Shibani Mahtani

New year but no end to mourning as South Korea crash victims are identified Relatives of victims have set up memorials at the airport where the Jeju Air plane went down in the world’s deadliest aviation crash in six years.

It was, with little doubt, their worst New Year’s Day ever.

Heartbreaking new year's dispatch from our Seoul team from Muan Airport in South Korea, where victims' families are mourning their loved ones as investigators focus on the cause of the deadly crash: www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

China cultivated high-rolling crime families before turning on them A Post investigation found that criminal networks in Myanmar enjoyed the protection of Chinese officials as well as the military government in Myanmar.

Myanmar's Ming family and others related to the Kokang Border Guard Force -- which ran one of the most notorious cyberscam compounds in the region -- were officially prosecuted in China today. Re-upping our June investigation here:

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/0...

China Customs seizes Hong Kong geography textbook said to wrongly depict Chinese borders A thousand copies of a geography textbook which was said to have incorrectly depicted China’s borders have been seized by China Customs before they were exported to Hong Kong. The Chinese aut…

Textbooks going to Hong Kong seized -- for not marking disputed territory as solely within China's borders.

hongkongfp.com/2024/12/16/c...

THREAD: How China is influencing local elections in New York City, mobilizing organizations via a local power broker known as "The King of Brooklyn" (布鲁克林之王）to ensure that candidates who voice sympathy for Taiwan, or for Hong Kong democracy, are either defeated or never get elected. (1/x)

We are sharing his story with snippets of his own voice and with parts of it in Uyghur.

“We want to tell the Chinese government: We know who Abdureqip is, and whatever you do to him, we are watching"

Please read (and subscribe!)

His fate says as much about Beijing's power to compel states to act in its interest, furthering transnational repression, as it does about U.N. agencies, which are failing their mandate to protect the most vulnerable. Rahman is far from the exception. Other Uyghurs escaped in similar ways.

We retraced his steps across Cambodia and found that he was handed over to the Cambodian police, who then worked with Chinese authorities to repatriate him. Rahman faces almost certain deportation, torture or worse back in Xinjiang.

We tell the story of Abdureqip Rahman, a Uyghur man who trafficked himself out of Xinjiang and into Cambodia, ending up in a cyber scam compound close to the Thai border. The IOM intervened to rescue him, promising him international protection. But then he disappeared.

He thought he had escaped Beijing’s clutches only to vanish back into China The secret repatriation of a Uyghur man shows China’s long reach, especially against Uyghur Muslims, whom the U.S. says there is an ongoing genocide against.

Sharing my latest investigation here: a tragic look at what happens when China's repressive policies against Uyghur Muslims collides with billion-dollar cyberscam operations and the human trafficking networks that sustain it.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/intera...

Starter pack for our excellent journalists on the @washingtonpost.com international team, courtesy of @matthewhaybrown.bsky.social. Follow along for stories and skeets from our team around the world:
bsky.app/starter-pack...

Chinese journalist and former Harvard fellow sentenced to 7 years Dong Yuyu’s conviction on espionage charges shows how the space for independent thought and open discussion in China has narrowed since Xi Jinping took power in 2012.

Dong was “persecuted for the independence he has demonstrated during a lifetime spent as a journalist,” his family said:

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/1...

New to the party here so a quick intro - I'm a Singapore-based investigative correspondent for the Washington Post looking at accountability-driven stories across the Asia-Pacific region. 🕵️‍♀️ Previous lives saw me in Hong Kong, Myanmar and Chicago. Hoping for fewer bots on here 🙏