Monday, July 6, 2020

Literally as well as metaphorically headache-inducing developments in recent days in Hong Kong

Spotted last Wednesday (and probably already removed
by today but recorded for posterity by my camera) 

As Chairman Mao said,  

For those who were wondering: I'm still here; and I'm still planning to generally blog about Hong Kong.  But I literally have been having headaches for the past few days along with a stiff neck and high blood pressure, for which I've been taking medication (and am apt to blame the stress that has come from China's draconian security law for Hong Kong having come into effect).  So I've been sleeping a lot and not going out nor checking the news as much as has become the norm in the past year or so.  And I figured I might as well take a few days off from blogging too (except to commemorate a beloved character's brthday two days ago). 

The $64,000 question though is how much longer I will be able to do this sort of thing.  In just a few days, so much has happened -- and, sadly, not much of it good.  Among the more major developments have been Nathan Law having fled Hong Kong last week even while his erstwhile Demosisto compatriots, Joshua Law and Agnes Chow, elected to remain in the Big Lychee even while surely fully knowing that they were marked for prosecution.  And so it has come to pass, with their having been charged with inciting others to participate in an "unlawful assembly" outside the police headquarters in Wan Chai on June 21st of last year, and also to participating in that "unauthorised assembly".

Lest it not be clear: many Hong Kongers support the man who was Hong Kong's youngest ever legislator's decision to leave Hong Kong.  And, frankly, it's a greater shock to me that Agnes Chow decided to plead guilty today to what she was charged with (even while Joshua Law and another ex-Demosisto member, Ivan Lam, opted against doing so).  Is she doing so to see what kind of punishment the courts are planning to mete out to "big name" activists?  It has been mentioned that, up until now, most existing cases of people guilty of similar "crimes" have resulted in fines rather than prison sentences.  Sadly though, I could see the penalty imposed on her being harsher in nature.

Here's the thing: against the odds, there are a good number of Hong Kongers who still are willing to place faith in the law and justice in Hong Kong.  And even while lots of terrible things have been happening, it still can feel like doing Hong Kongers a disservice to completely write off Hong Kong already; this not least since it can feel like the vast majority of people doing so live outside of it and were inordinately slow to wake up to there being serious political repression and injustice taking place here.   Also, it's true enough that, even as late as this past Saturday, there have been legal rulings that have gone in favor of the opposition: e.g., five pro-democracy figures having obtained a temporary court order to prevent police from accessing their phones.           

At the same time though, this now is a Hong Kong where a man who accidentally rode his motorbike into police while flying a flag on July 1st became the first person charged under the new security law (and was denied bail, to boot, for "endangering national security").  In addition, there are fears that he was abused while in custody, resulting in several broken bones and a need to be hospitalized.  But while it was initially thought that Tong Ying-kit would not be able to appear in court today, he did end up doing so, albeit in a wheelchair.    


If truth be told, these kind of actions were anticipated by many of us to happen after the security legislation was announced over in Beijing.  But what has taken many people's breaths away is how quickly as well as dramatically things have changed since July and the Beijing-imposed legislation came along.  

Just this evening has come news that Carrie Lam has invoked it to give more powers to the police to do such as enter premises without warrants, intercept communications and request ISPs or internet platforms to remove information posted online.  How soon before major internet censorship kicks in and the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp, Google (including its Blogger platform which I'm using) and Twitter -- which, lest we forget, all currently banned in Mainland China -- will also not be allowed to be used in Hong Kong too?  At this rate, way faster than many of us would like and actually expected too. :(    

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