A graphic floating around online showing some differences
An emoji organizational chart made by someone who wants
The controversial bill to make it it illegal in Hong Kong to boo and otherwise insult March of the Volunteers will have its second reading in the Legislative Council tomorrow. Ahead of it, and in the wake of tens of thousands of people going out to resume protesting on Sunday, the police have put up barricades around the government complex and turned that section of Admiralty into a veritable Forbidden City.
This is because, to put it mildly, major protests are anticipated to take place again tomorrow; this even though the police have rejected an application by a district councillor for a rally to be held outside of Civic Square tomorrow. For some days now, there have been calls for people to go and besiege the Legislative Council complex -- like for the planned reading last June of the extradition bill. And even though people do worry about their personal safety, in view of what the police did on June 12th, it's looking like many people are preparing to answer those calls.
In addition, late this afternoon came calls by several parties for a general strike to also take place tomorrow. I've also seen calls made for other kinds of disruptive actions to be taken. And, again, even while there is a real fear among some people of arrests or worse (that might keep them from doing anything tomorrow even while wanting the same outcome as active participants), there are others who appear to have lost their fear.
A reminder: Hong Kong's pro-democracy struggle has a lot of support, including from people who may not feel comfortable going out on the streets but still have made their existence known from time to time (including at last November's District Council elections which saw the democratic camp win by a landslide). And I think it's abundantly clear to them, despite the "assurances" being trotted out by the Hong Kong government along with Communist Chinese regime officials, that the freedoms found to be in Hong Kong (but not in Mainland China) are in grave danger of being destroyed (along with people who value it); this even more so after Beijing further expanded the parameters of the proposed national security law for Hong Kong today.
Amidst all this, it may seem like small consolation indeed that the Lands Department has found that a hated senior police officer has indeed unlawfully occupied government land in Sai Kung and has illegal structures on the village house in which he currently resides. And even though the warnings meted out don't seem tough at all, some will see the very finding that illegal acts had been committed as proof that not all sections of the Hong Kong government have been ruined by pro-Beijingers (with the Food and Health Bureau also having been singled out for praise in recent weeks by someone who wants democracy for Hong Kong).
Speaking of government officials doing what's right rather than expected: Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma issued a warning to Hong Kong's judges against expressing "unnecessary" political opinions yesterday. In so doing, he put out an explicit reminder that Hong Kong's judiciary is supposed to be politically impartial and independent (something that Mainland Chinese judges are not).
Still on the legal front: It's also heartening to see Hong Kong's Bar Association contesting Beijing's legal power to enact the national security law and its president, Philip Dykes, publicly questioning why Article 23 was ever written into the Basic Law if national security legislation can be imposed by Beijing under Article 18 instead, as the central and SAR governments claim. The point here being that, even while we know that the Chinese Communist regime is going to ram that law through, we want to show how it is -- and the Hong Kong quislings being trotted out by them are -- lying so much over the course of doing so (and, indeed, for quite some time).
As a political commentator put it: for decades now, the Chinese Communist regime has felt that "the freedom embraced by Hong Kongers represents a fundamental threat to its power". In his recent article for The Age, Ben Bland also noted the following:
The strong sense of separate identity felt by many Hong Kongers directly undermines Xi’s claim to be uniting and rejuvenating all the Chinese people. And the fact that Hong Kong’s success has been predicated on its British-based legal system and its international way of life undercuts Beijing’s efforts to show the world that its style of governance is superior. This is the subversion, separatism and foreign interference that Beijing is trying to outlaw with its national security legislation for Hong Kong...
...[O]ver the past few years, Hong Kongers have shown that Beijing cannot easily win this political struggle despite the profound power asymmetry between the two sides. The fact that Beijing has been driven to unilaterally impose national security legislation is a testament to activists’ successful efforts to stop the Hong Kong government implementing such a law.
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