The Boston Globe - 31.07.2019

A4 The Boston Globe WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019

The World

HONG KONG — Hundreds

of protesters surrounded a po-

lice station in Hong Kong on

Tuesday, some scuffling with

officers, after authorities said

they had charged dozens of

people with rioting over clash-

es with the police days earlier.

The rioting charges were a

distinct escalation in the gov-

ernment’s response to protests

that have shaken Hong Kong

for weeks. The rallies began

over a proposal, since shelved,

that would allow extraditions

to mainland China, but have

grown to include grievances

including a lack of direct elec-

tions and the police use of

force with demonstrators.

On Monday, officials in Bei-

jing expressed support for Car-

rie Lam, the Hong Kong lead-

er, and signaled that they ex-

pected her government to

resolve the political crisis.

The government said Tues-

day evening that 44 people ar-

rested Sunday night had been

accused of rioting.

Rioting carries a prison

term of up to 10 years.

As news of the charges

spread, hundreds of people

dressed in black, the color of

the protest movement, gath-

ered around Kwai Chung Po-

lice Station, where the sus-

pects were being held.

NEW YORK TIMES

HongKongchargesdozenswithrioting

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

— A top customs official in

Cambodia said Tuesday that a

local company that illegally

imported almost seven dozen

shipping containers of plastic

waste from the United States

and Canada has been ordered

to pay a fine of nearly

$260,000, and will face crimi-

nal charges if the waste is not

sent back to its countries of or-

igin before Aug. 24.

Kun Nhim, director general

of Cambodia’s General Depart-

ment of Customs and Excise,

said at a news conference that

the waste was imported by

Chungyuen Plastic Manufac-

ture Co. in 27 shipments run-

ning from September 2018 to

this month.

The July 16 discovery of the

waste came a few days after

Prime Minister Hun Sen de-

clared at a Cabinet meeting

that Cambodia is not a dump-

ing ground for any kind of

waste and does not allow the

import of any kind of plastic

waste or other recyclables.

The cross-border disposal

of waste became a major re-

gional issue after China, previ-

ously its main destination,

barred imports of almost all

foreign plastic waste last year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Cambodiafinesplasticwasteimporter

SEOUL — North Korea

fired multiple unidentified

missiles early Wednesday

morning, South Korea’s Joint

Chiefs of Staff said in a state-

ment.

The missile launch was the

second in a week, after Pyong-

yang also fired two short-

range ballistic missiles into

the Sea of Japan last Wednes-

day.

North Korea said last

week’s launch was a direct re-

sponse to planned US-South

Korea joint military exercises

and the South’s deployment of

what it called “ultramodern”

weapons, almost certainly a

reference to its import of US

F-35 fighters.

North Korea has also

threatened to pull out of denu-

clearization talks with the

United States if the military

exercises go ahead, claiming

that they would break a prom-

ise made by Trump to Kim

Jong Un when the two leaders

met at the Korean demilita-

rized zone at the end of June.

WASHINGTONPOST

S.KoreasaysNorthfiredmoremissiles

NEW DELHI — Indian law-

makers on Tuesday approved a

bill to end the Muslim practice

of instant divorce two years af-

ter the Supreme Court ruled

that it violated the constitu-

tional rights of Muslim wom-

en.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar

Prasad said the bill’s approval

by the upper house of Parlia-

ment reflects the empower-

ment of women and India’s

changing profile.

The more powerful lower

house approved the bill last

week. It will become law after

India’s president approves it,

which is a formality.

Most of the 170 million

Muslims in India are Sunnis

governed by the Muslim Per-

sonal Law for family matters.

The law has included allowing

Muslim men to divorce their

wives by saying ‘‘Talaq,’’ the

Arabic word for divorce, three

times — and not necessarily

consecutively, but at any time,

and by any medium, including

telephone, text message, or so-

cial media post.

More than 20 countries, in-

cluding neighboring Pakistan

and Bangladesh, have banned

the practice.

The 99-84 approval on

Tuesday was a victory for

Prime Minister Narendra Mo-

di’s government. The opposi-

tion had blocked the bill for

more than a year, as the ruling

party lacked majority support

in the upper house. A split in

the opposition ranks helped

the government cross the line.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, a Con-

gress party leader, said the op-

position was opposed to a

clause providing a three-year

jail term for a husband who di-

vorced his wife in such a way.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

IndiaendsinstantdivorceforMuslims

LONDON — Putts are join-

ing prayers at Britain’s Roches-

ter Cathedral, where a mini-

golf course has been installed

inside the medieval house of

worship.

The course runs along the

central nave and features nine

holes designed like bridges. It’s

intended to teach young peo-

ple about engineering and also

has spiritual overtones.

The Rev. Rachel Phillips,

the cathedral’s Canon for Mis-

sion and Growth, said it’s

hoped ‘‘visitors will reflect on

the bridges that need to be

built in their own lives and in

our world today.’’

The course is open during

August, though not when ser-

vices are held.

Not everyone is thrilled

with the addition to the cathe-

dral 30 miles southeast of Lon-

don, parts of which are almost

1,000 years old.

In Tuesday’s Daily Tele-

graph, religious commentator

Tim Stanley called the golf

course ‘‘an act of desecration’’

that was ‘‘making Christianity

look ridiculous.’’

Anglican priest Giles Fraser

tweeted that ‘‘what people

want from the church is the

sort of moral and spiritual se-

riousness they can’t get else-

where. Not this.’’

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Britishcathedralinstallsmini-golf

PARIS — The wine wars

rage on.

Last week, French Presi-

dent Emmanuel Macron offi-

cially signed into law a bill that

allows the French government

to levy special taxes on certain

revenues that large American

tech companies such as

Google, Amazon, Facebook,

and Apple earn in France.

That incensed President

Trump.

‘‘They shouldn’t have done

this,’’ Trump said Friday,

speaking to reporters. ‘‘I told

them, I said, ‘Don’t do it be-

cause if you do it, I’m going to

tax your wine.’ ’’

Trump — a self-proclaimed

teetotaler — escalated the situ-

ation even further.

‘‘I’ve always liked American

wines better than French

wines — even though I don’t

drink wine,’’ he said. ‘‘I just

like the way they look, OK?’’

Needless to say, this partic-

ular value judgment did not sit

well in France.

‘‘It’s absurd, in terms of

having a political and econom-

ic debate, to say that ‘if you tax

the GAFAs, I’ll tax wine.’ It’s

completely moronic,’’ French

Agriculture Minister Didier

Guillaume said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON POST

FrancecallsTrumpthreat‘moronic’

Daily Briefing

By Chris Buckley
NEW YORK TIMES
BEIJING — China said Tues-
day that most of the inmates in
its reeducation camps for Mus-
lim minorities — a vast network
of detention centers estimated
to have held as many as 1 mil-
lion people or more — have
been released.
The announcement ap-
peared intended to blunt grow-
ing international condemna-
tion of the camps. But special-
ists and members of targeted
Muslim minority groups who
have fled abroad quickly con-
tested the assertion.
They said that there was no
evidence of mass releases from
the camps across the Xinjiang
region in China’s northwest and
that people who had nominally
been freed often effectively re-
mained in captivity, including
being forced into labor pro-
grams instead.

At a news conference in Bei-
jing, two of Xinjiang’s top lead-
ers indicated that the majority
of inmates had “returned to so-
ciety.” The announcement came
after persistent international
criticism of the camps, which
specialists say have come to
hold 1 million or more Uighurs
and other ethnic minority Mus-
lims since the centers began ex-
pandingrapidlyin 2017.
Western governments have
grown increasingly vocal about
the sweeping detentions in Xin-
jiang, a region in northwestern
China. Members of the Trump
administration have taken up
the issue and threatened to im-
pose sanctions against officials
involved. This month, Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo called
China’s internment of Muslims
“the stain of the century.”
Chinese officials have de-
picted the camps as benign fa-
cilities that offer Chinese-lan-
guage instruction and vocation-
al training. Alken Tuniaz, vice
chairman of the Xinjiang gov-
ernment, told reporters that
“the majority of people who
have undergone education and
training have returned to soci-
ety and returned to their fami-
lies.” He used the government’s
official description of the camps
as “education and training”
centers and of their inmates as
“students.”
“Most have already success-
fully achieved employment,” he
said. “Over 90 percent of the
students have returned to soci-
ety and returned to their fami-
lies and are living happily.”

Both he and Shohrat Zakir,

the government chairman, re-

fused to say how many people

have been held in the camps,

which are often large clusters of

buildings surrounded by fences

and guards.

Growing evidence from gov-

ernment documents shows the

Xinjiang government wants to

shift camp inmates and many

other Uighurs into labor pro-

grams where they will work un-

der the watch of the govern-

ment and compliant factories,

said Adrian Zenz, an indepen-

dent researcher in Germany

who studies the camps.

“They are basically now

transitioning from internment

to societywide control,” he said.

“They have a grand scheme

now for controlling everybody,

not just people in the camps but

also putting those outside the

camps into coercive labor.”

Gathering evidence to test

the official statements of releas-

es from the camps is likely to be

difficult. Foreign journalists are

closely monitored and con-

trolled when they visit Xinji-

ang, and independent investi-

gators and human rights

groups do not have free access.

Uighurs living abroad said

they had not found evidence of

widespread releases.

“Uighurs abroad continue to

be unable to reach their rela-

tives in the region. No phone

calls, no Internet communica-

tions,” said Tahir Imin, a Ui-

ghur activist in Washington.

“If the Chinese government

is honest and confident in what

it’s saying to the media, it

should allow people to commu-

nicate freely and go out of the

country freely and allow inde-

pendent media to visit and in-

vestigate freely,” he said.

Xinjiang is home to more

than 11 million Uighurs, a

largely Muslim minority, and

their treatment has become a

global human rights controver-

sy under President Xi Jinping.

Western governments, United

Nations human rights special-

ists, and advocates of Uighur

self-determination have con-

demned the harsh restrictions

on many Uighurs, especially

the reeducation camps.

Beyond describing them as

vocational training facilities,

Xinjiang officials said the

camps offered classes that have

effectively inoculated Uighurs

against the temptation to em-

brace religious extremism or

terrorism. Until several years

ago, Xinjiang had experienced a

string of deadly attacks by dis-

contented Uighurs.

But former camp detainees

who have left China say they

were subjected to a high-pres-

sure indoctrination program

with the goal of removing devo-

tion to Islam and instilling loy-

alty to China and its ruling

Communist Party.

This month, a group of 22

countries, including Australia,

Britain, Canada, France, and

Germany, issued a statement

urging China to halt the mass

detention of Uighurs and other

Muslims. China struck back

with a letter signed by 37 am-

bassadors from countries in

Asia, Africa, the Middle East,

and Latin America who praised

its human rights record, includ-

ing the “de-radicalization” poli-

cies applied in Xinjiang.

China: Most

Muslims now

out of camps

Activists,critics

seenoevidence

ofmassreleases

GREG BAKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A vocational training center in China’s Xinjiang region,
believed to be a reeducation camp for Muslim minorities.

‘Uighursabroad

continuetobe

unabletoreach

theirrelativesin

theregion.No

phonecalls,no

Internet

communications.’

TAHIR IMIN
Uighur activist based
in Washington, D.C.

SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES

Visitors walked among free-floating ice jammed into the Ilulissat Icefjord during unseasonably warm weather on

Tuesday near Ilulissat, Greenland. The Sahara heat wave that recently sent temperatures to record levels in parts of

Europe is arriving in Greenland, where the retreat of glaciers and the ice cap has accelerated.

WARMING TREND

VINCENT YU/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Hong Kong police surrounded by protesters are asked to

show warrant cards at a subway platform on Tuesday.

RAJANISH KAKADE/AP

An Indian Muslim woman

checked her phone as she

sat with another on the

coast in Mumbai Tuesday.