(Washington, DC — April 1, 2012) Radio Free Asia broadcast the following stories, and more, in March:
RFA Reports on Tibetan monk succumbing to burns
March 31 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on the death of one of two Tibetan monks involved in one of the most recent self-immolation protests against Chinese rule in Sichuan province. News of the death of Chime Palden, 21, was conveyed to a group of about 100 Tibetans who had mobbed a hospital where the two monks were taken after the self-immolation in Barkham city.
RFA Reports on Lao official criticizing Chinese Mekong dams
March 30 – RFA Lao aired story [text in English/Lao] on a Lao government expert blaming dams in China for the latest drop in levels of the Mekong River. Aside from the current dry spell in mainland Southeast Asia, Chinese dams on the upper Mekong River are causing water levels to decline in the downstream areas in Central Laos, including the Vientiane provincial area, a water resources expert at the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources told RFA.
RFA Reports on possible return of Burmese exile media
March 28 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on Burma’s censorship chief announcing Burmese exile media can apply to establish operations within the country. The announcement came as the Burmese government said it anticipates the enactment of media reform legislation that would lift many press restrictions.
RFA Reports on ‘Avatar’ logging protest in Cambodia
March 28 – RFA Khmer aired story [text in English/Khmer] on more than 200 Cambodian villagers fashioning themselves after characters from the film “Avatar” clashing with police and security guards over illegal deforestation claims.
RFA Reports on raids of Chinese church publications
March 28 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on police in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu raiding two underground Protestant publications and detaining four people. The publications are part of China's growing house church movement, a community of Christians who meet in private homes because they cannot register for worship in larger spaces.
RFA Reports on rare jail visit for Gao Zisheng
March 27 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on the brother and father-in-law of Gao Zhisheng, one of China's highest-profile dissidents, meeting him in jail in a remote Chinese region for the first time in two years. The visit allayed concerns of Gao’s wife, Geng He, that the prisoner had died. “The meeting lasted half an hour. They spoke on the telephone through a glass window,” Geng He told RFA's Mandarin service.
RFA Reports on probe of ousted Chinese official’s friends
March 27 – RFA Cantonese and Mandarin aired story [text in English/Cantonese/Mandarin] on authorities in the Chinese city of Chongqing taking disciplinary action against officials linked to ousted municipal Party chief Bo Xilai. Investigators working for Bo’s successor, Zhang Dejiang, are questioning a number of trusted former aides of Bo and his former graft-busting police chief Wang Lijun, whose Feb. 6 flight to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu was the first public sign of the scandal.
RFA Reports on jailing of Vietnamese pastor
March 27 – RFA Vietnamese aired story [text in English/Vietnamese] on Vietnam sentencing a pastor of a banned church to 11 years in prison for "undermining unity." The one-party communist state also revoked the visas of three Rome-based representatives of the Roman Catholic church seeking to hold talks about the possible beatification of a late cardinal who was forced into exile.
RFA Reports on arrest of Lao Christians
March 26 – RFA Lao aired story [text in English/Lao] on authorities arresting five Christians attending a prayer service in southern Laos as part of a recent religious crackdown in the region. The five Lao Christians, two men and three women, were detained in Savannakhet province’s Ad-Saphanthong district and charged with organizing an illegal religious activity.
RFA Reports on detention of popular Tibetan singer
March 26 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on Chinese authorities detaining a popular Tibetan singer after he released an album of songs dedicated to Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
RFA Reports on Vietnam-China tensions rising over fishermen dispute
March 22 – RFA Vietnamese aired story [text in English/Vietnamese] on China warning Vietnam not to allow fishermen to intrude in its waters. The warning came after Hanoi demanded the release of fishing boats and crew detained by Beijing near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
RFA Reports on call to stop Cambodian land concessions
March 22 – RFA Khmer aired story [text in English/Khmer] on a recent investigative report alleging the Cambodian government gave nearly 2 million acres of public land in concessions to private companies last year. Phnom Penh residents and villagers in northwestern provinces staged protests over land seizures.
RFA Reports on Burma allowing outside election observers
March 21 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on Burma inviting the United States, Europe, and the United Nations to join Southeast Asian nations in monitoring the April 1 election. The invite came amid voiced concerns about possible polling place irregularities and election fraud.
RFA Reports on second resignation from Khmer Rouge tribunal
March 19 – RFA Khmer aired story [text in English/Khmer] on the sudden resignation of the international investigative judge overseeing a U.N.-backed war tribunal. Swiss judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet is the second judge to resign from the tribunal.
RFA Reports on quick retreat from Bo Xilai’s policies
March 19 – RFA Mandarin and Cantonese aired story [text in English/Mandarin/Cantonese] on authorities in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing backpedaling on the populist policies of ousted party chief Bo Xilai. Amateurs who had once regularly gathered in a square in the city center to sing “red songs,” revolutionary anthems from the Mao era, have now been told to stop because they are “annoying the neighbors,” residents said.
RFA Reports on North Korean defector detentions
March 19 – RFA Korean aired story [text in English/Korean] on Chinese authorities arresting 10 North Korean defectors and their guide, sparking fears that they could face severe punishment back home if repatriated. Once returned to North Korea, the individuals could face the risk of being tortured or even executed by the hardline regime in Pyongyang.
RFA Reports on grenade attack on Tibetan protesters
March 19 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on security forces in China’s western Qinghai province wounding Tibetan protesters in an apparent grenade attack. Some of the injured were taken to a hospital and others were left untreated.
RFA Reports on China ending online anonymity
March 16 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on the prevention of Beijing-based microbloggers from registering an account on one of the country's hugely popular Twitter-like services in anything but their real name, verified by their national ID card. The move has been slammed by netizens and rights groups alike as a huge blow to freedom of expression in China, where many rely on services like Sina Weibo to find news and views that have been censored out of the tightly controlled state media.
RFA Reports on U.S. envoy’s visit ahead of Burma polls
March 14 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi raising concerns about upcoming elections in her meeting with a visiting U.S. diplomat. “We are having some problems … so we would very much like the world to watch what is going on, to ensure that the elections are everything they should be,” Aung San Suu Kyi told reporters after her meeting in Rangoon with U.S. special envoy Derek Mitchell.
RFA Reports on outgoing Chinese leader urging progress on reform
March 14 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on outgoing Chinese premier Wen Jiabao warning that China could face a return to the revolutionary turmoil of the Cultural Revolution in the absence of further political reform. While he gave no concrete details of the political reforms he referred to, Wen said he was "seized by a strong sense of responsibility" to speak out.
RFA Reports on Chinese secret detention law
March 14 – RFA Cantonese and Mandarin aired story [text in English/Cantonese/Mandarin] on former political detainees criticizing the passage of a law by China's parliament allowing the secret detention of certain types of criminal suspects. It will allow "residential surveillance" for up to six months of people suspected of "national security" crimes, charges which are often used to silence dissidents, and of terrorist activities, accusations which are sometimes leveled at peaceful opponents of Chinese rule in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
RFA Reports on contradiction of facts over slain Uyghurs
March 13 – RFA Uyghur aired story [text in English/Uyghur] on Chinese officials admitting that four Uyghur men shot by police were not linked to bomb-making activities as suspected. The men were gunned down in a pre-dawn raid at a farmhouse near Korla city in central Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on Thursday, as part of the Chinese government's "strike hard" anti-crime campaign in the region, after police had detained a bomb-making suspect in the city.
RFA Reports on thousands protesting Chinese coal plant
March 12 – RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on thousands of residents of the southern Chinese island province of Hainan taking to the streets of Ledong county in protest of plans to build a coal-fired power plant in their hometown. Protesters arrived the day before the opening ceremony of the plant’s construction, carrying banners which read, “Protect the sea, which is our livelihood.”
RFA Reports on North Korea moving to punish defector’s families
March 12 – RFA Korean aired story [text in English/Korean] on the North Korean government launching a campaign to identify and punish families of defectors. The move comes amid claims by refugee advocates in South Korea that China has repatriated 31 North Korean refugees it arrested in February.
RFA Reports on Tibetan self-immolating on uprising anniversary
March 12 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on a young Tibetan monk burning himself to death in China’s Sichuan province in protest of Chinese rule as Tibetans marked “Uprising Day.” The 18-year-old monk staged the self-immolation behind a Chinese military office in the Ngaba. This occurred within days of Chinese forces shooting and killing Tibetan protesters in Qinghai.
RFA Reports on censoring of Aung San Suu Kyi speech
March 9 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on Burmese authorities censoring a key election campaign speech of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They removed portions related to the abuses of the previous military junta and the absence of the rule of law in the country. Suu Kyi told RFA that the authorities had removed a paragraph from the text of her speech to be aired by state radio and television as part of her National League of Democracy (NLD) party broadcast ahead of April 1 by-elections.
RFA Reports on questioning of Burmese activist monk
March 7 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on Burmese authorities detaining prominent dissident monk Shin Gambira for questioning for the second time in a month amid charges that he broke into monasteries sealed by the former military junta. Gambira, who led the 2007 Saffron Revolution, was among leading political detainees released in January as part of reforms after decades of harsh military rule, but he has continued to criticize the nominally civilian government.
RFA Reports on Kim Jong Un portraits not selling
March 6 – RFA Korean aired story [text in English/Korean] on official portraits of North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong Un not being well received by the public. Attempts to market the portraits across the country found few takers, the sources said, as Pyongyang’s propaganda machine rolls into action to shore up the same personality cult for Kim Jong Un that surrounded his father Kim Jong Il and grandfather and North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung.
RFA Reports on two Tibetan women self-immolating
March 4 – RFA Tibetan aired story [text in English/Tibetan] on a Tibetan widow and a middle school girl setting themselves on fire and dying in China’s Sichuan and Gansu provinces. Following the self-immolations, Chinese authorities tightened security in the two areas and in the Tibet Autonomous Region ahead of what Tibetans call “Uprising Day” on March 10.
RFA Reports on detention of Uyghur trafficking victim’s mother
March 2 – RFA Uyghur aired story [text in English/Uyghur] on the Uyghur mother of a human trafficking victim being dragged through the streets by police in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region for attempting to evade detention and seek redress. Nurgul Tohti, 35, struggled for about two hours as police tried to bundle her in their car after she demanded to see the ruling Chinese Communist Party boss in Uchturpan county.
RFA Reports on arrest of Cambodian official in connection with factory shooting
March 2 – RFA Khmer aired story [text in English/Khmer] on the arrest of the governor of a city in southeastern Cambodia in connection with a shooting that left three workers hospitalized. The workers who were shot had been taking part in protests for better labor conditions at a sportswear factory that supplies goods to German sportswear giant PUMA.
RFA Reports on dam work continuing despite suspension
March 2 – RFA Burmese aired story [text in English/Burmese] on work continuing at the construction site of a China-backed dam project, despite it having been suspended by the Burmese government. The decision to shelve the Myitsone Dam project on the headwaters of Burma's key Irrawaddy River was made by President Thein Sein after it was assailed by green groups and opposition parties over the dam's environmental and social impacts.
RFA Reports on slain Wukan activist’s daughter
March 1 – RFA Cantonese aired story [text in English/Cantonese] on the daughter of an activist who died in Wukan protests discussing her reasons for wanting to join village politics. “I also want to do something for my father, to carry out his wishes," Xue Jianwan told RFA in an interview.
