Thoughts turned to the 12 Hong Kongers behind bars in Shenzhen
while on a boat in Hong Kong this past weekend...
MTR stations while passing by one last week
One hundred days ago today, 12 Hong Kongers sought to journey by boat to seek asylum in Taiwan. Eleven of them had been facing
prosecution in connection with anti-government protests, while one (activist Andy Li) had
been arrested, but not charged, under the national security law. Upon being notified by the Hong Kong police, the Mainland Chinese coastguard swooped in to arrest them. They have been in custody in Shenzhen ever since. And considering what we know has happened behind bars in Mainland China, there understandably are fears that they are being ill-treated, even tortured, while awaiting trial; with the letters that the prisoners have sent to their relatives hardly putting people at ease.
On Friday, the police in the Yantian district of Shenzhen said they had completed investigations into the case of the 12 Hong Kongers. While 10 members of the group are now accused of entering Mainland Chinese waters illegally, two face a more serious charge of organising the illegal crossing. It remains unclear what the maximum punishment for these charges are. And it does not help that the lawyers their families who have appointed to defend them have been unable to meet with their clients.
As Causeway Bay Books' Lam Wing-kee -- now in exile in Taiwan -- noted in a recent interview, "You can’t compare custody in Hong Kong to custody in [Mainland] China." Hence the likes of Joshua Wong (still) seeking to keep attention on the plight of the 12 Hong Kongers behind bars in Shenzhen even when he himself is behind bars, albeit in Hong Kong. (And while we're at it: spare a thought -- and if you're religiously inclined, prayers -- too for Gui Minhai, the Hong Kong bookseller sentenced to 10 years jail in Mainland China after being abducted in Thailand and despite his being a Swedish citizen.)
Also on the mind of many Hong Kongers today is what happened at Prince Edward MTR station on August 31st, 2019. Ahead of this evening, the Hong Kong police reportedly issued a warning that anyone who places flowers at the Prince Edward MTR station would be arrested. One year and two months on, the local constabulary appear incredibly sensitive about what people think transpired inside that MTR station located so very close to Mongkok Police Station that night -- and you really have to wonder if they'd be so upset about people's acts of mourning if no one died at their hands in Prince Edward MTR station that fateful night.
At the same time, 伯昏無人's Tweet on the matter sums up how a good number of people feel: "By now the importance of 8/31 doesn't depend on whether anyone actually died that night. We commemorate it as a deplorable milestone in the collapse of HK civil society and the descent of these disgraceful uniformed thugs into a band of parasitical gangsters."
And if I may add to it: we also mourn what we've lost in Hong Kong in the past year and a half or so: what remained of our respect for the police force once known as Asia's finest; the love we used to have for the MTR; and a time before Hong Kong bore comparisons to a police state, with "martial law and military-style rule", and talk and declarations coming seemingly daily about its (impending) demise.
Oh, and there's the Wuhan coronavirus to worry about and impact our lives too! With Hong Kong reporting 115 new cases yesterday (the first three figure daily increase in infections since August), it seemed inevitable that more restrictive social distancing measures would be ordered to be put into place. And despite today's drop in numbers back to double digits (specifically 76 new cases), Carrie Lam held another press conference today to announce such as restaurants being required to to close at 10pm (from the present 12 midnight) and the number of diners allowed per table being lowered to two (from the current four) beginning this Wednesday.
Carrie Lam being Carrie Lam, she also took the opportunity to dismiss suggestions that the
government has reacted too slowly to the current outbreaks, and rejected suggestions that it is to blame for the
latest outbreaks which are thought to be linked to infected people
returning from overseas. In addition, she disclosed that the government's mulling setting up a hotline so people can report each other to the authorities for social distancing infringements.
A reminder: earlier this month, the government set up a hotline for people to snitch on their fellow Hong Kongers who they suspect of having broken China's national security law for Hong Kong. So it seems that it really is intent on encouraging Hong Kongers to become "snitches" and, in so doing, effecting a "Cultural Revolution" in a territory that had been spared the individual and collective suffering and social warping that had occured across the border in Mainland China for much of the 1960s and 1970s.
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