What now passes for "normal" in Hong Kong after the imposition of the national security law

 

 Hong Kong mask manufacturers Yellow Factory opened 

a shop in Causeway Bay not so long ago

 

Alas, it's felt obliged to shutter its doors today -- 

for political rather than commercial reasons :( 

 

"Dozens of protestors I have met have been arrested. Others have fled abroad to seek asylum. Twelve were detained in mainland China on a speedboat enroute to Taiwan. Joshua Wong, one of "Beijing's top enemies", expects to be arrested by the national security law police. Almost 30 people, including his ally Agnes Chow and media mogul Jimmy Lai, were detained on national security charges. The Chinese authorities have said their law will target "an extremely small number of people". However, the government has signalled its net is wider by cracking down on Hong Kong's legislature, education system, media and judiciary."

 

Thus wrote staff reporter Nicolle Liu in a Financial Times piece published yesterday -- before news broke this morning of another round of arrests of now former legislative councillors Ted Hui, Ray Chan and Chu Hoi-dick, and the police going ahead and prosecuting people who were stranded on campus in the days-long siege at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University last November.  After divulging that "Others have asked me, “Are you worried about your coverage?” or “Do you think you’re in a dangerous situation?", she concluded her piece by asserting that: "As the national security law takes hold across Hong Kong, the only answer is to try and think as "normally" as possible. Prepare for the worst but pretend everything is fine -- that is, until the day comes when you cannot ignore the danger any more."

 

Her stance resonates very much with me.  At the same time though, I must admit that it's getting really hard to pretend everything is fine.  In my case: Even while I still try to live life with some degree of optimism and cheer, and find much to love and appreciate about Hong Kong, I can't completely escape my fears; with my past week's dreams (or, really, nightmares) featuring such as my packing to leave Hong Kong or being a bus that gets stop and boarded by police looking for trouble.  (It doesn't help that there's so much talk these days of people emigrating and Hong Kong feeling very much like a police state these days.)     

After being released on bail this afternoon, Ted Hui denounced the Hong Kong authorities as a "tyrannical regime" and I think few people in Hong Kong would think he's exaggerating.  At the very least, there can be little doubt that there's much repression underway.  So much, in fact, that a local mask company feels obliged to shut down its outlets in Mong Kok and Causeway Bay, as well as online store -- at least for a time -- after being accused by pro-Beijing media of violating the draconian national security law because the acronym FDNOL (which could stand for "Five demands, not one less") was printed on some of the masks produced by the company and the police have suggested that that slogan is somehow illegal.  

On a related note: the man charged with sedition for shouting "five demands, not one less", among other anti-extradition bill/pro-democracy slogans, People Power activist Tam Tak-chi, is in the news again because yesterday, the Department of Justice(DOJ)  asked the District Court to appoint a judge specially tasked with handling national security cases to take control of his trial despite his not having been charged under the national security law.  The sense many people get is that this is a move by the DOJ to get a pro-Beijing judge to be in charge of his trial; thus ensuring that justice will not be served yet again in Hong Kong. 

 

The chair of People Power, Ray Chan (yes, the same one arrested earlier today), has protested this move.  This is also the same Ray Chan whose filed private prosecution accusing pro-Beijing legislative councillor Kwok Wai-keung of assault during a meeting in the legislature in May has been stopped by the Department of Justice's head, Secretary of Justice Teresa Cheng.  So, yeah, the odds are against his objections being seriously taken into account by the DOJ -- whose recent actions (including those mentioned here) have had more than one wag suggesting that maybe it should be renamed the Department of Injustice instead!