Hong Kong's latest national security threat: a middle-aged housewife active on social media!

 

So many caged birds in Hong Kong...

 

An update on the 48-year-old housewife arrested for social media posts considered "seditious" on March 28th (i.e., two days ago): sadly, I don't think it would have come as a surprise to people following events in Hong Kong that she has been denied bail and remanded in custody.  Upon appearing in court today, more details arose about her, including that her name is Law Oi-wa.  

 

The Hong Kong Free Press also reports that Law's offending posts were on Facebook along with Twitter, and that "[s]he was said to have intended to “bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection” against the Hong Kong and Central governments,” incite violence and “counsel disobedience to law,” among other intentions, according to the charge sheet."

 

It additionally cites Chinese language local media (including HK01) as having reported that "the content included the popular 2019 protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our Times” and pro-independence chants, as well as an image of Hong Kong’s flag in black and white – known as the “black bauhinia” flag."  And that "Among the posts was also reportedly a reference to protest song Glory to Hong Kong as the city’s "national anthem.""  (As an aside: it's incredible how much angst this one song appears to have caused the Hong Kong government!)

 

Not included in the Hong Kong Free Press' piece but reported earlier by the South China Morning Post was that "According to a source, the woman had used several Twitter accounts to deliver seditious words".  Also, while there is no indication as yet as to how Law will plead, the chances are high that she'll enter a "guilty" plea when she next appears in court (currently scheduled for April 27th) -- and not necessarily because she doesn't think that she's innocent of the charges laid upon her.

 

An excellent thread on Twitter (which begins here) by the Hong Kong Democracy Council outlines why (and, I think, is worth quoting in detail):

Why do so many defendants in Hong Kong political trials plead guilty? Of course we can’t answer for them but can provide some context. First, the numbers: About 42% of the 1,535 convicted in political trials have plead[ed] guilty.

 

[National Security Law (NSL) and] sedition trials have so far [had] a 100% conviction rate among the only 15 who've plead[ed] not guilty & received a verdict. Trials of protesters -- by far the majority of political trials -- have a little lower conviction rate but not much -- around 90%.

 

So there's the perception that the judiciary isn't entirely independent (to put it mildly), & in NSL & sedition trials not independent at all. The deck's stacked against you. [But i]f you plead guilty, you are eligible for up to a one-third reduction of your sentence.

 

Many [of the accused] are waiting a very long time -- 2, 3, even 4 years -- before their cases even come to trial. If you're on remand, that's not necessarily such an issue, since time on remand will eventually be counted toward completion of sentence once convicted and imprisoned.

 

But almost all on trial for riot -- more than 800 -- are on bail pending completion of trial. If they plead guilty early in the process, they can start serving their guilty-plea-reduced sentence ASAP, which means they get out ASAP...

 

So far, 405 out of 435 riot defendants have been convicted -- a 93% conviction rate. Your chances of acquittal are low. If you plead not guilty, you wait years for your case to come to trial & then almost certainly get convicted. Your average 44-month sentence only starts then.

 

...whereas if you plead guilty at the 1st opportunity, you can get out of prison not long after fellow defendants who plead not guilty go to prison, as on top of the 1/3 reduction in sentence for pleading guilty, you can get up to a 1/3 reduction for good conduct in prison.

...Most defendants don't see their trials as a matter of principle but of math in a rigged system. The charges are bogus & the judges biased -- in NSL & sedition trials, they're “designated” by the [Chinese Communist Party (CCP)]-appointed Chief Executive [of Hong Kong, John Lee]. In riot trials wearing black is enough to get you years in prison...

 

On top of all that, lawyers are expensive, & these days, there's almost no legal aid. It used to be groups like Spark Alliance & the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund covered legal fees of protesters. That's why the Hong Kong government smashed them.

Oh, and should there be any doubt: as the headline of a Wall Street Journal article out today states, "Hong Kong Arrests Show No Letup in Beijing-Driven Crackdown on Dissent".  And as is noted in the article itself: "Protesters have largely stayed off the streets, but the arrests have continued. At least 17 people were arrested during the past year for posting online content that was deemed to be a threat to national security." 

This even though the "vast majority of opposition figures and activists have either been locked up, fled abroad or moved into jobs that don’t involve politics after the advent of the national security law."  As more than one person has observed: now that a national security bureau has been established, and so much money plowed into it, its personnel are going to have to justify their existence -- and the most obvious way to do so is to find more people to accuse of being threats to national security, and arrest!  And as we have seen, we've now come to the rather surreal point where the targets are... housewives active on social media!