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As China announces the investigation of a top planning official for corruption, more high-profile cases are likely to follow as the administration of President Xi Jinping seeks to consolidate power during its first year in office, analysts said on Wednesday.

The sacking of Liu Tienan, former vice minister at the powerful State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC), for "suspected serious violations of discipline" this week, is believed by some to be an indirect attack on political and financial interests linked to the family of former Chinese premier Li Peng.

According to Cai Yongmei, editor of the Hong Kong-based magazine Kaifang, Liu's former posting as head of the powerful National Energy Administration brought him into close dealings with Li Peng's family and associates via their interests in nationwide power projects.

"China's entire power generation and supply system is controlled by Li Peng and his family, and even if only Liu Tienan falls, this is still a huge attack on them," she said.

Liu Tienan's dismissal comes after the ruling Chinese Communist Party placed him under investigation after a high-profile journalist accused him of collusion with commercial interests and fraudulent claims about his education.

Caijing magazine deputy editor Luo Changping, who said he spent a year fact-checking the allegations, made the claims in a post on the hugely popular Sina Weibo microblogging platform on Monday.

Cai said it remains to be seen exactly how far Party investigators will take the case, however.

"If they were to get to the bottom of this case, it would be huge, because [Liu] had many connections and powerful interests backing him behind the scenes," she said.

"But I don't think they will take this investigation all the way," Cai added. "They can only go so far with it."

'Untouchable' officials

China scored poorly in an annual global corruption index published last year by Transparency International, ranking 80th out of 176 countries, down five places from the previous year.

President Xi Jinping has warned that the Communist Party must beat graft or lose power, sparking a nationwide clampdown on corruption.

However, political analysts say that officials with friends in the right places are unlikely to be touched by the crackdown, and reports suggest many are liquidating their assets and making moves overseas.

"In the second half of this year, the Party's central commission for discipline inspection is going to be taking more and more action," Liu Dawen, former editor of the Hong Kong-based political magazine Outpost, said in an interview on Wednesday.

"They will probably be anticorruption cases along the same lines as this one."

"My sources are telling me that ... he won't get off lightly," Liu added.

Seven taboo topics

Meanwhile, analysts said Xi's administration is beginning to put its stamp on Party ideology with a secret "Document No. 9," banning any talk of seven taboo topics in higher education institutions.

According to former top Party aide Bao Tong, under house arrest at his Beijing home since the fall of late premier Zhao Ziyang, rumors of the seven taboos are already circulating in the corridors of power.

"I have heard that seven great taboos have been set by the general office of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, that they are instructions to teaching staff in higher education," Bao wrote in a commentary on RFA's Mandarin Service on Tuesday, calling on the government to be open about its ideology.

He listed the banned topics as: universal values, press freedom, civil society, citizens' rights, the historical mistakes of the Party, the financial and political elite, and judicial independence.

'An act of stealth'

Cai said Xi's administration appears to be distancing itself from its predecessors with the move.

"Universal values, press freedom, a civil society—all these things were talked about by [former premier] Wen Jiabao, so now they absolutely cannot be mentioned," she said.

"I am guessing that this is the meaning behind Document No. 9."

She said the taboo topics are being circulated behind closed doors, rather than being announced in the state-run media.

"This is an act of stealth, which has a flavor of a regime that is a bit unstable," Cai said.

Reported by Fang Yuan and Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

I have heard that seven great taboos have been set by the general office of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, that they are instructions to teaching staff in higher education from the orchestrators of the main theme tune.

They tell them not to mention the following to their students: universal values, press freedom, civil society, citizens' rights, the historical mistakes of the Party, the financial and political elite, and judicial independence.

This is a rumor, neither confirmed nor denied by the orchestrators of the main theme tune. I don't know whether higher education lecturers are implementing them or not.

Neither do I know whether students are informing on teachers who breach the seven taboos, or whether they support them even more than before.

I would like to call on the orchestrators of the main theme tune to clarify the facts: whether or not such a thing exists.

If there is no such thing, then the orchestrators of the main theme tune should put people's minds at rest, so that the whole of the student body can rest assured that the new leadership has no intention of trying to keep the people in the dark, and so that the lecturers can rest easy in the knowledge that the new leadership will respect and protect science and democracy.

And that not only are there no seven taboos, but that they will uphold intellectual freedom, so that there are no subjects forbidden to scholarship, which can investigate and exchange ideas without fear or obstruction.

If this is the case, people in China and overseas will be overjoyed.

If such a thing does exist, however, the orchestrators of the main theme tune still have a responsibility to announce it publicly. What need is there to keep it under wraps, or to whisper it around? This should be put on display in full view of the whole world, so that everyone will know that the People's Republic of China has forbidden a civil society.

They will know that, even though the Constitution of this country states that "all power stems from the People," that these are fake, empty words, just there for show.

They will know that the orchestrators of the main theme tune won't allow lecturers and students alike to to talk about the rights of citizens, and that even though the Chinese government is a signatory to international bodies and international covenants, it doesn't believe in universal values.

They will know that, while we have a news media in China, that there is no press freedom, and that the fight against corruption in China will forever be a fight in the dark, because the assets of a privileged financial and political elite are a secret that must never be revealed.

They will know that China will be condemned to the eternal manufacture of miscarriages of justice, because the judiciary isn't allowed to be independent.

And they will know that the Chinese Communist Party is God, because its mistakes—even its historical ones—are sacrosanct, protected by the current administration and not to be discussed.

If these things are true, then I suggest that the orchestrators of the main theme tune do two things before they announce this: they must abolish the Constitution and get rid of the name of this country.

Because any one of these taboos is unconstitutional, and incompatible with the idea of a republic.

In short, either the main theme tune and the seven taboos must go, or the Republic and the Constitution must go.

The two can't inhabit the same universe. This is the choice facing the orchestrators of the main theme tune, and where they go, we can only follow.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

Bao Tong, political aide to the late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, is currently under house arrest at his home in Beijing.

The main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party is set to submit a corrected list of its candidates in the upcoming July 28 general election on Wednesday, and the new list will omit exiled politician Sam Rainsy’s name just like the old version, party officials said.

But despite having dropped him as a candidate, the party will continue to pursue reforms allowing Sam Rainsy—who faces imprisonment if he returns to Cambodia on charges he contends are politically motivated—to contest the polls, with plans to stage a demonstration in Phnom Penh next week.

CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann said the party has already prepared the corrected candidate registration list, after the old one had small errors in facts about the candidates.

"We already completed the corrections and we will send it back tomorrow," he told RFA’s Khmer Service on Tuesday, adding that Sam Rainsy’s name would remain off of the new registration list.

After the newly formed party submitted its list on Friday, the National Election Committee’s (NEC) Secretary General Tep Nytha said Monday that the CNRP had been asked to correct some mistakes and return the documents within five days, but did not elaborate on what the errors were.

The CNRP is keeping Sam Rainsy as its party head and under Cambodia’s electoral system, if it won the election, could still submit him as its pick for prime minister when forming the new cabinet.

The party could also seek a royal pardon that would make him eligible to take office.

‘Free and fair’ vote

Sam Rainsy, who the NEC said in November was barred from the vote because of his prison convictions, has argued that the elections will not be “free and fair” if he is not allowed to run.

The CNRP will lead a demonstration next week in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park to demand the government allow him to contest the vote and that the NEC accept recommendations from NGOs and the United Nations’ special envoy on human rights to reform.

"We demand the return of Mr. Sam Rainsy of the Cambodia National Rescue Party before Election Day safely and without any conditions," a statement by the party on Tuesday said.

Yim Sovann said the party expects to lead about 6,000 demonstrators from across the country in the protest, adding that the NEC failed to respond to requests for reforms during the last demonstration in April.

The protesters will also call on the NEC to correct irregularities on its list of voters found by local election monitors Comfrel and the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute.

"We will continue to fight through massive citizen protests and rally international pressure against the government," Yim Sovann said.

A total of eight political parties submitted their candidate registration lists to compete in the election before the application period ended on Monday, according to the NEC.

Five of them, including the Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party and the Funcinpec royalist party, have had their candidate lists approved.

Aside from the CNRP, two small parties—the Khmer Anti-Poverty Party and the Khmer Economic Development Party—have also been asked to submit corrections to their lists.

Reported and translated by Samean Yun for RFA’s Khmer Service. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

Authorities must evacuate tens of thousands of Muslims displaced by violence in western Burma to higher ground ahead of a major tropical cyclone, a human rights group said Tuesday, as dozens of ethnic Rohingyas were reported missing after their boat capsized while fleeing the storm.

Cyclone Mahasen is expected to make landfall from the Bay of Bengal later this week, and around half of the approximately 140,000 Muslims who fled communal violence in western Burma’s Rakhine state last year are at risk, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

“The Burmese government didn’t heed the repeated warnings by governments and humanitarian aid groups to relocate displaced Muslims ahead of Burma’s rainy season,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“If the government fails to evacuate those at risk, any disaster that results will not be natural, but man-made.”

Rights groups say Muslims bore the brunt of last year’s violence in Rakhine state which touched off in June and, together with clashes in October, left at least 192 dead and 140,000 homeless.

The Burmese government said in a statement Tuesday that it had ordered those living in temporary huts to seek safer shelters by May 15.

Vice President Nyan Tun, who is also chairman of the National Disaster Preparedness Central Committee, was on Tuesday assigned to lead a Rakhine state-based administrative team in supervising the area ahead of the potential natural disaster.

The military has placed planes, helicopters, naval vessels, and other vehicles at the ready in case of an emergency, while medical teams and other support groups are remaining on standby.

Authorities have moved 5,158 people away from low-lying camps in the Rakhine state capital Sittwe to safer shelter, while displaced persons were also moved in 10 other townships in the region, the government said.

But Human Rights Watch called the Burmese government’s preventative evacuations “limited,” adding that numerous camps for the displaced remain occupied “with no apparent plans for people to be moved or official warnings about the impending cyclone.”

It said that Muslim families who attempt to flee the camps on their own may be subject to violence from ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and local security forces.

Awaiting evacuation

Humanitarian aid workers and Rohingya displaced persons told Human Rights Watch that coastal camps with tens of thousands of displaced persons had not been evacuated as of Tuesday, and that in some cases Rohingyas were for unknown reasons being moved closer to the sea.

“Burmese authorities should focus on moving the remaining displaced people in low-level areas to higher ground, work with humanitarian agencies to provide adequate shelter for all in need without discrimination, and ensure that Muslims and other vulnerable groups are secure from attacks or other violence before and after the cyclone,” Human Rights Watch said.

According to the United Nations, at least 69,000 of the displaced live in shelters insufficient to withstand the rainy season—let alone major tropical storms—and are located in low-lying areas at risk of flooding and storm surges.

Human Rights Watch said authorities in Burma severely restrict the movement of camp residents, preventing them from leaving areas that may be in the cyclone’s path when it makes landfall.

“Vulnerable Muslim populations are at risk not only from the cyclone, but from violence at the hands of ethnic [Rakhine] communities and the very local security forces who were responsible for their displacement in the first place,” Adams said.

Human Rights Watch said that among the displaced are tens of thousands of “unregistered” Rohingyas who have not been formally recorded by the Burmese authorities, though they are still denied freedom of movement by local authorities.

Around 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas live in Rakhine state, but most of them, according to rights groups, have been denied citizenship as they are considered by most Burmese and the government to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Human Rights Watch called on international donors to pressure the Burmese government to ensure the safety of its displaced populations, including by evacuating them to safer areas and providing adequate shelter, and by permitting full and unfettered access to humanitarian aid organizations.

Capsized boat

The call to assist the displaced communities of Rakhine state came amid reports by Burma’s state media that rescuers were searching on Tuesday for 58 Rohingyas whose boat had capsized as they fled the area ahead of Cyclone Mahasen.

The boat sank Monday night after hitting rocks along a coastal waterway and was one of seven carrying Rohingyas seeking higher ground from a camp in Rakhine’s Pauktaw township, state television said, adding that 42 people had been rescued.

Myanmar's department of meteorology on Tuesday said the cyclone was traveling through the Bay of Bengal about 510 miles (820 kilometers) from Sittwe with wind speeds of about 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour and would make landfall on Thursday near the Burma-Bangladesh border.

Reported by RFA’s Burmese Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Authorities must evacuate tens of thousands of Muslims displaced by violence in western Burma to higher ground ahead of a major tropical cyclone, a human rights group said Tuesday, as dozens of ethnic Rohingyas were reported missing after their boat capsized while fleeing the storm.

Cyclone Mahasen is expected to make landfall from the Bay of Bengal later this week and around half of the approximately 140,000 Muslims who fled communal violence in western Burma’s Rakhine state last year are at risk, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

“The Burmese government didn’t heed the repeated warnings by governments and humanitarian aid groups to relocate displaced Muslims ahead of Burma’s rainy season,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“If the government fails to evacuate those at risk, any disaster that results will not be natural, but man-made.”

Rights groups say Muslims bore the brunt of last year’s violence in Rakhine state which touched off in June and, together with clashes in October, left at least 192 dead and 140,000 homeless.

The Burmese government said in a statement Tuesday that it had ordered those living in temporary huts to seek safer shelters by May 15.

Vice-President Nyan Tun, who is also chairman of the National Disaster Preparedness Central Committee, was on Tuesday assigned to lead a Rakhine state-based administrative team in supervising the area ahead of the potential natural disaster.

The military has placed planes, helicopters, naval vessels, and other vehicles at the ready in case of an emergency, while medical teams and other support groups are remaining on standby.

Authorities have moved 5,158 people away from low-lying camps in the Rakhine state capital Sittwe to safer shelter, while displaced persons were also moved in 10 other townships in the region, the government said.

But Human Rights Watch called the Burmese government’s preventative evacuations “limited,” adding that numerous camps for the displaced remain occupied “with no apparent plans for people to be moved or official warnings about the impending cyclone.”

It said that Muslim families who attempt to flee the camps on their own may be subject to violence from ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and local security forces.

Awaiting evacuation

Humanitarian aid workers and Rohingya displaced persons told Human Rights Watch that coastal camps with tens of thousands of displaced persons had not been evacuated as of Tuesday, and that in some cases Rohingyas were for unknown reasons being moved closer to the sea.

“Burmese authorities should focus on moving the remaining displaced people in low-level areas to higher ground, work with humanitarian agencies to provide adequate shelter for all in need without discrimination, and ensure that Muslims and other vulnerable groups are secure from attacks or other violence before and after the cyclone,” Human Rights Watch said.

According to the United Nations, at least 69,000 of the displaced live in shelters insufficient to withstand the rainy season—let alone major tropical storms—and are located in low-lying areas at risk of flooding and storm surges.

Human Rights Watch said authorities in Burma severely restrict the movement of camp residents, preventing them from leaving areas that may be in the cyclone’s path when it makes landfall.

“Vulnerable Muslim populations are at risk not only from the cyclone, but from violence at the hands of ethnic [Rakhine] communities and the very local security forces who were responsible for their displacement in the first place,” Adams said.

Human Rights Watch said that among the displaced are tens of thousands of “unregistered” Rohingyas who have not been formally recorded by the Burmese authorities, though they are still denied freedom of movement by local authorities.

Around 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas live in Rakhine state, but most of them, according to rights groups, have been denied citizenship as they are considered by most Burmese and the government to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Human Rights Watch called on international donors to pressure the Burmese government to ensure the safety of its displaced populations, including by evacuating them to safer areas and providing adequate shelter, and permitting full and unfettered access by humanitarian aid organizations.

Capsized boat

The call to assist the displaced communities of Rakhine state came amid reports by Burma’s state media that rescuers were on Tuesday searching for 58 Rohingyas whose boat had capsized as they fled the area ahead of Cyclone Mahasen.

The boat sank Monday night after hitting rocks along a coastal waterway and was one of seven carrying Rohingyas seeking higher ground from a camp in Rakhine’s Pauktaw township, state television said, adding that 42 people had been rescued.

Myanmar's department of meteorology on Tuesday said the cyclone was travelling through the Bay of Bengal about 510 miles (820 kilometers) from Sittwe with wind speeds of about 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour and would make landfall on Thursday near the Burma-Bangladesh border.

Reported by RFA’s Burmese Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

China is providing large amounts of fertilizer to its ally North Korea and plans to send food aid to the impoverished nation, according to sources inside the country, despite backing international sanctions meant to punish the regime for pursuing its nuclear weapons program.

North Korean sources told RFA’s Korean Service that Beijing had delivered fertilizer to assist in collective farm production even earlier this year than it had in years past—and in larger quantities.

The aid follows Chinese support for tighter restrictions on the North's financial activities as part of stiff sanctions levied by the United Nations against Pyongyang in March for conducting its third illicit nuclear test a month earlier.

“The Chinese government gave fertilizer much earlier than last time,” a source who works for the agricultural department of North Hamgyong province said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Based on the amount of distributions to each collective farm, I think the overall amount of the fertilizer exceeds 200,000 tons,” he said.

The source did not provide details of when China delivered fertilizer last year or the amount it had donated.

But a farmer from Yanggang province told RFA that this year Beijing had sent fertilizer to North Korea, which faces chronic food shortages, more than a month earlier than it had in 2012.

“Last year, I was provided with fertilizer that came from China around June 10,” the farmer said.

“[At that time] each collective farm only received 10 tons of the fertilizer, which was a really tiny amount.”

The farmer said that this year China had begun delivering fertilizer as early as April 26.

An official of the trading department in North Pyongan province told RFA that all fertilizer deliveries from China had been processed through the customs department in the provincial capital Sinuiju, which lies across the border from Dandong city in China’s Liaoning province.

He said that all of the shipments were designated as free aid from the Chinese government and had arrived at the border via train and container truck.

“Our trade department doesn’t normally import such a large amount of fertilizer at once, but the trade department of each province has been ordered to stock up to 200 tons of fertilizer,” he said.

“I was informed that China will also send food aid soon. Since Pyongyang already knew the aid would be coming, the government has already begun distributing food held in storage to the North Korean people,” he added.

Two-pronged approach

The sources RFA spoke to in North Korea said they found it hard to believe recent reports they had heard from South Korean media about Beijing supporting international sanctions against Pyongyang because of the ongoing trade.

The sanctions do not bar other countries from sending food and other forms of aid to North Korea, but prohibit financial interactions with North Korea in a bid to further isolate the country and pressure it to give up its nuclear weapons program.

China is impoverished North Korea's main diplomatic and economic ally but has shown growing irritation with Pyongyang's war threats, and in March backed tough U.N. sanctions against the hardline communist neighbor for its defiant nuclear and missile tests.

Reports that China is providing large-scale aid to North Korea suggest that Beijing may be taking a two-pronged approach to reining in its bellicose southern neighbor—scolding Pyongyang on the international stage, while supporting the North bilaterally.

“Trade between North Korea and China is very much active,” the farmer from Yanggang province said.

“They have even built a new customs house in Yanggang’s Samjiyon district,” he said.

The farmer added that smuggling across the Yalu River, which lies along the border between the two countries, “is still carried out extensively.”

“Farmers had traded 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of corn for 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of Chinese fertilizer until few days ago,” he said.

“But since the new fertilizer has arrived from the Chinese government, they now trade them one to one.”

Pressing China

Last week, the state-run Bank of China Ltd.—which Washington has accused of financing Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programs—said it had halted business with North Korea’s Chosun Trade Bank.

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies on Monday called the decision a “very hopeful sign” in efforts to end the North’s nuclear ambitions, but added it is not yet clear whether the move signifies a real shift in Beijing’s approach to dealing with Pyongyang.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to the region, said last month that it was up to China to “put some teeth” into efforts to press North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

Reported by Sung Hui Moon for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Goeun Yu. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

A key reform group in Burma has held talks with U.S. and China envoys to highlight the need to repeal a law that can throw former political prisoners back into jail and to bring about transparency in Chinese investments criticized over environmental and other concerns.

The 88 Generation Students' Group held a meeting Monday with U.S. Ambassador Derek Mitchell to lobby for support for rapid political reforms in Burma and hosted separate talks with Chinese Ambassador Yang Houlan to push for openness in Chinese projects opposed by local groups concerned over pollution and compensation issues.

Group leaders said they discussed with Mitchell concerns about Article 401 of Burma’s Code of Criminal Procedure, a provision under which hundreds of political prisoners have been given amnesty as part of recent government reforms, but that also gives the president power to restore their sentences at any time.

“Political prisoners must be freed without any conditions when they are released,” 88 Generation Students member Jimmy Kyaw Min Yu told RFA’s Burmese Service after the talks at the group’s offices in Rangoon.

“Derek Mitchell said that there shouldn’t be any political prisoners if the government is carrying out real reform and real reconciliation,” he said.

Last week, authorities used Article 401 to throw a political prisoner back into jail in the first case of its kind, ordering activist Nay Myo Zin to serve the remainder of his original sentence after he complained about the country’s police.

The U.S. has called for the release of all of Burma’s political prisoners and last year eased sanctions against Burma as a reward for the prisoner amnesties and other reforms carried out by President Thein Sein following decades of military misrule in the once-pariah state.

Many of those in the 88 Generation Students’ Group are former political prisoners, including prominent members Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi who were present at Monday’s talks.

They also discussed strengthening U.S. support for community-based groups in Burma with Mitchell and a planned trip to the U.S. to pick up a democracy award for Min Ko Naing.

Chinese investment projects

In the group’s first meeting with Beijing’s ambassador, the 88 Generation Students pressed for greater openness on Chinese investment projects in the country.

“We told them that it is very important to have transparency in any Chinese project in Burma, especially the projects that concern environmental issues and natural resources,” Jimmy said.

A number of Chinese-backed development projects in Burma have encountered opposition from local residents who said the projects had destroyed their livelihoods, including a copper mine near Mt. Letpadaung in northern Burma and the planned cross-Burma Shwe gas pipeline.

In 2011, Thein Sein suspended construction on the Myitsone hydropower dam in Kachin state, which was to supply electricity to China, after local protests.

China has invested heavily in Burma’s natural resources and power generation, including in deals that were agreed upon under the former military regime before recent reforms brought a wave of investment from other countries.

In a statement after his meeting with the 88 Generation Students’ Group, Yang said Beijing wants to strengthen people-to-people exchanges with Burma as a way of improving ties.

“China is willing to push forward the mutual beneficial cooperation and strengthen our people-to-people exchanges so that our bilateral relationship will enjoy more consolidated public support,” he said in a statement posted on the embassy’s website.

Reported by Yadanar Oo for RFA’s Burmese Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

A key reform group in Burma has held talks with U.S. and China envoys to highlight the need to repeal a law that can throw former political prisoners back into jail and to bring about transparency in Chinese investments criticized over environmental and other concerns.

The 88 Generation Students' Group held a meeting Monday with U.S. Ambassador Derek Mitchell to lobby for support for rapid political reforms in Burma and hosted separate talks with Chinese Ambassador Yang Houlan to push for openness in Chinese projects opposed by local groups concerned over pollution and compensation issues.

Group leaders said they discussed with Mitchell concerns about Article 401 of Burma’s Code of Criminal Procedure, a provision under which hundreds of political prisoners have been given amnesty as part of recent government reforms, but that also gives the president power to restore their sentences at any time.

“Political prisoners must be freed without any conditions when they are released,” 88 Generation Students member Jimmy Kyaw Min Yu told RFA’s Burmese Service after the talks at the group’s offices in Rangoon.

“Derek Mitchell said that there shouldn’t be any political prisoners if the government is carrying out real reform and real reconciliation,” he said.

Last week, authorities used Article 401 to throw a political prisoner back into jail in the first case of its kind, ordering activist Nay Myo Zin to serve the remainder of his original sentence after he complained about the country’s police.

The U.S. has called for the release of all of Burma’s political prisoners and last year eased sanctions against Burma as a reward for the prisoner amnesties and other reforms carried out by President Thein Sein following decades of military misrule in the once-pariah state.

Many of those in the 88 Generation Students’ Group are former political prisoners, including prominent members Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi who were present at Monday’s talks.

They also discussed strengthening U.S. support for community-based groups in Burma with Mitchell and a planned trip to the U.S. to pick up a democracy award for Min Ko Naing.

Chinese investment projects

In the group’s first meeting with Beijing’s ambassador, the 88 Generation Students pressed for greater openness on Chinese investment projects in the country.

“We told them that it is very important to have transparency in any Chinese project in Burma, especially the projects that concern environmental issues and natural resources,” Jimmy said.

A number of Chinese-backed development projects in Burma have encountered opposition from local residents who said the projects had destroyed their livelihoods, including a copper mine near Mt. Letpadaung in northern Burma and the planned cross-Burma Shwe gas pipeline.

In 2011, Thein Sein suspended construction on the Myitsone hydropower dam in Kachin state, which was to supply electricity to China, after local protests.

China has invested heavily in Burma’s natural resources and power generation, including in deals that were agreed upon under the former military regime before recent reforms brought a wave of investment from other countries.

In a statement after his meeting with the 88 Generation Students’ Group, Yang said Beijing wants to strengthen people-to-people exchanges with Burma as a way of improving ties.

“China is willing to push forward the mutual beneficial cooperation and strengthen our people-to-people exchanges so that our bilateral relationship will enjoy more consolidated public support,” he said in a statement posted on the embassy’s website.

Reported by Yadanar Oo for RFA’s Burmese Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

China's estimated six million sex workers are routinely subjected to rights violations and physical assault, sometimes at the hands of law enforcement agencies, rights advocates and sex workers said on Tuesday.

"As a group living in a grey area of the law, they have little hope of help or redress in the face of violence, and sometimes the violence comes from law enforcement officials themselves," said gender studies scholar Lu Pin, who edits the online newspaper "Women's Voice."

Lu was responding to a report issued by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday, which said that the illegal status of China's sex workers makes them vulnerable to routine abuses and discrimination.

The report called on Beijing to abandon repressive laws against sex workers, discipline abusive police, and allow nongovernment groups to support China's army of sex workers, the vast majority of whom are women.

Beijing has shown no sign of moving towards legalizing voluntary sex work in recent years, preferring to regard it as a social problem to be fixed by criminal raids, activists said.

"What they need to think about is how to minimize the sort of harm that comes to [sex workers], and the violence of all kinds that they face," Lu said.

Harassed by police

According to HRW China director Sophie Richardson, Chinese police often act as if women engaging in sex work have already forfeited their rights.

Sex workers who spoke to RFA corroborated the report's findings.

"I have been harassed by the police, who don't want me to walk the streets," male transvestite sex worker Xiao Yu, who has been in the sex trade for more than a decade, said in an interview with RFA's Mandarin service.

"I haven't been beaten ... but some of my friends have," he said. "Sometimes the police will look at [your genitals] to see if you are a man or a woman."

Millions of Chinese women have turned to sex work as a way of earning a living in recent decades, according to the HRW report, titled "Swept Away: Abuses Against Sex Workers in China."

While China's ruling Communist Party views sex work as an "ugly social phenomenon,"  sex workers are often coerced behind the scenes into providing free sex for police officers in return for "protection," according to HRW.

"One local police officer here said that if we had sex with him, he would protect us," said a Beijing sex worker identified by a pseudonym, Jia Yue.

"Police won’t pay in those cases. If they want sex, they’ll get sex from us. But when we asked for his help once, he didn’t help," she said.

Violent situations

According to Xiao Yu, men who engage in sex work often work alone, and are subject to even greater discrimination from police if detained.

"Whether it's male transvestites like us, or female sex workers, we all need the help of the law," he said.

"Sometimes we run into violent situations ... but there's little we can do. We daren't speak out about a lot of things, because our status is illegal."

He said many female sex workers are forced to seek protection from criminal gangs in the absence of protection from the law.

Meanwhile, Beijing sex worker "Lijia" told HRW she hadn't dared to report several rapes because of the illegal nature of voluntary sex work.

“I’ve been raped several times," she was quoted as saying. "But because I am a sex worker, and selling sex is a violation of the law, I could be arrested."

Not only are female sex workers denied protection against violence and abuse, they are often the targets of violent attacks by police, the report said.

"I was beaten until I turned black and blue, because I wouldn’t admit to prostitution," it quoted another Beijing sex worker, "Xiao Yue," as saying.

'Strike hard' campaigns

Sex workers are particularly at risk during China's "strike hard” anti-crime campaigns, during which police raid entertainment venues, hair salons, massage parlors, and other spaces where sex workers ply their trade, detaining large numbers of women, the report said.

Under the controversial "re-education through labor" camp system, police can send suspected sex workers to labor camp for up to two years without the need for a trial, or to a legal education center, another form of arbitrary detention, it said.

"China’s failure to uphold the rights of the millions of women who voluntarily engage in sex work leaves them subject to discrimination, abuse and exploitation, and undercuts public health policies," the report said.

Attitudes to sex workers can also affect their access to health care and protection, the report found.

HIV risks

Sex workers told the group that they were often subjected to humiliation and disdain at the hands of public health professionals if they sought HIV testing or other care and advice.

"I don’t go to those clinics anymore. They were really disdainful of me when I went last time," said one sex worker, "Jingying."

"Also, I was scared they would report me to the police," she told HRW.

Coercive HIV testing is also routinely employed by the authorities when they detain sex workers, the report said.

A nongovernment activist involved in public health outreach work said the results of HIV tests are often not kept confidential.

Yuan Xiao, director of the Kunming branch of the Aizhixing AIDS and public health NGO, said many sex workers in China are still putting themselves at risk of HIV, although overall transmission rates haven't risen.

"Some sex workers don't carry condoms with them for fear of their being used as evidence of their status," Yuan told RFA's Mandarin service.

"Some of them have got HIV [because of this]," he said.

Reported by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

A Tibetan monk found in possession of recordings of speeches by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has been beaten to death by Chinese police, according to Tibetan sources.

Kardo, formerly of the Champa Ling monastery in Chamdo prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), was taken into custody on April 21 at his home in Dzogang (in Chinese, Zuogong) county by county police, a Tibetan living in India told RFA’s Tibetan Service on Monday.

“Two cassettes of the Dalai Lama’s speeches were discovered in his room,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity and citing contacts in the region.

“After he was detained, he was severely beaten by police, and he died on April 28,” the source said.

Kardo’s parents had died some time before, and he is survived only by a sister, the source said.

“Chamdo police called Kardo’s sister and told her to claim the body.”

Police decline comment

Called on Tuesday for comment, a police officer in Dzogang referred an RFA reporter to the county’s criminal investigation division, saying, “They are in charge,” but declined to provide a number for the office.

“The Chinese say that [Tibetans] enjoy freedom of religion, but that is not implemented in practice,” RFA’s source said.

“Tibetans are not allowed even to save the lives of animals in order to gain merit, and the Chinese also prevent monks from going to conduct prayers in Tibetan homes,” he said.

Kardo had studied for a long time at the Champa Ling monastery in Chamdo and was known to be good in his studies, but had left the monastery at an unknown date, the source said.

“He left because of the monastery’s worship of the Shugden deity.”

Shugden worship is a religious practice regarded as sectarian and discouraged by the Dalai Lama—a restriction that has led to divisions and ill feeling within the Tibetan exile community in India and elsewhere.

Harsh action

Dzogang county authorities have been known in recent years to take harsh action against Tibetan protesters who assert Tibetan national identity or otherwise challenge Beijing’s rule in the region.

On Feb. 10, Chinese police in Dzogang rounded up and brutally beat a group of Tibetans following a protest at the start of the Lunar New Year, leaving two with broken bones and taking at least six into custody, sources said.

The protest in the county’s Meyul township came after authorities insisted that area residents fly the Chinese national flag from the roofs of their homes, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“But the Tibetans refused to fly the flags from their roofs,” the man said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Instead, they tore them down and stamped on them,” he said.

And in January 2009, a young Tibetan living in Dzogang’s Punda township was reported beaten to death by police.

Pema Tsepak, 24, had been detained for taking part in a demonstration against Chinese rule, sources said.

“Chinese officials said he jumped off a building,” a Punda resident told RFA. “But we believe that he was beaten to death and then thrown off,” he said.

Reported by Soepa Gyaltso and Lobsang Choephel for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

A resident of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong who was forcibly committed to a mental hospital following a public confrontation is suing the hospital for infringement of his rights.

In the first case to come to public attention since China's new Mental Health Law came into effect on May 1, Li Shijie's appeal against his committal was heard by a court in Guangdong's Shaoguan city on Tuesday.

"Today we got through three stages: the presentation of evidence; hearing arguments, and mediation," said Li, who is suing the Shaoguan Military Veterans' Hospital over alleged violation of his rights during the admission process after he had been sent there by local police.

"The whole thing took about two hours, and the court seemed to take a fairly neutral stance," he said. "They seemed to want to understand the evidence and the main thrust of the arguments."

The hearing ended with no judgement, which the court should issue within three months, he said.

Li's lawyer, who gave only his surname Gao, said that while the Shaoguan hospital has strongly denied wrongdoing, he thinks Li has a good chance of success.

"From my point of view, which is fairly objective ... there were a lot of flaws and problems in the hospital's procedures, whether in the process of committing patients or in their treatment after committal," he said.

"I think our case stood up very well ... and now that the Mental Health Law has come into effect, this is a huge step forward not just for patients, but for hospitals as well," Gao said.

He said that while Li's incarceration had happened before the law took effect, the law might still influence the outcome of the case, as the court was likely to refer to it for guidance.

Declared mentally ill

Back in 2011, Li told RFA he was taken to the police station following an argument with a restaurant owner who he said had turned aggressive after refusing to turn on the air-conditioning, he told RFA.

"I was arguing with them for four or five hours inside the police station, and they couldn't find anything to pin on me," he said.

"Then, because they didn't want to mediate [the dispute] and weren't willing to apologize [for detaining me], it occurred to them to 'mentally ill' me as a means of dealing with me," he said, using a term that has gained common parlance in Chinese media to refer to the practice of silencing people found to be troublemakers by forcibly committing them to psychiatric care.

Li said he was locked up in the Shaoguan hospital for a total of 96 days, and accused the hospital of unprofessional conduct during the committal process.

He said that he had clearly presented no danger to himself or anyone else at that time.

Calls to the Shaoguan Military Veterans' Hospital went unanswered during office hours on Tuesday.

The new Mental Health Law aims to protect citizens from forcible admission to psychiatric institutions, except in extreme cases where the person is at risk of harming themselves or others.

Political reasons

According to Shenzhen-based rights lawyer Huang Xuetao, the author of a groundbreaking 2010 report on psychiatric incarcerations, the law does confer greater rights on mental health service users than before.

"There is huge change happening in the area of forcible psychiatric admissions, and we believe that this began on May 1," Huang said on Tuesday.

"We will therefore be paying close attention to this lawsuit, its process, and the end result," she said.

However, rights activists fear the new law is unlikely to offer much protection to people facing incarceration in psychiatric units for political reasons, because local officials and police departments remain very powerful in their local communities.

Rights groups have long campaigned against authorities' aggressive use of mental health diagnoses to incarcerate people who are regarded as troublemakers because they complain about the government.

Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Cambodia’s electoral body is scrutinizing a bid by the main opposition National Rescue Party’s to contest in the July general election, saying approval has been given to five of eight parties to field candidates in the polls.

The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), headed by exiled leader Sam Rainsy, submitted its registration to the National Election Committee (NEC) on Friday without his name listed as a candidate, officials said.

NEC Secretary-General Tep Nytha told RFA’s Khmer Service Monday that the CNRP’s registration papers are being examined.

The NEC, which organizes and manages all elections in the country, said in a statement on its website that it had “rectified a few errors in the CNRP’s registration" but did not provide details.

The election body has required the CNRP to provide more information on the registration within five days, according to Cambodia’s key ally China’s state news agency Xinhua.

CNRP officials said they had left Sam Rainsy off of the list of candidates because the NEC had barred him from running and deleted his name from voter lists on the basis of his prison convictions.

But Sam Rainsy—who is living in self-imposed exile to avoid prison for a string of convictions that critics contend are politically motivated—will be nominated as prime minister if the party wins the election, they said.

They did not explain how he could take up the post if he is not on the ballot.

Eight parties in the race

Among the five political parties that won approval to run in the July 28 polls are Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the royalist Funcinpec Party.

The CPP and Funcinpec, which submitted their candidate lists earlier this month, received approval alongside three smaller parties.  Another two lesser known parties are awaiting approval alongside the CNRP.

Sam Rainsy, 63, who has been living in self-imposed exile in France since 2009, faces a total of 11 years in prison if he returns to Cambodia.

Since the NEC said in November he could not stand in the elections because of the prison convictions, Sam Rainsy has called Hun Sen a “coward” for barring him from the polls and argued that the elections will not be “free and fair” if he is not allowed to run.

Hun Sen, 61, has ruled the country for 28 years and vowed last week to stay in power until he’s 74.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

Backed by powerful banks, Vietnamese rubber companies are rapidly expanding their operations in Cambodia and Laos by grabbing land from villagers and disregarding the environment, according to an extensive probe report.

The UK-based development watchdog Global Witness said in the report that Cambodian and Lao officials often look the other way as companies in Vietnam’s rubber industry seize land from local communities without adequate compensation and carry out illegal logging operations both inside and beyond their concession boundaries.

Vietnam’s two largest companies—privately-owned Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and state-owned Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG)—have leased huge tracts of land for plantations in the two countries “with disastrous consequences for local communities and the environment,” the report said.

“The huge pressure for land to plant rubber is driven by high prices and soaring international demand, especially from China,” it said.

The Vietnamese companies are backed by top German lender Deutsche Bank and World Bank subsidiary the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Global Witness called on them to divest their stakes in the companies if they did not adhere to the banks’ legal, environmental, and social requirements.

“As the third-largest producer of rubber globally, Vietnam is a key global player … [but] with limits on the land available at home, both companies have turned to neighboring Cambodia and Laos [for production],” it said.

Megan MacInnes, head of the Land Team at Global Witness and the report’s author, told RFA’s Lao Service that the impact of large-scale rubber plantations was “devastating” on local communities and the environment in Cambodia and southern Laos.

“There are major problems in terms of deforestation and illegal logging and forest clearance and destruction of forest resources,” she said.

“But the local communities we spoke to also told us about the fact that these plantations are destroying their access to local water sources—to streams and to rivers—and they also talked about pollution from the chemicals that the companies are using on the plantations.”

The Cambodian authorities criticized the Global Witness report, saying the group has a “political” agenda” against the government. Lao officials have not immediately reacted to the report.

MacInnes said the villagers her team interviewed for the report were in a “desperate situation” and that many had lost access to their farmlands—leaving them unable to grow rice and vegetables—as well as to forest resources such as medicines and fruits which were important to their household incomes.

“Almost all of the people that we spoke to told us that the impact on their livelihoods by these rubber plantations had been negative—had really impacted their livelihoods very badly,” she said.

By the end of 2012, the report said, 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) of land in Cambodia had been leased, with 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) allocated for rubber plantations, while in Laos, at least 1.1 million hectares (2.7 million acres) of land had been leased to concessionaires.

It termed the granting of concessions to HAGL and VRG in both countries “a process marked by lack of consultation and forced evictions.”

“Often, the first people know about either company being given their land is when the bulldozers arrive,” the report said.

“When they resist, communities face violence, arrest and detention.”

Flouting local laws

Global Witness said that rubber plantations, particularly in Cambodia, had been supported by corrupt political and business leaders, while dealings in both countries were “cloaked in secrecy.”

“Both HAGL and VRG have very close connections with high-level government and business elites in Cambodia, so they are clearly very well-connected to the government,” MacInnes said.

Global Witness said that government officials in both Cambodia and Laos have licensed concessions “in contravention of their own laws” and have failed to take action when HAGL and VRG ignored those laws.

MacInnes told RFA that her team often found that rubber companies had offered little or no compensation to families affected by concessions, which is required under both Cambodian and Lao laws.

“In some villages there had been compensation offered, but often it was very low—much, much lower than the market value or much lower than the households thought the land or the forest areas were worth,” she said.

“In other places, villagers told us that the companies promised compensation, but nothing was ever paid.”

The report said that the companies were responsible for the illegal clearance of intact forest—including protected species—both within and beyond their concession boundaries.

MacInnes said that the companies denied being involved in illegal activities when contacted by Global Witness, claiming their operations were sanctioned by the government through the granting of concessions.

“We think it’s very, very important that these companies bring their operations in line with the law and we think that it’s incredibly important also that the Lao and Cambodian governments investigate and prosecute these companies for illegal actions and illegal operations around their concessions,” she said.

Global Witness called on the governments of Cambodia and Laos to suspend all HAGL- and VRG-related operations, fully investigate them and initiate prosecution where illegal activities are found. It also recommended a number of concessions to other rubber companies that it said should be canceled.

Report reaction

“This report doesn't aim to help Cambodia,” said a Cambodian cabinet Spokesman Phay Siphan. “This is not a partner who is helping to prevent forest crimes.”

“The report has a political agenda in attacking the government,” he said, adding that the Cambodian authorities provided concessions not only to Vietnamese companies but also to local small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Phay Siphan called on Global Witness to “file a lawsuit if they have evidence” to support their claims.

He said the government’s policy of granting land concessions aimed to encourage practitioners of traditional agriculture to form small- and medium-sized enterprises to improve their yield and profits.

“This is part of an effort to modernize our agriculture sector,” he said.

“We are not only giving concessions to Vietnamese companies. We are giving concessions to any companies that can demonstrate financial and technical expertise.”

But Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the opposition National Rescue Party (NRP), accused the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of “serving the interests of foreign countries,” saying that the granting of excessive land concessions to Vietnamese companies was causing the country to lose money.

“We would benefit more from preserving the forest and allowing our farmers to cultivate their land,” he said.

“Under the current model we enjoy a small amount of benefits at the cost of massive forest destruction.”

Reported by Tep Soravy for RFA’s Khmer Service and RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Five years after the devastating 2008 earthquake that ripped through rural Sichuan, leaving more than 80,000 people dead or missing, the parents of thousands of schoolchildren who died in collapsed school buildings say they have been let down by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

While China's official media called the reconstruction in the wake of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake a success, victims—including parents who lost schoolchildren—say they have been harassed, beaten, and detained in their fight to be heard.

"In the past five years, we have been very cruelly treated," said Sang Jun, a bereaved parent from Sichuan's Mianzhu county, which was among the areas worst hit by the disaster.

"The central government doesn't stand by its own promises, and has kept us waiting in agony for the past five years."

He cited a promise made on a visit to Sichuan by then-premier Wen Jiabao to investigate claims that school buildings were built to an unsafe standard because of corruption among local officials.

"At the time, Wen Jiabao promised there would be an investigation into dangerous buildings, and we are still waiting," Sang said.

"But to this day, there still hasn't been a response for our children," he added, before being cut off.

Once reconnected, Sang said his family's phones were being monitored by the authorities in the run-up to Sunday's anniversary.

Since the quake, parents have tried to keep up pressure on Beijing for a full investigation into the deaths of at least 5,300 schoolchildren in the worst-hit areas.

The bereaved families say they want an inquiry into allegations of shoddy construction of "bean curd" school buildings, many of which collapsed while other buildings remained standing.

But lawyers have been warned off accepting cases linked to Sichuan's child quake victims, on pain of losing their license to practice.

Critics beaten, warned

Sichuan-based rights activist and writer Tan Zuoren, along with fellow activist Huang Qi, were both handed jail terms for subversion after they tried to investigate the collapse of school buildings during the 8.0 magnitude earthquake.

Outspoken Chinese artist and social activist Ai Weiwei was badly beaten by police when he tried to testify in support of Tan.

Ai on Sunday tweeted a link to his audio installation work "Nian," a compilation of online recordings of people reading the names of students who died in the earthquake.

On Sunday, dozens of parents who lost children in the collapse of Mianzhu's Fuxin No. 2 Primary School were prevented from holding a memorial ceremony at the site.

"Yes, [they stopped us]," said one bereaved parent, who declined to give his name.

A second parent surnamed Zhang said he had also tried to attend.

"Around 70 or 80 people [went] to the site of the old school, to make offerings," Zhang said. "[The local government officials] tried to tell us not to go."

Reconstruction

China's official media on Sunday praised the reconstruction job done by local governments after the 2008 earthquake, however.

Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily called the earthquake a "grave catastrophe" but said the recovery was a symbol of China's strength.

"In less than three years, the Wenchuan disaster zone has completed the task of reconstruction with impressive speed," the newspaper said in a front-page commentary.

"To achieve a new victory of building a prosperous society, this is the best way to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake," it said.

Last month, a 6.6-magnitude tremor centerd in Sichuan's Lushan county killed 196 people and left 21 missing and more than 13,000 injured, according to state media.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan on Monday detained and beat high-profile rights lawyers who tried to visit an unofficial detention center, or "black jail," according to fellow lawyers who spoke with them during the attack.

Beijing-based rights lawyer Li Heping said he had lost touch with a number of prominent public interest lawyers, including Tang Jitian and Jiang Tianyong, during a hurried phone call after they tried to visit the detention center in Sichuan's Ziyang city on Monday.

"[Rights lawyer] Tang Tianhao called me to say that a few of the lawyers went to a black jail in Ziyang where several hundred people are being held illegally, to check up on the illegal detention of citizens," Li told RFA's Mandarin Service on Monday.

"They called me just before they set off, in case something happened to them, which it did."

"They have been detained, and the security guards from the black jail were beating them up as I was on the phone to them; I have a recording," Li said.

He said he had also lost touch with Liang Xiaojun and Lin Qilei, among others.

Calls to Jiang's and Tang Jitian's cellphones resulted in a "switched off" message.

Municipal legal education center

A brief and interrupted phone conversation with Tang Tianhao recorded earlier Monday by Li said the lawyers were being held in the Ziyang municipal legal education center.

"In the Ziyang Municipal Legal Education Center, a black jail," Tang Tianhao said. "They are attacking the lawyers now, Tang Jitian, and Jiang Tianyong and me...."

The attacks were carried out by security guards employed at the center, which was set up as a detention center for followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to online reports.

But calls to the center went unanswered during office hours on Monday.

Li Heping initially reported the incident on the popular Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, while Sichuan-based rights lawyer Ran Tong tweeted that he would report the incident to the Ziyang municipal police department.

The incident comes just days after the beating of Shandong rights lawyer Liu Jinbin, who had been hired to represent rights activist Wei Zhongping, who is being held under criminal detention in the eastern province of Jiangxi after calling on officials to declare their assets.

Stability maintenance

Beijing rights lawyer Li Fangping said it was becoming more and more commonplace for lawyers to be physically attacked by the authorities while trying to represent clients.

"This isn't a one-off occurrence," Li said. "Local governments have really taken their stability maintenance policies to extremes, to the point where it's the plainclothes police who are doing the beating."

He said the nationwide obsession with "stability maintenance" had led to a government that behaved like the mafia or a criminal gang.

"It is very worrying because of the damage this will do to the rule of law," Li said. "At the same time, the reaction among the legal profession is getting stronger and stronger...it's a form of awakening for them."

In 2011, Beijing instituted a clampdown on its embattled legal profession, with many civil rights law firms struggling to renew their licenses.

China frequently withholds the licenses of lawyers who represent "sensitive" and disadvantaged groups, such as those who pursue complaints against official wrongdoing.

Rights groups say there is little purpose to the annual lawyer licensing scheme, besides the exertion of state control over the legal profession.

New rules introduced in the past two years ban lawyers from defending certain clients and leave them vulnerable to being charged themselves with subversion if they defend sensitive cases.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Tougher policies on property investment are having an uncertain effect on China's economy as the government prepares to unveil new urbanization rules.

The country's real estate market has been in turmoil since March 1, when the State Council ordered a series of measures to stop speculation in the housing sector and make homes more affordable.

In the most controversial step, the government called for a 20-percent profit tax on home sales, boosting the rate from between 1 and 2 percent.

With little explanation or guidance, it gave cities one month to devise detailed regulations for housing investment, creating a patchwork of rules and a rush to beat the tax hike.

Major cities including Beijing and Shanghai issued a series of restrictions to curb buying of second and third homes, but Nanjing published a rule only 154 characters long, state-run cctv.com said. Other cities made no mention of the 20-percent tax at all.

Some property investors have openly condemned the government's approach to regulation.

"The government's message is, 'We hope prices won't continue rising; you (local governments) go and fix them, and if you don't fix them, we will punish you,'" said Ren Zhiqiang, chairman of Hua Yuan Real Estate Group, according to the official English-language China Daily.

Few details

The tax is one of the first policy changes of the new government under President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang, aimed at promoting sustainable development and more moderate growth.

But with little or no explanation about implementation, the central government's order has also left China experts and economists scratching their heads.

"Maybe this is going to be the style of this administration, to just issue policies without talking too much about them," said University of Pittsburgh economics and history professor Thomas Rawski.

Rawski noted that the abruptness of the market-cooling measure contradicts the decades-old practice of introducing reforms gradually through pilot programs to see how they will work nationally.

The curious case of the new tax has made it hard to predict how the government will conduct economic policy.

"This is one of the first big policy initiatives by this new government," said Rawski.

"Either they think they know exactly what they're doing, so they just go do it, or they're very disturbed with what they see, and so they're going to take a big whack at it and pick up the pieces afterwards," he said.

Buying boom

Although the evidence is not yet conclusive, signs suggest that the tax threat created a boom in first-quarter property sales as sellers rushed to avoid the new rates, followed by a falloff that may undercut second-quarter results.

Real estate leader China Vanke Co. reported a 23.5-percent surge in commercial housing sales in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the China Daily.

China's total property sales revenue soared 61.3 percent during the period, while total tax revenue rose only 6 percent, the paper reported, citing the Ministry of Finance.

Following the deadline for new rules, the market seems to have subsided, although real estate prices in most cities have continued to rise.

In Beijing, home sales sagged to a multi-year low during the May Day holidays, according to the city housing authority. Some housing projects have reportedly been denied sales licenses under a vague rule that bars prices "much higher" than average rates.

A National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report on Monday suggested the real estate boom is continuing but at a slower pace under the new tax rules.

Revenues from property sales rose 59.8 percent from a year earlier in the first four months of 2013, down slightly from the first-quarter pace of 61.3 percent, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

But government cooling measures are having some initial results, as April home transactions slumped in major cities, Reuters said.

Targeting speculation

While the effects are unclear, the government is trying to break the habit of housing speculation for both economic and social reasons.

Easy profits from home sales have widened the gap between rich and poor by putting housing costs out of reach for millions of rural dwellers coming to China's cities.

The central government hopes to drive speculators out of the market before issuing new urbanization rules.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has been drafting an outline of the urbanization policy to be released by the State Council by the end of June, the Shanghai Securities News said.

The blueprint is expected to introduce reforms of the decades-old hukou system of household registration, which has denied migrants access to education and other social benefits in China's cities.

Li Tie, director-general of the NDRC's China Center for Urban Development, told state media on May 10 that the government plans to "improve the residence permit system to enable migrant workers to enjoy basic public services as urban residents."

The plan will also focus on "low-carbon" development with administrative, land and financing reforms, Li said.

The government is likely to see housing prices as a key to the success of the policy and greater social mobility for new entrants to China's cities, although the effect of the 20-percent profit tax remains unclear.

The country's migrant workers now number 252.7 million, according to the NBS.

At the end of 2012, China's urban residents accounted for 52.5 percent of the population, an increase of 1.3 percentage points from the previous year, Xinhua said.

A year after blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in New York as a visiting legal scholar following a daring escape from house arrest and a trip to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, the women of his family have been looking back on a turbulent and traumatic time.

"If I don't get a phone call from [Chen Guangcheng], I can never get to sleep," Chen's mother said in an interview with RFA's Cantonese service on Mother's Day. "I can only relax after I've heard his voice."

"I really wanted to be able to take his phone call [on Mother's Day], to find out how things are with him," she said, adding that Chen calls every two-to-three days to check up on her.

"I don't want him to come back. Living here is like living in a prison."

But she said she and Chen's elder brother have been unable to apply for a passport, which requires a signature from local officials, which means that visiting her son is out of the question.

"We can't go there," she said. "I can't get a passport; there's nothing to be done."

"I will wait, and hope that the family will one day be reunited, and hope that things go well for Guangcheng. That will have to do," she said. "There is no need to be too worried about us."

Increased harassment

Unidentified men hired by the local government in the Chens' home village of Dongshigu, Yinan county, recently stepped up harassment of the family on the anniversary of his escape, which caught officials off their guard and prompted a violent attack on his brother's home.

According to Chen's brother, Chen Guangfu, local officials entered the family home and attacked him and his family in anger shortly after his uncle’s blind, solo escape under cover of darkness.

Chen's nephew is currently serving a 39-month jail term for injuring officials in the attack, during which he has been subjected to deprivation of sleep and food, the family says.

Chen Kegui's mother, who gave only her surname Yi, said she has little hope of spending Mother's Day with her son in the next couple of years.

"I hope to be able to see him again soon," Yi said. "I have only been able to visit him once since he went to prison."

Sick and in pain

She said the whole family is worried about Chen Kegui, who recently suffered an attack of appendicitis.

"He is really very sick, and in a lot of pain," Yi said. "Every night, I can't get to sleep for worrying about him."

"He has tried to call me from inside the prison, but we can't hear what he says very clearly, and he gets cut off pretty soon."

"And when I tried to call him back, I couldn't get through," she said.

"His appendicitis is very serious ... it's very dangerous. But I have no way of knowing how he is."

Chen Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who exposed forced abortions under the country's one-child policy and defended the rights of ordinary people, has been living and studying law in New York since arriving in the U.S. in May 2012, after a diplomatic standoff between Washington and Beijing.

After 18 months of house arrest in Shandong's Dongshigu village, Chen Guangcheng outwitted his guards and made his way to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where Chinese and American officials eventually struck a deal allowing him and his family to go to New York to study.

Reported by Fung Yat-yiu for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Organizing picnics in one party communist state Vietnam is no walk in the park, as some human rights activists have painfully discovered.

Last weekend, the blogger activists and their friends and relatives tried to break new ground by holding picnics in public parks to discuss human rights issues but ended up being beaten, interrogated and arrested by police or thugs they claimed were hired by the authorities.

One of them said she was socked so hard in the mouth that she lost three of her teeth. To add insult to injury, a policeman stubbed out his burning cigarette on the forehead of her protesting mother.

Several bloggers were also placed under house arrest to prevent them from attending the oudoor picnics, which were organized online for mostly young Vietnamese to meet and discuss the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in three main cities -- Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang.

If the activists thought they were innovative, the Vietnamese authorities, who suppress virtually all forms of political dissent, were equally ingenious.

In Ho Chi Minh City, police sent workers to cut down branches of trees at the April 30 Park outside Independence Palace so people could not sit in the shade on a very hot day. Workers in blue uniforms were sent to spray water on spotlessly clean pathways and sidewalks so that participants had to move from where they were seated.

In Nha Trang, police and members of the Communist Youth League occupied Bach Dang Park where activists planned to meet and held their own picnic with loudspeakers. Barbed wire was deployed around the park and police were seen hitting the rights-seeking picnic participants with sticks and steel bars.

“Why is the Vietnamese government afraid of allowing its citizens to gather in parks to discuss human rights?,” asked Brad Adams, Asia director at U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

“Vietnam has ratified international human rights treaties and there is a vibrant discussion about how to incorporate rights into a new constitution, yet people who want to discuss this subject face harassment, intimidation, house arrest, and physical assaults,” he said in a statement.

Protest note

Amnesty International, the London-based global rights group, has written a protest note to Vietnam's Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang, expressing grave concern over the abuses inflicted on the peaceful human rights picnic participants.

"Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the use of unnecessary force by the Vietnamese authorities against those who were arrested and beaten, as well as the harassment and other measures taken to prevent the peaceful picnics from going ahead," Amnesty's Asia Pacific Deputy Director Isabelle Arradon said in a statement.

Amnesty and global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders have called on the Vietnamese government to launch investigations into the violent incidents and take action against those responsible for them.

"We firmly condemn this deliberate police violence against news providers and we are very disturbed to see that such unacceptable violence seems to be the automatic and systematic response from the authorities to any attempt to use freedom of expression," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

"The authorities should take firm and exemplary disciplinary measures against the police officers responsible for this violence," it said.

In fact, Amnesty said the physical attacks of the kind inflicted on blogger Nguyen Hoang Vi's sister Nguyen Thao Chi and mother Nguyen Thi Cuc may be construed as "torture" under the International  Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Vietnam is a state party.

The two had gone to a police station in Tan Phu district in Ho Chi Minh city—where Vi had been held—to retrieve her mobile phone and tablet computer that had been confiscated but were harassed and severely beaten.    

Chi was punched in the face and had three of her teeth knocked out and lost consciousness while Cuc was kicked and had a burning cigarette stubbed out on her face, rights and media groups said.

House arrest

Another blogger Pham Thanh Nghien, who has been under house arrest in the northern city of Haiphong since her release in September 2012 after four years in prison, tried to show her support for the human rights picnic movement by organizing a picnic in her own garden with her mother.

But when she began reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights out loud, she and her 77-year-old mother were attacked by the police officers responsible for keeping them under surveillance.

"We all know that we were born with human rights but our rights are violated in Vietnam everyday," Nghien, who was among those who organized the picnics, told RFA's Vietamese Service. "We can't make changes to our society, improve our lives if we don't understand human rights that we should enjoy."

The irony is that Vietnam is committing the rights abuses even as it bids for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, rights groups say.

Last month, Vietnamese government security agents bundled a local activist from his home and held him for five hours to prevent him from meeting U.S. officials in Hanoi for their annual human rights dialogue with their Vietnamese counterparts.

Convictions rising

The number of criminal convictions of peaceful protesters in Vietnam is also rising.

In 2012, at least 40 people are known to have been convicted and sentenced to prison in trials that did not meet international due process and fair trials standards, according to Human Rights Watch.

Alarmingly, it said, at least 40 more people were convicted in political trials in just the first six weeks of 2013.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are moving to pass legislation that blocks non-humanitarian assistance to Vietnam until human rights issues there improve and that denies Vietnam a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

"[V]ietnamese officials have brought their harassment of religious leaders, political dissidents, and student activists to new, draconian levels,” laments Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who this week signed on as lead cosponsor of the Vietnam Human Rights Act.

Despite the relentless crackdown by the authorities, Vietnamese rights activists say they are going to push ahead with their efforts to hold public discussions on human rights.

“Vietnam is a party to human rights treaties and is even running for a seat at the UN Human Rights Council, but the authorities are so scared of public discussions of human rights that they detain and assault their own citizens to stop them,” Human Rights Watch's Adams said.

"Now might be a good time for Vietnam’s leaders to read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to understand the rights that the Vietnamese people are demanding.”

Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi pushed Friday for amendments to the country's constitution before 2015, when elections will be held in which she could be barred from becoming president.

"For us, we want constitutional amendments before 2015," the Nobel laureate told a press conference in the Burmese commercial capital Rangoon. "The sooner, the better," she said after a three-day workshop on constitutional reform organized by the Sydney Law School of the University of Sydney.

"Only if it is amended, will the people be pleased and have a feeling of trust when the 2015 elections are held," she said.

The constitution was crafted under the previous military junta and prevents Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming the country's president.

The charter says that any Burmese national whose relatives are foreign citizens or hold foreign citizenship is not qualified to serve as president or vice-president. Aung San Suu Kyi’s late husband was British and her two sons hold British citizenship.

When asked about whether the constitution would be amended to allow her to make a bid for the presidency, she said no specific amendments had been decided on.

"I'm not willing to discuss the matter at the present time," The Irrawaddy journal quoted her as saying.

"At present, the [Burmese] constitution is the most difficult constitution in the world to amend, the most difficult," she said. "If we want to amend the constitution, we have to change the process of amendment."

Military

The country’s constitution reserves a quarter of seats in parliament for unelected members of the military—giving them enough seats to effectively bar constitutional change, which requires a three-quarters majority.

Former or serving military generals also dominate the nominating process for presidential candidates, who in Burma must be appointed by the consent of parliament.

Aung San Suu Kyi's popular National League for Democracy could put up a good showing at the 2015 elections that will thrust her to become president.

During her visit to India in November, she said the current constitution cannot ensure credible elections in 2015.

She said progress towards democracy in Burma would have to be linked to critical changes that have to be made to the constitution.

“If we want an answer to whether Burma is on the path to democracy or not, we have to see whether there is a desire to amend the constitution or not.”

“Without amending the constitution, we would not be able to say the 2015 election is free and fair. It may be free but it will not be fair,” she said.

Reported by RFA's Burmese Service. Translated by Khet Mar and Maung Maung Nyo. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

Ten Burmese Buddhists who were ordered jailed for their role in deadly violence against Muslims in Rakhine State will appeal against their conviction, according to their lawyer, who claims the judgment was based on testimony that didn’t fit the charges made against them.

“The court record shows that the charges made against my clients do not match witnesses’ testimony, and we are planning to appeal the sentences,” Ay Nu Sein, the men’s lawyer, told RFA’s Burmese Service on Friday.

A township court in the Rakhine capital Sittwe on May 7 sentenced  the 10 defendants to terms ranging from nine months’ to three years’ imprisonment at hard labor on charges of theft and destruction of property committed during a period of communal violence in the state, the online Irrawaddy journal reported.

The June 2012 unrest, together with clashes in October, left at least 192 dead and 140,000 homeless, most of them Muslim Rohingya, who rights groups say bore the brunt of the violence.

Burmese security forces arrested the 10 men shortly after the June violence and accused them of burning Muslim houses in a village in Kyauk Taw Township, The Irrawaddy said, adding that though the men were also charged with stealing cows, sources have suggested the animals may have simply escaped amid the chaos of the attack.

Muslims charged in another case

A long-awaited official report released last month after a probe into the communal violence in Rakhine has recommended that security forces be doubled in the area and that more aid be channeled to help minority Muslim Rohingyas displaced in the clashes with ethnic Buddhists.

The report also recommended a review of the citizenship status of the largely stateless Rohingyas, but did not hint at any major reforms that will embrace them as citizens.

Separately, seven Burmese Muslims were charged this week with the murder of a Buddhist monk during communal riots in Meikhtila City in March.

The monk was among at least 43 people killed in a wave of violence stemming from a quarrel between a Buddhist couple and a Muslim goldsmith in his shop.

Six of those charged face the death penalty if convicted in one of the most high-profile cases since sectarian violence first flared nearly a year ago.

A seventh suspect, who is under 16 years old, will be tried in a juvenile court in connection with the murder of the monk, who according to reports was pulled off his motorbike, attacked, and burned on March 20.

Reported by Min Thein Aung for RFA’s Burmese Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Richard Finney.