 2022.

The Court revoked Tantawan’s bail on 20 April, claiming she had broken her bail conditions by going near a royal motorcade and posting about the monarchy on Facebook. She has been held in pre-trial detention at the Women’s Central Correctional Institution for the past 30 days and has been on a hunger strike throughout her detention to demand the right to bail for detained activists, raising concerns that her condition will deteriorate further if she continues to be detained.

According to TLHR, Tantawan has lost 4 kg, is severely fatigued, and has fainted several times a day. She has not been taking anything but milk and water, and has told her lawyers that she will drink only water until she is released if she is not granted bail this time. Three other activists denied bail

Three other monarchy reform activists currently in pre-trial detention on royal defamation charges were also denied bail on 20 May.

The police requested the court today to detain activist Sopon Surariddhidhamrong for 12 more days, claiming that they are still processing evidence in the case and have to interview another witness, even though they admitted that Sopon would not be able to tamper with the evidence and that the last time the Court approved a detention request for Sopon, the judge said that it would be the last time.

Nevertheless, the Court approved the request and ordered Sopon to be detained for another 7 days. His lawyers filed a bail request, which was subsequently denied on the ground that there is no cause to change existing court order. The order was signed by judge Parit Piyanaratorn.

Sopon, a 23-year-old radiological technology student, was arrested while he was leaving a Labour Day event in front of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. He was charged with royal defamation and using a sound amplifier without permission for a speech he gave during a protest march in the Ratchadamnoen area on 22 April 2022. Anon Klinkaew, a member of the ultra-royalist group People’s Centre to Protect the Monarchy who filed the complaint against Sopon, said the speech defamed Queen Suthida.

Sopon is facing two other royal defamation charges; one is for a speech given at the Chakri Memorial Day protest on 6 April 2022 and another for a speech given during a Labour Day rally in front of Government House on 1 May. He is also on a hunger strike to demand the right to bail and has been for 16 days.

Meanwhile, the South Bangkok Criminal Court denied bail again for Baipor and Netiporn, two activists from the monarchy reform activist group Thaluwang. The order was signed by Manas Phakphuwadol, Research Justice of the Supreme Court, serving temporarily as Deputy Chief Justice of the South Bangkok Criminal Court, and made on the grounds that the two have previously broken their bail conditions and that they are likely to commit other offense if released.

According to TLHR, Baipor, who is currently a 1st year student at the Puey Ungphakorn School of Development Studies, Thammasat University, is likely to be expelled from university if she continues to be detained, since she will miss 4 of her final examinations, which will cause her GPA to fall below the university’s requirement to remain enrolled. Keeping her in detention would therefore be an excessive deprivation of her rights and destructive to her future in a situation where she has not been judged guilty, and if she is found to be innocent, the court will not be able to remedy the damage to her education.

Meanwhile, the bail request for Netiporn said that her mother has a heart condition, and that Netiporn and her sister are responsible for paying for their mother’s medical treatment, since their parents are separated. Keeping Netiporn in detention would therefore mean that the family will struggle to cover their mother’s medical expenses. Netiporn herself is also at risk of developing a tumour in her uterus and has been prescribed hormonal therapy by a doctor at Ramathibodi Hospital. Being in detention and not being able to see a doctor would increase the risk to her health.

Baipor and Netiporn have been charged with royal defamation, sedition, and refusing to comply with an officer’s order after they conducted a poll on royal motorcades at Siam Paragon shopping mall on 8 February 2022. They were arrested on 28 April 2022 along with activist Supitcha Chailom and charged with royal defamation for conducting a poll on whether people agree with the government allowing the King to use his powers as he pleases.

In addition to the above charges, Baipor was arrested on 22 April 2022 and charged with royal defamation and violation of the Computer Crimes Act for sharing a Facebook post about the monarchy budget.

They have been detained since 3 May when their bail was revoked by the South Bangkok Criminal Court, which claimed that they violated their bail conditions by causing public disorder by participating in another poll on land expropriation on 13 March 2022 at the Victory Monument, during which a small altercation took place between Thaluwang supporters and members of a royalist group gathering nearby. Protest at court and prison demand the right to bail

To demand the right to bail for detained activists, the activist network Citizens for the Abolition of 112, which has been campaigning for the release of detained activists and the repeal of the royal defamation law, staged a ‘car mob’ protest. A caravan of cars and motorcycles carrying white flags saying “free our friends” and pictures of detained activists drove from the Democracy Monument to the Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court, and then to the Bangkok Remand Prison.

Activist Somyot Pruksakasemsuk said before the caravan took off from the Democracy Monument that the royal defamation law is being used to destroy democracy and human rights, and that activists like Tantawan are being denied the right to bail.

He noted that the 11 activists currently detained are still presumed to be innocent and are fighting for the people’s rights and freedoms, and questioned whether the courts are exercising their power for justice or the protection of the people.

In front of the Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court, protesters hung a banner saying “Free political prisoners, repeal Section 112” from an overpass in front of the Court and scattered papers containing various messages from the overpass. Representatives of the network then submitted a petition to the Criminal Court calling for the right to bail for detained activists.

The petition said that the right to bail is a fundamental right and stemmed from the principle of presumption of innocence, which is the most basic principle in criminal proceedings, and that denying or revoking bail on the grounds that a defendant is going to commit another offense or cause public disorder is not in accordance with legal principles.

The petition noted that the detained activists’ actions were an exercise of their freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and to deny them bail on the grounds that they are likely to repeat their offense or cause danger is not in line with the fact that their actions are not dangerous. The courts also have other means to use in place of detention, such as requiring a defendant to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, and activists who were detained on the grounds that they are a flight risk have never tried to flee.

Somyot said after the petition was submitted that he is concerned about Tantawan, and asked why she was charged with royal defamation for conducting public polls. He said that defendants in cases relating to political expression should be granted bail and that the 11 detained activists should be released.

Labour rights activist Sripai Nonsi said that the detained activists did nothing wrong and that they were only asking questions about someone who is using taxpayers’ money.

“The world today has progressed so far that there is nothing you can hide. The court itself should consider and reflect upon itself how it could do its job well. I ask the court to have some dignity and consider the cases fairly, and I ask it to return our country’s future to society,” Sripai said.

The caravan then moved to the Bangkok Remand Prison, where protesters tied yellow and black ribbons, as well as flags containing images of detained activists to the razor wire barricade in front of the prison entrance.

Another group of activists also went to the Supreme Court on the morning of 20 May to submit a petition to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to demand that the detained activists be granted bail.

Various groups condemned the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict for the latest red-tagging of journalism professor Danilo Arao and election watchdog Kontra Daya.

The recent red-tagging spree was published by the Philippine News Agency (PNA), with Jeffrey “Ka Eric” Celiz as their lone source.

Celiz claims to have held several positions in the underground movement in the Philippines. Of late, he has been notoriously red-tagging progressive organizations as part of the NTF-ELCAC.

In their published articles, the PNA wrote that Kontra Daya and Arao are affliated the Communist Party of the Philippines. The report also alleged that Kontra Daya is a project used to manipulate public opinion on the elections.

In a statement, Kontra Daya denounced this, saying that Celiz’ claims are “grounded in falsehoods” which had long been refuted.

“Given his propensity for weaving a web of lies, it comes as no surprise that the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflicts finds him useful for red-tagging which is considered the highest form of ‘fake news’ as it can get a person arrested, tortured or even killed,” said Kontra Daya in their released statement.

IBON Foundation, who had worked with Arao for many years, claimed that the professor was one of their senior staff in 1999, during the time that a “former cadre” accused him of involvement with armed groups.

As an education and advocacy institution, IBON had also held countless trainings and seminars with Arao as one of the resource speakers but it was never as a front for any terrorist group.

“It is delusional and malicious to say that these simple capacity-building activities are organized by the Central Committee of the CPP through Arao as alleged,” said IBON.

Bulatlat, for its part, called out the PNA, and urged them to uphold journalism ethics and not to parrot disinformation that is being spread by the NTF-ELCAC.

“As a state-run news agency, PNA should observe the ethical standards of journalism, as government resources should be utilized for the public good,” said Bulatlat managing editor Ronalyn Olea in a statement.

She added that government resources, “should not be spent endangering the lives of the people, particularly those who are critical of the government.”

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A former cadre of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) on Wednesday said he has “direct personal knowledge” about Kontra Daya convenor Danilo Arao’s link with the communist terrorist group (CTG).

“Proof of my claims that Danilo Arao and the leaders and core operatives of Kontra Daya are CPP-NPA-NDF urban operators? And that CPP-NPA-NDF created Kontra Daya? I have direct personal knowledge about Danilo Arao's involvement with the CPP-NPA-NDF as among the local communist terrorists' urban operatives,” said Jeffrey 'Ka Eric' Celiz in a statement.

Celiz, the current secretary-general of a national organization of former rebels dubbed Sentrong Alyansa Ng Mga Mamamayan Para Sa Bayan (Sambayanan), said he personally met Arao with other CPP-NPA-NDF urban operatives in a resort in Laguna during a five-day training and seminar-workshop on urban mass movement campaigns and propaganda operations, including the conduct of media operations in urban mass movement activities, in April 1999.

He said the seminar-workshop was actually a joint activity called upon by the CPP Central Committee staff organs known as CPP National Organizations Department (NOD) and National United Front Commission (NUFC) where Arao was among those who helped facilitate the event.

Similar activities, Celiz said, were also held in March 2001 in preparation for the May 2001 elections in which Arao also participated.

Celiz said it might have been better if he was invited by the ANC when it interviewed Arao on its program on Tuesday.

He said the revolutionary tactic of the CPP-NPA-NDF of using front organizations and activities as cover were “masterfully exhibited and displayed by Danilo Arao in his interview with ANC”.

“How I wish that ANC could have also made due diligence in reaching out to me so that I can confront Danilo Arao, right before a public discussion and be able to tell ANC and the people, how the CPP-NPA-NDF and Danilo Arao operated in order to establish their cover and front electoral project known as Kontra Daya so that their pretensions and hypocrisy could have been exposed more distinctly in a public discourse,” Celiz said.

During the interview, Arao criticized and insulted the government's official media and information group, including the Philippine News Agency, and the media network SMNI and Remate.

Arao challenged Celiz to prove his accusations.

On Monday, the PNA published an article entitled “Watchdog ‘Kontra Daya’ brainchild of CPP-NPA-NDF: ex-cadre” based on a statement issued by Celiz linking Kontra Daya with the CTG.

Celiz, the top nominee of Abante Sambayanan party-list, said their group has been one of the victims of prejudiced and partisan public opinion manipulation, which he called a “mind frame game and conditioning modus operandi.”

Arao accused Celiz and the PNA of red tagging him and the Kontra Daya.

“Truth hurts for the CPP-NPA-NDF and their operatives and functionaries such as Danilo Arao when they are exposed to the people,” Celiz said.

Celiz said there is no such thing as red-tagging, adding that this word is an “invention of the CPP-NPA-NDF” as a defense and an escape switch to deceive the people.

“Conveniently, Arao and his group Kontra Daya used the CPP-NPA-NDF masquerade of 'red tagging' claim as his defense, while doing references to their so-called dangers of 'red tagging' against their personal safety,” he said.

He said Arao's pathetic use of “red tagging” claim as his defense also “blew him away when he parroted the CPP-NPA-NDF personalities.”

Celiz added that truth shall liberate the people from the clutches of communist terrorism that has destroyed the country and the people, most especially the youth, “and Danilo Arao and his Kontra Daya group are part of the conspirators and enablers of the CPP-NPA-NDF”.

“And the proof of it is my direct personal knowledge of the matters that I expose, and I am standing by the truth of what I declare,” Celiz said.

The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

The NDF has been formally designated as a terrorist organization by the Anti-Terrorism Council on June 23, 2021, citing it as “an integral and inseparable part” of the CPP-NPA created in April 1973. (PNA)

Hundreds of ethnic minority households from a commune in south-central Vietnam's Dak Lak province are fighting to reclaim their land from a forestry company after 40 years of working on it as hired laborers.

Protests in Lang village, Ea Pok town, Cu Mgar district began last month, with farmers demanding the return of about 40 hectares of arable land.

Demonstrations came to a head on May 18 when hundreds of people gathered on the land to protest against the coffee company's destruction of their crops.

Videos and photos of the protest were shared on social media, showing riot police clashing with demonstrators.

Demonstrations continued last week, with protestors holding up banners asking the coffee company to return the land. State media has so far not reported on the incident.

“We want the company to return our ancestral land so that people can have a business in the future,” a local resident told RFA under the condition of anonymity. “People are getting [taxed] more and more but have less land, so people need to reclaim the land.”

According to RFA research, Lang village has about 250 households, all indigenous Ede people. The residents all make a living from farming.

‘The company does not give a dime’

Residents told RFA they had been cultivating the land for many generations but after 1975 the local government took it and gave it to the state-owned enterprise, Eapok Coffee Farm to grow coffee trees. The company later changed its name to Ea Pok Coffee Joint Stock Company.

Locals went from being landowners to hired workers on their own land. They say the company allowed them to cultivate the land from 1983 until now but told them to produce 18 tons of coffee per hectare or pay for up to 80% of each harvest.

“People work hard, but they don't have enough to eat because they have to pay the company's output. In many cases, they don't even have enough output to pay so they are in debt and have to pay for it in the next crop," said one resident who was assigned to grow coffee on 8,000 square meters of land.

Residents say that in 2010 the company allowed them to uproot coffee trees and grow other crops, including corn, but did not support them by offering seedlings, fertilizers, or pesticides. The company also continued to impose output quotas or taxed as much as 80% of the crop.

“People have to pay by themselves. The company does not give a dime or give a single pill when people are sick,” said another resident farming 10,000 square meters of land.

Struggling farmers decided to file an application with the government in 2019 to reclaim their land and farming rights.

Locals say this year Ea Pok Coffee asked them to start growing durian trees. When they opposed the plan the company started destroying crops on May 18 to prepare the land for durian cultivation.

When an RFA Vietnamese reporter called Ea Pok Coffee Joint Stock Company to ask for comments they were told the press must register with the company's leaders, and get their approval first.

When asked about the government's attitude towards people's demands, a local resident said: “We sent petitions to the town government and the provincial government but got no response. The first time five households signed, then many more households signed. The government always sides with the company, rather than helping the people.”

RFA contacted Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, chairwoman of the People's Committee of Ea Pok town, to ask about the dispute between Lang villagers and the coffee company. She said that she would not accept telephone interviews.

When asked if people would agree to maintain the current form of contract farming if Ea Pok Coffee Joint Stock Company reduced taxes and increased support, local people said they still committed to reclaiming the land.

A parliament minister has brought defamation charges under Timor Leste’s Penal Code against journalist Francisco Belo Simões da Costa, following coverage of an allegation of ministerial corruption. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate, the Timor-Leste Press Union (TLPU), in calling for the immediate withdrawal of the case against the journalist.

Timor Leste’s Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Social Communication, Francisco Martins da Costa Pereira Jerónimo, filed a claim against Francisco Belo, the editor-in-chief of local news portal Hatutan.com, over a report regarding allegations of corruption in a ‘set-top-box installation’ project.

Minister Francisco Jeronimo replied to the article, stating the news report about his project was not valid, and his response was republished by Hatutan.com. The minister is responsible for drafting legislation to develop public and private media in Timor Leste.

Following the coverage, Minister Jerónimo brought charges against Francisco Belo, who received a summons from the Dili district prosecutor’s office for defamation under Article 285 of Timor-Leste’s Penal Code.

Francisco Belo gave a statement to the prosecutor’s office on May 23, meeting with officers for approximately thirty minutes. If found guilty under Article 285, the journalist faces up to three years in prison or a fine.

In 2017, two Timor Leste journalists, Oki Raimundos and Lourenco Martins, also faced jail for defamation for their articles about Prime Minister Rui Maria de Araujo in 2015, but the charges were overturned by the Dili District Court on June 1, 2017.

The TLPU stated that it had verified that Hatutan.com's report about the installation project followed all media laws and the journalistic code of ethics. "We urge Minister Francisco Jeronimo to resolve this case through mediation from the Press Council because journalism is not a crime," TLPU said.

23 MAY 2022 by RAIMUNDOS OKI in JUSTISA Created: 23 May 2022Hits: 1481 Ghost articles return to haunt journalists in Timor-Leste

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DILI (TOP) – Freedom of the press is protected by article 41 of the Timor-Leste’s Constitution, but there is still one ghost article in the Criminal Code (2009), namely article 285 on Defamatory false information.

The ghost article has been used by politicians and law enforcement in Timor-Leste to strike back at their opponents, especially journalists who often write stories about corruption cases in both private and public institutions.

Article 285 is a giant ghost that not only haunts journalists but will also haunt critics in this country one day.

Leaders and politicians in Timor-Leste have been pleased with the annual world press freedom index of 71st out of 180 countries in 2021 and 17th in 2022 ahead of Australia, but the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Social Communication Francisco Martins da Costa Pereira Jerónimo has sued the editor-in-chief of the online media www.hatutan.com Francisco Belo Simões da Costa after publishing a corruption case allegedly involving the minister Francisco Jerónimo.

According to information accessed by The Oe-Kusi Post (TOP), installation project Set-top Box Set-top Box/dexodificador RTTL,E.P with a budget of $900,0000.00, allegedly involve Minister Francisco Jerónimo who is also the President of the Federação Futebol de Timor-Leste (F -FTL) entered into a contract with a local company DILI ETERNAL INNOVATION INFORMATION, Lda as a Joint Venture of Melánia da Silva Fernandes Capela was a secretary in the F-FTL cabinet, but according to his right of reply to Hatutan.com that the news reports about this project is not true.

As a result, Minister Francisco Jerónimo finally sued the editor-in-chief of Hatutan.com who is also a member of the Timor-Leste press council to the Dili District Prosecutor Office.

“I have gone to give a statement at the Dili prosecutor's office on a report from the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Social Communication Francisco Martins da Costa Pereira Jerónimo regarding Defamatory false information in article 285 of the Timor-Leste's penal code,” Francisco Belo Simões da Costa told

According to a news report from the online media Hatutan.com that their chief editor gave a statement at the Dili prosecutor's office on Monday 23 May 2022 from 9 to 9:30 am Timor-Leste time.

Journalist Francisco Belo received a summons from the Dili prosecutor's office on 18 May 2022 with the case number NUC 0078/22/PCCIC as a suspect.

The online media Hatutan.com explained that their editor-in-chief had been sued by the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Social Communication Francisco Martins da Costa Pereira Jerónimo for the publication of news about the Set-top Box/dexodificador installation project Rádiu Televizaun Timor Leste, Empreza Públika (RTTL, E.P).

A Kandal factory is continuing to refuse to reinstate workers whom it fired as they were trying to start a union despite instructions from the Labor Ministry, as workers said they now want to take up the issue with the factory’s international clients.

In two separate orders issued May 4 and May 17, the Labor Ministry said the SYHJ Garment factory in Ang Snuol district should take back Prak Tola, Ny Tola and Hul Sokhim, saying their dismissals were illegal under articles 43 and 67 of the Union Law.

Those articles say workers standing to lead a union are protected from dismissal unless there is authorization from a labor inspector.

It is the same argument the NagaWorld casino union has been making to contest the layoffs of its union leaders last year.

A manager at SYHJ, Prum Kosal, said in a message that the factory could not take back the three workers as they had made serious mistakes that violated the company’s internal regulations. He also alleged they had damaged thousands of dollars of company property.

“At the moment, the company has no association with the union. Please tell them that before they complain, they should look at the law — which articles, which paragraph,” Kosal said. “Ask if they know the law. … If the union wants to sue, it’s their right.”

Sokhim, one of the fired workers, said she was head of the packaging department and was due to become the new union’s head.

“They said to sue them,” she said. “They said they don’t care where we complain.”

Independent Trade Union Confederation president Ry Sethynet said he would help the SYHJ workers find the factory’s international buyers and file a complaint to them for intervention to get the three prospective union leaders back to work.

The Labor Ministry orders, issued by the labor disputes department, said factory owners must reaccept the workers who had been laid off and pay them wages from the day they were fired. A department official, when asked about enforcement, previously told VOD that both sides had two months to appeal the decision.

Ministry spokeperson Heng Sour did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union has estimated that roughly 350 union leaders and active members were dismissed under the guise of Covid-19 — around a quarter of about 1,400 cases of alleged union-busting since 2015.

According to maps, the factory is next-door to similarly named SYSG Garment, a Chinese-owned T-shirt producer registered with the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia

The police finally dispersed a group of people calling themselves the United Liberation Movement for West Papua or ULMWP who were going to hold a demonstration in the Pasar Baru area of ​​Kaimana, Thursday (12/5). They were disbanded because they did not have official permission from the police. There was an argument between the mob and the police when it was disbanded. The police eventually arrested a protester, and he was taken to the Kaimana Police Station for trying to provoke another crowd.

The masses finally dispersed in an orderly manner by taking public transportation, although they had been offered a ride from the police, the masses refused. Traders who are currently selling their wares in the area have also chosen to close their stalls. For security reasons because of the concentration of the masses in the new market area of ​​Kaimana.

Kaimana Police Chief AKBP I Ketut Widiarta, SIK MH, when confirmed said the reason for the disbandment was because his party did not issue a permit to the demonstrators, who would convey their aspirations to disband from the Republic of Indonesia. “So we firmly reject and do not give permission for this demonstration,” said the Police Chief when confirmed during the security demonstration in the Pasar Baru Kaimana area, Thursday (12/5).

The police chief appealed to the people of Kaimana to jointly maintain security and order in the city of Kaimana. And not easily provoked by other issues or invitations that will damage Kaimana’s security. “Don’t be provoked, provoked by issues or people who will damage the security situation in Kaimana,” he stressed again.

According to journalists’ observation until Thursday afternoon, activities at Pasar Baru Kaimana were running normally, although before that the traders had closed their stalls for security reasons.

Today, May 12, 2022, members of the Association for Prosperous Earth Warriors (PPPBS) in Malin Deman Sub-district are carrying out their usual activities, harvesting palm fruit on the land they cultivate. The land they are working on is land that is currently still in the process of resolving the conflict with the company PT Daria Dharma Pratama (DDP). Based on the information we collected from local villagers, PPPBS members carried out harvesting activities simultaneously at around 10.00 WIB. But at the same time the company is also carrying out the same activity around members' arable lands. After about 2 hours of harvesting, the police officers (BRIMOB), totaling approximately 40 people, surrounded PPPBS members on the land of a member named Zarkawi (a resident of Talang Arah village). It is suspected that BRIMOB members took repressive actions against PPPBS members and the surrounding community land (who are not even members) by making arrests and beatings. So far, only 1 person has been confirmed with a laceration to the head as a result of being attacked by the police. The victim of this criminalization is Hardoni, a resident of Talang Arah village, Malin Deman sub-district. Meanwhile, around 40 PPPBS members were stripped half their bodies, their hands were tied using plastic ropes and their cellphones were confiscated. These 40 people were then taken to the South Mukomuko Police Station at around 4 pm.

From the information we received until 20.00 WIB, several PPPBS members had gone through the BAP process without an assistant or legal representative.

According to information from the local community, the police (BRIMOB) have been guarding the company's concession area for a long time, since early January. And during that time there has never been any coordination carried out by the police to the local village government to provide notifications regarding the agenda of the police to carry out operations around the village and sub-district areas. So far there has also been no response from the local government to protect those detained.

Based on information obtained from the PPPBS attorney, namely the Akar Law Office, who arrived at the South Mukomuko Police on Friday, May 13, 2022 at 02.00 WIB, the attorney was prevented from assisting the examination process carried out by PPPBS members. And at that time, the BAP process for 3 PPPBS members was still ongoing. However, after the examination process and BAP are completed, 1 ALO Advocate can only meet with the Secretary General of PPPBS; Lobian Angrianto's brother was escorted by 5 police officers in the detention room.

According to information from Lobian and the Head of Criminal Investigation at the South Mukomuko Police, 40 people and members of the community were detained. Currently (May 13, 2022, at 02:26) the 40 people who were arrested are still witnesses. The Head of Criminal Investigation Unit stated that the detention of 40 PPPBS members was carried out because of OTT with alleged Article 362 of the Criminal Code; Theft.

PPPBS is an acronym for the Association of Pejuang Pejuang Bumi Sejahtera which is an association of smallholders in Malin Deman District, Mukomuko Regency, Bengkulu. This PPPBS is a legal entity NUMBER AHU-0013151.AH.01.07.TAHUN 2021. The number of farmer members who are members of this PPPBS is 187 people from 7 villages; Talang Direction, Red Water, New Talang, Lubuk Talang, New Serami, Semambang Makmur and New Serami. This association was created based on a common interest to regain their rights and sovereignty over their land. And currently PPPBS is in the stage of proposing the TORA Redistribution program for PT Bina Bumi Sejahtera's abandoned HGU land which is physically controlled by PT Dharia Darma Pratama (DDP) covering an area of ​​603.50 Ha.

On 11 and 12 May 2022, Hoa Binh province police repeatedly called Mr Trinh Ba Khiem - Mrs Theu's husband - to come to their office 'to work'. This was the third time 64-year-old Mr Khiem was summoned to the police office regarding the statuses, video clips... he posted on his Facebook since the arrest of his wife Mrs Can Thi Theu and his two sons Trinh Ba Phuong and Trinh Ba Tu. Mr Khiem told RFA Viet: 'In the second working session I had with Hoa Binh province police, they questioned me, why did I say on social media that the communist regime killed people; I told them, that was correct, [the communist regime] killed [land petitioner] Mr Le Dinh Kinh [in an ambush on Dong Tam village in Jan 2020]...

'The police also told me, I am not allowed to publish on social media unverified articles, they asked me to stop live streaming on social media.'

Mr Khiem said he refused to comply with the police's demand, and asserted that he would continue to speak out on social media and to fight for justice for his family members.

'They demanded me to stop [all those activities], otherwise I will be jailed with a heavy sentence.'

On 11 May, before going to the police office, Mr Khiem told RFA Viet: 'I am never afraid of the communist louts. In my struggle [for my rights] , it is the communist regime that commits criminal offences, the communists must defend themselves before me, I never have to defend myself before them.'

Coming home after his working session with the police, he said:

'[The police] persuaded me not to live stream bad mouthing the regime, otherwise they will put me in jail. The communist regime's police really want to arrest me, that is my assessment.'

In the working session on 12 May, Mr Khiem informed that the police changed tack. Instead of banning him from speaking out on social media. they persuaded him not to use the word 'communist' in his speech.

'That was their demand, they didn't like that word; in the view of this communist regime, the Communist Party is always correct, only individuals make mistakes, if you call them all 'communists', they don't like it at all, they said, you bad mouth the regime and the state by saying that.'

NagaWorld labor negotiations remained at a stalemate as fired union workers continued to attempt to protest outside the casino complex.

Workers have continued their protests in Phnom Penh and have been met with severe police action, including protesters getting kicked while being shoved onto buses outside the NagaWorld 2 casino on Wednesday. Around 130 workers were again confronted by police, terminated worker Mam Sovathin said.

Kong Sokhom, another protesting worker who still works at the casino, said she was initially shocked when a police official pinched her hard and had to be pulled away by his colleagues.

“I laughed after that. He pinched me and then pushed me on the bus. And some authorities had to pull him out,” she said.

Sokhom said protestors were returning to the casino almost every day, only taking short breaks to rest. The authorities continued to take them on buses near Phnom Penh Safari park and then dropping them off at the new Freedom Park in Russei Keo district.

At the same time, five union representatives met with NagaWorld and the Labor Ministry on Wednesday, the eighth negotiation meeting to end without a resolution.

Union president Chhim Sithar, who was recently re-elected to head the union, was not optimistic heading into the meeting, saying there was no compromise in sight. Her outlook had not changed after the meeting ended Wednesday evening.

“It is like before. The company still rejects all of our requests. There was no result,” she said.

The union has asked NagaWorld to find jobs for 200-odd terminated workers, a demand workers say the casino has refused during the negotiations.

The union also delivered the results of its 10-day leadership election to the Labor Ministry on Monday. The ministry will now have to re-register the union, and Heng Sour, a ministry spokesperson, did not respond to requests for comment.

Twenty-five members of a youth group who are marking World Environment Day with a 600-kilometer cycling campaign, say that although local authorities allowed the event to go ahead they were questioned and monitored, which some took as a form of intimidation.

The campaign, which started on May 10 and ends on Friday, saw the cyclists ride all the way from Kampong Thom to Preah Vihear province. In each commune along the way, through four provinces, the participants say they were stopped by authorities who questioned them about their activities and camped out with them overnight.

Authorities say their interest was only intended to keep the cyclists safe on their journey, but one of the campaigners, Out Latin, a project coordinator with the advocacy group Cambodian Youth Network, said their interest meant the activists hadn’t been able to speak freely.

“I think it is a challenge that the authorities always come to interrogate and sleep with us under the pretext of security. What the authorities are doing is hurting our ability to debate on social issues and make our next plan.”

However, he noted that in the past, authorities have been more interfering, even stopping village meetings. This time they were allowed to go ahead, he believes, because they don’t want trouble ahead of the commune elections next month.

After the youths arrived in Preah Vihear, city authorities led by Deputy Governor Khiev Ban and accompanied by about 10 plainclothes police officers came to inquire about their activities, took down their names, and took photos. In Promer commune, Tbeng Meanchey district, police did the same.

Latin said they asked where the group had got its funding for the campaign, which mainly came from civil society organizations abroad. The campaign was meant to promote forest conservation, he said, and teach communities to protect natural resources.

“Through this campaign, we are demanding that the government, especially the Ministry of Environment, allow local communities to participate in protecting the last remaining natural resources, such as in Prey Lang and Prey Preah Roka,” he said.

San Mala, another member of the Cambodian Youth Network who took part in the event, said he didn’t think the real reason the authorities monitored the cyclists activity was in order to guarantee their safety. Instead, he said he thought it was a way of monitoring them.

“The authorities there have said that their actions are only for the safety and security of the youth,” he told CamboJA. “Especially at our rest stops, the authorities always sent police and village security to guard the youth group.”

However, he noted that in the past it’s been very difficult for youth to pass through protected forest areas, but this time it was easy. He thinks the authorities facilitated this because the government doesn’t want trouble ahead of elections, and also because the ASEAN Summit was being held in the US at the same time and they didn’t want negative press.

Mala said he hoped the campaign would encourage the Ministry of Environment to allow citizens to participate in forest protection, because in Prey Lang in the past well-known environmental activists have been arrested for organizing patrols against illegal logging.

“In the last two years, authorities, especially officials from the Ministry of Environment, have been restricting communities and civil society organizations from working in forest areas… The absence of environmental activists monitoring or patrolling has resulted in a major surge in deforestation,” he said.

“There may be collusion between local authorities and traders,” he added.

Koet Saray, president of the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association (KSILA), said some authorities seemed pleased to see youth and civil society campaigning for environmental protection, and that they were mainly allowed to conduct their campaign unhindered. However he said, despite the group having widely publicized the event in the press, the authorities hadn’t been aware of it or what was about.

During their 600 km cycle, the group saw several deforested sites in Prey Lang forest in Kratie and Kampong Thom, according to Out Latin, each ranging between 5 and 50 hectares.

Sar Seng Leang, deputy chief of Achen village, Kampong Cham commune, Sambor district, Kratie province, said that as a village authority, it was his duty to welcome and protect the cyclists passing through and that he welcomed the environmental advocacy campaign..

Khiev Ban, Deputy Governor of Preah Vihear City, agreed that the cycling campaign was a good way of making people aware of environmental issues. He told CamboJA that the authorities only questioned the participants so they knew which direction they were going and could protect them.

Joseph (pseudonym) was arrested around 10.00 today (10 May) while leaving his house to join the activists submitting a petition to the US Embassy calling for the release of detained activists and the repeal of the royal defamation law. The police officers who arrested him presented an arrest warrant on a royal defamation charge resulting from a speech he gave at the protest at the King Taksin the Great Monument at Wongwian Yai on Chakri Memorial Day (6 April).

During his speech, Joseph talked about the history of how the ruling class in Southeast Asia come to power, especially in the ancient kingdoms located in the area currently known as Thailand, and how the Chakri dynasty came to rule Siam.

Activist Somyot Pruksakasemsuk from the activist network Citizens for the Abolition of 112 said that Joseph was a member of the network and that he came up with the idea that the network should petition embassies to demand the release of political prisoners.

Somyot said that Joseph’s speech was about the history of Chakri Memorial Day, noting that previous court rulings stated that speaking about history does not constitute an offense under the royal defamation law, leading him to speculate that Joseph was arrested to prevent yesterday’s protest at the US Embassy.

“We’ll keep going, and we will let the world know about this, especially the US, which is a country from which we will campaign the use of social sanctions against the judges, the police, or anyone related to the justice system,” Somyot said.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) reported that after his arrest, Joseph was taken to the Police Club on Vibhavadi Road, even though the charge against him is under the jurisdiction of Buppharam Police Station in Thonburi. He was then taken to the Thonburi Criminal Court for a temporary detention request and was later granted bail on a 200,000-baht security.

The Court also set the conditions that he must not participate in activities which damage the monarchy or cause public disorder, and must not leave the country.

Joseph was previously charged with royal defamation and sedition for reading out a statement during the 26 October 2020 protest in front of the German Embassy.

Another activist has been arrested and charged with royal defamation for a speech given at the Chakri Memorial Day protest on 6 April 2022.

Mint (pseudonym) was arrested on Tuesday evening (10 May). She said that she and other activists were eating at a restaurant on Chaeng Wattana after the protest at the US Embassy when around 10 police officers came to present an arrest warrant, leading her to speculate that the officers had been following her since the event at the Embassy.

She was taken to the Police Club on Vibhavadi Road, where she was detained overnight before being taken to court for a temporary detention request. According to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), Mint was charged with royal defamation, violation of the Computer Crimes Act, and using a sound amplifier without permission.

TLHR also reported that, according to the inquiry officer from Buppharam Police Station, three people are being charged for speeches given during the Chakri Memorial Day protest: Mint, student activist Sopon Surariddhidhamrong, and Joseph (pseudonym).

Joseph was arrested on Tuesday morning (10 May) and charged with royal defamation. He was later granted bail on a 200,000-baht security and was given the same conditions later given to Mint. TLHR said that his speech did not mention the current king, and that, in his testimony, Joseph said that several writers and academics have discussed the execution of King Taksin, such as Sulak Sivaraksa, Nidhi Eoseewong, and Sujit Wongthes. He also mentioned a previous court ruling that the royal defamation law does not cover former kings.

Sopon is currently held in pre-trial detention on another royal defamation charge resulting from a speech he gave at a protest on 22 April 2022. He was arrested on 1 May and subsequently denied bail. TLHR said that the police will visit Sopon in prison next week to notify him of the charges.

The inquiry officer said that Mint was charged for her speech, in which she said that King Taksin was not beaten to death with a sandalwood club or allowed to enter monkhood as history books have it, but was beheaded on order from King Phutthayotfa Chulalok, who ascended the throne as the first monarch in the Chakri dynasty after he seized power in 1782. She also spoke about the creation of the Equestrian Statue of King Chulalongkorn.

On Wednesday (11 May), Mint was granted bail by the Thonburi Provincial Court on a 200,00-baht security. The Court gave her the conditions that she must not participate in activities which are damaging to the monarchy or cause public disorder, and prohibited her from leaving the country.

Mint, Joseph, and Sopon are among 194 people currently facing royal defamation charges for participating in pro-democracy protests in 209 cases. Of this number, 43 cases are related to speeches given at protests.

Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Maung Maung Myo and stop jailing members of the press for reporting the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

Around 6 p.m. on May 10, Maung Myo, a contributor to the local Mekong News Agency, was traveling by train to report on recent armed clashes between the military and anti-junta people’s defense forces when military authorities arrested him, according to news reports and the news agency’s editor Nyan Linn Htet, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app.

The reporter, who is also known as Myo Myint Oo, was arrested at the Salween River bridge checkpoint near the town of Hpa-an in eastern Kayin state after officials discovered he had shared Mekong News Agency reports on his personal Facebook page, according to Nyan Linn Htet, who told CPJ that the news publication had been banned by the military junta regime that seized power in the February 1, 2021 coup.

Maung Myo has since been charged under section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, which carries a maximum of seven years in prison, according to Nyan Linn Htet. Since his arrest, the journalist has been held at Hpa-an Prison.

“Myanmar authorities must free journalist Maung Maung Myo and drop any charges pending against him,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must cease leveling outrageous terrorism-related charges against journalists who are merely doing their jobs as reporters.”

Maung Myo has reported for Mekong News Agency since June 2020 and has covered various political topics, including Myanmar’s COVID-19 situation, anti-coup protests, and clashes between the military government and different armed resistance groups.

Nyan Linn Htet told CPJ that military authorities raided Mekong News Agency’s office and his residence on two occasions after the 2021 coup, and the publication had to close its bureau in the Shan state town of Tachiliek on April 15, 2021, due to threats from security forces.

Nyan Linn Htet added that he is in hiding from an arrest warrant issued against him on March 6, 2021, under section 505(a) of the penal code, a vague anti-state provision that penalizes incitement and the dissemination of “false news.”

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Maung Myo’s arrest and detention.

CPJ’s latest prison census published in December ranked Myanmar as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists. Myanmar authorities have killed at least three journalists since the military seized power on February 1, 2021, according to CPJ documentation.

LBH Papua Director Emanuel Gobay said one participant of the demonstration against the New Autonomous Region (DOB) Papua in Jayapura was critical after being hit by a rubber bullet allegedly released by the police.

Previously, the police forcefully dispersed demonstrations against DOB in a number of areas in Papua, Tuesday (10/5).

"Yes (critically) the action in Waena," said Director of LBH Papua Emanuel Gobay when contacted.

Gobay admitted that he did not know the exact chronology of the incident. He only confirmed that the victim was taking part in an action in front of Mega Waena, Jayapura.

"So when they arrived in front of Mega Waena, they were forcibly dispersed. At that time, they used rubber bullets and so on. When they released the rubber bullets, they hit one of the protesters," he said.

According to Gobay, at that time the victim was immediately taken to Mimika Dormitory to be treated by female students. However, he did not know more about the victim's condition.

He added that apart from rubber bullet victims, one protest participant also suffered injuries due to being mistreated by the police. The victim, he said, was shot in the chest by the police.

"Besides that, someone was beaten, then he was unconscious, then carried, then taken to the dormitory. I met him earlier, he complained that his chest still hurts from being kicked. There are also several others who were injured," explained Gobay. .

Demonstrations against the new autonomous regions and Special Autonomy (Otsus) in several areas of Jayapura, Papua, were disbanded by the police today.

The forced dissolution was recorded in a video that was spread on Twitter social media. The video was uploaded by the spokesman for the Papuan People's Petition, Jeffry Wenda.

At that time, the police forcefully dispersed the peaceful protest using water cannons.

At least seven people were arrested by the police in the action. Those arrested included PRP spokesman Jeffry Wenda, National Spokesman for the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) Ones Suhuniap, and Omizon Balingga.

he Hanoi police have resumed investigation against blogger Le Anh Hung, taking him back to their temporary detention center from the city-based mental hospital.

According to the decision of the capital city’s Police Department on May 9, the compulsory mental treatment was stopped by the city’s People’s Procuracy on the same day and he was transferred back to jail on May 10 for further investigation on the allegation of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code.

The investigation is expected to end soon and the first-instance hearing will be carried out in coming months, according to his lawyer Nguyen Van Mieng.

Mr. Le Anh Hung, a political blogger of Voice of America, was arrested on July 5, 2018 for his postings on Facebook on which he accused many senior communist leaders of criminal activities and working for China against the country’s interests. Ten months later, on May 4, 2019, he was sent to a mental hospital for compulsory treatment.

He was reported not to agree with the treatment, denying to take medicines provided by the mental facility. However, he was beaten and forced to take medicines after being tied to his bed, according to his family.

Le Anh Hung was moved from the National Psychiatric Ward in Hanoi, where he was admitted in April 2019, and returned to prison last week so that the criminal prosecution against him could resume. A member of the Independent Journalist Association of Vietnam, Hung was arrested in July 2018 and charged with “abusing democratic freedoms.” However, he has yet to be tried. During his unusually long pre-trial detention period, now entering its fourth year, Hung has often complained of physical and psychological abuse and has had to go on several hunger strikes to protest the abuse.

The office of the Papua Legal Aid Institute (LBH) became the target of a terrorist attack on Monday (9/5) morning. The action is suspected to be related to a case that the agency is currently working on.

One unit of a motorcycle caught fire and the back of a car parked side by side was also scorched in the terrorist act. The director of LBH Papua, Emanuel Gobay, believes that there were parties who did this on purpose.

“From the evidence we found, such as the presence of a wick, the wick smelled of kerosene mixed with gasoline, coupled with evidence of plastic filled with gasoline, then added with grass that looked charred after being exposed to gasoline, our suspicions were made by people who have bad intentions with us,” Gobay told VOA Monday morning.

Testimony Regarding the Suspected Perpetrator So far, the facts gathered by LBH Papua regarding the incident stated that the arson took place at around 04.00 WIT. LBH Papua staff who live in the office dormitory noticed the fire after hearing the sound of an explosion coming from the garage area. The staff then came out and found the flames that burned the motorbike.

The staff and the community living around the agency’s office located on Jalan Gerilyawan, Kamkey, Jayapura, immediately put out the fire.

“The LBH Papua staff and local residents worked together to collect water and immediately extinguished the fire that was burning on the motorbike, then pulled the burning motorbike out of the garage of the LBH Papua office, so the fire didn’t spread everywhere,” added Gobay.

The motorcycle owner explained that he parked the vehicle around midnight, or four hours before the incident. In the initial inspection, the motorcycle tank did not explode in this fire.

LBH Papua staff also received information from two residents who passed in front of the office shortly before the incident. The resident stated that he saw one person wearing a black sweater, hat and mask running out of the LBH Papua office environment, then going on a motorbike.

“We have no other problems. The problems we face are from the cases we are accompanying. So, of course it has something to do with the cases we are attending. Maybe the people we suspect of doing this are people whose interests might be disturbed by our advocacy,” added Gobay.

On Monday afternoon, Gobay was at the Papua Regional Police to report the terror incident.

Similar terrors have occurred at LBH offices in other cities in Indonesia. LBH Medan, for example, was targeted by Molotov cocktails in October 2019. Meanwhile, the Yogyakarta LBH office was targeted by Molotov cocktails in September 2021.

Common in Papua Yohanis Mambrasar from the Papuan Human Rights Lawyers Association (PAHAM) said that from the chronology described by LBH Papua, he believed this incident was a terror against LBH Papua staff.

“This is an action taken by a person or group who feels disturbed by the work of LBH Papua in fighting for truth and justice in Papua,” said Yohanis.

PAHAM Papua noted that, at least in the last 4 years, LBH Papua was very massive in advocating for a number of cases. The cases handled include the criminalization of Papuan political activists, freedom of expression, as well as assistance to indigenous peoples in cases of theft of timber or confiscation of customary lands.

“Including assistance to palm oil workers and PT Freeport workers, and it should not be forgotten, legal assistance to cases of treason in Papua,” he added.

Human Rights (HAM) activist Theo Hesegem also considered what happened at LBH Papua as an act of terror.

“We can’t confirm who the perpetrators are, but we know that a terrorist act is taking place. Actually, if human rights defenders experience acts of terror, it does not mean that people who work for humanity end up there. It’s impossible,” he said.

Interestingly, Theo himself had recently become a victim of what he described as terror against critical activists. On 7 May, Theo, Executive Director of the Papuan Justice and Human Integrity Foundation, lost his motorcycle, which was his operational vehicle, while investigating cases of human rights violations in Wamena, Nduga, and the surrounding mountainous areas.

Theo himself has experienced many terrors during his activities in defending human rights in Papua. For example, when he was actively investigating cases of armed violence in Nduga. But he promised that any incident would not hinder his efforts to carry out humanitarian work.

“And that is something human rights defenders have to face. We must not forget that for me this is a normal thing, and it must be experienced by human rights defenders,” he said again.

Moreover, added Theo, in Papua acts of terror are a daily occurrence.

“It’s a normal thing that human rights defenders have to deal with in the poor conditions of this region. But we also want it not to happen again, and it is the duty of the police to follow up on this terror. We don’t want human rights defenders in Papua to be treated like that,” said Theo.