Wishing for peace and safety,
and good health but... :S
It's the fifth day of the new Year of the Tiger and, if truth be told, so far, there's been little cheer for and in Hong Kong. To be sure, some people have been trying to at least add some excitement to each night with the setting off of illegal fireworks (which is par for the course over in the republic of Yuen Long but less so in other parts of the Big Lychee!) but for many people, this Lunar New Year has been a bit of a damp squid thus far (with reports even of fewer red packets having been handed out in recent days as many people hunker down at home because of the ongoing pandemic and bad weather).
And even while the weather's cleared on day four and five of the new Year of the Tiger, bad news has arrived to dampen moods. Specifically, yesterday saw the arrest of 75-year-old activist Koo Sze-yiu by the national security police following his announcement of plans to go protest outside the ruling Chinese
Communist Party's Central Liaison Office against the Beijing Winter Olympics and call attention to Hong Kong's political prisoners. And this morning, a court denied him bail -- something that has come to be expected of individuals charged under China's national security law for Hong Kong even though this practice clearly contradicts the "innocent until guilty" common law assumption (that prevails in territories where "rule of law" prevails).
Something else worth noting about Koo Sze-yiu besides his advanced age: he is a terminal cancer patient, having been diagnosed with Stage 4 rectal cancer more than a year ago. So yeah, one would have expected him to have been shown more mercy than most others. And then there's the matter of his crime -- or non-crime since he actually hadn't effected what he had announced that he had planned to do prior to his arrest yesterday morning!
As Hong Kong legal and political analyst, Eric Yan-ho Lai, observed (and Tweeted): Koo's arrest was "The first time [that the national security law was] being used as a pre-emptive measure against dissenting voices in [Hong Kong (HK)]. Before, small-scale protests in HK amid symbolic events for Beijing would be charged as unauthorised assembly. Now peaceful protests endanger national security, even if it has yet occurred."
A Voice of America piece on this matter which quoted Lai also noted that during the previous Beijing Olympic Games, "Hong Kong student activist Christina Chan tried to hold a Tibetan flag
to protest during the 2008 Olympics equestrian event in Hong Kong. She
was removed from the event with no further consequences." Compare and contrast Koo's case some 14 years later and it clearly shows how much Hong Kong has changed, and its authorities become more intolerant and draconian, in that time.
For those still needing proof of how harsh the courts have become against perceived enemies of the government, consider the decision yesterday to sentence Fernando Cheung to three weeks imprisonment for his part in disrupting a 2020 Legislative Council meeting. For those unfamiliar with this pro-democracy politician who served for years as a legislative councillor: consider reading this Twitter thread by Holmes Chan which points out, among other things, that: Cheung "was a social worker who first got elected to the Legislative Council in 2004"; and his mitigation statement included the following words: "I am deeply honoured to be able to fight for social justice and promote democracy... I have no complaints or regrets."
Away from the courts, bad news arrived by way of the announcement that Hong Kong recorded an unprecedented 351 new Wuhan coronavirus cases today -- more than twice the previous highest daily total. A breakdown of the numbers only makes the picture more worrisome: as 343 of those 351 cases are local transmissions and 161 of them don't have known source (indicating problems with contact tracing). Oh, and two pet cats have tested positive for Covid (in addition to all those humans)!
About the only coronavirus statistics that are not bad are that: only 1 of the 1,830 active cases is not in a stable condition; and -- touch wood -- Hong Kong's total number of coronavirus fatalities has not changed from the total of 213 that was reached several months ago. Still, it's hard to not think, as David Webb has outlined (on his Webb-site Twitter page), that: "The [Hong Kong] Government has already lost control of this outbreak and "Dynamic Zero-COVID" is history. They just don't know it or won't admit it yet"; and this after reading his detailed explanation of why he thinks this.
So... what now for Hong Kong? Alas, the prognosis is like it's been for some three years now: that things are going to get worse before they (can) get better. Truly, Hong Kongers must hope -- and, if one is religious, pray -- that the saying that "It's darkest before dawn" turns out to really be so for the Big Lychee and its denizens. :S
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