The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Nearly 300 Pupils Taken Ill in Karen State After Drinking Water Scare
• Karen Housekeeper Alleges Abuse by Rangoon Employer
• Elderly, Disabled Trapped Amid Kachin State Clashes
• Defense Cites Serious Shortcomings in Koh Tao Murder Probe as Trial Continues
• Evening the Odds
• Revamp of South Korea’s Rigid Labor Laws Faces Stiff Opposition
• Leading China Lawyer Says He Was Tortured
• Malaysia Detains 8 Suspects for Questioning over Bangkok Blast

Nearly 300 Pupils Taken Ill in Karen State After Drinking Water Scare Posted: 24 Sep 2015 03:16 AM PDT A young patient from Tayattaw Village middle school is treated in Kawkareik General Hospital after drinking water sourced from a local pond. (Photo: Min Khant Paing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Almost 300 students from a middle school in eastern Burma's Karen State fell ill on Wednesday after drinking water sourced from a local pond. Seventy students were admitted to Kawkareik General Hospital and 62 to Kyone Doe General Hospital, a doctor from the former facility confirmed. All of the hospitalized students are expected to return home within 24 hours. Those taken ill are pupils at Tayattaw Village middle school in Kawkareik Township's Kyone Doe. The school provided water to the 299 enrolled students that was sourced from a nearby natural pond and taken to each classroom in buckets. "The students felt dizzy and were vomiting. Some had stomachaches," a doctor from Kawkareik General Hospital, who did not wished to be named, told The Irrawaddy. "Now, almost all of them are fine. There are no causalities. The water from the school has been sent to a laboratory in Rangoon through Phann Hospital." Some locals speculated that the pond may have been contaminated with chemicals used to kill or stun fish. "We have not opened a case yet," Police Inspector Aung Myint Win from Kyone Doe Police Station said. "What we have done is sent the water to a Rangoon laboratory through a state health officer… We have also sent a telegraph to the Ministry of Home Affairs. After the medical records are confirmed, we will proceed according to instructions." Ohmar Moe, a grade six student who was admitted to hospital, said her condition was improving. "When I drank from the drinking pond at school I [soon] felt sick. I was first admitted to Kyone Doe Hospital, then to Kawkariek General Hospital as my situation was worrisome. I am getting better now," she said. Nai Soe Myint, secretary-1 of the Mon National Party, was among a group of party officials that visited Kawkareik hospital on Thursday. "They are to be discharged within 24 hours. It's said the water was poisoned in an effort to catch fish," he said. The post Nearly 300 Pupils Taken Ill in Karen State After Drinking Water Scare appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Karen Housekeeper Alleges Abuse by Rangoon Employer Posted: 24 Sep 2015 02:57 AM PDT The mother of a 23-year-old housekeeper who says she was abused by her Rangoon employer. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — A 23-year-old housekeeper who says she was physically abused by her employer is now recovering from severe head injuries at a hospital in Rangoon. The ethnic Karen woman, who lived with and tended the apartment of a couple near the Yangon International School, said that she withstood violence perpetrated by the housewife over the past five months. While the abuse was recurrent, the housekeeper said, the situation became intolerable on Sept. 19, when the housewife allegedly brutally assaulted her after accusing her of infidelity with the husband. A case has been filed against the housewife with the Thingangyun Township Police, who told The Irrawaddy that an investigation is underway and if found guilty the accused could face one to seven years in prison. The Irrawaddy visited the plaintiff at the hospital on Wednesday, finding her face badly bruised and swollen. She said that she had been hit in the head with a porcelain bowl, beaten with a rattan broom and had house keys shoved into her ear canal. Despite months of similar treatment, which she claims she was subjected to "whenever they would quarrel," the young domestic worker kept quiet because much of her 80,000 kyat (US$62) was used to support her family in Irrawaddy Division. Moreover, she professed gratitude toward the housewife, who she said she viewed as family. "I love her so much, as an elder sister, because I don't have a sister. And I was patient even though she hit me many times, she threatened to kill me," the woman said. "But at last, I can't stay anymore and I had to run away from her." The accused housewife and her husband were not available for comment on the case, though The Irrawaddy made several attempts to reach them. A visit to their home, on the guidance of the accuser, proved fruitless as the couple would not answer phone calls or knocks on the door. The housekeeper has not received any financial support for her medical care, but she said she now hopes to seek compensation and justice for the alleged abuse. Police said that if the accused cannot independently reach an agreement with the plaintiff, the case will likely result in a prison sentence. Prosecutions in cases of domestic violence and employee abuse, however, are rare in Burma, where law enforcement is under-resourced and notoriously corrupt. Speaking to The Irrawaddy from her hospital bed, the woman said she hopes only that her case will be adjudicated "in accordance with the law." The post Karen Housekeeper Alleges Abuse by Rangoon Employer appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Elderly, Disabled Trapped Amid Kachin State Clashes Posted: 24 Sep 2015 02:30 AM PDT A camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kachin State is pictured in February 2014. (Photo: Nang Seng Nom / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Twenty-two elderly and disabled civilians are trapped in their homes amid ongoing fighting between government troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Mansi, Kachin State's southernmost township. Burma Army soldiers and the KIA have been engaged in hostilities in the area since Sept. 19, with locals telling The Irrawaddy that clashes first broke out as government troops attempted to take photos of KIA outposts in Laika-Zukja village. Naw Mai, who is in charge of an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in MengKaung village, told The Irrawaddy: "Because all the people fled for their lives in a panic, the sick, elderly and disabled persons were left in their homes." The 22 people left behind have been trapped in a handful of villages since Sept. 20. Although IDP camp administrators and aid organizations have attempted to rescue the trapped civilians, their villages remain inaccessible due to the deployment of government troops in the area. "We're holding negotiations with both the military and the KIA to rescue the trapped," said Salai Ai Z Khin, a member of a local civilian protection group. "At present, I am not supposed to divulge details." The fighting in Mansi Township has forced about 200 locals from 62 households in Laika-Zukja, Kaparayan, Konekapa, Monelu and Jsawng villages from their homes and into IDP camps. The affected area is not new to conflict, and was last the staging ground for hostilities between the KIA and government troops in October 2013. "We had no time to take anything. As soon as we heard troops were coming, we fled, taking nothing," Nan Ban from Konekapa village said of the most recent fighting. Sai Ja from Jsawng village said displaced civilians undertook a five-hour jungle trek to arrive at an IDP camp in MengKaung village. "We went through the jungle to avoid troops. We started walking at 10 am and arrived only at 3 pm," Sai Ja told The Irrawaddy. The 200-odd IDPs are being provided shelter at a camp in MengKaung village, also in Mansi Township, but accommodation there is in short supply as the camp has been hosting more than 1,100 IDPs since the 2013 outbreak of hostilities. The military has deployed troops throughout much of Mansi Township, including at an outpost near MengKaung Village. IDPs there say they are able to hear bursts of artillery fire, indicating that they remain in close proximity to the frontline. A ceasefire between the government and the KIA collapsed in 2011 and more than 100,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in Kachin and northern Shan states. Despite the ongoing conflict, KIA negotiators have actively participated in efforts to reach a nationwide ceasefire between the government and more than a dozen ethnic armed groups. The government has said it hopes to ink the long-sought peace accord next month. The post Elderly, Disabled Trapped Amid Kachin State Clashes appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Defense Cites Serious Shortcomings in Koh Tao Murder Probe as Trial Continues Posted: 24 Sep 2015 12:24 AM PDT Wai Phyo arrives at the Koh Samui Provincial Court in Thailand, July 22, 2015. (Photo: Chaiwat Subprasom / Reuters) CHIANG MAI, Thailand — The defense team representing two Burmese men on trial for the murder of two British backpackers on a Thai resort island last year cited serious shortcomings in the police investigation as court proceedings continued Wednesday. Burmese migrants Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo are standing trial for the killing of David Miller and Hannah Witheridge on Koh Tao in September last year. However, the handling of the case by Thai police has been the subject of significant controversy and the two Burmese men have alleged they were tortured into a confession. Andy Hall, a Thailand-based migrant rights activist assisting the accused, told The Irrawaddy the police investigation was marred by allegations of misconduct, procedural faults and questionable evidence. The interpreter used during interrogations was a Muslim Rohingya Roti seller whose Thai language ability was "very poor," Hall said, labeling his involvement, given this deficiency, "unethical." He also questioned a Thai police claim that a mobile phone, allegedly seized from Wai Phyo and handed to British authorities, belonged to the deceased David Miller. "UK police said they have never confirmed that it was David's phone. They will complain to the Thai government on this issue," Hall said. Other evidence in dispute includes CCTV footage that police claim shows Wai Phyo running down a main street on the night of the murders. The defense refutes this claim and has tendered as evidence a statement by British forensics expert Stephen Cole, who analyzed the footage. "Thai police cited no scientific evidence to suggest the 'running man' was Wai Phyo and based their conclusion on [him having] 'similar looks,'" Hall said. Defence lawyers also recently called upon Thailand's Central Institute of Forensic Science, headed by Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand, to reexamine crucial DNA evidence. The institute found that DNA collected from a garden hoe believed to be used in the murders did not match the suspects' DNA. The case has shone a light on Thailand's treatment of its vast migrant workforce, many of whom labor in dangerous industries for little pay and without access to legal recourse. Activists contend that the two accused have been made scapegoats for the murders. Hall testified that in addition to unnerving evidence the accused Burmese men were tortured in police custody, other migrant workers claim similar mistreatment during the authorities' hunt for suspects. "One man told me he had been playing football with friends sometime after the murders when police approached the six of them. Three ran away but he was captured, beaten, and had a plastic bag put over his head for fifteen minutes to try to get him to disclose the names of the people who had run off," Hall said. On Thursday, members of Thailand's National Human Rights Commission and migrant workers are among those testifying for the defense at the court in Koh Samui. The Burmese Embassy defense team will put forward their case on Friday, with a final verdict expected in October. The post Defense Cites Serious Shortcomings in Koh Tao Murder Probe as Trial Continues appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Evening the Odds Posted: 23 Sep 2015 10:55 PM PDT Evening the Odds The post Evening the Odds appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Revamp of South Korea’s Rigid Labor Laws Faces Stiff Opposition Posted: 23 Sep 2015 10:17 PM PDT A job seeker attends an interview at an employment fair in Seoul, South Korea on Wednesday. (Photo: Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters) SEOUL, Sept 24 — In the past year, Kim Yoon-sung applied to about 120 companies for a job, and could not land even one. Instead, the 26-year-old South Korean is on her fourth outsourcing contract, one of tens of thousands of young graduates struggling to get regular employment in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. “It’s become normal for people in my generation to fail even after writing applications for well over 100 companies,” Kim told Reuters. “The situation is just getting tougher.” South Korea’s rigid labor market is increasingly seen as a drag on an ailing economy that President Park Geun-hye says needs “major surgery.” Park is pushing a revamp in labour laws that would be the biggest in nearly two decades. It would change the system of stable employment and seniority-based remuneration that was part of a social contract enforced by the unions and underpinned South Korea’s breakneck economic growth into the 1990s. Park wants to make it easier for companies to fire underperformers, base wages on merit, shorten work hours, ease outsourcing rules and expand unemployment insurance. Her ruling party hopes to push labor reform legislation through the current session of parliament ending in December, but faces opposition from some unions and the main rival party. However, the conglomerates that have driven South Korea’s emergence as an industrial power support more flexible labor laws. “This is the first time in many years that we are trying to do something to change a problem that is getting ever more serious,” said Kim Dong-one, the dean of Korea University’s business school. Limited labor flexibility makes it harder to build the services sector in an economy dominated by companies like Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motors. Young graduates covet the big conglomerates for their better-paid jobs, and are less inclined to join smaller companies that would follow Park’s “creative economy” push. The World Economic Forum ranks South Korea 86th for overall labor market efficiency and 106th for flexibility in hiring and firing; Japan, whose decades of stagnation are often invoked by Korean policymakers as a cautionary tale, ranks 22nd and 133rd. Political Opposition The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the more strident of two big labor umbrella groups, says the reforms would hurt job security and wages and destroy collective bargaining and has vowed to oppose all ruling party candidates at parliamentary elections due next April. On Wednesday, it called a nationwide strike and held a rally in Seoul that drew thousands of people, with some protesters scuffling with police. The opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) is demanding any change in labor laws be tied to requiring firms to share more profits and increase employment. With 47 percent of parliamentary seats, the opposition cannot by itself block law changes, although the NPAD holds the chairmanship of a key committee that would review law revisions. The government is betting that enough voters are discouraged by their job prospects to make it worth pushing the legislation ahead of the parliamentary elections. The last time South Korea made major changes to labor rules was in 1998, when it enabled companies to lay off workers under emergency circumstances in exchange for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. At 22 percent, the share of temporary workers in South Korea is double the OECD average. Non-permanent workers are falling further behind on wages, earning 54 percent of what regular employees earn for similar work in South Korea, compared with 65 percent in 2004, government data shows. Youth unemployment hit a 16-year high early this year and could worsen as the retirement age begins to rise in 2016. Kim, who studied Chinese language and literature and spent six months as an exchange student in Beijing, earns about 1.2 million won ($1,007) a month in her temporary job, roughly half the average starting salary for staff positions at Korean firms, based on publicly available data. She said she has lowered her expectations: “I am no longer looking at big companies but just hope to get an opportunity at any company doing business with China.” The post Revamp of South Korea's Rigid Labor Laws Faces Stiff Opposition appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Leading China Lawyer Says He Was Tortured Posted: 23 Sep 2015 10:10 PM PDT Protesters carrying portraits of one of China’s most prominent dissidents, Gao Zhisheng, demonstrate outside a Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong. (Photo: Bobby Yip / Reuters) BEIJING — In his first interview in five years, leading Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng said he was tortured with an electric baton to his face and spent three years in solitary confinement during his latest period of detention since 2010. The Nobel Peace Prize nominee also vowed to never leave China despite the hardships and having to live apart from his family. For years, Gao’s supporters feared he might perish inside a remote Chinese prison. He survived his prison term. But when he was released in August 2014 from prison to house arrest, the formerly outspoken lawyer could barely walk or speak a full, intelligible sentence, raising concerns that one of the most inspirational figures in China’s rights movement had been permanently broken—physically and mentally. He is now speaking out once again in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press. “Every time we emerge from the prison alive, it is a defeat for our opponents,” Gao said in the face-to-face interview. Gao, who lives under near-constant guard in Shaanxi province, gave the interview earlier this year on the condition that it not be published or aired for several months, until he could finish the manuscripts of two books and send them safely outside of China for publication, which he now says he has done. He also later sent the AP his manuscripts and gave permission to quote from them. The 51-year-old attorney gained international recognition for his courage defending members of the outlawed spiritual movement Falun Gong and fighting for the land rights of farmers. In and out of detention since 2006, Gao upset authorities in 2010 by publicly denouncing the torture he said he had undergone. Faxed questions to the Chinese ministries of public security, justice and foreign affairs regarding Gao’s allegations of torture and his current condition were not answered. In this year’s interview and in one of his books, he recounts a new round of torture as well as three years in solitary confinement, which he says he survived thanks only to his faith in God and his unwavering hope for China. He also declared his decision not to go into exile outside China, even if that means being separated from his wife, daughter and son, who are living in the United States. “I thought about giving up and giving my time to my family, but it’s the mission God has given me” to stay in China, Gao said. Gao’s wife, Geng He, said in an interview in California that she does not understand why her husband was imprisoned, and why he continues to be kept under house arrest. “I don’t understand why the government has to imprison him. He is just a lawyer. His legal profession requires him to help and serve others. Why is he being treated like this?” she said in the interview in the city of Cupertino. “He is standing up for greater freedom in China.” She said in the interview Monday that she hopes Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama discuss her husband’s case when they meet in Washington this week. A day later, she posted on her Twitter account a letter from her husband urging her to decline an invitation to meet with a US deputy secretary of state on Wednesday ahead of the summit. Gao told her in the letter that such a meeting would be futile while U..politicians rub shoulders with the head of China’s ruling Communist Party. Since the administration of President Bill Clinton, “the American political class has disregarded the basic humanitarian principles and muddied itself by getting so close to the sinister Communist Party,” Gao wrote, according to his wife. One of Gao’s two books—yet to be published—predicts that the authoritarian rule under China’s Communist Party will end in 2017—a revelation he says he received from God. He also outlines a plan to build up a democratic, modern China after the party’s collapse. Much of the book also details inhumane treatment behind bars. The second book is addressed to his son and tells his family’s story. Jerome Cohen, a law professor at New York University and an expert on China’s legal system, said Gao has become a symbol of the repression of rights lawyers in China and that it was heartening to hear that he had given an interview. “I had worried that Gao had become a forgotten man,” Cohen said. “He was the leading human rights lawyer in China. He was a bold, courageous, outspoken person, and they broke him, they broke him in the cruelest way.” Since his release from Shaya Prison in the far western region of Xinjiang, Gao has been staying with his oldest brother inside a family home in a cave scooped out of a cliff in Gao’s native Shaanxi province. He is under watch nearly around the clock. Convicted in 2006 of subversion and sentenced to three years, he was released on probation but was periodically taken away for torture, he said. After his wife and children fled China in January 2009, Gao was secretly detained again by security agents. He briefly resurfaced from state detention in April 2010, when he met his family and gave an interview to the AP detailing how he was hooded and beaten. He disappeared the next day. At that time, he was detained again, he said in this year’s interview and in his manuscript. In his book he says he endured more torture, including with an electric baton to his face—a moment that he remembers as a near out-of-body experience when he heard his own voice. “Undoubtedly, it was from me. I don’t know how to describe it,” Gao wrote. “That sound was almost like a dog howling when its tail is forcibly stepped on by its master. Sometimes it sounded like what a puppy makes when it’s hung upside by its tail.” Gao said that during all his years of detention he was able to build up a mental barrier against the physical perception of pain. “This is a special ability I have acquired to allow me to survive difficult times,” Gao said in the interview. Gao said he was secretly tried in December 2011. It was only then that the government said it was moving Gao to prison, the first time it had acknowledged holding him. He said he was hooded and taken outside for the first time in 21 months in the winter of 2011. “It was the first time I heard a dog bark and that I could breathe fresh air,” he said. After he was moved to a prison in Xinjiang, he was no longer physically beaten for any long stretch of time, but he was confined to a room of 8 square meters without windows or ventilation for three years—so long that he said he could not cope with wider spaces upon release. “I found I could not walk at the airport, but I could walk inside the lock-up room,” he said. Gao said that during one period of his three years in the Xinjiang prison, authorities installed a loudspeaker in his cell that sent out propaganda on socialist values for 68 weeks straight. “You cannot imagine the mental harassment they inflicted upon me,” Gao said. Now out of prison, Gao said he is able to speak daily to his wife and children in California. He said he wants to be reunited with his family but that he feels he must stay in China. “My wife is suffering, but I can do nothing,” he said. “I understand those persecuted souls who have left China and I am glad for them, but I cannot be among them. I cannot go,” Gao said. The post Leading China Lawyer Says He Was Tortured appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Malaysia Detains 8 Suspects for Questioning over Bangkok Blast Posted: 23 Sep 2015 10:02 PM PDT Thai police stand guard as people pray during a crime re-enactment near the bombsite at Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok. (Photo: Athit Perawongmetha / Reuters) KUALA LUMPUR — Eight people, including four believed to be ethnic Uighurs, have been detained in Malaysia for questioning in connection with last month’s bombing of a shrine in Bangkok that killed 20 people, a senior official said Wednesday. National deputy police chief Noor Rashid Ibrahim said they were detained in the past week in Kuala Lumpur as well as in northeastern Kelantan state. Uighurs are an ethnic minority in China and complain of oppression by the government. Some Uighurs have been involved in a separatist movement in the Chinese region of Xinjiang where most of them live. Thailand has suggested that those behind the Aug. 17 blast at the Erawan Shrine—popular among Chinese tourists—may have been from a gang involved in smuggling Uighurs from Xinjiang. Others speculate they may be separatists or Islamist extremists angry that Thailand repatriated more than 100 Uighurs to China in July. Noor Rashid said four of the eight arrested were Malaysians involved in human trafficking, while another four were believed to be Uighur men who entered the country illegally, he said. While there is no evidence they were directly involved in the bombing they are being investigated to see if they had any role in other activities surrounding the blast. “Right now, there is no concrete evidence to show that they are directly involved,” Noor Rashid told reporters. He said Thailand will need to provide basic proof of their involvement in the bombing if it wants to extradite the suspects. Noor Rashid initially said the Uighurs had no documents on them and that their only offense was entering Malaysia illegally from Thailand. However, he later said they had passports but it was unclear if they were genuine. He didn’t give further details. Thai authorities have arrested two suspects they say were linked to the bombing, but believe the actual bomber and the mastermind of the plot have fled the country. In Bangkok, Thailand’s national police spokesman, Prawut Thavornsiri, said the person who placed the bomb at the shrine—he was seen in a security video leaving a backpack under a bench—is not among those arrested in Malaysia. “This is not our wanted person,” he said. Prawut also said that an arrest warrant has been issued for the 14th person alleged to be involved in the bombing. He said the suspect purchased some substance from a chemical shop and brought it to an apartment where police subsequently found bomb-making material and fake passports. The blast at the shrine in the Thai capital’s center also injured more than 120 people. Many of the victims were foreigners as the shrine is a popular destination for tourists and Thais alike.   The post Malaysia Detains 8 Suspects for Questioning over Bangkok Blast appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

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