Difficulties with leaving home safe in a city where mere words are adjudged to be national security threats

Handed out free at a Hong Kong football match I attended

 

First, an update re the LeaveHomeSafe app saga: In a move some interpreted as a bid to be "flexible" over the smartphone app rule that the government plans to impose from the beginning of next month (i.e., next week), "Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip told reporters yesterday that the question of whether people without a smartphone could enter government premises would depend on “practical circumstances”... "Every department will look at its buildings and facilities, and based on operational needs, the people that they serve and the practical circumstances, make suitable arrangements accordingly," he was quoted as saying.

 

But as a representative of the Society for Community Organisation (SoCO), an NGO which works toward supporting the underprivileged living in some of Hong Kong's poorest and most industrial neighbourhoods, pointed out, "while the government had pledged flexibility, homeless people without a smartphone may face varying treatment from different government departments.  “Saying that government departments will make judgements depending on practical circumstances is actually quite problematic. Some departments can be quite strict,” he said."      

 

SoCo has estimated that almost 80 percent of the 1,562 homeless people registered by the Social Welfare Department do not own smartphones.  The NGO has helped street sleepers to procure mobile phone so that they can look for jobs but while the basic phones that can do that job cost around HK$165 (~US$23), even the cheapest smartphones needed to download the LeaveHomeSafe app costs around HK$900 (~US$116).   

 

This is something I can personally attest to post going smartphone shopping this afternoon and getting sticker shock upon seeing how much smartphones go for in this city.  And for the record: I learnt today that not only is it hard to find a smartphone that costs under HK$1,000 (~US$129) but that there smartphones that cost upwards of HK$17,000 (~US$2,187) new and still over HK$13,000 (~US$1,672) when purchased second hand!  (And should anyone wonder: of course I'm never going to buy a crazy expensive smartphone.  Also, I haven't actually made a smartphone purchase as yet.  I'm still shopping around for them!) 

 

Since I don't own a smartphone, I didn't check the news while I was out and thus was blissfully unaware until I returned home that a second individual has been convicted under the national security law in Hong Kong this afternoon and stands to be sentenced to up to seven years imprisonment for nothing more than "chanting slogans, displaying placards and speaking publicly in support of Hong Kong independence".  This is a concerning development, to say the least, since, as a member of Hong Kong Twitterverse noted, "There was never any doubt about the outcome, of course, but this sets the scene for future cases: simply saying something the govt doesn't like for any reason is a national security threat."

 

Another alarming piece of news today: Amnesty International announcing that it will close its offices in Hong Kong by the end of this year.  This is because, to quote from the announcement on its website, "Hong Kong’s national security law... has made it effectively impossible for human rights organizations in Hong Kong to work freely and without fear of serious reprisals from the government...  The recent targeting of local human rights and trade union groups signals an intensification of the authorities’ campaign to rid the city of all dissenting voices. It is increasingly difficult for us to keep operating in such an unstable environment."

 

Some context: Amnesty International was founded in 1961 to protect human rights worldwide, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 and honored with a United Nations Human Rights Prize the following year.  It has been in Hong Kong for 40 years and, over the years, done such as successfully pushed for the full abolition of the death penalty in Hong Kong (in 1993) and worked to expose evidence of excessive use of force by police during the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

On a personal note, I first heard about Amnesty International when I was at college in the USA.  There were university chapters of the organization and there regularly would be people about on campus asking students to sign petitions to free people that it had designated as Prisoners of Conscience.  Little did I think then that I would end up living in a part of the world where a number of political prisoners are to be found, never mind which Amnesty International no longer thinks it would be safe to operate. 

But fears for the safety of its staff is only to be expected when Hong Kong has become a place where a marathon race can be considered to be a politically sensitive event that required 2,000 police officers to be deployed to make sure that participants did not wear clothing (or have tattoos visible on them) with the words "Hong Kong ga yau" (i.e., "Hong Kong add oil" -- a phrase use to cheer people on that's about as innocuous and ubiquitous in Hong Kong as the Japanese "gambatte", American "go for it" or the South Korean "fighting")!  

 

And yes, this is all clearly absurd and makes what's happening in Hong Kong seem like one big joke.  But few people are laughing as there's also denying how disturbing it is that this kind of thing is being taken very seriously indeed by those who have the weapons to cause serious damage to a whole host of individuals and society at large.