Latest news with #dissident
News.com.au
01-08-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Pro-democracy politician who lit candles for Tiananmen Square victims arrested under China's ‘chilling' new law
Macau's best-known democracy advocate has become the first person detained under China's newly expanded national security laws. 68-year-old Au Kam San, who has spent the past two decades as a lone dissenting voice in Macau's tightly managed legislature, now finds himself behind bars for allegedly 'colluding with foreign forces'. According to a statement from Macau's Public Prosecutions Office, 'compulsory detention' was imposed on Au following a 'preliminary investigation' after police arrested him at his home on Wednesday. Authorities claim Au maintained contact with an unnamed 'anti-China organisation' abroad since 2022, and accuse him of spreading 'false and seditious information' to incite hatred against the Chinese government. The charges also allege Au attempted to disrupt Macau's 2024 leadership election and provoke 'hostile actions by foreign countries against Macau.' 'The Public Prosecutions Office will fully hold accountable those who attempt to disrupt national security,' the statement reads, promising to 'confront hostile forces to the end.' Au Kam San, a former school teacher and founding member of several moderate pro-democracy groups, became a quiet but consistent critic of the opaque governance and social inequality in the ritzy gambling enclave. On the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown in June 2025, Au said he lit candles in remembrance and posted on Facebook it was 'the best way I can honour the memory of the event'. 'My stance is very clear, and I am not someone who changes easily. I won't alter my approach simply because someone shows a bit more 'concern',' he wrote. In mainland China, it is effectively illegal to speak about the Tiananmen Square massacre in any public or commemorative context. Since the 1990s, authorities have banned all public mourning, detained individuals who attempted memorials, and suppressed the memory of the event through pervasive censorship. Even the words 'June 4' and 'Tank Man' are barred on Chinese social media. Unlike the more combative pro-democracy figures in neighbouring Hong Kong — where mass protests in 2014 and 2019 brought international attention and brutal crackdowns — Macau's opposition has long existed on the margins. Through the 2000s and 2010s, Au stood largely alone in Macau's Legislative Assembly, pushing back against authoritarian drift and warning of rising inequality in a city flush with casino money. He openly criticised the handling of corruption cases involving senior officials like Ao Man Long and Ho Chio Meng, who were both jailed in high-profile graft trials. 'Chilling effect on Macau' Jason Chao, a Macau-born activist now based in the UK, said the arrest was disproportionate. 'Au had occasionally made mildly critical online posts against the Chinese and Macau governments but nothing to warrant his arrest,' Chao said via Reuters. 'There will be a profound chilling effect on the people of Macau.' Au's detention marks the latest episode in Beijing's relentless campaign to crush dissent under the banner of national security. In Hong Kong, sweeping national security laws imposed in 2020 have led to the closure of newspapers like Apple Daily, the arrest of virtually all opposition lawmakers, and the effective end of its once-thriving civil society. When local authorities still found pockets of resistance, a second, even tougher, security law was rammed through in 2024. In 2023, Macau's security laws were expanded again to include vaguely defined threats like 'external interference' and 'provoking hatred against the government.' Civil rights groups warned at the time that it would become a tool to stifle legitimate political expression. Au is one of many prominent dissidents to be detained in China in recent years. Among the most high-profile cases is that of Ilham Tohti, a respected Uyghur economist who was sentenced to life in prison for 'separatism' after promoting peaceful dialogue between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. His jailing sent a warning that even moderate calls for understanding would be treated as existential threats. A similar message was delivered in 2023 with the 14-year sentence handed to Xu Zhiyong, a former legal scholar who led the New Citizens' Movement, a grassroots push for transparency and rule of law. In the same year, media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily, was put on trial under the national security law, accused of collusion with foreign forces in a case widely condemned by press freedom advocates. Joshua Wong, the student activist who became the face of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella Movement, has also faced repeated arrests under similar charges.
CNN
28-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
‘They didn't break me': Belarusian opposition figure speaks out after time in prison
Sergey Tikhanovsky, a Belarusian dissident who was freed after five years in detention and the husband of exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, joins CNN's Jim Sciutto to discuss and share details about his time in prison.
CNN
28-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
‘They didn't break me': Belarusian opposition figure speaks out after time in prison
Sergey Tikhanovsky, a Belarusian dissident who was freed after five years in detention and the husband of exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, joins CNN's Jim Sciutto to discuss and share details about his time in prison.
Times
03-06-2025
- Business
- Times
Spy suspect ‘did not want to leave fortune cookie as calling card'
A British businessman accused of spying for China told an FBI informant not to leave a fortune cookie as a calling card at the scene of a planned assault on a Chinese-American dissident, according to court documents. John Miller, 63, was arrested in April while on a business trip in Belgrade, Serbia, on the orders of the FBI after a sting operation in which he was allegedly caught spying for China and trying to buy military hardware in the US for the People's Liberation Army. Court documents allege that Miller was caught referring to President Xi as 'the boss' in intercepted phone calls, showing he was acting under the 'direction' of Beijing. Miller, who is from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, as well as being a permanent resident of the US, is also alleged to have organised the surveillance and harassment of a Chinese-American artist who was critical of the Chinese regime, telling a henchman to make him an 'offer he can't refuse … like the Godfather'. In one phone call with an FBI informant in October 2023, Miller allegedly suggested attacking the artist and leaving him unable to walk. The artist had created an 'embarrassing' sculpture showing Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, kneeling on sand, naked from the waist up. 'It's the message they give. You know? We're gonna make sure you're not f***ing walking. We're gonna put you in a wheelchair for three f***ing months or something. That's what I'll say. That's it. It's their signature,' he said, according to court documents. Later in the call, he is said to have told the informant: 'The message has to be you ain't walking for a little while motherf***er. Not giving him brain damage. Just lower body damage.' In response, the informant allegedly suggested they 'leave a fortune cookie so they know it was a China man', to which Miller said: 'Oh no they don't want any connection to a China man.' According to the court documents, the informant responded: 'Oh. Leave leave a pork rind.' Miller allegedly replied: 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, make it look like a mugging … And there'd be another message coming.' When asked what the other message was Miller allegedly said that the artist's family could be targeted next. He is claimed to have agreed with the informant that the planned assault was 'absolutely f***ing overkiller' but that it was all about 'what the big fella wants'. Miller was arrested on April 24 in Serbia, where he is being held after being accused of conspiring with a US-based Chinese citizen called Cui Guanghai, 43. The businessman has been charged in the US with interstate stalking, conspiracy to commit interstate stalking, smuggling and violations of the Arms Export Control Act. Miller is accused of conspiring with Cui Guanghai. Both could face up to 40 years in prison if they are convicted If convicted, both Miller and Guanghai, who held a position in the Chinese government, according to documents filed at the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin, face up to 40 years in prison. A 14-page Wisconsin indictment alleges that Miller, a recruitment specialist, was caught in a sting after arms dealers he was negotiating with turned out to be undercover FBI agents. He is accused of attempting to procure equipment including surface-to-air missiles, predator drones and a handheld device for the secure communication of 'classified and sensitive national security information'. A second 67-page indictment, filed in California, accuses Miller and Guanghai, known as 'Jack', of mounting the operation against the artist. Transcripts between Miller and an associate allege they discussed assaulting the artist, either by shooting him or hitting him with a baseball bat. Miller is also alleged to have orchestrated a scheme in which the FBI informant hired actors to stage a pro-China protest against a visit by the president of Taiwan to the US. On Sunday neighbours of Miller's £1.5 million, five-bedroom home described him as a respectable family man who often went to the Far East for business. According to Companies House records, Miller has been a director or a majority shareholder of at least nine firms, including the now-dissolved TEFL Jobs China Ltd. The Foreign Office said: 'We are providing consular assistance to a British national following his arrest in Serbia in April and are in touch with the local authorities and his family.'
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Legendary dissident Ayşe Seitmuratova dies in Crimea
Ayşe Seitmuratova, a veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement, has died in occupied Crimea at the age of 88. Source: Head of Crimean Tatar Mejlis Refat Chubarov on Facebook Quote: "Again, sad news has come in from Russian-occupied Crimea which I do not want to believe – the legendary dissident, political prisoner during the Soviet era, journalist, historian and veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement Ayşe Seitmuratova has died at the age of 88." For reference: Ayşe Seitmuratova was a Crimean Tatar public figure, human rights activist, member of the national movement of Crimean Tatars, political prisoner of the Soviet regime, journalist and publicist in exile. In 1964 she joined the Crimean Tatar national movement in Samarkand Oblast in modern Uzbekistan. She participated in meetings with representatives of the Soviet government, in particular in the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1966, she was arrested on charges of "inciting national hatred" and put on probation for three years. In 1971, she was again arrested and sentenced to three years in prison for "spreading deliberately false ideas that defame the Soviet state and public order." She served her sentence in Mordovian camps. After her release in 1974, she continued her human rights activism. In 1978, she emigrated to the United States, fearing forced psychiatric treatment. There she worked as a journalist for the Voice of America, Freedom, BBC and Deutsche Welle radio stations, covering the problems of the Crimean Tatar people, the history of their repression, Russification and assimilation. Ayşe Seitmuratova became a symbol of the struggle of the Crimean Tatar people for their rights, dignity and return to their homeland. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
