China's Hukou Reforms 'Don't Go Far Enough': Analysts

 
Limited reforms of China's restrictive household registration system, long criticized as discriminatory by rights campaigners, don't go far enough to allow the country's hundreds of millions of rural residents fair access to services in cities, analysts said on Thursday.

China announced on Wednesday it would remove restrictions on anyone wishing to move to smaller towns and cities to find work and educate their children, while strengthening "protection" of its major cities and megacities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing.

In a legal opinion on the household registration, or "hukou," system, China's cabinet, the State Council, said the moves were aimed at encouraging rural people to migrate to cities to find work and education.Under the current system, which dates back to the Mao era of collective farming and a planned economy, every household accesses services from its place of registration, posing huge social problems for China's hundreds of millions of migrant workers and their families.

The reformed hukou system will be based on a person's place of residence and job, rather than their birthplace, and transfer of hukou registrations will now become possible, the State Council said.Under the new rules, anyone wishing to apply for a hukou in small towns and cities of less than 500,000 residents who has a job and a place to live should be able to do so, along with their dependents.

In larger cities with populations of up to one million, hukou applications will be granted, but with possible additional conditions, including payment of urban social security for a minimum period, the opinion said.

'Not far enough'

Cities where competition for hukou is fierce may add further conditions, but are banned from linking them to personal wealth or property ownership, it said.However, urban authorities should try to attract more skilled workers and university and college graduates to settle in urban areas, it said.

Meanwhile, megacities of more than five million should take steps to control their populations, and make their settlement criteria accessible to the public, the State Council said.Liu Kaiming, who directs the Institute of Contemporary Observation in the southern city of Shenzhen, said the proposed reforms don't go far enough, however.
"The problem is that if they just derestrict the hukou system in small and medium-sized cities, there aren't the same employment opportunities in most of those places," Liu said."So hukou registrations aren't so valuable there."

He said the majority of job opportunities cluster in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou."That's where you have high concentrations of outsiders, and those are the places they should be opening up for hukou applications," Liu said.

New rules 'a mess'

Meanwhile, Beijing lawyer Cheng Hai said the new rules are "a mess."

"By law, people should be allowed to move hukou freely from one place to another," Cheng said. "The law regarding household registration in 1958 states that the hukou should relate to one's normal residence. Someone's hukou should be issued wherever they live.""A hukou registration is purely for gathering population data; it shouldn't have any other purpose," Cheng said.

"These so-called reforms from the State Council are nothing more than a tweak to the previous illegal state of affairs."He said China's existing national identity card system should be sufficient, and that the hukou system is outdated and burdensome on citizens."If the two things confer the same rights, then why duplicate them?" Cheng said. "The residence permit system is illegal."

Move to the cities

The changes to the hukou rules form part of Beijing's seven-year urbanization strategy which it hopes will see more than 100 million rural residents migrate to cities by 2020.The ruling Chinese Communist Party hopes to boost the percent of Chinese living in cities to 60 percent by then, compared with 53.7 percent today.

The hope is that urbanization will also give 45 percent of citizens access to health care and education, benefits enjoyed now by only 35.7 percent of China's 1.3 billion population.A Beijing University report released last week showed a rapidly widening gap between rich and poor in China, with the top one percent of households controlling more than one third of the country's wealth.The bottom 25 percent control just one percent of the wealth between them, 2012 figures show, amid concern that growing inequality could spark mounting social unrest.

UN Envoy Accuses Vietnam of ‘Serious Violations’ of Religious Freedom

 
A special U.N. envoy on a mission to Vietnam has accused the authoritarian government of “serious violations” of religious freedom and said the country’s police harassed and intimidated people he had wanted to meet in the course of his investigations.

Heiner Bielefeldt, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion, acknowledged that the one-party communist government was increasing efforts to improve freedom of religion but said he observed during his 11-day visit that “serious violations of freedom of religion or belief are a reality in Vietnam.”

He said the violations affected independent groups of Buddhists, including Hoa Hao-Buddhists, and of the Cao Dai religion, some Protestant communities and activists within the Catholic Church.

Hanoi officially recognizes nearly a dozen religions in a country of 90 million, but those not sanctioned are banned.

Bielefeldt said religious communities in Vietnam should be able to operate also outside of the officially established channels for religious practice.

Besides, official registration status with the government “is no guarantee that freedom of religion or belief is fully respected,” he said at the end of his visit, aimed at assessing the level of freedom of religion in the mainly Buddhist nation.

“Granting autonomy for religious communities to function independently would be a litmus test for the development of freedom of religion or belief in Vietnam,” he said. “In the current situation, their ability to operate as independent communities is unsafe and restricted.”

“Freedom of religion or belief has the status of universal human rights to be respected prior to, and independent of, any particular acts of administrative approval,” he stressed.

‘Interrupted’

Bielefeldt’s trip to Vietnam was scheduled from July 21 to 31, but said his planned visits to An Giang, Gia Lai and Kon Tum provinces were “unfortunately interrupted” from July 28-30.

He said he had received “credible information” that some people with whom he wanted to meet had “been under heavy surveillance, warned, intimidated, harassed or prevented from traveling by the police.”

“Even those who successfully met with me were not free from a certain degree of police surveillance or questioning.”

Vietnam Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said Bielefeldt's reports of interference were a "misunderstanding," according to Reuters news agency.

"According to resolution number 5/2 of the Human Rights Council, the host country is responsible for security and absolute safety for the Special Rapporteur," Binh was quoted saying at a news conference.

As the Special Rapporteur was flying to Ho Chi Minh City for meetings, government officials placed under virtual house arrest several prominent dissidents, including Nguyen Dan Que, Duong Thi Tan---the ex-wife of imprisoned blogger Nguyen Van Hai, also known as Dieu Cay---blogger Pham Chi Dung, and former political prisoner Pham Ba Hai.

Pham Ba Hai had told RFA that the police read to him an order prohibiting him to leave his house.

Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, said these actions were aimed at preventing them from meeting Bielefeldt.

“Hanoi is exposing in a back-handed way just how bad their record is in violating freedom of religion and belief. This is hardly appropriate behavior by a government that has proclaimed itself as proud to be sitting as a member on the UN Human Rights Committee," he said.

'Repressive policies'

The U.N. envoy however managed to meet with the leader of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), Thich Quang Do at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Ho Chi Minh City where he has been under effective house arrest since 2003, the Paris-based group Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) said in a statement.

UBCV Deputy leader Thich Nhu Dat and Le Cong Cau, head of the UBCVs Buddhist Youth Movement, traveled from Hue, the capital of North Central Coast province of Thua Thien-Hue, to join the meeting.

VCHR President Vo Van Ai deplored the Vietnamese government’s “impediments” to the U.N. envoy’s mission, saying that at least Bielefeldt “was able to witness Vietnam’s repressive religious policies first-hand.”

“In 1998, after the last UN religious rapporteur visited Vietnam, Hanoi said it would never again ‘accept any individuals or organizations coming to investigate religious freedom or human rights,’” Ai said. “This time they allowed the visit, but intimidated religious groups and restricted Mr. Bielefeldt's access.”

In the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Bielefeldt met with various government officials and local authorities involved in freedom of religion issues, and representatives of recognized and unrecognized religious communities, as well as with civil society organizations and the U.N.

The Special Rapporteur will present a report containing his conclusions and recommendations to the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2015.

Rights Group Slams Cambodian Government Over Land Dispute Death

 
A soldier in Cambodia's army shot and killed a teenager this week while attempting to seize farmland for his military superior, rights groups said, warning that shooting deaths over land grabs are creating a climate of fear in the country.

Try Chamroeun, a 19-year-old student, was planting soybeans on Sunday along with fellow villagers on a two-hectare (half-acre) plot in Preah Vihear province, when soldier Poeun Tash demanded that he stop, claiming the land belonged to his military boss, according to London-based environmental advocacy group Global Witness.

When villagers, who had been using the land for the last three years, argued with him, Poeun Tash opened fire on the group, hitting Try Chamroeun in the arm and chest, and killing him.

The young man had been helping his family of migrant farmers with the crop during summer vacation from school.

Chan Saveth, deputy chief of local rights group Adhoc, told RFA’s Khmer Service that shooting deaths related to land disputes had created a climate of fear in Cambodia, which is experiencing a land grabbing crisis, and called on the government to “fully enforce the law.”

“I see that the government has [frequently] failed to protect justice, failed to protect against the threat of armed force being used against the people,” he said.

“In general, it is rare to see those behind the perpetrators brought to justice. The government must have the willingness to fully enforce the law. But most of the time, it is government officials who are behind the land disputes.”

The soldier, Poeun Tash, 30, from Unit 41 in Kulen district, has been detained and charged at a provincial court with murder and possession of a weapon without permission, the Phnom Penh Post reported, but Try Chamroeun’s father Svay Min wants a deeper probe.

Svay Min, who works as a volunteer at the Cambodian Red Cross in Siem Reap province’s Chi Kraeng district, has urged police to take action against “the one who ordered the shooting,” according to the Post.

Global Witness said that a week prior to the incident, soldiers had approached villagers in the area informing them that they could no longer farm there and ordered them to leave because the land “belonged to their superior.”

Other reports said that the value of the farmland had recently increased to around U.S. $3,000 per hectare, drawing wealthy and powerful businessmen to the area to try to remove the villagers with the threat of violence.

Climate of fear

Since 2008, more than 70 percent of the country’s arable land has been leased out to private investors, according to Global Witness.

It said that the rapid sell-off has affected more than half a million Cambodians and seen some 2,000 families affected by often violent land grabs in the first three months of 2014 alone.

“Cambodia is being sold-off to the highest bidder by the country’s political, business and military elite who seemingly have an endless appetite for personal profit,” Global Witness land campaigner Josie Cohen said in a report following the Preah Vihear incident.

“Operating behind a veil of secrecy which enables them to act with total impunity, these corrupt elites are getting rich quick from land deals. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Cambodians are pushed off their land and deeper into poverty,” she said.

“The government urgently needs to stop handing over large swathes of land to private investors and open up the whole system of land concessions so the people of Cambodia can see how their land is being used and for whose benefit.”

Cohen said it was “more vital than ever” for Cambodia’s courts and authorities to defend and protect “those brave enough to speak out” against land grabs.

Government dismissal

Council of Ministers Secretary of State and spokesman Phay Siphan dismissed the report by Global Witness, saying the organization “does not understand Khmer culture” and had incorrectly tied the shooting to Cambodia’s land dispute issue.

“Land disputes are a separate issue. We are studying the land issue as to what causes land disputes. But to assess that the cause of this violence was related to land grabbing is groundless,” he said, adding that it is “unlawful” to use weapons to wound unarmed civilians.

“Global Witness is not [staffed with] Khmer people, so it does not understand Khmer culture and the true story of the Khmer people.

What Global said shows the one angle of this organization—to lower or debase and attack the [government]. Please allow competent authorities to work to find the truth.”

This week’s shooting death marked the latest in a number of killings of Cambodians who have spoken out against the elite grabbing of the country’s land and forests.

Environmental activist Chut Wutty and anti-illegal logging reporter Hang Serei Oudom were both murdered in 2012, while in the same year, 14-year-old girl Heng Chantha was killed in crossfire during a land dispute.

Police tactics draw scrutiny

 

Questions are being raised over police tactics after a 12-hour standoff with a man who took his 6-year-old nephew hostage on Tuesday ended in the tragic killing of the child.Locals yesterday slammed the police’s seeming reluctance to use lethal force on the perpetrator until after the boy had been stabbed, while officials said they had followed protocol and tried to minimise harm to both the boy and his captor.“The authorities have all kinds of guns. Why didn’t they use them?” said Meas Sophea, one of many capital residents who saw the tale reported on TV. “And why did they use them after the boy had already died in their hands?” 

However, military police spokesman Kheng Tito said that the mixed forces responding to the scene in Tbong Khmum province may have been caught off-guard.“Military police are trained to save people in emergencies, such as catastrophes or natural disasters. We have intervention units, especially in cases of terrorism or kidnapping. We have demolition and liberation teams who are trained daily,” he said.Provincial police chief Mao Pov said that throughout the standoff police tried a number of tactics to end the situation without resorting to deadly force.“We have to look at the real situation, whether or not the perpetrator will listen to us. And if he does not, we have to shoot to defend ourselves, and there is no law banning us from shooting him,” he said. 

“It is not that we are not trained. We already tried all kinds of techniques.”Police attempted to incapacitate Him Sokna, 22, using smoke guns and an energy drink laced with sedatives. When the smoke caused Sokna to move away from his nephew, Pha Chharan, police tried to rescue the boy, only to find he was tied to a pillar.Officers then retreated as Sokna, whose family had noticed his mental health deteriorating, advanced brandishing knives. Though Sokna was clearly a risk to the child, himself and the authorities, police refrained from shooting him, because “he is still a human being”, Pov said.After officers retreated, Sokna stabbed the boy. Moments later, he was shot dead in a hail of bullets. Chharan died in his mother’s arms on the way to hospital. 

Chan Soveth, a senior monitor with rights group Adhoc, said that when young children are involved, the police should be prepared to take any action necessary to protect the life of the child.

“In this case, the perpetrator was a madman and they should have taken all necessary measures to save the boy’s life . . . but the case has shown that our officers are careless and irresponsible,” he said.

“It demonstrates that our authorities are short of skills.”Contingents of provincial and military police were dispatched, arriving at the scene in Tbong Khmum province at about 11am. A detachment of police from the Ministry of Interior was also present.John Muller, managing director of local security company Global Security Solutions, said the forces should have been prepared to respond to the situation.“The police and military police are well trained, so whether they had the right people there or not, I don’t know,” he said.Officials yesterday would not confirm which units from the ministry it had deployed and gave no indication that an investigation into police actions would be conducted.

Workers hospitalised after chemical container explodes

 

Three workers at Phong Phu Corporation in District 9 on Monday were treated at Cho Ray Hospital in HCM City for severe chemical burns after an accident at the company's factory.— Photo tienphong

According to the workers, a container in which they were pouring chemicals exploded.

The workers in the factory, which specialises in producing yarns, towels, denim fabric, garments and sewing threads, said the accident had occurred at 1 pm.However, a company representative gave another account, saying that the workers had not followed regulations, and had failed to turn off the device used to stir the chemical liquid into the containers.Thus, the containers had overflowed with the chemical liquid and splashed onto the workers' bodies, said the representative.The official cause is under investigation, according to local news reports.Two of the men had third- and fourth-degree burns and severely damaged eyes. The other man had second-degree burns, doctors at the hospital said.On the same day, the hospital treated two patients for severe burns after a mine exploded while the two men were fishing.

Tran Doan Dao, head of Cho Ray Hospital's Burn and Plastic Surgery Ward, said that his ward treated 1,200 inpatients and 460 outpatients for burns every year.Of these, 70 per cent are injured in the workplace.According to World Health Organisation's figures, an estimated 265,000 deaths worldwide are caused by burns each year. Most of them occur in low- and middle-income countries.

Men are most likely to be burned in the workplace due to fire, scalds, chemicals and electrical burns, while children and women are usually burned in domestic kitchens from receptacles containing hot liquids or flames or from cooking stove explosions, according to WHO figures.

Dao said the rate of disability caused by electrical burns was very high, leading to a loss of working capacity, and in some cases, fatalities.Workers can also suffer from cold-temperature burns that can cause frostbite.Dao's ward last week admitted a 23-year-old patient from Dong Thap Province with frostbite injuries. Some of his toes would have to be amputated this week, Dao said.

Workers in extremely cold temperatures should wear protective clothes, he said.

American man fined for disorderly conduct in Da Nang

A man placed a tire around Gray’s neck in order to stop him. Photo from a clip.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Tran Thanh Hai, deputy police chief of Thanh Khe District, on the afternoon of July 27, Dennis Marshall Gray, 68, caught a taxi from the Hoang Anh Gia Lai building where he resides to the Han Market and paid VND46,000 fare ($2.3). On his return, he continued to call a cab driven by Mr. Nguyen Quy.
When the cab arrived at Hoang Hoa Tham Street - Ly Thai To intersection, approximately 300m from the Hoang Anh Gia Lai building, the fare meter jumped to VND51,000. Accusing the driver of fraud, Gray scolded the driver and then tore his car registration certificate and got out of the car. The driver, named Quy, ran after Gray to ask for the fare and was beaten by the American passenger.
Gray refused to pay the taxi charges, and hit his elbow on the face of a passer-by, Ms. Nguyen Cuu Thuy Trang, 40, a resident of Lien Chieu District, breaking her nose.
Ms. Trang said she was beaten by the American man while waiting for the green light at the Hoang Hoa Tham - Ly Thai To intersection. According to the woman, she saw a taxi driver pulling a foreign man’s shirt asking for his fee and he was beaten by the foreigner. Suddenly, the foreign man stepped onto the road and stood in front of her motorcycle. Trang said she smelled alcohol on the breath of the man.
The driver ran after the foreign man to ask for the money. "The foreign man swung his arm to beat the driver but the taxi driver dodged it, so the foreigner’s punch hit straight at my face," Trang said. Seeing her nose bleeding, the foreign man ignored them and walked away, she said.
Trang was later diagnosed with a broken nose and injured jaw bone.

 

Trang and the film showing her broken nose.

A man was angry with Gray’s behavior so he chased after the American man and used a bicycle tire to put around Gray’s neck to pull him down. The American man fell down and his head hit the car. Many people helped the man to stand up but he pushed them away. Witnesses said his body smelled of alcohol.
The man who used a tire to pull Gray down was identified as Le Van Phuoc, 29, who said that he witnessed the incident from the beginning. Phuoc said he intervened because the foreign man hit a woman and left without saying a word.
A police officer of Thanh Khe District said that the distance from the market to Hoang Anh Gia Lai Building was more than 500m because the driver did not take the usual route. The driver named Quy said Gray could speak Vietnamese and he asked Quy to drive along Le Duan road, not Hung Vuong road, so the distance is longer. Seeing the charge increasing by VND5,000 ($2) compared to previous trips, Gray beat the driver.
"The behavior of Mr. Dennis Marshall Gray and the man who used a tire to pull Gray down are both wrong. We will investigate and punish them, perhaps imposing administrative sanctions," said a Thanh Khe District police officer.
Colonel Ho Thanh Hung, deputy chief police of Thanh Khe district, said the police and the Da Nang Foreign Affairs Department invited Gray to the police station for investigation on the morning of July 31 but he did not come, saying that he had to go to HCM City for business.
According to the Da Nang Foreign Affairs Department, Gray said he worked for a wildlife protection project in Hoi An town. The information is being verified. The department has informed the American Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City about the incident.
According to police, Gray has been residing in the Hoang Anh Gia Lai building for 10 months. His visa will expire on August 5. The police said that Gray’s current and previous neighbors had complained about his behavior after drinking.

At least 24 dead, 271 hurt in Taiwan gas explosions

 

The death toll is rising in Taiwan in a series of explosions triggered by underground gas leaks in the southern city of Kaohsiung, according to state-run news agency CNA.At least 24 people were killed and another 271 injured when the powerful blasts ripped through the city's sewage system early Friday. Firefighters from neighboring cities rushed to Kaohsiung to help battle the flames, CNA reported.Among the dead were four firefighters. Another 22 emergency workers were also injured. A senior fire official said an unknown number of people were missing.

Authorities investigated reports of an apparent gas leak in the hours before a series of explosions rocked the city's Cianjhen district.

Fires blazed through the night, but had mostly been contained by Friday morning.

As daylight broke the extent of the damage became clear, with wrecked cars and motorcycles strewn across the cratered streets.The blasts were powerful. A private car was found on the roof of a three-story building. Two people were blown to the top of a four-story building where emergency workers found them and took them to the hospital.Schools and offices in the Cianjhen district, as well as the neighboring Lingya District, were closed on Friday to facilitate rescue efforts, Mayor Chen Chu told reporters. Several schools and a cultural center are being used as emergency shelters.

Authorities suspect ethylene, propane or butane in the explosions. There are several petrochemical factories in the region.The government called up hundreds of soldiers to assist in search and rescue efforts.