PHNOM PENH – China is to help Cambodia revamp its judiciary, a system that opposition party supporters say is in thrall to Prime Minister Hun Sen, and that the United States has criticised as “politicised and ineffective”.

The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on Chinese assistance for Cambodia’s courts this week, Ministry of Justice spokesman Chin Malin said on Wednesday, adding that China would provide training, finance and expertise.

“There will be training and exchanges of visits between the two countries’ officials, at a level up to technician and minister,” Chin Malin told Reuters.

China would also provide expertise to improve Cambodia’s commercial courts, he said.

“Assistance for the judiciary is like promoting human rights … Once, there is a good legal system, it promotes respect for human rights.”

China is Cambodia’s closest ally.

Relations between Cambodia and Western powers including the United States and European Union, are frequently strained by various differences including over human rights.

Cambodia has backed China on its territorial claims in the South China Sea to the disappointment of some of Cambodia’s neighbours, who have rival claims with China.

The US State Department said in a 2015 report on rights in Cambodia that a “politicised and ineffective” judiciary was among Cambodia’s most significant human rights problems.

The government didn’t respect judicial independence and the courts “were subject to influence and interference”, it said.

The judiciary has come in for particular criticism recently over cases against opposition leaders that they say are politically motivated by Hun Sen’s government in the run-up to what is expected to be a close general election in 2018.

The government and judiciary reject accusations of bias.

The independent Cambodian Center for Human Rights said that given a lack of judicial independence in China, it was difficult to see how the agreement would address Cambodia’s chronic problems.

“While technical assistance is required … the involvement of China may serve to further entrench the endemic lack of judicial independence in Cambodia’s courts,” said the centre’s director, Sopheap Chak.

“Without a true separation of powers, any reform of Cambodia’s courts will be meaningless,” she said.

JAKARTA – Thousands of Indonesian union workers marched to the heart of Jakarta on Thursday to protest against a government tax amnesty scheme, which is meant to plug a large budget deficit but which they say unfairly pardons wealthy tax dodgers.

The amnesty programme, under which Indonesians are encouraged to repatriate previously undeclared overseas assets to avoid increasing penalties, was launched in July and is a top priority for President Joko Widodo.

Almost $200 billion of assets have been declared so far under the programme, which is also meant to broaden Indonesia’s tax base, according to finance ministry data.

However, a rising number of blue-collar workers, who make up the bulk of Indonesia’s workforce, consider it unconstitutional because they say it forgives the past crimes of rich taxpayers.

Some of Indonesia’s wealthiest individuals, including tycoon-politician Aburizal Bakrie, Lippo Group chief executive James Riady, and Hutomo Mandala Putra – a son of the late authoritarian president Suharto – are among more than 100,000 who have signed up.

“We workers have diligently paid our taxes but these rich people and big corporations are being pardoned after not paying their taxes,” Said Iqbal, president of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers Union, told reporters before a peaceful march to the presidential palace.

“These funds coming in could be from trafficking, drugs or corruption, and will all become legalised when declared through the tax amnesty,” he added.

Iqbal said there could be further protests, including work stoppages, if the government continued with the amnesty.

His union, along with three other groups, have filed legal action against the amnesty law in Indonesia’s Constitutional Court. That has created some uncertainty over its future, with a court ruling not expected for weeks.

Government officials have vigorously defended the programme.

“We want people to understand that the tax amnesty is for Indonesia, to build Indonesia,” Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told reporters on Thursday.

“We will make efforts to ensure people that putting their money in Indonesia is a good and rational option.”

The government is banking on the amnesty to bring in 165 trillion rupiah ($12.6 billion) in 2016 to help keep the budget deficit from breaching a legal limit of 3 per cent of gross domestic product.

Friday marks the end of the amnesty’s first phase, during which the lowest penalties for registering previously unreported assets applied. The penalty rates will rise after September under the programme, which lasts until March 2017.

KIKI SIREGAR BENGKALA, Indonesia – Balinese women dressed in gold bodices dance to rhythmic drumming while waving fans as men in purple outfits sit cross legged around them, jiggling their arms and chanting.

It appears to be just another show on the Indonesian resort island, known for its ancient culture and rituals, but there is a key difference – the dancers are all deaf and cannot hear the beat.

They perform the moves, learnt over months of hard training, from memory.

The village of Bengkala has been home to an unusually large number of deaf people for generations, and nowadays about 40 out of its approximately 3000 residents have severe hearing loss.

But unlike in other parts of Indonesia where they could face mistreatment, local people have taken the deaf residents to their hearts. In many ways, life in the small hamlet has come to revolve around them.

As well as the dance project, a unique sign language called Kata Kolok has been developed in the isolated village which has been mastered by those with hearing impairment, as well as many of those who can hear, prompting interest from scientists around the world.

In addition, deaf villagers are trained in skills such as making handicrafts that can be sold in the heaving tourist resorts of the island, and they work side by side with other villagers in the rice fields.

“Human rights are the same everywhere. So I thought, why should the deaf be ostracised?” said Ketut Kanta, who heads a community group for the village’s deaf residents.

The approach is relatively unique in Indonesia, where the disabled often suffer harsh discrimination.

Bengkala, in northern Bali, has existed for about eight centuries.

Residents often scrape a living tending to the surrounding rice fields and education levels are generally low.

In the past villagers thought the high incidence of deafness was due to a curse but those superstitions – and the prejudices they created – have largely been abandoned after experts concluded it was due to a recessive gene common among the local population.

It was not until the 1960s that the village began to make efforts to better integrate its deaf residents and nowadays everyone is treated equally, according to village head I Made Arpana.

“We don’t differentiate between deaf villagers and non-deaf villagers,” he said, adding that the community did not want the hard of hearing residents to feel “inferior”.

A key factor in creating this peaceful co-existence has been Kata Kolok, which literally translates as “talk of the deaf”, and is used to varying degrees by around 80 per cent of the villagers.

It is different to international and Indonesian sign language. It has grown organically over the decades and has its own unique signs created by villagers to reflect how they see the world.

Attempts to ensure harmony in the village start at a young age, with a Bengkala elementary school teaching all children side by side.

The 77 students are all given lessons in the local sign language, and are introduced to elements of Indonesian and international signing.

Made Budiasih, whose seven-year-old son goes to the school, said she was worried for his future when they discovered he was deaf at birth, but said the inclusive educational centre had made all the difference.

“I was despairing, but then I found out about this school,” she said.

Still, it is not always easy teaching deaf students as they often become frustrated and act out, according to teacher I Made Wisnu, who has been working at the school for a decade.

There are no junior high schools equipped to teach deaf students, so most have to drop out of the system once they’ve graduated from elementary classes.

Despite the challenges, village chief Arpana is determined to safeguard the unique culture of the hamlet’s deaf community, saying he would be a “sinner” if he did not.

The clearest expression of the village’s warm embrace of its hard of hearing population is the unique project “dance of the deaf”, which has started to draw a trickle of foreign visitors to the out-of-the-way village, giving residents hope for a brighter future.

Tambourine player I Wayan Getar, speaking in sign language through an interpreter, told AFP: “Tourists from China and Europe are coming to watch us, and they really enjoy it.”