A protest in Hong Kong that shows how much of a police state it has become

The Tseung Kwan O protest march I attended in 2019

attracted a lot more people than today's in the same area :S

 

Earlier today, a protest took place in Tseung Kwan O.  It wasn't a pro-democracy protest.  Instead, it was a demonstration against the government’s plan for land reclamation and building obnoxious facilities in the area.  And instead of attracting tens of thousands of participants (as had been the case with the protest march I took part in back on August 4th, 2019), it involved fewer than 100 people.  And yet, it probably was the largest protest Hong Kong has seen in years, and the first one given a letter of "no objection" by the police -- and thus "authorized" -- in three years.

 

More than by the way, that "authorization" (which only came late on Friday night) came only after jumping through numerous hoops. Among other things: the police "reminded participants to comply with the Hong Kong National Security Law".  Which is fine and well except, close to three years after China imposed that law on Hong Kong, we are still discovering new national security law (and, related, sedition) offences: e.g., earlier this month, possessing -- not even disseminating or publishing -- illustrated children's books about sheeps and wolves published by speech therapists!

 

Continuing quoting from a piece in The Standard about this: "The organizer is also requested by the police to arrange labor for crowd management to ensure no one can join the demonstration halfway."  An arrangement that those who have attended protests in Hong Kong -- or, for that matter, such as a film screening or group dinner -- will realize is ludicrous since it's pretty much unheard of for there to be no latecomers to such events!   

 

And there's the matter that many people found most shocking and ludicrous of all: Protest participants were "asked by police to display a number card around their neck and to comply with the anti-mask law".  Re that first bit: what next?  Will people be required to submit personal information before getting a number card to wear at protests?  As for the second bit: We knew this was going to happen once the mask mandate was lifted since there is an anti-face covering regulation on the books, introduced in October 2019 by Carrie Lam.  But even so, it's amazing to think that they would enforce it less than a month since the lifting of the mask mandate and while there's still a pandemic!   

 

In addition: "Chan Chin-chun, the convener of the concern group that filed for police approval, said they wanted the demonstration to fit some 300 participants and mulled putting stickers on participants’ clothing for identification. Yet, police finally lowered the cap to 100 and requested participants to hang a number card around their necks."  Really. If you can't see how unreasonable and insane this is (and don't care), why are you reading this blog (post)?!

For images (and video clips) of how ridiculous this all was, check out the Twitter threads by AFP's Xinqi Su and CNN's Chris Lau; the latter of which also provides good documentation of the restrictions that the press covering this farcical event were also subject to.  Xinqi Su's Tweet about and showing "The weight of self-restricting on organisers and rally goers boiled down to a point when an officer was heard telling a rally goer to “lend a hand [to hold up] your cordon line”" prompted the following suggestion from lawyer Antony Dapiran: "Next the [police]’ll be asking [the protestors] to tear gas themselves."

 

Adding to the absurdness of it all is Xinqi Su's thread containing the following revelation: "After the rally organiser Cyrus Chan said police went through the design of all banners, placards and leaflets and “communicated” on what slogans to chant to prevent“politically sensitive or seditious words”. Participants should not wear all black outfit or, yellow raincoat."  Directly reacting to this, human rights activist Xun-ling Au was moved to Tweet thus: "Wearing Black outfits or yellow raincoats is a danger to national security in Hong Kong... Fucking hell..."; and "It's a thing that even the statement of the ban reminds me (and I suspect many others) of why the yellow raincoat became a symbol of the protests." (Two words -- or, rather, one name: Marco Leung.)

 

I leave the last word about this farce -- which many of us have had plenty to say about today -- to Bloomberg's Matthew Brooker: "I suspect the reason [the authorities] allowed the event to go ahead is so that people in the government can say, "see, protests are still allowed!". The effect, as with all their ham-handed PR strategies, is simply to re-emphasize how Hong Kong looks increasingly like a police state".  

 

Speaking of people having plenty to say (still): ""Since the 2019-20 pro-democracy protests were crushed, Hongkongers have faced an uphill battle to stay in the international spotlight." Indeed, and put another way: I used to think we here in Hong Kong weren't communicating well enough what's going on to the outside world.  But these days, I find myself thinking that it's often more a case of people not listening well enough. And, truly, those (supposed allies) going on about how Hongkongers have fallen silent aren't helping. LISTEN. We are still here!  We may not be out on the streets protesting in the thousands and millions.  But we still are around and alive, persisting, trying to keep our dreams alive, and doing what we can to f**king love Hong Kong, okay?!