NEW YORK TIMES
Feb. 28 “5 Tibetans Arrested Over Suicides”
Security officials in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu have arrested five Tibetans and accused them of inciting a series of self-immolations late last year by convincing participants that they would become heroes in death, state news media reported. … Those jailed include a 20-year-old artist who received two years in a labor camp after the police found images of self-immolators on his cellphone during a routine check, Radio Free Asia reported last week.
CHINA DIGITAL TIMES
Feb. 26 “China Uses Passports as Political Cudgel”
The Chinese made a record 83 million trips abroad last year, reflecting the increasing prosperity of the country’s growing middle class. But at least 14 million people, mostly Tibetans and Uyghurs, are denied the chance to leave China by apparently politically motivated rejections of passport applications. … Chen Guangcheng’s brother and mother have both recently had passport applications rejected, according to Lin Jing at Radio Free Asia.
REUTERS
Feb. 25 “BBC says radio broadcasts being jammed in China”
Radio broadcasts in English from the BBC World Service are being jammed in China, the British broadcaster said on Monday, suggesting the Chinese authorities were behind the disruption. … Other foreign broadcasters including U.S. state-funded radio stations Voice of America and Radio Free Asia have also complained of Beijing blocking access to their programs.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
Feb. 25 “Two Tibetans self-immolate in China: rights groups”
Two more Tibetans have died after setting themselves ablaze in China, Western rights groups said Monday, the latest in a string of self-immolations carried out in protest against Chinese rule. … Separately, ICT and US-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) also reported that another Tibetan set himself ablaze Sunday in China's Qinghai province. ICT said in its report Monday that the man, Phagmo Dundrup, had died.
FORBES (Also in JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE, TIBETAN REVIEW, ASIA NEWS)
Feb. 25 “Tibet's Growing Tragedy: Self-Immolation Protests Reach 105”
Reports emerged on Monday that a Tibetan man had set himself on fire in protest against Chinese rule in his homeland. According to Radio Free Asia, Phakmo Dhondup, self-immolated a day earlier in Amdho (Qinghai in Chinese) Province in eastern Tibet. He was rushed to hospital for treatment, but the extent of his injuries is unclear.
WANT CHINA TIMES
Feb. 23 “Railway company apologizes to Yunnan village after workers riot”
The state-owned China Railway Tunnel Group has issued an official apology and paid out 300,000 yuan (US$48,000) to residents of Yan village in southwestern China's Yunnan province after a hundred of its workers working on a section of Yunnan-Guangxi railway nearby raided the village and damaged the vehicles and houses of local residents. … The incident was triggered by a dispute involving two of the company's workers who drove through the village, which has a population of 300 people, on their motorcycles on the afternoon of Feb. 12. The pair fought with eight villagers after their vehicles splattered them with mud. One of the workers was injured in the fight, according to Radio Free Asia, a US non-profit media agency broadcasting in Asian languages.
TAIPEI TIMES
Feb. 21 “Support for Tibet must continue in free Taiwan”
On Friday last week, the Liberty Times, the Chinese-language sister publication of the Taipei Times, quoted Radio Free Asia (自由亞洲電台) as saying that the number of Tibetans who had self-immolated in China has now exceeded 100. … Living in a free country, the Taiwanese conscience is strongly challenged by the series of self-immolations by Tibetans.
NEW YORK TIMES (Also in ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, TIBETAN REVIEW, SHANGHAIIST)
Feb. 21 “Tibetan Teenagers Die in Double Self-Immolation”
Two Tibetan teenagers killed themselves by self-immolation on Tuesday to protest Chinese rule in Tibet, according to reports on Wednesday by a Tibet advocacy group and Radio Free Asia. The two were among the youngest Tibetans to kill themselves in protest, and the act was a rare instance in which Tibetans committed self-immolation together. … They had been elementary school classmates in Sichuan Province, in western China, according to Radio Free Asia, which is financed by the United States government.
TIBETAN REVIEW
Feb. 20 “China insincere on 2017 Hong Kong democracy promise”
China is unlikely to keep its promise to provide full democracy for Hong Kong by 2017 with the direct election of its full legislature and chief executive, according to Wu Kangmin, a former Hong Kong delegate to China's parliament in Beijing, reported Radio Free Asia (Washington) Feb 18. Instead, Beijing is likely to "set the bar higher" for electoral candidates, pro-Beijing Wu was cited as saying in a report carried by Economic Journal newspaper Feb 18.
HUFFINGTON POST
Feb. 19 “Chinese Environmental Official Offered Reward To Swim In Polluted Ruian River”
While China's air pollution has reached hazardous levels in some major cities, chemical pollutants in the air are hardly the only problem. Entrepreneur Jin Zengmin, from the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, has posted photos on Chinese microblogging service Sina Weibo to illustrate how rivers and other bodies of water in the country are also at risk of pollution. … According to Radio Free Asia, the latest water survey data suggests 90 percent of groundwater in China is polluted.
NEW YORK TIMES (Also in AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, TIBETAN REVIEW)
Feb. 15 “China: 2 Tibetan Protesters Die”
A Tibetan man died Wednesday after setting himself on fire to protest Chinese rule, bringing the total number of Tibetans who have carried out similar protests since 2009 to 101, according to a report on Thursday by Radio Free Asia, which is financed by the United States government. The latest protest took place in Sangchu County, known in Chinese as Xiahe, in Gansu Province. The area is the home of Labrang Monastery, an important center of religious study in Tibet. Radio Free Asia reported that the man, Drukpa Khar, 26, was survived by a father, mother and three children.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESS (Also in HONG KONG STANDARD)
Feb. 14 “Another Tibetan burns himself to death in China: reports”
A Tibetan man burnt himself to death in protest against Chinese rule, reports and Western rights groups said Thursday, bringing the total to have set themselves on fire to at least 101 since 2009. US-based Radio Free Asia said the man, Lobsang Namgyal, who it described as a former monk from the Kirti monastery, self-immolated last week near a police station in Aba prefecture, a Tibetan area of Sichuan province in southern China. "He ran toward the police station, calling out slogans with his body on fire, and died at the scene," RFA cited exiled Tibetan monks as saying. "Police then cremated his remains and handed them over to his family."
TIBETAN REVIEW
Feb. 14 “Mourning, prayers for self-immolators mark Tibet New Year”
People across the Chinese ruled traditional Tibetan areas marked their New Year on Feb 11 not with festivities but with prayers for the nearly 100 who had martyred themselves since Feb 2009, according to Radio Free Asia (Washington) Feb 12.
YONHAP
Feb. 14 “Inflow of foreign tourists to N. Korea unaffected by recent nuke test”
The inflow of foreign tourists to North Korea remains unaffected despite the country's recent testing of a nuclear device in defiance of international demands, several travel agencies reported Thursday. … A report by Washington-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) also said British travel agency Lupine Travel will proceed with its tour scheduled to send about 10 foreign travelers, mostly from Britain, China and Northern Europe, to the communist country on Friday. The travel firm has not been informed of any policy changes from the North Korean government or from the U.S., nor has it received any application for travel cancellation, RFA quoted the firm's head as saying. RFA also reported that U.S.-based Uri Tours, specializing in trips to the North, is planning to go ahead with a North Korean group tour program, which starts on Thursday.
COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
Feb. 14 “Attacks on the Press -- In Asia, Three Nations Clip Once-Budding Online Freedom”
… The OpenNet Initiative, a global academic project that monitors Internet surveillance and censorship, found in technical testing results conducted in 2012 that the blocked content was generally specific to Vietnam, and included websites associated with imprisoned bloggers, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia, and the exile-run political party Viet Tan, which has campaigned on press freedom-related issues.
NEW YORK TIMES
Feb. 13 “Editorial -- North Korea’s Defiance”
North Korea’s third nuclear weapons test has dashed any hope that its new dictator, Kim Jong-un, would be any more sensible than his father or grandfather before him. It has reaffirmed the international community’s utter failure to devise a policy that might reverse, or at least slow, the North’s nuclear program. … There is no silver bullet, but more creative thinking is needed. China and the United States should be working to covertly disrupt the North’s nuclear program, as was done with Iran. The United States should invest more in Radio Free Asia so that more outside information could reach North Korea’s people.
PIONEER PRESS
Feb. 9 “After the 'Killing Fields,' Cambodians find solace in St. Paul meeting”
… Beside him, Hoeun Hach -- a soft-spoken Oakdale man with an easy smile -- mentioned a man who was taken by the Khmer Rouge when Hach was 12, and likely executed. They gathered in a small St. Paul office, windows overlooking busy Interstate 94, to discuss what they had seen in Cambodia's infamous "Killing Fields." For some, it was the first time they'd done so publicly. … As soon as the resolution was passed, Hach said, he began receiving letters from all over the world, including Cambodia. First a trickle, then -- after he appeared on Radio Free Asia in Washington -- a flood.
NEW YORK TIMES
Feb. 8 “China: Uighur Scholar Monitored”
Ilham Tohti, an outspoken ethnic Uighur scholar at a Beijing university who has been prevented from going to the United States, says that he is being closely watched by China’s security forces and that his Web site has been hacked, according to a report on Thursday by Radio Free Asia, which is financed by the American government. Mr. Tohti was detained on Feb. 2 when he tried to board a flight to the United States, where he was to be a visiting scholar at Indiana University.
CSN NEWS
Feb. 8 “VOA Rejects China’s Claims It Secretly Encourages Tibetan Protest Suicides”
The Voice of America has dismissed as “totally absurd” suggestions in Chinese state media that the broadcaster uses secret codes to encourage people in Tibet to set themselves on fire to protest Chinese policies in their homeland. … The narrator then said, in English, “Western media, like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, have been very useful to the Dalai clique” – Beijing’s term for the exiled Tibetan movement and its reviled leader.
COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
Feb. 7 “Vietnamese blogger released from psychiatric institution”
Vietnamese blogger Le Anh Hung was released on February 5, 2013, about 12 days after he was arrested and held against his will in a psychiatric institution in Hanoi, the national capital, according to news reports. … Hung told Radio Free Asia after his release that he had been treated "normally" while held in the facility. He said he believed his detention was in connection with 71 critical blog posts he had written over the past five years about government corruption.
i09
Feb. 7 “Dalai Lama says we need a ‘global system of secular ethics’”
Back in September the Dalai Lama told his Facebook friends that "grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate," and that religion alone cannot foster values such as integrity and compassion. Since that time, the Tibetan Buddhist leader has taken his somewhat surprising message on the road, and is now calling for a global system of secular ethics. … Reporting on the conference, Radio Free Asia's Kalden Lodoe tells us more: "The reason for this is that there are those who have faith in religions and there are many who don't," the Dalai Lama said, adding that even among religious leaders, "there are some who are responsible for injustice, deception, hypocrisy, and exploitation."
ASIA TIMES
Feb. 7 “China steps into Kachin conflict”
The Chinese government is currently hosting peace talks between Myanmar's government and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The KIA expects China "will take a role as a witness and mediate during the meeting". … In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Freedom House spokeswoman Sarah Cook asserted that, in spite of long standing and serious issues, "Burma has now surpassed China on both political rights and civil liberties".
AUSTRALIAN
Feb. 6 “Protest as Malaysia deports Uighurs”
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at HRW, told Radio Free Asia: "This isn't the first time the Malaysian government has violated international law on Beijing's behalf, but it has the chance to make it the last." He described the fate of the six recent deportees to China - who had been arrested for attempting to leave Malaysia with fake passports - as "dangerously uncertain".
GO KUNMING
Feb. 6 “Farmers protest land grab south of Kunming”
Hundreds of villagers just south of Kunming took to the streets this past weekend to protest what they are characterizing as unlawful land seizures. More than 700 residents of Guanji Village (广济村) marched along a highway carrying signs and shouting slogans in an effort to raise awareness of their situation, Radio Free Asia (requires proxy) is reporting.
TIBETAN REVIEW
Feb. 2 “Senior Tibet monks forced into new political education”
China has launched a new general crackdown on Tibet’s religious community, taking 14 leading monks belonging to the biggest of religious centres in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to a monastery in northern Tibet for political re-education, reported Radio Free Asia (Washington) Jan 30 and others.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Feb. 2 “Uighur activist detained while trying to leave China for U.S.”
The most prominent Uighur intellectual in China was taken into custody Saturday at Beijing’s international airport with his daughter as he tried to board a flight for the United States.
The detention of Beijing professor Ilham Tohti recalled the circumstances of artist Ai Weiwei’s detention in 2011 at the airport. Tohti is an economist who teaches at the Central Minorities University and runs a website, Uighurbiz.net. … According to Radio Free Asia, he was able to make a telephone call to a friend in which he said, "My daughter and I are kept in two separate rooms."
CAMBODIA DAILY
Feb. 1 “Censorship Rising as Cambodia Slips Down Press Freedom Index”
Media censorship is on the rise in Cambodia and press freedom is in a “critical” state, Reporters Without Borders said in its latest annual press freedom index released on Wednesday. Highlighting the jailing, intimidation and murder of journalists over the past year, along with the censorship of radio broadcasts, the Paris-based press advocacy group ranked Cambodia 143rd among 179 surveyed countries. … During nationwide commune elections in June last year, the Ministry of Information ordered several F.M. stations not to broadcast reports of polling station irregularities by Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, on the grounds that they might “imbalance” the vote.
KHMERIZATION
Feb. 1 “Mam Sonando & Sam Rainsy: ‘Everything will be all right in the end’”
Cambodia is holding a second week-long period of national mourning for the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk, from Friday, February 1 to Thursday, February 7. … Hun Sen's Rainsy Ramvong is fascinating. Hun Sen's National Election Committee removed Rainsy's name from the country's voter registry as Cambodian law prohibits a person convicted of a crime from participating in elections. On that day, the US State Department expressed disapproval of Cambodia's decision, and raised the "question of legitimacy of the whole democratic process in Cambodia." Four days later, Rainsy told Radio Free Asia "I will be back in Cambodia before the July elections."
