The arrests continue and it's 49 and counting with regards to the number of Hong Kong civil societies disbanding in the face of China's sweeping clampdown on dissent in the city

 

Be water, and/but also keep the flame alive

 

This has been one hell of a week -- and I don't just think this because it's also my birthday week.  Even on a public holiday (specifically, the day after the Mid-Autumn Festival), something bad happened: specifically, the arrest of a fourth individual associated with Student Politicism.  The next day saw 19-year-old Alice Wong Yuen-lam being denied bail after she was accused of conspiring to incite subversion under the Beijing-imposed national security law. 

 

"Subversive acts that endanger national security" sound so oh serious. But then you look at what constitutes those kinds of the acts in the eyes of the Hong Kong police and... the accusers can seem guilty of hyperbole, if not downright nuts! A reminder: on Monday, "senior superintendent Steve Li alleged that Student Politicism had carried out a range of subversive acts, including encouraging people not to use the government's voluntary LeaveHomeSafe pandemic app, and using street booths to spread messages "inciting hatred towards the government" and "accused the group of attempting to recruit “like-minded people” in prison by providing them with supplies such as chocolate and hand cream."   

 

So, really, if Hong Kong still had rule of law and its judges some semblance of sanity, you'd think many of the cases being brought to court would be laughed out of it.  At the same time, we're supposed to be happy when handed out decisions in favor of those who have ended up behind bars for their political beliefs and actions rather than any actual criminality.   

 

To be sure, we still are handed out some kernels of justice from time to time -- but often, its way overdue as well as incomplete.  For example, on Friday, three University of Hong Kong student leaders accused of a terrorism offence under the national security law over expressions of sympathy for a man who stabbed a police officer were granted bail.  Charles Kwok, Chris Todorovski and Kinson Cheung had been in custody since their arrest on August 18th -- in other words, they have already spent more than a month behind bars even before their trial began.  But with their co-defendant, Anthony Yung, having been released on bail last month, this court decision was being celebrated -- since it made the quartet's case the first one where all of the defendants in a national security law case have been granted bail.   

 

Here's the thing though: Not so long ago, the bail decision would have been considered the norm -- "innocent until proven guilty", after all.  Also, not so long ago, it'd sound excessive, if not outright nuts, to accuse students of threatening national security for doing such as expressing sympathy for a man who stabbed a police officer and then killed himself; this especially as they then apologized for doing so two days a later. But, well, we are now in a very different Hong Kong from before with China imposing a National Security Law on Hong Kongon June 30th, 2020. 

 

Speaking of Hong Kong being very different from what it was just a few years ago: Back in 2014, Louisa Lim wrote in her The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited that "The only place on Chinese soil where the events of June 4th [1989] are publicly commemorated is Hong Kong".  Not anymore -- at least not enmasse communally at Victoria Park on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.   

 

Helping make that reality concrete is the announcement yesterday by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the group that was founded in May 1989 to support students holding democracy and anti-corruption rallies in Beijing, and which has, over the years since, organized the annual candlelight vigils at Victoria Park each June 4th, that it will be disbanding "in the face of China's sweeping clampdown on dissent in the city."  Lest it not be clear: "The Hong Kong Alliance was one of the most prominent symbols of the city's former political plurality and its dissolution is the latest illustration of how quickly China is remoulding the business hub in its own authoritarian image."  

Altogether, 49 different civil societal organizations have folded in the wake of government pressure -- often in the form of accusations of their having violated the Beijing-imposed national security law (NSL) -- thus far this year in Hong Kong. A reminder: Carrie Lam had told the United Nations on the day the NSL came into effect that it would affect only "an extremely small minority of people".  When you consider the tens of thousands that the June 4th vigils regularly attracted, not to mention the million plus marches that the Civil Human Rights Front organized in 2019, you know that Lam's guilty of under-counting, if not outright lying.

 

For the record: another of those 49 civil societal organizations which have folded is Student Politicism.  "In a post on its Facebook page on Friday evening, the group said: "Since May 2020, Student Politicism was blessed with the precious support from fellow Hong Kong people that have allowed us to run our operation until this day.  Unfortunately, given the lack of foreseeable space for our organisation to continue our mission, we hereby announce the disbandment of Student Politicism. All relevant operations will cease to continue, all members and volunteers will be dismissed."