Yangon, Myanmar – Soldiers in refugee camps in Bangladesh have been accused of beating and intimidating Rohingya who refuse to take part in a controversial UN-backed scheme to provide them with new identity cards.

Earlier this month soldiers showed up at shelters in the Hakimpara camp in Cox’s Bazar to pressure people into signing up for the ID cards.

They began shoving people and telling them to assemble at a nearby security post, a witness told Al Jazeera. Many of the Rohingya assumed the soldiers were there to put them on a list to be sent back to Myanmar and ran away.

“The soldiers got angry and started to hit some people who had gathered nearby,” he said, speaking anonymously because he feared retribution. “Then they organised some people and explained the advantages of the smart cards.”

On a separate occasion this month, security forces gathered a group of 18 majhis – refugees who help run the camps – and slapped and hit some of them while telling them to instruct others to accept the scheme.  

“I was hit on the face for not agreeing with the smart cards,” one man told Fortify Rights, an advocacy group working in the camps.

‘Slapped hard’

Another majhi told the organisation he was accused of encouraging other Rohingya to reject the cards. “The army officer threatened me saying he would force me back to Myanmar. They slapped me very hard.”

UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, “should be making strong public calls for the Bangladeshi authorities not to coerce Rohingya refugees into accepting smart cards”, John Quinley, a human rights specialist with Fortify Rights, told Al Jazeera.

The agency has failed to properly communicate with the Rohingya about the scheme, he added.

“That’s why UNHCR and Bangladesh are coming up with issues now and the Rohingya are sceptical of the smart cards – because they weren’t consulted in the first place.”

UNHCR said the cards will ensure the right of the Rohingya to “voluntarily return home” to Myanmar, and improve access to services while they are in Bangladesh.

But many Rohingya reject the cards because they fear the biometric information will be shared with the Myanmar government if they are forcibly repatriated, and they are angry at the UNHCR for failing to consult them about the scheme.

‘False rumours’

The reported beatings happened amid a wave of panic and chaos in the camps as Bangladesh appeared intent on pushing ahead with a plan to return thousands of Rohingya to Myanmar, just over a year after they fled a military campaign of murder, rape and arson that UN investigators say amounts to genocide.

Caroline Gluck, a spokeswoman for UNHCR, said the agency had worked with the Bangladeshi government to hold “numerous community meetings with refugees, including imams, elders, and teachers,” in order to dispel “false rumours that the card is linked to repatriation”.

The agency also circulated a video outlining the card’s benefits, Gluck said.

She added the agency had received reports of a “small number” of cases of violence related to the smart card scheme and reported them to the authorities.

“Any violence and intimidation against refugees is unacceptable,” she said.

The Bangladeshi government has been widely praised for hosting more than 730,000 Rohingya who fled from Myanmar since August last year, but security forces in the camps operate with “total impunity”, said Quinley.

As well as threats and beatings, Fortify Rights documented security forces looting property from Rohingya shopkeepers at the Balukhali camp late last month, he said.

One Rohingya man told Al Jazeera he has witnessed police taking away refugees’ phones in the camps.

Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist, said he received video testimonies from 10 women and girls who were beaten at another camp early last month for refusing smart cards.

“Many refugees have suffered for refusing the smart card,” he said. “Many were beaten.”

He informed Bangladeshi officials and a UNHCR staffer about the allegations when he visited Bangladesh in mid-October, he added.

Abul Kalam, Bangladesh’s refugee, relief and repatriation commissioner, said he was unaware of the allegations. “Actually, I am hearing about these kinds of incidents for the first time. I am not sure if such things actually happened,” he said.

Rohingya identity

Rohingya also object to the cards because they do not state their ethnicity.

Although UNHCR policy is not to include ethnicity on the cards to prevent discrimination, the Rohingya see asserting their identity as key to their survival.

Myanmar officially rejects the term Rohingya.

Gluck said the cards will help Rohingya access services and enable the agency to build a database that will make it easier to provide assistance.

The cards are also “an important milestone in contributing to securing the identity of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh”, she said.

The agency plans to finish the scheme at the end of this year, and so far has registered 27,000 people.

The initiative began in late June shortly after UNHCR and Myanmar struck a deal designed to pave the way for the eventual return of refugees.

The agreement has further undermined the relationship between the UNHCR and the Rohingya, who were not consulted about it and only learned of the details because they were leaked.

The deal offers no guarantee of citizenship or freedom of movement outside Myanmar’s Rakhine state, even though Rohingya say both are vital to ensure their safe return home.

Others remain suspicious of the UNHCR because of the controversial role the agency played in the forcible repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh in the 1990s.

A blast and gunshots were heard early on Friday near the Chinese consulate in Pakistan’s southern coastal city of Karachi, television channels said.

It was not immediately clear how close the gunshots were to the consulate, or if it was the target of an attack.

Geo TV broadcast images of a plume of smoke billowing into the air, apparently from the blast earlier.

Several other media reported gunfire by the consulate.

Image: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

Taipei, Taiwan – China is spreading “fake news” via social media to swing Taiwanese voters away from President Tsai Ing-wen’s party and behind candidates more sympathetic to Beijing ahead of elections, Taiwanese officials said.

Beijing is test-driving its techniques in Taiwan, where it has a big stake in the politics and understands the language and culture, but deployed its cyber-capacities in the United States, Australia and other democracies, the officials said.

“We received propaganda warfare coming from China for years, but this is taking a very different form,” Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, from Tsai’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), told Al Jazeera.

“It’s coming in not from newspapers or their propaganda machine but through our social media, online chat groups, Facebook, the zombie accounts set up, somewhere, by the Chinese government.”

Comments from Wu and other DPP officials are in line with growing global fears that authoritarian China, like Russia, is meddling in foreign elections. Last month, US Vice President Mike Pence said Moscow’s effort “pales in comparison” to interference from Beijing.

Beijing’s mission to the UN did not respond to Al Jazeera’s interview request, but Chinese officials have previously rejected such claims as “confusing right and wrong and creating something out of thin air”.

‘Orchestrate misinformation’

Taiwanese voters go to the polls on Saturday to choose mayors and others in mid-term elections that will reflect the popularity of the anti-Beijing DPP and Tsai, who is expected to seek re-election in 2010.

It will be Taiwan’s largest election ever with about 19 million voters, or 83 percent of the population, casting ballots for more than 11,000 officials. 

False stories can be traced to foreign servers and back to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and it’s so-called “50 Cent Army” of online trolls and commentators, DPP politician Lo Chi-cheng told Al Jazeera.

They typically undermine Tsai, the DPP or Taiwan’s autonomy from the mainland, while stirring up historic grievances by which some voters support the DPP and others back its main rival, the pro-Beijing Kuomintang (KMT).

“The US, Australia, Germany and other countries are also addressing the issue as to how countries like Russia and China use disinformation to influence domestic and electoral politics in democracies like Taiwan,” said Lo.

“It’s a more serious problem because China is so close to Taiwan, language-wise. They don’t have the cultural or language barrier and can easily fabricate news and they know the mentality of Chinese thinking, so it’s easier for them to orchestrate this misinformation.”

One story suggested that Tsai was flanked by armed soldiers when visiting flood victims in Chiayi County in August. Another said some of Taiwan’s last-remaining allied governments were about to abandon Taipei.

Another said China had bussed Taiwanese nationals to safety after typhoon Jebi killed 11 and injured thousands in Japan in September, and that Taipei had let its people down – a story that reportedly led to the suicide of a Taiwanese diplomat in Osaka.

Ahead of voting, police detained several suspects for malicious story-sharing but, for Wu, the focus is on Taiwan’s government to counter fake news with quick, factual corrections. For Lo, plans to tighten media laws are controversial as they could violate free speech rules.

‘Entertainment’ news

Not everyone fears Beijing’s media reach, however. Eric Huang, an independent analyst with links to the KMT, said Taiwan’s voters have high rates of internet penetration and are used to subjective news in mainstream Taiwanese media.

“Taiwanese news agencies are very editorial and opinionated along party lines already, so the people are used to biased news. They just view this information coming from China as entertainment,” Huang told Al Jazeera.

Justin Yu, a technology investor in downtown Taipei, echoed these thoughts, saying younger Taiwanese web-users are well acquainted with the competing narratives from Taipei and Beijing.

“When we were in elementary school, we were told we shouldn’t be so close to the Chinese government. Whenever we see the information, we hesitate and question whether it is real or not. I don’t think there’s a real problem and it doesn’t influence us much,” Yu told Al Jazeera.

Since the 2016 election of Tsai’s pro-independence DPP, Beijing has turned the screws on Taiwan, peeling away a handful of its remaining diplomatic allies, excluding it from global forums, and forcing airlines to classify Taiwan as part of China.

Three former allies – El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Burkina Faso – switched their allegiances to Beijing this year, and the Chinese military has stepped up encirclement drills around Taiwan, which Taipei has denounced as intimidation.

According to DPP officials, Beijing has reached deep into the breakaway island of 23 million people, sowing division and confusion through online disinformation, recruiting business figures, and funnelling cash to pro-Beijing politicians.

De facto independence

The Republic of China – Taiwan’s official name – relocated to the island in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists fled the mainland after being defeated by Mao Zedong’s communists. It is now a democracy with de facto independence from Beijing.

Under its “one China” policy, the Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province that needs to be unified – by military force if necessary. Many analysts say China seeks to achieve the same end by flooding Taiwan with investment and buying off decision makers.

The opposition KMT marks a continuation of Chiang’s legacy. DPP supporters typically highlight atrocities committed during Taiwan’s “white terror” and decades of martial law and call for independence from the mainland.

Last month, thousands of pro-independence demonstrators rallied in Taiwan’s capital to protest against Beijing’s “bullying” and called for a referendum on whether the self-ruled island should formally split from China.

Follow James Reinl on Twitter: @jamesreinl

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