Hong Kong

East Asia

Hong Kong: protester convictions overturned

Seven high-profile democracy activists in Hong Kong had part of their sentences thrown out on appeal. They were convicted two years ago over a mass demonstration on Aug. 18, 2019 that drew an estimated 1.7 million people, in defiance of a ban on street protests. The Court of Appeal’s judgement found that just because they were at the front of the procession didn’t mean they had actually organized it. However, their convictions for taking part in the rally were upheld. Martin Lee, Margaret Ng and Albert Ho were given suspended sentences or credit for time served, and were released. But Jimmy Lai, Leung Kwok-hung, Cyd Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan remained in custody, as they also face charges under the National Security Law. (Photo: Iris Wong/Wikimedia)

East Asia

Hong Kong pro-democracy radio station closed down

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Citizen Radio aired its final broadcast, with the founder citing the “dangerous” political environment. Tsang Kin-shing, a veteran political activist, wrote in the station’s closing Facebook post of mounting difficulties. Under the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese government in 2020, the station’s bank account was “frozen,” and consequently it could only afford rent for the studio through August. “We could do nothing but to stop the broadcasting,” said Tsang. In a press conference at the studio, Tsang also told reporters of the growing obstacles to journalistic work: “If we invite guests, they may not be able to speak freely, because there are so many red lines.” (Image: Citizen Radio)

East Asia

Hong Kong: bid to ban protest anthem backfires

The Hong Kong Department of Justice applied to the Special Administrative Region’s High Court for an injunction to prohibit any performance or online dissemination of the song “Glory to Hong Kong,” anthem of the 2019 protest movement. The government asserts that the song contains secessionist lyrics that breach multiple laws in Hong Kong and China, including the National Security Law. However, thousands of Hong Kong citizens responded to the government’s move by gathering in public to sing the song, in defiance of an ongoing ban on protests. It also shot to the top of the iTunes charts. After days of this, a judge postponed deciding on the petition, finding it potentially overbroad and asking the government to be more specific on the breadth of its request. (Image: Campaign for Hong Kong via Twtter)

East Asia

Macau national security law threatens free speech

Reporters Without Borders denounced Macau’s expansion of its national security law, saying the revision “increases the pressure on journalists and further threatens…residents’ right to information.” The Macau Special Administrative Region’s National Security Law, first passed in 2009, defines seven crimes that can result in a maximum sentence of up to 25 years’ imprisonment. Under the revised rules, these crimes have been expanded far beyond their previous definitions. For example, “subversion” and “secession” now extend to non-violent acts, while “sedition” includes “acts that incite participation in riots.” Additionally, the law now applies to “any individual” who is suspected of undermining China’s national security. This applies regardless of the territory in which the acts occur, and regardless of the individual’s nationality—meaning that Macau law enforcement will have authority to pursue suspected violations extraterritorially. (Photo: kewl.lu via Wikimedia Commons)

East Asia

Hong Kong: prison hunger strike to remember 6-4

Hong Kong police detained at least eight people for allegedly attempting to hold public vigils commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre. Victoria Park, the site of the massive annual commemoration which is now suspended due to the crackdown in the city since 2020, was meanwhile the scene of a fair promoting unity with China. However, prominent activist Chow Hang-tung, who has been imprisoned since her arrest in 2021 for promoting an “unauthorized” commemoration that year, announced a 34-hour hunger strike—one hour for each year since June 4, 1989, known in China as “6-4.” (Image via Twitter)

East Asia

Hong Kong pro-democracy party votes to disband

The chairman of Hong Kong’s Civic Party, Alan Leong, announced that the pro-democracy party is disbanding following a resolution by a majority of members. The Civic Party, one of the few remaining pro-democracy parties in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, was founded in 2006. Since Beijing passed the controversial national security law in 2020, multiple Civic Party members have been charged with “subversion.” Party members were also accused of organizing and participating in an unauthorized primary election in July 2020. (Photo: Stand News via Wikimedia Commons)

East Asia

Censorship regime expands in Hong Kong

Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao ended the decades-long run of popular satirical cartoonist Wong Kei-kwan, known by his pseudonym “Zunzi,” after his work drew fire from government authorities. Since 1983, Zunzi’s work had lampooned city officials over corruption, authoritarianism, rights abuses, and subservience to Beijing. His drawings had recently been publicly criticized by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee and Security Bureau chief Chris Tang. Meanwhile, books about Hong Kong protest movements, the Tiananmen Square massacre and other subjects deemed politically sensitive by Beijing are being removed from the city’s public libraries. A government audit stated that the Cultural Services Department needed to “step up efforts in examining library materials for safeguarding national security.” (Image: Zunzi cartoon depicting a monk, representing the Chinese government, controlling the rebellious Monkey King, representing Hong Kong, by a magic incantation—China’s national anthem. Photo credit: Bill Weinberg/The Village Sun)

East Asia

Hong Kong sees first protests since 2020

The first protest since the introduction of the 2020 National Security Law in Hong Kong was held in Tseung Kwan O, an eastern area of the city. A small number of protestors marched against a land reclamation plan and construction of a waste disposal facility. The marchers complied with restrictions imposed by authorities. The protest was limited to a maximum of 100 participants, whose banners and placards were pre-screened. Protestors were required to wear numbered tags. However, two days later, a smaller but seemingly unauthorized protest was held outside Hong Kong’s Central Government Offices. Some 40 residents from Yau Tong squatter community in Kowloon, which is set to be razed to make way for a public housing project, gathered to voice opposition to their impending eviction. (Photo: HKFP)

East Asia

China: nationwide protests challenge dictatorship

Following weeks of sporadic protests against the recurrent draconian COVID-19 lockdowns in China, spontaneous demonstrations broke out in cities across the country. Street demos were reported from Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangdong, Chengdu and Wuhan as well as Beijing. In addition to slogans against the lockdowns and for freedom of speech and assembly, such verboten chants were heard as “Xi Jinping, step down” and “Communist party, step down.” The spark was an apartment block fire in Urumqi, capital of western Xinjiang region, that killed at least 10 who were under lockdown orders and unable to flee. Hong Kong-based Borderless Movement left-dissident website has issued a list of “Demands from Chinese and Hong Kong Socialists” in response to the outburst, calling for an end to lockdowns and forced testing, provision of multiple vaccines, and the right to citizen and worker self-organization. The statement calls for “marginalized groups in the mainland and abroad, including Hongkongers, Taiwanese, Uyghurs and Tibetans to continue building a long-term strategic program for democratic struggle in China.” (Photo of student protest in Nanjing via Twitter)

East Asia

Hong Kong: first conviction under Anthem Ordinance

A Hong Kong court sentenced citizen journalist Paula Leung to three months in prison—the first conviction under the territory’s National Anthem Ordinance. The law was enacted in Hong Kong on June 12, 2020, pursuant to an act passed by the People’s Republic of China in September 2017, which mandated that the semi-autonomous city bring its legal code into conformity. According to regional news outlets, Leung attended a mall screening of Olympic fencer Edgar Cheung Ka-long receiving his gold medal on July 30, 2021. During the playing of the Chinese national anthem, attendees waved the colonial-era Hong Kong flag. This was found to be in violation of Article 7 of the law, which makes it a criminal offense to “insult the national anthem,” punishable by up to three years imprisonment. (Photo: VOA via Jurist)

East Asia

Demand release of Hong Kong 47

Human Rights Watch published a call for Hong Kong to end its unfair trial practices against 47 lawmakers and activists charged under the National Security Law imposed in 2020. After the media ban on coverage of the cases was lifted, the prosecution named five of them as “major organizers”—Benny Tai, a legal scholar; Au Nok-hin, ex-lawmaker; Chiu Ka-yin and Chung Kam-lun, ex-district council members; and Gordon Ng Ching-hang, an activist. In these cases, the prosecution is calling for harsh sentences including life imprisonment, saying that they sought to “paralyze the operations of the Hong Kong government.” Calling for the dropping of charges against the 47 and for their immediately release, HRW said the crimes established by the law are “overly broad and arbitrarily applied.” (Image: Lam Chun-tung/Initium via HRW)

East Asia

Tiananmen Square: ‘6-4’ and ‘Xi Jinping Thought’

In Episode 126 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg marks the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989—”6-4,” as it is known in China, to keep ahead of online censors. With the massacre commemoration first exiled from Beijing to Hong Kong, it has now been exiled from Hong Kong to New York City as police-state measures are extended from the mainland. But China’s official denialism about the massacre extends even to the US, where both the sectarian left and “paleoconservatives” echo Beijing’s revisionist line. Both regime proponents and detractors share the consensus that the massacre and subsequent wave of repression across China was a “red terror,” carried out as it was by a “Communist Party.” A case can be made, however, that it was actually a “white terror,” enforcing China’s capitalist conversion. The recent crackdown on dissident workers and Marxist student activists in China—complete with extrajudicial “disappearances“—reveals “Xi Jinping Thought” to be (like Putinism and Trumpism) an updated variant of fascism. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: The Village Sun)