Hong Konger misery -- thanks to the the Wuhan coronavirus but also the local authorities!

Testing of sewage sample for the coronavirus?

 

We're barely a week into the Year of the Tiger and already, we have a candidate for one of the worst days of the year.  Yesterday was so full of bad news that I found myself doomscrolling on Twitter for hours on end and not venturing out of my apartment because time doesn't only fly when you're having fun but, also, when you're upset and feel beset by bad news.

First up, in the morning, was the news that Samuel Bickett's High Court appeal had been rejected and he was immediately sent back to prison to serve the rest of his jail sentence.  So prepared was the Hong Kong American lawyer -- whose Good Samaritan act of going to the rescue of a young man being pursued and attacked by two other fellows (one of whom turned out to be a plainclothes cop) back in 2019 has been penalized rather than rewarded -- for Judge Esther Toh's verdict that he prepared a statement and Tweet in advance about it and Judge Toh's previous problematic comments.  

 

Still expecting a verdict to go against him doesn't mean one isn't upset when it actually happens.  Also, while Bickett's said that he is determined to take his case all the way to the Court of Final Appeal, the fact of the matter is that it's quite likely that that court will just uphold the decisions of the lower courts; this not least since it does feel like the entire justice system in Hong Kong has been compromised; with further comments by Judge Toh yesterday adding to the sense that something is very wrong with those charged with upholding the law in Hong Kong.

And then there's Hong Kong's current pandemic situation.  Before I turn entirely to it, spare a thought for Hong Kong's prisoners, political and otherwise, during the pandemic.  A Tweet from Samuel Bickett last week pointed out that, in view of Hong Kong being hit by a fifth coronavirus wave: "Prisons are suspending visits from friends/family for at least a week. For people like me who might enter prison next week, this means not only no visits, but no hand-ins: books, notebooks, pens, etc. All we can do is stare at a wall for days on end. This is a nightmare."

 

Speaking of nightmares: the size of this fifth wave appears to have been beyond the imagination of the authorities.  A measure of how bad it is: Yesterday saw the recording of a record high 625 new Covid cases within the span of a day; and that record was broken today, as the number of new daily cases exponentially increasing to 1,161, and Hong Kong also recording coronavirus fatalities (two of them, in fact) for the first time in months.

Yesterday also saw Carrie Lam announce tougher anti-pandemic measures for Hong Kong: with some genuine shockers in the form of restrictions on gatherings in private premises (i.e., people's homes) as well as public ones, and the closing of hair saloons (which had previously never been ordered to close -- unlike with, say, cinemas, gyms, museums and such) for at least two weeks.  A new "vaccine pass" also will be introduced -- as early as this week for restaurants and on February 24th for a host of other establishments, including shopping malls, hair salons and places of worship.  

Then there's the restriction of the size of public gatherings from four to just two!  And the cops seem very eager to limit public gatherings already: with various accounts of them swooping to issue fines of people they perceived to be illegally gathering today outside coffee shops and in the main plaza at Discovery Bay (but not the larger gatherings of people waiting to be tested for Covid in various parts of Hong Kong, including Discovery Bay (whose entire community has been ordered to be tested!), Central, Wong Tai Sin, Yau Tong Road and Kwai Chung). 

Although Hong Kongers aren't literally up in arms, many figuratively are -- including those from groups who tend to be pretty blase about Hong Kong protests and political upheavals.  A post in the expat-heavy HK Moms Facebook group has been widely shared on social media.  "Addressing Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, it accused the government of holding its citizens hostage with new Covid measures – the toughest restrictions since June 2020. “You have tried for two years, and failed. When will you stop holding the citizen of this once Asia’s city hostage? When does the goalpost stop moving further and further away every time we get closer? When do we say enough is enough Carrie Lam?”"!

 

Meanwhile, over on the LIHKG forum, a post (translated into English and shared on Twitter by Kris Cheng) noted the following: “Omicron just exposed all of Hong Kong’s problems: land/housing issue, bureaucracy, blindly following China, police over medics, poor execution of policies, corrupt officials, lack of opposition to blame”.  Also on Twitter is Quartz writer Mary Hui's "hot take on confluence of systemic factors behind HK's bumbling Covid mess" which lists the following:

"- Tradition of prizing performative over substantive policies 

- Authoritarian rule punishing any criticism of govt 

- Subservience to [Beijing] = misplaced accountability & misaligned incentives 

- [Hong Kongers'] 0 public trust in [government]".

 

Getting close to the realm of conspiracy theories, Michael Mo, a former district councillor now living in exile, has a very interesting take on what's going on.  In a nutshell, "all [the] restrictions are Carrie's revenge on the people of Hong Kong".  In more detail: "She's taking revenge on every front she could possibly do for what happened in 2019. DAB, pan-dems, localists and [Hong Kongers] as a whole. As she's not accountable to HKers, she can do whatever she wishes. It happens she was an [Administrative Officer], she masters using gov machinery for the plot".  And in the view of the misery the pandemic restrictions have caused and are causing, it's hard to entirely dismiss out of hand!       

 

Then there's the matter of, as the blogger over at Big Lychee, Various Sectors stated today: "It... getting hard to distinguish NatSec Gestapo from [Covid] Gestapo – as if the two are merging into the same thing. The LeaveHomeSafe app is becoming a general-purpose surveillance and tracking device, as if we are all being tagged like a suspect on bail (remember bail?). The state finds a way to shut down churches and temples. Government can intrude into your home to make sure too many families aren’t there, but enforcement can be selective (hello pan-dems)."  In other words: in Hong Kong, it's not just the coronavirus that's upsetting people, fifth wave and all.  Rather, it's the government too -- and that has been so for too long a while as is!