Chinese authorities have handed down an eight-year jail term to a veteran rights activist after he set up a website calling for constitutional democracy, his sister said on Thursday.
Civilian deaths are growing in Myanmar’s civil war amid a jump in airstrikes by the military junta, whose ground forces have faced stiff resistance from rebels and ordinary citizens who have taken up arms.
In the past six months, in addition to their increased targeting of civilians as part of its “four-cuts” strategy–denying the opposition access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits–the Myanmar military has made a concerted effort to target the shadow National Unity Government’s nascent civil administration and the provision of health and education.
Intense fighting has caused the number of internally displaced persons in Myanmar to grow by more than 680,000 between January and April 20, according to independent research group ISP-Myanmar.
Beijing authorities have refused to accept Wuhan-based citizen journalist Fang Bin for relocation after he was bundled onto a high-speed train for the capital shortly after his release from a three-year jail term on Sunday.
According to the independent research group Data For Myanmar, since the military coup, more than 3,700 houses in Khin-U have been burned down as of February and nearly 48,000 houses in Sagaing region as of mid-March.
The sister of a businessman who is serving a life sentence has again been arrested and beaten for publicly protesting for her brother’s release in front of the high court in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa.
The death of a Uyghur detainee held in a refugee detention center in Thailand has intensified calls from human rights organizations for Thai authorities to provide better living conditions and health services for Uyghur inmates and to allow them to apply for asylum.
Thousands of human trafficking victims from all over Asia – and as far away as Africa – are trapped at a scam casino complex on the Thai-Burmese border that RFA has been investigating, local sources say.
A military airstrike last week on a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region where an earlier attack killed nearly 200 people was part of a bid to “destroy evidence,” a member of the armed opposition said Monday, as reports emerged that the latest bombing killed nearly 20 of the junta’s own troops.