The sad, the ludicrous and the inspirational in contemporary Hong Kong

  

Freedom (graffiti and otherwise) can be hard to see in Hong Kong

 

Some months back, a friend and I were talking about a political prisoner she knows and has visited in jail.  When she voiced her worries that he might die in prison, I didn't know how to comfort her; this not least because the possibility does exist.  Here's the thing: a number of Hong Kong's political prisoners are not in the best of health.  And it's also the case that some of them are not only senior citizens but also facing the prospect of lengthy, even life, sentences.  

 

Just look at the ages of some of the Hong Kong 47, which ranges from individuals in their 20s all the way to the late 60s.  And then there's Jimmy Lai -- whose son, Sebastien, was quoted in an AP article that came out yesterday as saying "I don’t want to see my father die in jail. He’s 75, he’s in prison, he does risk just dying. It is very worrying". 

As readers of the piece are informed, reminded, Jimmy Lai "has been in detention since he was arrested in 2020 under a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing. The Hong Kong businessman faces up to life in prison if convicted. He has already been sentenced to five years and nine months in a separate case.  He also is a former media mogul who has a whole host of people waging a campaign to free him (albeit, sadly, thus far to no avail).

 

At the other end of the spectrum are political prisoners who are not household names and considerably younger in age -- yet also have got caught by Hong Kong's web of (in)justice thanks to their involvement in the anti-extradition bill-turned-pro-democracy protests.  Individuals whose names we only learn about if their cases are so ludicrous, and/or the verdicts involving them so unjust, that they end up being reported by news outlets.

 

Take, for example, Carrie Lui, a 30-something-year-old woman who has already served the nine month sentence that she was given but had sought to appeal her conviction anyway, only to be denied that opportunity at the Court of Appeal.  In view of the far lengthier sentences that many Hong Kong protestors have been given or are facing, hers doesn't sound all that harsh on the face of it.  But consider this: her nine month sentence came about after she was found guilty of possessing articles with intent to destroy property because she was found to have three spanner -- yes, SPANNERS -- on her at the time of her arrest in Central on November 13th, 2019!

 

As per the Hong Kong Free Press report on her case: "Lui’s legal representative said on Thursday that the District Court had erred in refusing to consider Lui’s testimony. During the trial last October, Lui testified that she was on the way to Central that day to meet her colleagues, and that she took three spanners from a toolbox with her because she needed to adjust lighting appliances." (Lui is a designer by trade.)  "She said she also wore a mask to protect herself from tear gas."  Something that, frankly, many people were doing at the time since the police was unleashing so much tear gas in Hong Kong at the time!

 

"Her representative added on Thursday [i.e., yesterday] that videos showed that the scene was quiet at the time of the offence and that there was no violent behaviour observed. Therefore, Lui did not necessarily know that people were taking part in illegal acts. She also stayed on the pavement and avoided the roads, her representative said."  (Reading that last line made me nostalgic... for a time -- which really existed not that long ago! -- when we truly believed that doing such would help us to stay on the right side of the law.)

 

Another case that has caught people's attention is an on-going one involving a pair of students who have pleaded not guilty to rioting near a university campus in late 2019.  Fan Tsz-suet and To Mei-yi were Hang Seng University students at the time of their arrest on November 12th, 2019.  Early that day, some 10 to 20 people had set up roadblocks outside Tate’s Cairn Tunnel, which Hang Seng University's campus is located close to.  After the police arrived at the scene, people sought to run away upon catching sight of them.  

 

Among the people bidding to flee from the police were Fan, who was heading in the direction of an academic building, and To, who was making her way towards a university dormitory.  The prosecution has admitted that " There was no evidence that Fan and To engaged in any violent acts".  Yet they are on trial for rioting, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years (although jail terms delivered for District Court cases -- which is the level of their trial -- are capped at seven years)!

 

Truly, when you look at the details of many of the cases involving "rioting", "sedition" and the national security law here in Hong Kong, the "crimes" don't seem to merit the punishments being meted out to those found guilty of them.  Take Wong Yat-chin, the 22-year-old former convenor of Student Politicism (a now defunct pro-democracy student group), who just came out of prison after serving a 2 year sentence for chanting protest slogans on the street that were deemed to "incite subversion".  

Before his imprisonment, Wong Yat-chin had stated that "his group Student Politicism wants to “bring hope to people” as the space for activism shrinks due to the national security law."  While already in prison but before his sentencing, he had written a letter to a friend exhorting people to ""Breathe well, think well, live well, continue to choose and insist on doing the right thing. Let's walk the unfinished journey with our heads up."    

 

Upon his release on Wednesday, Wong was reported as saying about Hong Kong that "I'm inseparable from this land....I'll try my best to stay here & share its joys [and] sorrows."  Truly, I'm in awe -- that he appears to have emerged from prison being able to still think, believe and assert this.  

 

When reading about the likes of him, and Jimmy Lai, I can't help but thinking of the following lines from Nelson Mandela's favorite poem, Invictus. 

I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul...

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

And long may that continue for these incredible people, and many others who really f**king love Hong Kong.