Manila calls on Myanmar junta to release Aussie Sean Turnell

AMANDA HODGE - MARCH 5, 2021

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The Philippines Foreign Minister has called on the Myanmar junta to release Australian economics professor Sean Turnell, as Indonesia urged its citizens to leave the strife-torn country and the US unveiled new measures aimed at blocking trade by the military and its conglomerates.

Foreign Minister Teddy Locsin made the plea in a tweet on Friday, in which he also urged the junta to release all foreign journalists ­detained since the February 1 coup that overturned the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

“I made the declaration against the detention of foreign nationals in state to state relations to gain moral authority to plead for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi’s Australian economic adviser,” Mr Locsin wrote, referring to the non-binding declaration signed last month by 56 countries, including Australia, aimed at protecting citizens abroad.

Professor Turnell, a long-time senior economics adviser to Ms Suu Kyi, has been detained since January 6 in Yangon and only this week was able to talk to his Sydney-based wife Ha Vu.

Family friend Tim Harcourt told The Weekend Australian that Professor Turnell had “made good friends with his captors” and had been reading, writing and meditating while in detention.

“He has of course been writing and reviewing economic articles from wherever he is. He has also been writing poetry to Ha and he has been meditating,” Mr Harcourt said. “He has been telling Ha; ‘I’m just reading what I can. If someone wants to send me books that would be great’.”

At least 54 civilians have been killed in an escalating crackdown on protests by Myanmar security forces. More than 1700 people — including 29 journalists — have also been detained as the junta tries to end the mass civil disobedience movement that has ground the administration to a halt. Still, thousands of civilians have continued to protest daily despite the violence, and the hundreds of online death threats posted by soldiers and police on the video sharing service TikTok, some of which have since been removed by the app’s administrator.

One video, cited by Reuters, shows a man in army fatigues aiming a gun at the camera and telling protesters, “I will shoot in your f..king faces … and I’m using real bullets”.

“I am going to patrol the whole city tonight and I will shoot whoever I see … If you want to become a martyr, I will fulfil your wish.”

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The rising death toll prompted Indonesia to issue a rare warning to its citizens in Myanmar on Friday to stay home and avoid travel, and to “consider returning to ­Indonesia” on an available commercial flight. Indonesia has been ASEAN’s most strident critic of the coup and has pushed for the regional bloc to help resolve the crisis that has already prompted the US, Britain, EU, Canada and New Zealand to impose targeted sanctions on the Myanmar military.

Ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Friday, in which the US is expected to push for tougher measures against the junta, the US Commerce Department added Myanmar’s ministries of defence and home affairs, and two military conglomerates — Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings — to its trade blacklist.

The EU suspended support for development projects to avoid providing financial assistance to the military, worth up to $360m.

Myanmar’s generals have so far shrugged off the fresh sanctions, with the army’s vice-chief, Soe Win, telling a UN official this week that they had faced them ­before and survived.

But the junta lost a symbolic battle for legitimacy on Friday when its newly appointed UN envoy resigned in a statement that acknowledged the rightful role of his predecessor Kyaw Moe Tun, who was sacked last weekend for urging the general assembly to “use any means necessary” to ­reverse the coup.

The Security Council is under pressure to impose an arms embargo on the Myanmar junta.

A new Security Advisory Council on Myanmar — set up by two former UN investigators and a former UN special rapporteur on Myanmar — has also urged it to send a high-level delegation to the Southeast Asian country.

“There is an urgent need to get a very senior UN official on the ground in Myanmar,” Chris Sidoti, a council member and co-author of a UN report recommending senior Myanmar generals face genocide charges over the ­Rohingya crackdown, told The Weekend Australian.

“If that request comes from the UN Security Council itself, which decides to send its own delegation to Myanmar, it would be very difficult for the junta to say no to them.”

Mr Sidoti said the coup had ­exposed the Myanmar military for what it really was: “Not a national army committed to the protection of the people of Myanmar but a dictatorial force committed to exploitation and repression,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/manila-calls-on-myanmar-junta-to-release-aussie-sean-turnell/news-story/33b6872d92517b13156fc33b0336457f

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Philippines Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teddy Locsin Jr. Tweet

I signed the declaration against the detention of foreign nationals in state to state relations to gain moral authority to plead for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s Australian economic adviser. I make that plea also for all detained foreign journalists in all humbleness.

https://twitter.com/teddyboylocsin/status/1367694410520031234

YouTube: Donald Trump can return when risk of violence abates

AFP - MARCH 5, 2021

Former US president Donald Trump will be allowed back on YouTube but only when the threat of his inciting violence abates, the head of the popular online video sharing platform said on Friday.

YouTube suspended Mr Trump’s channel in late January, joining other social media platforms in banning his accounts following the deadly January 6 Capitol riot.

“We will lift the suspension of the Donald Trump channel when we determine that the risk of violence has decreased,” YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki said during a streamed Atlantic Council think tank interview.

“Given just the warnings by the Capitol Police yesterday about a potential attack today, I think it is pretty clear that that ­elevated violence risk still remains.”

Ms Wojcicki said that when the Trump channel is reinstated, it will remain subject to the same “three strike” system as everyone else at YouTube.

Uploading videos that break YouTube rules such as those against inciting violence or falsely attacking election integrity would earn the channel more strikes and suspensions. Channels that get three strikes within 90-days are removed from YouTube. “This was the first strike,” Ms Wojcicki said of the Trump channel.

The Google-owned firm has faced criticism over its slow ­response following the violence in Washington, as well as the proliferation of conspiracy theories on the platform.

Mr Trump has been banned from other online platforms including Twitter and Facebook.

An independent board created by Facebook is reviewing the decision by the leading social network.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/youtube-trump-can-return-when-risk-of-violence-abates/news-story/8dd56c5c6857814086fd3fd4d36cb63b