Hong Kong police at work intimidating/scaring people
this past Halloween weekend :(
"Protesters involved in the 2019-2020 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong have been treated extraordinarily harshly by the criminal justice system compared with local and international norms, a report [by Jun Chan, Eric Yan-ho Lai and Thomas E Kellogg pf the Center for Asian Law of Georgetown University] has found." Thus began an article on my beloved city in today's The Guardian. Or, as a summary on the Center for Asian Law's website puts it more baldly, "The Hong Kong government has effectively weaponized its legal system to crack down on those who took part in the 2019 protests."
In any case, for many people in Hong Kong, reading this will prompt responses along the Hong Kong equivalent of "No shit, Sherlock". Still, it's good to see the report get international publicity since Hong Kong looks to have largely fallen out of the international spotlight, with many people outside of it assuming that the worst is over for the people of this city rather than the persecution and prosecution being ongoing.
As The Guardian piece by Amy Hawkins pointed out: "As of August 2022, more than 10,000 Hongkongers had been arrested in connection with the 2019 protest movement and nearly 3,000 prosecuted, according to government statistics." And should it not be clear: arrests in connection to protests that took place in 2019 and 2020 have continued in 2023.
And with the judicial system heaving under the case load as well as warped by newly introduced and re-effected laws, the result has been that there are many thousands, not just hundreds, of Hong Kongers behind bars for years even without a guilty verdict having been made on them after being denied bail -- or, at the very least, having their lives in limbo while waiting to find out verdicts of their cases, whether they will be prosecuted post arrest, unable to travel abroad after passports were seized, etc. Including people who are household names (like Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong, etc.) and people many of us personally know.
"Protesters were charged with 100 different types of offences. These included unlawful assembly, rioting, police obstruction and police assault. More than 80% of people convicted received custodial sentences, compared with just over 31% of people who were convicted on charges relating to the umbrella movement. The most common charge in the dataset was unlawful assembly, a colonial-era ordinance that allows the authorities to prosecute peaceful protesters", The Guardian piece notes.
Pre 2019, it was highly unusual for people charged with unlawful assembly to be given prison sentences. Rather, they tended to "just" be let off with fines -- if found guilty. Now, jail terms are the norm and rule. And what constitutes "rioting" has become very loosely defined. For example, people have been convicted of such based on "evidence" such as their being attired in black clothing and in the vicinity of a "riot" (clash with police or just protest gathering that the police had pre-approved but then changed their minds and took away the approval mid-protest: you may think this sounds unlikely but I've been at a number where this happened. Whereupon thousands of people suddenly had to scramble to leave the area).
And then there's the national security law (NSL) that China imposed on Hong Kong on June 30th, 2020. Quoting again from The Guardian article: "As of September, 280 people had been arrested under the NSL, including high profile figures such as the activist Joshua Wong and the former media proprietor Jimmy Lai. These cases are tried in separate courts, with judges hand-picked by the executive."
The national security law arrests and trials have been the most high profile. "But most of the people swept into the criminal justice system after the protests have been charged with more ordinary offences, with many detained for several months in pre-trial detention", Amy Hawkins wrote. "Between 2019 and 2021, the average waiting time for criminal trials increased by 50%, to 287 days, well beyond the official target of 100 days. “Such long wait times suggest that the court system is flailing under the weight of a massively increased caseload,” the report said."
Something else that makes for disturbing reading: "More than 130 of the defendants in the cases analysed by the researchers were under 18, with the median age being 23. More than 66% of juvenile convictions resulted in custodial sentences, which the researchers describe as “an extraordinarily high rate of incarceration for children”. In contrast, "[i]n England and Wales, 5% of juveniles who received criminal convictions in 2021 were put in custody."
By the way, upon my return to Hong Kong from Japan, the following news was received: "John Lee, the city’s chief executive, has said that introducing another Hong Kong national security law, in addition to the one imposed by Beijing in 2020, is a priority for 2024." Almost needless to say, this is not welcome news to my mind -- and, if truth be told, I'm still processing it close to one week on after hearing it. :S
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