Uwazi

On 23 August 2023, academic activist and human rights defender Maidul Islam received a show cause letter from the Chittagong University concerning his Facebook posts on the civil and political situation in Bangladesh in light of the upcoming elections. The show cause letter was based on a request sent to the Vice Chancellor by the Chittagong University Teachers' Association (CUTA) in Bangladesh urging the Vice Chancellor to take legal action against the human rights defender.

Maidul Islam is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Chittagong (CU), Bangladesh. Currently, the human rights defender is on study leave and pursuing his PhD degree at the Department of Sociology in the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He is also an advocate for academic freedom and civil and political rights on social media and the issues of discrimination, social justice and human rights violations.

Maidul Islam is facing harassment due to his recent social media posts using the hashtag #StepDownHasina as a criticism against the authorities in Bangladesh and concerns over transparency in the upcoming elections in the country. Chittagong University is one of the fully autonomous public universities in Bangladesh and its 1973 ordinance, alongside the country’s constitution, guarantees freedom of expression. Hence, the show cause letter is of severe concern as it infringes upon the freedom of expression of academics.

On 1 August 2023, a member of the student wing of the ruling party, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), triggered an online smear campaign against the human rights defender where 41 members of the BCL and Awami politicians across the country, including Chittagong University teachers supportive of the ruling party, were tagged in the post. On 20 August 2023, the CUTA held an emergency meeting and urged the Vice Chancellor in a letter to take legal action against Maidul Islam for criticising the government on social media.

In July 2019, Maidul Islam received a fellowship offer from Leiden University, but the Chittagong University administration never granted him education leave to go to the Netherlands and study even though the human rights defender had no legal barrier or travel restriction. 275 university teachers across the country and abroad issued a statement to the authorities in support of Maidul Islam, urging the university to support him for joining the fellowship but there was no response.

The current incident is the latest of many in the chain of harassment Maidul Islam has faced due to his human rights work and academic activism. Maidul Islam was targeted by the student wing of the ruling party and the university administration because of his social media posts in support of the 2018 quota reform movement and against the physical attack by the police and BCL on quota reform movement participants. Additionally, he also raised concerns over the university students’ poor food facilities and living conditions in university dormitories. On 23 July 2018, a leader of the student wing of the ruling party lodged a complaint against him. According to the First Information Report, the case was filed at Hathhazari police station under section 57 of the ICT Act, 2006 (the act was amended in 2013 and section 57 was repealed in 2018) referring to two of his Facebook posts as “defamatory against the Prime Minister.”

On 24 September 2018, Maidul Islam was imprisoned for 37 days on orders of a Chittagong judicial magistrate. On 7 October 2018, Chattogram court granted three-day remand against Maidul. On 9 October 2018, the High Court granted him bail for six months. However, he was not released until 30 October 2018 after some procedural delays. The university administration did not provide any support to him, rather he was temporarily dismissed from his job on 24 September 2018 immediately after the court sent him to jail. Since returning to his university residence after his job was restored, the human rights defender has received continuous threats from members of the BCL.

Maidul Islam’s family, especially his wife Rozyna Begum, has also faced severe consequences and harassment. After the ICT Act case was filed against her husband, Rozyna Begum facilitated the process of dealing with the police and the court. She was a teacher at the Chittagong College, but had to leave her job. BCL cadres flooded social media with smear campaigns against Rozyna Begum, including sexist comments against her which severely impacted her mental health. While Maidul Islam is in the US, Rozyna Begum and family are still in Bangladesh at risk of facing harassment.

After the bus company Giant Ibis Transport delayed concluding negotiations with 30 laid off union employees, the workers continued protests at the company’s Sen Sok district station in Phnom Penh on Monday.

Giant Ibis has repeatedly delayed the deadlines to complete negotiations, which were initially set to conclude in late May.

The union members estimate they are collectively owed more than $100,000 by the company, according to the labor law, or around $7,000 to $8,000 per person, union leader Siem Morady says.

However, the company delayed negotiations three times since the originally agreed-upon date in late May, provoking the union to resume its protests to demand long-standing benefits after being suspended from work in April 2020, Morady says.

“We came here to maintain our stance requesting the company take us back to work, settle full payment of our long-standing severance and seniority benefits and we also urge the company to stop intimidating our union,” Morady told CamboJA.

Morady also appealed to tycoon Kith Meng, whose conglomerate Royal Group launched Giant Ibis Transport without indicating any sale or change in ownership status, according to Royal Group’s website.

Kith Meng and the Royal Group did not respond to requests for comment.

During the protest, Giant Ibis Transport representative Ou Phanny — who signed agreements on behalf of the company at the negotiation at the Labour Ministry, allegedly shouted and behaved aggressively towards the union members, Morady says.

“He ranted with offensive remarks to our union members,” Morady claims. “He completely crossed the line.”

Giant Ibis Transport and Ou Phanny, the company’s representative in the negotiations, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Labor Ministry, which had been mediating the negotiations, asked the union in June to wait until after the July 23 national elections to resolve the negotiations, but no solution has been reached since, Morady says.

“A person who acts on the company’s behalf did not have the competence to make a definitive resolution for use,” said Morady, who said he has grown wary of what he considers the company’s ploy to indefinitely delay negotiations.

“We do not have any other ability to confront the company since we already have done so based on the law,” he said. “We can merely keep protesting in vain.”

The union has been protesting on and off since April, but has struggled to fund their gatherings as many workers are unable to stay inside the city and are surviving on temporary construction jobs and other day labor in their home provinces. A few share food or stay at Morady’s small home in Phnom Penh

“Everyone has taken other side jobs to survive, so the protest can only take place only on the weekends,” Morady said.

Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labor Confederation, which helped the Giant Ibis employees unionize in 2020, said that the company’s claims of repeatedly miscalculating the severance and seniority payments for laid-off employees was becoming a tired excuse. The problem, he said, was “not hard to solve.”

“The Labour ministry must work to reinforce the law and if a company makes an excuse to avoid settlement, the ministry has the capacity to hold them accountable,” he said. “Otherwise it indicates that the labor law has been diminished.”

Labor Ministry spokesperson Heng Sour did not respond to requests for comment.

A Dhaka tribunal today sentenced two officials of rights body Odhikar to two years imprisonment each in an ICT Act case.

The two are Odhikar Secretary Adilur Rahman Khan and Director ASM Nasiruddin Elan.

Judge AM Julfiker Hayet of Dhaka Cyber Tribunal announced the verdict in presence of the duo, said our court correspondent from the court.

The court also fined each of them Tk 10,000, in default of which, Adilur and Elan have to serve one month in jail.

After the verdict was pronounced, Public Prosecutor Md Nazrul Islam Shamim told The Daily Star that they were not satisfied with the judgement.

They would challenge the judgement with the High Court after receiving the certified copy of the verdict, he said.

The case was filed for running "a distorted report and doctored images" about the May 5-6, 2013 police action on a Hefajat-e-Islam rally in the capital's Motijheel.

On June 10, 2013, Detective Branch (DB) of police filed a general diary with the Gulshan Police Station in this connection, which was later converted into a case.

Detectives arrested Adilur at Gulshan on August 10, 2013 shortly after filing the GD complaining that the rights body on its website ran a false report titled "Assembly of Hefajat-e Islam Bangladesh and Human Rights Violation".

The report tarnished the image of the country, its government and the law enforcement agencies, read the GD.

Odhikar's report claimed that 61 people died in the wee hours of May 6 when the law enforcers flushed several thousand Hefajat activists out of the Shapla Chattar in the capital's Motijheel. The government, however, put the number of deaths at 13.

Briefing the press at the media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) on August 10, 2013, Monirul Islam, the then joint commissioner of DMP, said no lethal weapons were used to drive the Hefajat men out of the Shapla Chattar.

Law enforcers only used tear gas shells, sound grenades and water cannons to disperse the Hefajat men, he added.

Referring to the violent incidents at Paltan and Motijheel areas between May 5 morning and early hours of May 6, he said a total of 13 people, including police officials, transport workers and pedestrians, died in those incidents.

On the pictures used in the Odhikar report, Monirul said though the report was based on the incidents of that night, some pictures were of those who had died earlier in the day (May 5), and some were of people who are still alive.

After probing the case, the DB on September 4 the same year pressed charges against Adilur and Elan.

Detectives on August 11, 2013 raided the Odhikar's Gulshan office and seized three laptops and two desktop computers, which were used to prepare the fake list of 61 dead victims.

Phimchanok was charged with royal defamation for a post on her Facebook profile page saying “The government sucks. The institution also sucks.” Pol Col Nopparit Kantha, the superintendent of the provincial investigation department in Chiang Mai, filed charges against her on order of the Chiang Mai regional police working group on national security. Assuming the term “institution” was a reference to the monarchy, the police accused her of royal defamation.

Phimchanok was arrested on 18 March 2022 by a unit of around 15 officers and taken from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. The warrant was issued by the Chiang Mai Provincial Court. She never received a summons before being arrested.

Although Phimchanok’s lawyer requested bail during the inquiry process, the police said that a bail request could only be filed after she had been taken to court for temporary detention. Although the Chiang Mai Provincial Court granted her bail, she was not released until 11.40 on 19 March 2022. This caused her to miss her TCAS examinations, required for university entrance. Thereafter, she was also required to report to the court in Chiang Mai every 12 days, although she lives in Bangkok.

In court, Phimchanok testified that she posted the message but was referring to an educational institution, not the monarchy. She added that even if others think that it refers to the monarchy, it did not constitute royal defamation as the defamation law protects specific members of the royal family, not the royal institution.

On Wednesday (6 September), the Chiang Mai Provincial Court found her guilty of royal defamation. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) said that the court cited prosecution witness testimonies saying that Phimchanok has previously been advocating for monarchy reform, making it probable that her post referred to the monarchy. The court also ruled that the royal defamation law covers the royal institution as well as the King, Queen, and Heir Apparent, members of the royal family specifically listed in the text of the law.

The court sentenced Phimchanok to 3 years in prison, but reduced her sentence to 2 years because she gave useful testimony. She was later granted bail using a 150,000-baht security and will be appealing her sentence.

TLHR noted that interpretation of the royal defamation law tends to vary from court to court. On 21 August 2023, the Chiang Mai District Court dismissed one count of royal defamation charge filed against student activist Thanathorn Vitayabenjang on the grounds that the statement he read during the protest in front of the Provincial Police Region 5 headquarters mention the monarchy but not specific members of the royal family. However, he was found guilty of another count of defamation for a speech given at the Three Kings Monument, which mentioned the King.

On September 6, a military tribunal in Yangon sentenced photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike to 20 years in prison, the harshest sentence handed down to a media professional since the junta’s takeover of Myanmar in 2021. The journalist was arrested on May 23 in Sittwe, the capital of the western Rakhine state, after he had been dispatched to cover the impact of Cyclone Mocha earlier that month.

Following his arrest, the journalist was subjected to interrogation in both Sittwe and Yangon before being transferred to Yangon’s Insein Prison in June. His initial indictment included allegations of misinformation, incitement, and sedition, including charges under Section 505a of Myanmar’s penal code - used to silence independent and critical journalism. The full list of charges faced by the journalist is currently unknown.

Sai Zaw Thaike was convicted following a one-day trial inside Insein Prison. He was not given access to legal representation and his family has been denied visitation rights in the months since his arrest.

Since the military coup in February 2021, Myanmar’s military has conducted a relentless campaign against fundamental human rights, exploiting existing and newly introduced legislation to crack down on free expression and independent media. As of September 7, at least 72 media workers are believed to be behind bars, according to various human rights organisations.

In the IFJ’s 2022 Myanmar situation report, The Revolution Will Not Be Broadcast, the slate of attacks, killings detentions, and draconian charges against journalists and media workers since 2021 are identified as common practice for the de-facto authorities.

The IFJ said: “The barbaric sentence levelled against Sai Zaw Thaike represents the excesses of a regime responsible for grave human rights violations against its citizens. The IFJ strongly condemns the arbitrary sentencing of yet another journalist by the military junta and urges the international community to do more to support Myanmar’s embattled independent media.”

A group of workers and their supporters, who were arrested after demanding higher wages in the garment industry earlier this year, were freed this week after pledging not to participate in unlawful associations.

The 12 workers’ rights advocates included employees of the Hosheng Myanmar Garment Factory, employees of the Sun Apparel Myanmar factory, activists affiliated with the Action Labor Rights organisation, and the owner of a tea shop where they regularly met.

On June 14, several of the activists went to the general administration office in Shwepyithar Township, Yangon, to register a complaint about the dismissal of seven Hosheng Myanmar employees who had asked for a raise.

Junta authorities arrested the labor activists and their associates over the next several days, holding two at the Shwepyithar police station and transferring the remaining ten to Insein Prison.

Authorities initially brought charges against the detainees under Section 505(a) of the Myanmar Penal Code on incitement, under Section 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act, and under Section 40 of Registration of Associations Act.

However, the junta released the detainees on Monday after giving them a document to sign, according to Thurein Aung, a spokesperson for Action Labor Rights.

“According to the letter, if they engage in unlawful associations, they are subject to having their penalties doubled,” he said, referring to the document signed by the detainees.

“They had to sign it with their fingerprints,” he added.

Shortly after the labour activists’ arrest in June, a regime-controlled newspaper reporting the incident accused Thurein Aung and another associate of the Action Labor Rights organisation, Thuza, of incitement. Both have had to take precautions to avoid arrest in the intervening months.

It is uncertain whether the garment factory workers will return to their jobs at Hosheng Myanmar and Sun Apparel following their release.

“A complaint has been filed with the labour office regarding their dismissals and the case has been accepted. But investigations on the case haven’t started. I don’t know whether the factories will rehire them,” Thurein Aung said.

“We have appealed to Zara about re-employing them,” Thurein Aung said, referring to the flagship retail brand of the clothing company that sources clothes from the Hosheng factory.

Inditex, the parent company for several globally recognised clothing retailers including Zara, announced plans in June to make a “gradual” exit from Myanmar following international condemnation of the junta’s treatment of garment industry workers.

This year, after living through more than two years of inflation since the military coup, more workers began to demand an increase in the minimum daily wage from 4,800 to 5,600 kyat.

Authorities are required by law to readjust the minimum wage in Myanmar every two years, but the last adjustment occurred in 2018 during the administration of the National League for Democracy, when it increased from 3,600 to 4,800 kyat for an eight-hour workday.

The wage has remained the same under the military regime, as authorities have ignored the requirement to adjust the wage and suppressed protests organised in support of workers’ rights.

On September 4, police in Manipur state filed criminal First Information Reports (FIR)against four senior journalists under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, following the September 2 publication of a report by the Editors Guild of India (EGI) analysing trends in media coverage of ongoing violence in Manipur. The FIRs, lodged after a complaint from a local social worker, are based on the mislabelling of a photo caption included in the report for which the EGI issued a correction on September 3.

Announcing the charges at a press conference on September 4, Chief Minister N. Biren Singh alleged that the report would ‘provoke clashes’, and continued to label the report ‘highly condemnable’ due to a perceived lack of consultation during its production.

The four accused include senior journalists and EGI leadership, with investigative team Bharat Bhushan, Sanjay Kapoor, Seema Guha, and guild President Seema Mustafa named in the FIRs. Bhushan, Kapoor and Guha conducted a fact-finding mission to Manipur from August 7-10, with the report concluding that news coverage in the state had disproportionately elevated voices of the politically dominant Meitei people, with this bias ‘contributing to divisiveness and violence’.

In an official statement, the EGI expressed concern at the charges and comments made by Chief Minister Singh, urging the authorities to withdraw the files registered against their members. The Press Club of India also called for the dismissal of all charges, claiming the move constituted intimidation against the guild.

Since the outbreak of violence in May 2023, at least 160 people have been killed in Manipur, with thousands displaced. The increased presence of security forces has resulted in the harassment and assault of several journalists, with internet restrictions imposed by the state government for over four months limiting the scope and quality of news coverage in the area.

The IFJ said: “The publication of a report analysing a complex media context should not be met with legal retribution. If the Manipur government has legitimate issues with the contents of the report they should be discussed through non-criminal proceedings, instead of harassing journalists with arbitrary and intimidatory charges. The IFJ calls on Chief Minister N. Biren Singh and the Manipur state authorities to withdraw all cases against EGI leadership and journalists immediately.”

Save for a pair of slippers and a piece of sandal, there were no traces of the two young women abducted by armed men in Orion town in Bataan province on the night of Sept. 2, a human rights group said.

The fact-finding mission of friends and colleagues of Jhed Tamano, 22, and Jonila Castro, 21, yielded no other leads as of Monday, according to Amador Cadano, spokesperson for the human rights watchdog Karapatan in the Central Luzon region.

In a post on social media, Karapatan sought online help for any information that could lead to the whereabouts of the two following the reported abduction.

According to Karapatan, Tamano works as a coordinator in the “Turn the Tide Now” program of the church group Ecumenical Bishop Forum-Central Luzon while Castro serves as a community volunteer for Akap Ka Manila Bay, a network of various sectors opposing the reclamation projects on Manila Bay.

Both environmental workers studied at Bulacan State University (BulSU) in the City of Malolos in Bulacan and were former members of the Student Alliance for the Advancement of Nationalism and Democracy BulSU, an activist group at the university.

Castro was an undergraduate psychology student in 2019 while Tamano was a business economics graduate in 2022.

Citing accounts of eyewitnesses, Karapatan said armed men were seen forcing Tamano and Castro inside a gray Toyota Innova in front of the Orion Water District in Barangay Lati at 8 p.m. on Sept. 2.

Tailed “Before they went missing, the two reported being tailed by men wearing civilian clothes. The two stayed in Sitio Ormoc in Barangay Balut (also in Orion) for at least three days, consulting the community for a possible relief operation,” Cadano said.

They were sent to Orion by Akap Ka to consult with communities that were affected by the new coastal road and reclamation project planned for the expansion of the free port of Bataan, according to Cadano.

The ongoing dredging work in Barangay Capunitan had so far displaced some 200 families in need of help, he added.

The two women were set to leave Orion on the night of Sept. 2 for another consultation in another town but they stopped replying to text messages from friends around 7 p.m., Cadano said.

Karapatan-Central Luzon held state forces, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict and the Marcos administration “accountable for the enforced disappearance of Jhed and Jonila and all others who disappeared in the region and in the nation.” Cadano did not say the basis of the group’s suspicion.

He said the incident involving Tamano and Castro was the second case of enforced disappearances in the region after those of peasant organizers Elena Pampoza and Elgene Mungcal, also known as the Moncada 2, who went missing in July 2022.

Pakistan authorities must cease harassing journalists Fayaz Zafar and Amjad Ali Sahaab and immediately and impartially investigate Zafar’s detention and allegations that he was abused by police, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

On August 30, police arrested Zafar, a reporter for the U.S.-Congress-funded Pashto-language broadcaster Voice of America Deewa and Daily Mashriq newspaper, in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Swat District, according to news reports and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ.

Earlier that day, magistrate Irfan Ullah Khan ordered Zafar to be held in preventive detention for 30 days under the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960. The order, which CPJ reviewed, accused him of using social media to spread “fake, offensive and hatred contents to defame and incite the public” against the government and law enforcement agencies.

Zafar said he was taken to Swat police chief Shafiullah Gandapur’s home, where six officers beat him for about 15 minutes with their guns and fists despite his telling them he had a heart condition. The journalist also said police brought his car to Gandapur’s home, damaged its doors and hood with their rifle butts, and held the vehicle until September 5. Zafar said Gandapur pressured him to sign an affidavit that he would stop his critical reporting about the police, but he refused and was taken to jail.

On August 31, Khan issued an order for Zafar to be released from jail, following requests from the District Bar Association and a local tribal assembly, and withdrew the previous day’s detention order. Interim Information Minister Murtaza Solangi told CPJ that he asked local authorities to release the journalist and ordered the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to investigate the incident.

In the case of Sahaab, editor of the local Urdu newspaper Daily Azadi Swat and the online blog Lafzuna, police in Swat District’s Mingora city opened an investigation on August 31, accusing the journalist of inciting violence against state institutions via social media and posting criticism of the district administration, according to a report by Radio Mashaal and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ.

Sahaab told CPJ that a dozen police officers came to raid his home on August 31 but did not enter because his brother said the journalist was not there and women were inside. Sahaab said he approached a local court on September 1 and secured pre-arrest bail to protect himself from detention in relation to the case until the next hearing on September 9.

The police report, reviewed by CPJ, accused Sahaab of defamation and intentional insult with intent to breach the peace in violation of the penal code, and causing annoyance or intimidation in violation of the The Telegraph Act, 1885.

“Pakistani authorities must swiftly and transparently investigate the arrest of Fayaz Zafar and the abuse he allegedly endured at the hands of the police, and hold the perpetrators to account,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Police must also drop their investigation into Amjad Ali Sahaab and allow both journalists to report on matters of public interest in Swat District without interference.”

Zafar told CPJ that he feared for his life after the detention and beatings and received medical treatment for the injuries caused to his head, back, shoulders, legs, and right hand.

The journalist said he believed that he was targeted for his recent reporting and commentary on social media, including a video, which he said showed a student being abducted near a police station, and photographs, which he said were of militants patrolling in Swat after attacking a police post.

Sahaab also told CPJ that he believed he was being investigated because of his critical work that he posts to social media, including Lafzuna’s YouTube discussions about the alleged failure of local authorities to stop rising militancy and arrests of activists, as well as blogs on insecurity.

Police chief Gandapur told CPJ via messaging app on September 1 that Zafar’s allegations of abuse were “fake” and that the journalist was directly taken to jail following his arrest.

Gandapur did not respond to CPJ’s follow up queries about the investigation into Sahaab. CPJ’s calls and messages to magistrate Khan requesting comment did not receive any replies.

A Chinese court on Thursday handed down a four-and-a-half-year jail term to an outspoken economics professor who had estimated the high personnel costs of the Chinese government, finding him guilty of “incitement to subvert state power,” according to rights website.

The Guiyang Intermediate People's Court handed down the sentence to former Guizhou University professor Yang Shaozheng in a trial behind closed doors on July 29, a post on the Weiquanwang rights website said.

"Yang Shaozheng expressed dissatisfaction with the judgment in court and filed an appeal," the group said. "The reason for the appeal was that this was an illegal trial."

Yang's appeal argued that members of the Chinese Communist Party had presided over the case from start to finish, including the investigation, the prosecution and the trial itself.

"The actions he was charged with fell under freedom of speech and expression, and to criminalize a citizen for exercising those rights was a violation of the constitutional right to freedom of expression," the report paraphrased Yang's appeal as saying.

A key member of Yang's defense team, Zhang Lei, declined to comment when contacted by Radio Free Asia, indicating that he was under a lot of pressure from the authorities, while repeated calls to another member of his defense team rang unanswered on Thursday.

Cost to Chinese taxpayers

Yang, 53, lost his job at Guizhou University’s Institute of Economics in November 2017, on the orders of someone "higher up" the government hierarchy, and was subsequently investigated by police amid a purge of outspoken academics and the adoption of President Xi Jinping's personal brand of ideology across higher education.

Hunan-based dissident Chen Siming said an article in which Yang calculated that party and government personnel cost the Chinese taxpayer an estimated 20 trillion yuan (US$2.75 trillion) annually was likely the trigger for his arrest.

"These questions [he was asking] hit home," Chen said in an interview last month. "He was later expelled from Guizhou University, and then secretly arrested. During this period, lawyers and family members weren't allowed to meet with him."

Yang spent some time on the run in 2019 after being shackled to a chair and interrogated by state security police for eight hours, around the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Just before that stint in detention, Yang had criticized a new wave of ideological training being launched in China's colleges and universities.

He was arrested in secret in May 2021 and placed under incommunicado detention for six months on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power," before being formally arrested and prosecuted. He is currently being held in the Guiyang No. 1 Detention Center.

His lawyers filed an administrative complaint with the Guizhou provincial state prosecutor on March 3, alleging that state security police were trying to force a "confession" from Yang through torture, which caused him to lose consciousness several times and lose some 25 kilograms (55 pounds) in weight.

The complaint said the abuse took place during the six months he was held under "residential surveillance at a designated location," a type of incommunicado detention frequently used to target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in "national security" cases.

A Guizhou-based lecturer who gave only the surname Yu said Yang, whom she counts as a friend, is a "rare" person in today's China.

"I think Yang Shaozheng knows very well what he was bringing down on his own head when he spoke out like that, but he did it anyway," Yu told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. "He is a politically brave person, which is a rare thing in our society."

Political prisoner Dang Dinh Bach has been assaulted by policemen after telling his family he’d been threatened by other inmates, according to fellow inmate Tran Huynh Duy Thuc who was visited by his family this week.

Bach and Thuc both called their families last Thursday to say people dressed as prisoners had entered their cells, threatening them. Thuc said the inmates who entered his cell had a knife.

On Tuesday, Thuc’s family visited him at Prison No.6 in Nghe An province.

Thuc asked his family to record the names and numbers of 7-8 policemen standing around them, saying they were “those who oppressed and made it difficult for him in the camp,” Thuc’s younger brother Tran Huynh Duy Tan told Radio Free Asia.

“Thuc waited until the end of the visit to say the last word to his family, because he knew that when he said this, he would be stopped,” Tan said.

“In the last sentence, shouting loudly to the family, he said, ‘the day Bach called his family on August 31, he was severely assaulted by police officers.’”

The family had previously sent an urgent request for help to Tran Ba Toan -- head of Prison No. 6 – and the People’s Procuracy of Nghe An Province to request immediate implementation of measures to protect life and ensure the safety of the four political prisoners who had been threatened.

After finishing their visit Tuesday, Thuc’s relatives requested to meet Toan to discuss the case but were told he was on a business trip.

Bach suffered a head injury

Dang Dinh Bach is a lawyer and director of the environmental group, the Center for Legal Studies & Policy for Sustainable Development.

He was arrested in July 2021 and later sentenced to five years in prison for tax evasion.

His wife, Tran Phuong Thao, met with him on Tuesday. Thao said her husband was prevented from bringing a notebook to record their conversation.

“Bach showed me his hand. I saw three cuts on the wrist and hand, each about 2-3 centimeters,” she said.

“I asked him what's wrong? Bach said that I have to understand there are many things he cannot say, but he believes I can understand what is going on in here.”

She said Bachh told her he had a bruise on the back of his neck about 7 cm wide and still has a headache, but the staff refused to examine it.

“On August 31, right after the call home, he was hit in the head from behind,” she said.

RFA’s reporter tried to call Prison No. 6 to verify the information, but nobody answered.

A court in Vietnam on Wednesday upheld the five and a half year prison sentence for activist Bui Tuan Lam, known as “Onion Bae,” his wife Le Than Lam told Radio Free Asia.

On May 25, Bui was convicted of propaganda under Article 117 of the country’s Penal Code, after being found guilty of criticizing the government online.

Le told RFA Vietnamese she was not allowed to attend Wednesday’s three-hour hearing at the Higher People’s Court in Danang. but his lawyer Le Dinh Viet was permitted to represent him there.

However, the lawyer was not allowed to meet his client on Tuesday at the detention center where Bui is being held so they were unable to prepare for the appeal.

Le Than Lam said hundreds of policemen in uniform and plain clothes were deployed outside the court, filming her and others who had gathered there to wait for the outcome. She told RFA everyone stayed calm when the appeal was rejected, so the police had no reason to arrest them.

Bui, 39, ran a beef noodle stall in Danang. He achieved notoriety in 2021 after posting an online video mimicking the Turkish celebrity chef Nusret Gökçe, known as “Salt Bae.”

The video, which went viral on social media, was seen as poking fun at To Lam, Vietnam’s minister of public security. To was caught on film being hand-fed a GBP1,450 (U.S.$1,830) gold-encrusted steak by Salt Bae at his London restaurant.

In Bui’s video clip, he dramatically sprinkles spring onions into a bowl of soup, mimicking the signature move of the celebrity chef.

Bui was summoned by Danang police for questioning and arrested and charged in September 2022.

Danang People’s Procuracy claimed Bui posted articles on Facebook and YouTube, including content that was “distorting, defaming people’s government” and “fabricating and causing confusion among people.”

Article 117 of the country’s Penal Code criminalizes “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” It is frequently used by authorities to restrict freedom of expression and opinions deemed critical of the government.

On Tuesday, a court upheld the eight-year jail sentence of democracy activist Tran Van Bang, who was also convicted under Article 117.

He is among six activists and journalists who have been convicted on charges of anti-state propaganda by the Vietnamese government since January.

Vietnam has convicted at least 60 people under Article 117, according to human rights groups.

Pakistan authorities must cease harassing journalists Fayaz Zafar and Amjad Ali Sahaab and immediately and impartially investigate Zafar’s detention and allegations that he was abused by police, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

On August 30, police arrested Zafar, a reporter for the U.S.-Congress-funded Pashto-language broadcaster Voice of America Deewa and Daily Mashriq newspaper, in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Swat District, according to news reports and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ.

Earlier that day, magistrate Irfan Ullah Khan ordered Zafar to be held in preventive detention for 30 days under the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960. The order, which CPJ reviewed, accused him of using social media to spread “fake, offensive and hatred contents to defame and incite the public” against the government and law enforcement agencies.

Zafar said he was taken to Swat police chief Shafiullah Gandapur’s home, where six officers beat him for about 15 minutes with their guns and fists despite his telling them he had a heart condition. The journalist also said police brought his car to Gandapur’s home, damaged its doors and hood with their rifle butts, and held the vehicle until September 5. Zafar said Gandapur pressured him to sign an affidavit that he would stop his critical reporting about the police, but he refused and was taken to jail.

On August 31, Khan issued an order for Zafar to be released from jail, following requests from the District Bar Association and a local tribal assembly, and withdrew the previous day’s detention order. Interim Information Minister Murtaza Solangi told CPJ that he asked local authorities to release the journalist and ordered the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to investigate the incident.

In the case of Sahaab, editor of the local Urdu newspaper Daily Azadi Swat and the online blog Lafzuna, police in Swat District’s Mingora city opened an investigation on August 31, accusing the journalist of inciting violence against state institutions via social media and posting criticism of the district administration, according to a report by Radio Mashaal and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ.

Sahaab told CPJ that a dozen police officers came to raid his home on August 31 but did not enter because his brother said the journalist was not there and women were inside. Sahaab said he approached a local court on September 1 and secured pre-arrest bail to protect himself from detention in relation to the case until the next hearing on September 9.

The police report, reviewed by CPJ, accused Sahaab of defamation and intentional insult with intent to breach the peace in violation of the penal code, and causing annoyance or intimidation in violation of the The Telegraph Act, 1885.

“Pakistani authorities must swiftly and transparently investigate the arrest of Fayaz Zafar and the abuse he allegedly endured at the hands of the police, and hold the perpetrators to account,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Police must also drop their investigation into Amjad Ali Sahaab and allow both journalists to report on matters of public interest in Swat District without interference.”

Zafar told CPJ that he feared for his life after the detention and beatings and received medical treatment for the injuries caused to his head, back, shoulders, legs, and right hand.

The journalist said he believed that he was targeted for his recent reporting and commentary on social media, including a video, which he said showed a student being abducted near a police station, and photographs, which he said were of militants patrolling in Swat after attacking a police post.

Sahaab also told CPJ that he believed he was being investigated because of his critical work that he posts to social media, including Lafzuna’s YouTube discussions about the alleged failure of local authorities to stop rising militancy and arrests of activists, as well as blogs on insecurity.

Police chief Gandapur told CPJ via messaging app on September 1 that Zafar’s allegations of abuse were “fake” and that the journalist was directly taken to jail following his arrest.

Gandapur did not respond to CPJ’s follow up queries about the investigation into Sahaab. CPJ’s calls and messages to magistrate Khan requesting comment did not receive any replies.

Authorities in the Indian capital of Delhi must swiftly and impartially investigate the arson attack on the home of journalists Khushboo and Nadeem Akhtar, as well as the threats of death and rape, and hold those responsible to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

In the early hours of August 30, the Akhtar family home in the Sultanpuri area of northwest Delhi was set ablaze, according to news reports and Khushboo Akhtar, who spoke with CPJ by phone.

The Akhtar sister and brother team run Pal Pal News, a YouTube-based political affairs channel with more than 2.1 million subscribers. Akhtar told CPJ that she believes the attack was retaliation for Pal Pal News’ critical coverage of the challenges faced by Indian Muslims and other underrepresented groups, including vulnerable caste groups, farmers, and tribal communities.

“Delhi police must conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the arson attack on the home of journalists Khushboo and Nadeem Akhtar and hold the perpetrators to account,” said Kunāl Majumder, CPJ’s India representative. “The rising level of retaliation against Indian journalists covering the plight of minority communities is alarming. Khushboo and Nadeem Akhtar must be allowed to report without fear of violence or reprisal.”

Akhtar told CPJ that many religious items, including copies of the Quran and Ramayana, were taken out of a locked cupboard and burned before the perpetrators set the house on fire. The incident came to light when neighbors noticed smoke emanating from the third floor of the house and alerted Akhtar, who had relocated with her family to a different home last year. By the time she and her brother arrived at the scene, the house had been reduced to ashes.

Akhtar has recently received threats, including some involving death and rape, through social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp, primarily over her journalistic work covering violence and discrimination against Muslims, according to the journalist and a copy of her complaint to the police, which was reviewed by CPJ. Her brother has also received death threats, Akhtar said.

Darshan Lal, station house officer of the Sultanpuri police station, where Akhtar filed her complaint, told CPJ via text message that police are still investigating the arson.

A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld the eight-year jail sentence of democracy activist Tran Van Bang for anti-state propaganda during a brief hearing in which authorities dismissed the arguments of the defense and “read the old verdict,” according to family members.

Bang’s conviction is the latest in Hanoi’s ongoing campaign to silence bloggers and activists. Vietnam has convicted at least 60 such people for “making, storing and disseminating materials against the State” under the same Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, according to rights groups.

He is among six activists and journalists who have been convicted on charges of anti-state propaganda by the Vietnamese government since January.

The Superior People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday sided with the court of first instance, which in May sentenced Bang, 62, to eight years in prison and three years probation.

The decision prompted Western governments and international NGOs to call for his release, saying he was denied his right to freedom of speech.

One of Bang’s siblings told RFA Vietnamese that Bang and his defense lawyer presented their argument for his innocence, saying his posts to social media were his own views and not intended to oppose the government.

“However, [at the end] the Procuracy’s representative read the old verdict and immediately made a conclusion, saying that they did not accept the arguments of either the defense lawyer or Tran Bang,” said the sibling, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal.

Authorities only allowed family members to view the proceedings on a closed circuit camera feed broadcast to a nearby room. Diplomatic representatives from foreign governments were also permitted to view the feed on Tuesday, after being barred from Bang’s last trial.

Bang’s sibling told RFA his family was surprised by how quickly Tuesday’s proceedings took place and said Bang was not allowed to make a closing statement.

“The judge read out the decision, saying my brother no longer had the right to appeal, and then tasked the police to execute the judgment.” they said. “Right after that, they took my brother away. Our family quickly ran out [of the room] to see him but couldn’t make it in time.”

Repeated calls by RFA to the Superior People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City for comment on the decision went unanswered Tuesday.

Problematic posts

Tran Van Bang, better known as Tran Bang, is a war veteran who fought during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. He had regularly participated in demonstrations against China for its controversial claims over territories in the South China Sea.

He was arrested in March 2022 for what was initially determined to be 31 Facebook posts between March 2016 and August 2021.

After a subsequent investigation, authorities found that he wrote 39 problematic posts between three Facebook accounts that that were seen as “distorting, defaming and speaking badly of the people’s government; providing false information, causing confusion among the people; and expressing hate and discontent towards the authorities, Party, State, and country’s leaders,” the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported at the time, citing the indictment.

Prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Bang’s defense lawyer Tran Dinh Dung told RFA that his client had been suffering from a tumor in his groin that had not been determined benign or malignant, and that an operation to remove the growth had been delayed by red tape at his detention center. The state of Bang’s health situation was not immediately clear.

On 30 August 2023, human rights defender Nitin Varghese was placed in judicial custody following his arrest by the Madhya Pradesh police on 29 August 2023, after which he was remanded in police custody for a day. The human rights defender has been falsely accused of instigating local community members to attack forest officials in March 2023. At the time of writing this appeal, Nitin Varghese was still to be presented in court.

Nitin Varghese is a core member of the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (JADS), a collective which has been working for over 20 years to advocate for the rights of Dalit and Indigenous communities in rural areas of Madhya Pradesh. These communities face systemic violations of their right to land, livelihood, access to resources and the right to live with dignity. Nitin Varghese is a vocal advocate on issues such as illegal deforestation, forced eviction of local communities, and the denial of access to land and forests. The human rights defender Nitin Varghese and other defenders associated with the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan have been repeatedly targeted in reprisal for their peaceful campaigns in support of the land and environmental rights of the Adivasi community in the Burhanpur District, Madhya Pradesh.

On 29 August 2023, human rights defender Nitin Varghese appeared before the Burhanpur District Court and was remanded to police custody at the Khandwa Jail based on a First Information Report (FIR) bearing number 0078/23. He was asked to surrender before the court through a proclamation under Section 82 of India’s Criminal Procedure Code. The case against Nitin Varghese relates to an alleged attack on a Forest Range office in Burhanpur, where the police falsely claim that the human rights defender instigated members of the Adivasi community to attack public officials. In fact, four Adivasi community members were arbitrarily detained at the Forest Range office and the human rights defender Nitin Varghese was requested by community members to secure their release and prevent any harm befalling those in custody. The charges against the human rights defender include serious offences under the Indian Penal Code including rioting, use of criminal force against public servants, trespassing and unlawful assembly.

On 30 June 2023, Nitin Varghese was served a proclamation to surrender before the court.His application for anticipatory bail before the High Court of Madhya Pradesh was rejected on 16 August 2023, leading to his arrest. Police submitted to the court that one of the persons detained following the alleged attack named Nitin Varghese as the instigator of the attack while in custody. The human rights defender has denied all allegations against him and JADS maintains that one of the accused was forced to sign on a blank paper.

The police claim that Nitin Varghese instigated the Adivasi community members to forcibly break their relatives out of the custody in an attack on the Forest Range office. Although the FIR filed in relation to this incident on 2 March 2023 does not mention the human rights defender, in March 2023 the police summoned Nitin Varghese to the Lalbagh police station under the pretext of recording his statement. Despite the human rights defender cooperating fully with the police, they delayed recording his statement on two occasions. Significantly, the persons named in the FIR were released on default bail after two months in detention, as no chargesheet was filed regarding the incident.

Nitin Varghese has been targeted previously due to his human rights work. On 20 April 2023,a FIR was filed against the human rights defenders Nitin Varghese and Madhuri Krishnaswami by a group of local politicians. The report was filed under sections 294 (Obscene acts and songs) and 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code along with offences under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The same group of politicians had attempted to disrupt a meeting on 19 April 2023 between JADS members and opposition party leaders who were visiting the area to inspect allegations of deforestation.

It is alarming that the human rights defender Nitin Varghese is being implicated in a case that makes no mention of him, and in which the police have failed to produce a chargesheet to date. During this time, Nitin Varghese has also been suffering from a viral fever and is being treated for a serious medical condition.

Social activist and environmentalist Prafulla Samantara, who was picked up by police on Tuesday and later released after five hours, on Wednesday accused the Odisha government of unleashing terror in the mining areas to stifle the voice of the Opposition as well as the local tribals.

Winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for 2017, Samantara, 72, told The Telegraph: “I was about to address a media conference at Rayagada on the plight of those tribals who were opposing the mining activities in Rayagada, Kalahandi and other adjoining areas, but three unidentified people forcibly entered into my hotel room and took me away with them. On the way, I came to know that they were plain-clothes police. Later, they left me at my house in Berhampur around 9.30pm after an almost five-hour journey.”

Berhampur is the southern commercial town of Odisha and about 225km away from Rayagada, which borders Andhra Pradesh.

Samantara, president of the Lok Shakti Abhiyan, sent an FIR to the Rayagada police on Wednesday, stating how three people in civil dress entered his hotel room at Rayagada on Tuesday, snatched away his two phones, tied his hands back and covered his head and face with a towel and forced him to come out of the hotel room and go with them in their four-wheeler. He also pointed out how he was subjected to mental torture.

Samantara said: “Around 24 tribals were put behind bars in Rayagada sub-jail for opposing the mining activities. All of them were in jail in three spates of arrests between August 13 and August 20. They were against the mining of bauxite at Sijumali and other areas in Rayagada district.”

He added: “On Tuesday morning, I reached Rayagada and went to jail to meet them. I was about to address the media to expose the nexus between the government and industrial houses. Before I could address the media at Rayagada, the police abducted me. Later realising that it would bring more trouble, they were forced to release me. It’s a kind of state-sponsored terrorism.”

Samantara said people opposed leasing bauxite mines to Vedanta and Adani groups. “In the name of industrialisation, the indiscriminate mining of bauxite would ruin the areas.”

“The Odisha police have unleashed severe repression by resorting to mid-night raids and abductions. Charges of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act have been foisted on activists opposing the mining of bauxite in their areas,” he said.

According to the environmentalist, the state and the Centre — the BJD and the BJP — are collaborating in accelerating the acquisition of bauxite reserves. Both the ruling establishments seek to stifle the voices of these movements by putting their leaders and active members behind bars.

Despite making a number of attempts, Rayagada superintendent of police (SP) could not be contacted.

Rayagada police station inspector said: “I am yet to receive the FIR copy. I have no idea about the alleged abduction by police.”

Ahead of Bui Tuan Lam’s appeal trial scheduled for Aug. 30, his family told Project 88 that security police have posted guards around their home since Aug. 28 and have been taking pictures and videos of their movements and activities.

Kyrgyz authorities have filed a lawsuit to close down Kloop Media Public Foundation, a nonprofit body that runs an independent online news outlet in Kyrgyzstan, Human Rights Watch said today. The move continues a repressive trend against freedom of expression in Kyrgyzstan.

The lawsuit, for which Kloop was officially served on August 28, 2023, was filed by the Bishkek city Prosecutor’s Office alleging Kloop’s failure to register as a mass media outlet and conducting media activity not listed in its charter, which can warrant the liquidation of legal entities under Kyrgyzstan’s civil law code.

The lawsuit also references a pretrial investigation into the foundation’s activities by the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security, initiated in November 2021 on suspicion that Kloop Media publications had violated article 327 of Kyrgyzstan’s criminal code, which penalizes “making public calls for the violent seizure of power online” with three to five years in prison.

“The lawsuit against Kloop Media is the most recent in a string of attacks on freedom of media and freedom of expression in Kyrgyzstan, all incompatible with the country’s international human rights obligations, as well as its status as a member of the UN Human Rights Council,” said Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Kyrgyz authorities should immediately withdraw the lawsuit and stop harassing independent media in the country.”

Kloop Media is known for its independent reporting on national and regional affairs. It has also collaborated on anti-corruption investigations with the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz Service and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a global investigative journalism network.

The lawsuit accuses Kloop Media of “sharp criticism of [the] government” and lists a number of articles that it categorizes as critical of the Kyrgyz government’s policies and of state and municipal bodies. The opinions of several court-affiliated legal experts cited in the lawsuit say that Kloop’s publications use “hidden manipulation,” as experts put it, leading to “dissatisfaction” and “distrust” of the authorities among its readership, which could lead to their “zombification” and encourage its readers to join anti-government protests.

The lawsuit also spotlights Kloop’s coverage of the situation in the country’s southern Batken region, which had been the site of two border conflicts between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan over the past two years. A Human Rights Watch report on the most recent conflict, in September 2022, found that forces from both sides committed apparent war crimes in attacks on civilians. The lawsuit alleges that Kloop’s articles about the region are responsible for the continued flow of internal and external migration away from the region, which the lawsuit finds to be compliant with Tajikistan’s strategic goals.

Kloop Media’s lawyer, Fatima Yakupbaeva, said the claims lack a legal basis. She said Kloop does not have to be registered as a mass media outlet because it is a nonprofit organization, which according to its charter provides “an information platform for free expression” and aims to “raise awareness of youth in Kyrgyzstan on current socio-political and economic affairs.”

Representatives of independent media community in Kyrgyzstan issued a joint statement saying that the authorities should withdraw their lawsuit, deeming it untenable and asserting that the Kyrgyz government’s effort to punish Kloop’s “sharp criticism of politics” is protected speech guaranteed by the Kyrgyz Constitution and Kyrgystan’s international human rights obligations. The Committee to Protect Journalists also called for the cessation of the legal action against Kloop Media.

Kyrgyz authorities have previously blocked access to Radio Free Europe’s Kyrgyz service websites, froze its bank account for nine months in October 2022 and pursued a lawsuit to shutter it, and ordered the expulsion of Bolot Temirov, an investigative journalist from Kyrgyzstan, in apparent retaliation for his professional activities.

Kyrgyzstan’s international partners including the European Union, EU member states, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe should urge the government to withdraw the lawsuit and to uphold its commitments to freedom of speech.

“Kyrgyz authorities should withdraw the lawsuit against Kloop Media and cease all attempts at punishing journalists for their professional activities,” Sultanalieva said. “The preservation of independent media is fundamental for a functioning democracy and any attempts to suppress critical voices undermine the democratic values Kyrgyzstan has aspired to uphold.”

Two students from Chiang Mai University (CMU) have been found guilty of royal defamation and violation of the 1979 Flag Act for an art installation piece exhibited at an event in March 2021.

Siwanchali ‘Ramil’ Withayaseriwat, formerly known as Withaya Khlangnin, and Yotsunthon Ruttapradid were charged with royal defamation and violation of the 1979 Flag Act for an art installation piece they exhibited during a 14 March 2021 protest at the university. It featured a mannequin wrapped in plastic in the middle of two red and white strips. The complaint was filed by Srisuwan Janya, Secretary-General of the Association for the Protection of the Constitution, a man known as Thailand’s ‘complainer-in-chief’ for filing numerous complaints against activists and politicians.

The installation piece was also shown during an event on 25 March 2021, when students from the Faculty of Fine Arts gathered in front of the University’s Office of Strategy Management to demand an explanation from University and Faculty management for an incident on 22 March 2021, when the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts and several other faculty personnel, claiming that some student art projects might violate the law, attempted to remove the pieces from the Media Arts and Design Department building without first informing the students.

The police said that messages written on the art piece by participants in the 14 March 2021 protest insulted the monarchy. The piece, which looked like a Thai flag without the blue stripe representing the monarchy, was taken to mean that the artist did not wish for the monarchy to exist in the country.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) said that the Chiang Mai Provincial Court today (28 August) found them guilty of royal defamation and sentenced them to 4 years in prison. The Court also sentenced them to 8 months in prison and fined them 2000 baht each for violating the Flag Act.

According to the Court, the piece was similar enough to the national flag to cause misunderstandings.

It ruled that, by using a colour scheme similar to a Thai national flag without the blue stripe and by holding the piece up as the National Anthem was played, they defamed the King, showing that they did not want the monarchy to be represented on the flag. The Court added that the defendants should have anticipated that some of the protest messages written on the piece would insult the King.

Because they gave useful testimony and are students who have never been sentenced to prison, the Court reduced their sentences to a total of 3 years and 6 months in prison and a fine of 1500 baht each. Their sentence was suspended for 3 years. Instead, they are required to report to a probation officer 8 times over the next two years.

Publisher and editor of Nabasangram daily Dineshwor Gupta was attacked while reporting on August 28. The incident took place in Siraha, a district in Madhesh Province.

According to journalist Gupta, he and other journalists were reporting on a clash among local people and Nawarajpur rural municipality officers on the day of incident. During protest on the ownership of a public pond, journalists were taking photos and videos of agitated locals trying to set on fire a municipality's tractor. Meanwhile, a group of 12-15 youths attacked journalists warning to not take photos.

"Other journalists escaped the attack whereas, two of us (me and Jaynath Yadav of Today Khoj daily) were injured from the attack. I have injuries on neck, head and back", shared journalist Gupta.

Thereafter, journalist Gupta informed Superintendent of Police Tekunanda Limbu about the incident and asked him to get his mobile back. But according to Gupta, police was unable to arrest them.

On the next day (August 29), fellow journalists also met with SP Limbu and requested to immediately arrest the attackers. SP Limbu then suggested the journalists to file a First Information Report to initiate the investigation.

"Soon after filing FIR at the local police office, police arrested one of the attackers on August 30 who was however, released immediately. Again after continuous pressure from journalists, police have arrested another person involved in the attack on August 31", said Gupta.

Freedom Forum's media monitoring desk was able to talk to journalist Gupta through Federation of Nepali Journalists Siraha chapter's president Manoj Banaita's phone. FF's monitoring desk also called District Police Office but they showed their unawareness about the incident.

"We are prodding the security authority to arrest remaining attackers as well. This is the matter of journalists' safety. We will not step back", argued President Banaita.

Freedom Forum condemns the incident. Attacking and seizing communication device of a journalist is a gross violation of press freedom. The security authority is strongly urged to address the case seriously and facilitate journalist to get his mobile phone back. The authority should also ensure safety of journalists to avoid any untoward incident.

Tran Huynh Duy Thuc told his family in a short phone call that men armed with knives entered his cell. Thuc said his belongings and physical health were under threat. He was supposed to be allowed a 10-minute phone call but the line was abruptly cut after only three minutes. However, in that short span, Thuc was able to give his sister the names of two prison officials who presumably are responsible for his well being: Phạm Văn Luyến (#559-846) and Nguyễn Văn Hiệu (#569-921).

In a video shot in a prison in northern Kazakhstan, a man sporting a shaved head and prison overalls tries to respond as a penitentiary officer accuses him of violating protocols.

“You have been warned twice! Why are you refusing? Why do you refuse to clean?" the officer demands in the footage before ordering a group of subordinates to “use the special equipment.”

The men then proceed to grab the prisoner and pin him to the floor, face down.

“I’m not refusing!” the prisoner can be heard saying, before a man begins striking his lower body with a baton.

The prisoner’s protestations are replaced by screams.

That widely shared footage was initially published by an opposition social media channel that indicated it was shot on August 24.

Around a dozen staff at the No. 1 jail in Atbasar, some 200 kilometers from Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, are believed to have been suspended amid the uproar.

Some of those men have recorded a video defending their actions, arguing that the measures taken against this prisoner and others captured in the footage were necessary to prevent a riot.

President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev’s position on such practices would appear to be clear cut.

Speaking two months after regime-shaking political unrest last year that left at least 228 people dead and evidence of systematic torture of detainees, Toqaev condemned “barbaric medieval happenings…that contradict the principles of any progressive society.”

But since then there have been proportionally few officers convicted or even dismissed over their roles in those manifold abuses.

The identity of the prisoner in the video, moreover, is awkward for Toqaev.

Timur Danebaev, 38, is best known as the activist who attempted to sue the president over comments he made during that crisis, which began with peaceful protests over a spike in fuel prices before spiraling out of control.

That fact, combined with the mystery about how and by whom the video was leaked, has fueled pernicious theories that the leak was no accident at all.

“It seems to me that the video…is not at all an oversight by prison staff,” wrote Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a well-known journalist, in a September 5 Facebook post.

“The video was made public by order of the authorities. None of the prison employees will be held accountable. Because this video is actually a DEMONSTRATION of power,” he claimed.

‘Breaking’ Prisoners

Whether Akhmedyarov’s prediction will hold, only time will tell.

It is not easy to track the career trajectories of low-ranking officers involved in torture scandals, especially when their identities are not made public.

A September 6 press release by the Committee of the Criminal Executive System of the Kazakh Internal Affairs Ministry stated that Akmola Province’s top penal officer, his deputy, and the head of the Atbasar jail had all been recommended for dismissal from their posts as part of an ongoing investigation.

Eleven penitentiary guards were likewise recommended for dismissal from the Interior Ministry after the investigation found “signs of employees exceeding their official mandate,” the statement said, without naming names.

That is presumably the same 11 who released the video this week denying wrongdoing. The video was filmed in the darkness of night, and all of the men were wearing face coverings.

“There was no torture of defendants, but enforcement of compliance with the regime of confinement by legal physical means,” said the group’s speaker.

The speaker went on to claim that more than 40 prisoners had arrived at the prison in late August “with aggressive intent…. They wanted to start a riot.”

“All of our actions were agreed with the supervisory organs,” the speaker noted.

Many will find that last part all too easy to believe.

Vadim Kuramashin, a journalist who some 15 years ago spent a stint in the same jail where Danebaev was shown being beaten, told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service that the process of “breaking” new residents of the jail is more or less a routine.

Having been imprisoned in early 2007 over a newspaper article, Kuramashin was isolated in a room where he was forced to clean toilets with a toothbrush, he said.

“When I asked them to show me the norm or law [that mandates cleaning], they began to beat me severely,” Kuramushin recalled.

Elena Semyonova, a longtime antitorture activist, was permitted to visit Danebaev this week.

Semyonova said that his health was “more or less [OK]” despite his body showing evidence of beatings.

“But he is psychologically depressed,” Semyonova told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, known locally as Azattyq. “A person who has never been in this system, who has completely different ideas.... He didn't expect this to happen. It came as a shock to him.”

‘Men With Epaulets And Uniforms’

In addition to criticizing Kazakhstan’s government, Danebaev has regularly criticized its ally Russia over the Kremlin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

He was also critical of Moscow’s intervention during the January 2022 crisis in Kazakhstan, when Toqaev invited a detachment of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to bolster his government’s control.

In December of last year, the activist was charged with inciting hatred and “insulting the national honor and dignity of citizens” in online videos and posts published on October 10 and November 12, 2022.

But he had already attracted the attention of authorities in February of that year after he tried to initiate a false information lawsuit against Toqaev over the president’s claim that “20,000 terrorists” had descended on Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, during the unrest.

“I have the right to file a complaint against the president or any other citizen,” an impassioned Danebaev told Azattyq in an interview last year.

“Because my rights are absolutely the same as the president’s.”

Well, maybe in theory.

In reality, Danebaev’s filing was ignored, and the police soon showed up on his doorstep, marking the beginning of a campaign of pressure that would culminate in his arrest.

In June of this year, he was sentenced to three years in prison on the charges.

In his Facebook post on the case, the journalist Akhmedyarov argued that Danebaev’s case was one of several that indicated Kazakhstan’s police state is once more baring its fangs, having been somewhat chastened by public criticism during last year’s violence.

Back then, Toqaev was promising a New Kazakhstan after effectively sidelining former President Nursultan Nazarbaev -- the architect of Kazakh authoritarianism and a man who had continued to overshadow his successor Toqaev’s presidency prior to the crisis.

But the political reforms promoted by Toqaev since then have been widely criticized as cosmetic, while a reshuffle of the cabinet and other positions this month mainly saw old politicians recycled into new roles.

One of them, noted Akhmedyarov, was Marat Akhmetzhanov, who swapped the post of interior minister for that of governor of Akmola Province, which surrounds Astana and includes the town of Atbasar in its territory.

Such an appointment echoes trends in Kazakhstan’s northern neighbor, Russia, Akhmedyarov argued.

It also indicates “that positions that were previously occupied exclusively by civilian 'suits' will now gradually be given to men with epaulets and uniforms,” the journalist forecasted.

Notwithstanding Toqaev’s affirmations, the government is doing little to convince the public that it takes torture seriously.

In the aftermath of the January 2022 events, dozens of former detainees complained of mistreatment and many still had the broken ribs to back it up.

But most cases have either been thrown out or have otherwise not made it to court.

Cases that involved deaths in detention during the unrest have been harder to ignore.

One recent conviction concerned the case of Eldos Kaliev, who died in a jail in the city of Semey.

The officer accused in that case was sentenced to six years imprisonment by a city court at the beginning of August.

But two other officers found guilty on August 23 of torturing another young Semey resident to death fared better.

They were handed suspended sentences and ordered to pay compensation -- just under $10,000 each – to the family of the deceased.

community organizer and a jeepney driver were arrested and taken into custody last Aug. 24 in Buhay na Sapa, San Juan, Batangas province.

In a recent alert issued by Tanggol Batangan, a human rights group in Batangas, the detained individuals were identified as Ernesto Baez Jr., an engaged farmer advocate and organizer of Samahan ng Magbubukid sa Batangas (Sambat), jeepney driver Jose Escobio, and his friend Junald Jabonero.

Baez Jr. is the brother of Erlindo Baez, spokesperson of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan – Batangas, who is now detained due to trumped up cases.

Tanggol Batangan learned of the incident after Escobio’s family reported his disappearance.

In a statement released by Sambat, Baez Jr. said he hired Escobio to drive for him to San Juan, Batangas. The three, however, were intercepted and held at gunpoint at Buhay na Sapa village in San Juan.

They were then blindfolded and forced to return to their vehicles, which, according to Sambat, was filled with planted firearms and explosives.

“The PNP and AFP appear to be merely repeating their well-worn and evident modus operandi of arresting civilians and planting ‘evidence’ on them which clearly shows they are doing this to silence the people,” said Sambat.

All three are detained at Camp Miguel Malvar in Batangas City and have been charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

This incident adds to a growing concern of alleged harassment cases by state forces in Batangas province.

Just this month, local organizers in the sugarcane and sugar industry have been targeted with repeated harassment, false accusations, and surveillance by the 59th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army.

“It is crucial to act and mobilize further, intensifying the call to respect the human rights of Batangueños. The abduction of the San Juan 3 only implies the state’s desperation to suppress the rights of the people,” Hailey Pecayo, spokesperson of Tanggol Batangan, said.

In a concerning development, sources from Kabul have reported that the Taliban, approximately three months after the arrest of the human rights activist Shamsurrahman Rahiq, have now detained his younger brother.

According to informed sources in the city, the Taliban arrested Mohammad Mehrban Morshed on Wednesday, August 23rd, from Kabul’s third security district. The details of his whereabouts remain undisclosed.

Mohammad Mehrban Morshed is a third-year student at Kabul University, as per sources. The Taliban’s grounds for his arrest, however, remain unknown.

As of now, the Taliban has not issued any official statement regarding this matter.

It’s worth mentioning that on May 24, 2023, the Taliban intelligence forces arrested Shamsurrahman Rahiq for the second time in Kabul. Rahiq is a prominent human rights activist and resident of the Dara district of Panjshir province.

Rahiq is also reported to have previously worked as a staff member for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), although the organization has not yet commented on his case.

Based on the published reports, it is noted that about a year ago, the Taliban had forcibly taken Shamsurrahman Rahiq’s father from his home in Panjshir and shot him. His father was a former member of the previous government’s army.

Well-known Kyrgyz opposition writer and journalist Oljobay Shakir was summoned by the State Committee for National Security on August 23. After nearly eight hours of questioning, he was detained for 48 hours on charges of "organizing mass unrest" and "attempting to seize power." The Pervomaisky District of Bishkek court will review Shakir's case on August 24. Collaborating with the investigative Temirov Live journalist team, the 52-year-old had criticized the government and opposed the transfer of four Kyrgyz resorts in the Issyk-Kul region to Uzbekistan. Officials have not commented on the arrest.

Activist Sopon Surariddhidhamrong has been sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison for a speech during a 22 April 2022 protest in which the court claimed he insulted Queen Suthida.

Sopon was charged with royal defamation and using a sound amplifier without permission for a speech he gave at a protest on 22 April 2022. The complaint against him was filed by Anon Klinkaew, a member of the ultra-royalist group People’s Centre to Protect the Monarchy, who said Sopon insulted Queen Suthida by speaking inappropriately about her during his speech.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) said that Sopon was giving a speech through a small megaphone from the Democracy Monument after police blocked protesters, injuring one. He criticised police operation and mentioned Queen Suthida’s trip to a temple.

He was arrested on 1 May 2022 while was leaving a Labour Day event in front of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC). He was subsequently denied bail and held in pre-trial detention for a month before being granted bail on the condition that he only leave his residence with court permission for educational and medical reasons.

TLHR said today (23 August) that the Criminal Court found Sopon guilty of royal defamation on the grounds that he mentioned Queen Suthida during his speech with the intent to damage her and the King’s reputation. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

The Court also found him guilty of using a sound amplifier without permission and sentenced him to 6 months in prison, bringing his total sentence to 3 years and 6 months. TLHR noted that, under the Sound Amplifier Act, the penalty for the charge is a fine of 200 baht.

Sopon has requested bail in order to file an appeal. However, the Criminal Court forwarded his bail request to the Appeal Court. He will be detained at the Bangkok Remand Prison until a decision is reached.

Free Tibet has seen new videos, in which Gonmo Kyi, sister of imprisoned Tibetan businessman Dorjee Tashi, is seen lying on the floor of a hospital.

The videos, received by Tibet Watch on 25 August, show the appeal letter Gonmo took to Lhasa People’s Court on 23 August asking for a retrial of Dorjee Tashi’s case. Police personnel reacted with force, stopped her, dragged and beat her in front of the court. She was taken to Lhasa People’s Hospital afterwards but was refused admission, even as she lay vomiting on the cold floor.

This is the second time this month Gonmo has been beaten for seeking justice for her brother’s unjust verdict. Earlier this month, she went to Drapchi prison, where her brother is being held, hoping for a meeting. But her pleading was rejected and she was instead beaten, leaving her with injuries to her arms.

The recent police violence has left her in urgent need of medical treatment. Without any response from the hospital, however, she has now been taken to her home.

Dorjee Tashi has been in prison since his arrest in July 2008 and was sentenced to life imprisonment for “loan fraud”, a charge he and his family contested through a series of protests outside courts. While in detention he has been subjected to torture.

A retired ophthalmologist and his family were arrested in Mandalay on Wednesday for allegedly funding the anti-regime People’s Defence Force (PDF), according to sources.

Dr. Mya Than and his wife Myint Myat Khine, both in their 70s, were taken into custody along with their 45-year-old son, Yan Naung Tun, a neighbour told Myanmar Now.

“They’re a peaceful and charitable family. They always give free treatment to patients who can’t afford it,” said the neighbour, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The family’s clinic and condominium apartment, located next to each other in the city’s Aungmyaythazan Township, were also sealed off following their arrest, photos shared on pro-junta Telegram channels showed.

According to the neighbour, Myint Myat Khine was an associate professor at the Mandalay University of Distance Education until she quit her job after the military seized power in February 2021.

Her arrest on Wednesday appeared to be related to her participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule, the neighbour added.

The regime has designated the PDF, which serves as the armed wing of the shadow National Unity Government, as a terrorist organisation. It has also criminalised virtually any form of support for the anti-junta resistance.

In recent weeks, it has stepped up its efforts to stifle dissent in Mandalay. On August 9, it re-arrested Nwe Nwe Win, chair of the Shwe Mahar Nwe Social Welfare group, following her release from prison as part of an amnesty earlier in the year.

She was accused of “engaging in political activities under the guise of social work” after a doctored photo of her holding a protest sign was posted on a pro-regime Telegram channel.

The following week, on August 13, the regime detained Myint Myint Than, a shop owner in her 70s, for writing a post on social media expressing sympathy for young anti-junta activists.

Last week, the junta closed Mandalay’s Golden Gate Private High School and arrested its founder and management team, and earlier this week it shut down the privately owned Mingalar Hospital for allegedly employing doctors taking part in the CDM.

Regime opponents say the recent wave of arrests, which has also targeted alleged members of urban guerrilla groups, is a sign of the military’s tenuous grip on power.

“They’re trying to instil fear in the public because they know they’re losing,” said a young man based in a liberated area.

He also urged people living in Myanmar’s cities not to lose heart as they face growing pressure from the junta to abandon hope of real political change.

“I just want people to know that the revolution wouldn’t have gotten this far if everyone was afraid of them. I would also like to apologise to people in urban areas and ask them to hang on a while longer.”

An activist who has organized numerous petition drives in coastal Ha Tinh province has been arrested under Vietnam’s Article 331, the statute commonly used by authorities to silence those speaking out for human rights.

Hoang Van Luan, 35, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with “abusing democratic freedoms,” according to a statement issued by Ky Anh district police to state media.

At least 15 people across Vietnam have been arrested this year and charged under Article 331, according to a Radio Free Asia tally. The statute has been widely criticized by international communities as being vague.

The arrests under Article 331 are a part of Vietnam’s efforts in recent years to stifle political dissent. Activists are also commonly charged with distributing propaganda against the state under Article 117 of the 2015 Penal Code.

Since 2018, Luan has led petition drives for 18 groups on issues presented to officials at the village, district and provincial levels, as well as at central government offices in Hanoi, Ky Anh police said.

The petitions have included the names of 981 people, police said.

In 2019, police in Hanoi’s Ha Dong district imposed an administration penalty with a warning against Luan, saying his group of petitioners were disrupting social order.

This week, the official People’s Police Newspaper ran a photo of Luan and other petitioners who urged authorities to complete a promised water supply project to improve the lives of residents in the Vung Ang Economic Zone in Ky Anh district.

The Vung Ang zone was the site of a devastating toxic waste spill in 2016. The spill by Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group’s steel plant killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and left fishermen jobless in four coastal provinces, including Ha Tinh.

Luan has also organized petitions in the province that have nothing to do with his family interests, such as the North-South Highway, Ky Anh police said on Wednesday. The petitions have led to delays in land clearance for the project, police said.