View from a plane on one of the
Hong Kong International Airport runway
In recent weeks/months, my Twitter Timeline has had a far larger percentage of Tweets about Israel and Palestine than I ever could have imagined would be the case before October 7th; this not least since most of the people I know do not live in either of those territories -- and, if truth be told, not that many of them are Jews or Muslim either.
Over the past 48 hours or so, however, the attention of many of those I Follow on that social media platform has turned back to Hong Kong; thanks in no small part to activist Agnes Chow breaking the news (on Sunday, her 27th birthday) that she is no longer in Hong Kong (English translation of her Chinese language post on Instagram here) and is unlikely to return to her home city, and the Hong Kong government Streisand effecting the hell out of her decision by issuing angry and frankly quite bizarre statements about her.
It's weird enough that the first of them (see here) looked to have deliberately left out her name, preferring to refer to her as "the woman" -- as though they had been scorned by her. But the second of them (see here) is so apoplectic in tone that the BBC's China Correspondent was prompted to Tweet the following about it: "Have a look at the adjectives and adverbs in this statement from the Hong Kong government. If the intended effect was to persuade readers that a dissident should return to the city the actual result makes it sound like a place from where sane people should flee"!
In addition, there are other things going on in this part of the world that spark dismay and comment from people who care for Hong Kong. For example, Sunday also saw some members of the League of Social Democrats, one of Hong Kong's few remaining pro-democracy political parties, and their friends getting stopped and searched by the police while out hiking! As per a Hong Kong Free Press report: "According to the group, around 20 uniform and plainclothes police
officers stopped the individuals at around 2.30 pm and accused them of
breaching the Beijing-imposed security law. They were searched and their
belongings were inspected, with the entire process lasting around two
hours".
Even more concerning and horrifying was the news today that "a Hong Kong protester shot by police in 2019 has been featured in a
police-promoted television special showing remorse over his frontline
participation in the unrest that year". As the Washington Post's Shibani Mahtani was prompted to Tweet: "Tsang Chi-kin was shot, tried to seek asylum and protection from the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong, spent two years hiding in safe houses and transported from place to place in boxes, was sentenced to nearly four years -- as if that wasn't enough, now he's "confessing" on TV" -- and make no mistake, it's easy to see that this was a forced confession; something that says much worse about the regime directing the "confessions" than the person forced into doing the "confessing".
Some additional context provided by Mahtani: "Tsang was only 18 in 2019, one of the hundreds of thousands of anonymous masked protesters until he was shot. Hard to comprehend how the trajectory of so many lives where changed in that year; the line between victim and perpetrator so intentionally blurred by authorities now."
And then we had a report of the closing arguments made for the marathon trial of the Hong Kong 47 (the 47 people charged with breaking the national security law China imposed on Hong Kong on June 30th, 2020, by organising and/or taking part in electoral primaries for the democratic camp in July of that year, ahead of the Legislative Council election then scheduled to also take place in 2020 but which were subsequently postponed to December 2021).
Arrested on February 28th, 2021, and the majority of the 47 denied bail and held behind bars since then, their trial only finally began some two years later in February 2023. And it was only yesterday, December 4th, 2023, that closing submissions were made. How slowly the wheels of justice can seem to move these days in Hong Kong!
Among the more interesting statements made by lawyers for the defence yesterday are the following: "Prosecutors must have proven that Hong Kong pro-democracy figures at the centre of a landmark national security trial had used violence and intended to subvert state power if they are to be found guilty".
There's also this from Trevor Beel, the counsel for journalist turned political activist turned political prisoner Gwyneth Ho: “This charge of conspiracy is like no other charge that has come before the courts... Everything was conducted openly for the simple reason that nobody knew what they were doing was illegal.”
All of which makes the proceedings of this trial all the more farcical. Except it's no joke when I tell you that this trial is jury-less and, instead, the innocence or guilt of the "Hong Kong 47", as they have become known, will be decided by three judges from the pool of those eligible to preside over national security trials and handpicked by the government. :(
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