Tomorrow might see a decision made on whether the government's injunction to ban protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong will be granted by a Hong Kong Judge Anthony Chan. After this happens, Google (who owns Youtube) will be asked to remove 32 Youtube videos of the song.
For now though, the videos are available to view and listen to in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the world. As is a 60 Minutes Australia segment on Kevin Yam and Ted Hui Chi-fung, the two Australin residents -- and, by the way, Kevin Yam also happens to be an Australian citizen to boot -- among eight Hong Kong dissidents who have had a HK$1 million bounty put on their head by the Hong Kong government.
Thus far, the Hong Kong government are not able to get their hands of those eight individuals, all of whom currently are based outside of Hong Kong. So it has turned its attention to relatives and friends of some of them. Earlier this week, the eldest daughter, son and daughter-in-law of Elmer Yuen -- the last of whom happens to be pro-Beijing politician Eunice Yung -- were questioned for a number of hours by the police. The same fate had already befallen the brother of former legislative councillor Dennis Kwok, the elder brother, sister and nephew of trade unionist Christopher Mung Siu-tat, and parents and elder brother of Nathan Law.
Friends of Nathan Law who happened to be felllow members of the now disbanded Demosisto party and individuals with link to the Mee online shopping app have also been taken in by the police for questioning and even arrested. And today saw two more of them taken into custody -- with Lily Wong and Chan Hok-kin, both of whom are 29 years of age, arrested "for suspected 'conspiracy to collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security" (national security law charges) and "accused of
'conspiracy to commit an act or acts with seditious intent' under a
colonial-era sedition clause in the city's Crimes Ordinance".
I'll be honest: unlike Nathan Law or Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow, I wouldn't consider Lily Wong and Chan Hok-kin to be household names. So it can feel like the authorities really have it in for Demosisto -- in that they are going for quite a few layers of that former political party's leadership.
And it's interesting that Lily Wong and Chan Hok-kin have been slapped with sedition law as well as national security law charges. More than by the way, an AFP article came out just yesterday about how, beginning in March 2020, for the first time in over 50 years, the sedition law created under British colonial rule has been used to prosecute less famous and prominent Hong Kongers as well as famous ones.
"Their cases receive little public attention as they are swiftly convicted as national security threats by the city's lowest-level courts. Their "seditious" acts have mostly involved criticising authorities -- the government, police and courts -- through posters, stickers or on social media platforms. The trials are also handled by judges picked by the government to rule on security cases, and bail for defendants has become the exception, not the norm", the article has highlighted.
"Prominent activists and journalists charged with sedition have put up high-profile legal defences, but most residents accused of the crime choose not to fight after they are denied bail, due to the perceived slim chance of success, former defendants and lawyers told AFP." For those who've wondered why so many Hong Kongers whose prosecution has been seen to be political in nature have pleaded guilty, it's additionally worth noting that "Sedition carries a penalty of up to two years in prison, but a guilty plea can reduce the sentence by a third."
Still, a legal admission of guilty does not necessarily mean that the individuals who pleaded guilty actually think they are guilty of a crime. A 68-year-old homemaker charged with uttering seditious words "eventually gave up on her appeal [of innocence[ and served out her three-month
sentence so that she wouldn't have to report to the police three times a
week -- a bail condition stipulated for her appeal process. After all that, "I still don't understand what sedition is about," she said. "I have only learned that the red line can be very wide."" :(
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