The fourth Wuhan coronavirus wave has arrived and the political arrests continue in Hong Kong

A Tweet by a Hong Kong journalist turned barrister that I, sadly, can really relate to

Yes, I can relate to this Tweet too :(

 

Hong Kong's fourth Wuhan coronavirus wave is here.  Any doubts that this was so have been dispelled this week -- which began with the reporting of single digit new case numbers earlier in the week (e.g., the four on Tuesday) before a surge later in the week brought the numbers of new infections up to 26 on Friday, 43 yesterday and 68 today (the highest daily total in more than three months).

 

Among the individuals who tested positive this week is a 75-year-old billionaire, Rosanna Wang Gaw, who may be the super spreader of a dance club cluster which now numbers 80 cases, making it Hong Kong's second largest coronavirus cluster to date; topped only by the second wave's bar and band cluster which eventually totalled 103 confirmed cases.  The revelation that today's newly confirmed cases include individuals living on The Peak and in Bel Air as well as the less rarified likes of Yau Ma Tei, Wong Tai Sin and Kwai Chung shows that the coronavirus is spreading among the rich as well as regular Hong Kong folks (https://twitter.com/tripperhead/status/1330446263477628928).  

 

Hopefully, this will get all sectors of Hong Kong society to pitch in and do their bit to help prevent an infectious disease expert's dire prediction of 1,000 new cases per week in the territory come this December.  And with the scuttling of the Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble before it actually got going, we at least don't have to worry of importing additional cases from Singapore or, as may be more likely at this point, exporting cases to the Lion City.

 

As if we didn't already have plenty to worry about thanks to the Wuhan coronavirus, the political arrests have continued into this weekend.  Following those of former legislative councillors Ted Hui, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick and Ray Chan on Wednesday came that of an online radio host known as Giggs, his wife and an assistant linked to a crowdfunding program supporting Hong Kongers who had left the city due to the ongoing anti-government protests yesterday morning, protester Alexandra "Grandma" Wong later that day, and Yuen Long district councillor Henry Wong and Kowloon City district councillor Lee Hin-long this morning.   

 

More than incidentally, Britain's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong decided yesterday that it will nominate "Grandma" Wong for the Nobel Peace Prize.  The vice-chair of the group, Lord Alton of Liverpool, said Wong was fearless and “embodies the bravery, determination and resilience of the Hong Kong protestors that have inspired the world” while British activist Luke de Pulford has stated that “Grandma Wong’s only crime is to demand the fulfilment of the promises made to #HongKong by Beijing AND the UK. And to do it without a shred of fear". 

 

This follows another Hong Konger, Nathan Law, being honored at the 2020 Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights Awards on Monday with the Outstanding Opposition Figure Award for his “outstanding work standing up to the Communist Party of China to keep Hong Kong free”.  In addition, two Hong Kong political films -- including short film Night is Young, about a taxi driver’s experiences during last year’s pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, by Ten Years co-director Kwok Zune -- won at the Golden Horse Awards in Taipei last night.     

At a time when the world has so much (else) to fixate about, these kinds of things help give a sense that there still are eyes on Hong Kong, and support for those who are struggling against what really is an oppressive regime mounting a major assault on Hong Kong's freedoms.  And for those who (still) wonder why there should be eyes on Hong Kong: consider it the canary in the coal mine in terms how China behaves when faced with a people who don't buy into its values and system.  

 

Already, Beijing's open violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and willingness to kill a golden goose should have gotten alarm bells ringing loudly.  It remains to be seen though whether China's Hong Kong gamble will end up hurting it more than the world at large.    

Another eventful day in a Hong Kong being too quickly destroyed by Beijing

Spotted on a storefront last week (but one of those posters 

had been removed before I passed by there again yesterday)

 

Also spotted in Hong Kong last week,

and hopefully still around this week
 

In his latest piece for EJ Insight, Michael Chugani listed some of the things that have happened in Hong Kong over the past year.  I've written about many of them at various points but to see them all mentioned in a single short article was quite breathtaking -- and showed how much Hong Kong has been transformed in just 12 months; enough for the veteran political commentator to conclude that "This time is for real: The Hong Kong we know is dying".    

 

To be sure, there were some victories in court for lovers of freedom in Hong Kong today and late yesterday.  Even then, as journalist-educator Yuen Chan, was moved to Tweet in the wake of what should have been unmitigated welcome news: "That sad feeling when instead of just applauding the court's ruling, you worry about what it portends for the future of the courts." <https://twitter.com/xinwenxiaojie/status/1329348865611411457>  And, as a matter of fact, there has been some not so positive news along with the positive ones over the course of what has been quite the news packed day.

 

To see what I mean, I'm hereby listing just some of what's been reported by Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) over the past 24 hours or so:-  

- The police have dropped the fine issued to a 12-year-old girl who had been out shopping for crayons with her brother when she was tackled by a riot police officer in September amid protests against the postponement of the Legco elections.  But as the blogger behind The Fragrant Harbour wrote, "Good luck getting an apology from [Police Commissioner Chris] Tang" for what the police put the girl and her family through!

- High Court judge Anderson Chow ruled earlier today that the existing mechanism to handle police complaints is in breach of the Bill of Rights on torture and cruel treatment.  He further ruled that the failure by the local constabulary to require riot police officers to display their identification numbers in the anti-extradition bill turned anti-government and pro-democracy protests violated the Bill of Rights governing torture and cruel treatment.  Upon hearing this, the Hong Kong Journalists Association has demanded that police officers start displaying their identification numbers immediately.  (But I think it'd be foolish for us to assume that the police are going to start complying with this legal ruling any time soon.)

 

- Today also happened to be graduation day at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).  Over the course of it, people wearing black graduation gowns and face masks marched on campus chanting anti-government protest slogans and holding up protest banners and flags. In response, university administrators reported their newly minted alumni to the police -- so much for academic freedom and freedom of expression on campus! -- and the police's national security department have launched an investigation into the protesters having displayed Hong Kong independence banners and chanted slogans calling for independence, and therefore being suspected of breaching the national security law!

 

 - According to more than one report, among the slogans chanted by the new CUHK graduates were “Save the 12,” referring to the 12 Hong Kongers who have been detained in Mainland China since their failed attempt to flee by boat to Taiwan this past August.  More than incidentally, more news came of that detained dozen today.  Specifically, seven of their families received letters from them hailing the conditions in the Shenzhen detention centre where they are being held as well their treatment by the Mainland Chinese authorities.  But even while the letters are recognizably in their relatives' handwritings, there is suspicion as to their content since, among other things, all the letters have similar content and "suspicious wording", including simplified Chinese characters and phrases not usually used by Hong Kongers.

 

-  And over on the international front, we have foreign ministers from the nations in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group (i.e., the USA, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand) having issued a joint statement that China's imposition of new rules to disqualify elected legislators in Hong Kong appeared to be part of a campaign to silence critics and called on Beijing to reverse course. The Hong Kong government promptly responded by condemning the Five Eyes group's governments for making comments "irresponsible to the point of malice, [and] vivid proof of blatant interference in Hong Kong matters which are squarely internal affairs of the People's Republic of China."    

 

Quite a bit has already been written about those Legislative Council disqualifications (and the resulting resignations by the rest of the elected members of the pro-democracy camp), including on this blog.  Still, Holmes Chan' piece out this past Monday is worth bringing to attention, including by way of quoting the following passages:-   

For more than two decades, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy lawmakers played a game rigged against them. On 11 November, they had finally had enough.

“We are facing a totally new paradigm,” said Wu Chi-wai, head of the Democratic Party and convenor of the opposition camp. “We choose to stand with our colleagues who were disqualified. We will collectively resign.”...

Wu paints the mass resignation by 15 democrats as a gesture of solidarity and protest. But it was also, undeniably, an admission of defeat. Hong Kong’s old-school opposition (known as the pan-democrats) has conceded that changing the system from within – a mindset ingrained since the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997 – was no longer possible.

Finally, here's Michael Chugani with the last say in this post.  In the article I referenced at the beginning of it, he noted the following:-

Now that all opposition members have resigned, we have a [Legislative Council] with only pro-Beijing members who received far less votes than the opposition in 2016. This, in essence, means the legislature does not have a mandate from the people.

Yet they will rubber-stamp laws such as allowing loyalist Hongkongers in the Greater Bay Area to vote even though our election laws state only those ordinarily resident in Hong Kong can vote. Their aim is to create a new voter base which supports them.

It is heartbreaking to watch these supine surrogates obediently knife Hong Kong’s soul. They are Hongkongers too. Why are they so willing to change the DNA of their own home? Do they really believe in their hearts that killing off the opposition, dismantling the city’s core values, and making the judicial system more compliant is good for Hong Kong?

As I have said before, Hong Kong will not die in the way Fortune Magazine predicted. It will remain a thriving city. What will die is the Hong Kong we know.

What now passes for "normal" in Hong Kong after the imposition of the national security law

 

 Hong Kong mask manufacturers Yellow Factory opened 

a shop in Causeway Bay not so long ago

 

Alas, it's felt obliged to shutter its doors today -- 

for political rather than commercial reasons :( 

 

"Dozens of protestors I have met have been arrested. Others have fled abroad to seek asylum. Twelve were detained in mainland China on a speedboat enroute to Taiwan. Joshua Wong, one of "Beijing's top enemies", expects to be arrested by the national security law police. Almost 30 people, including his ally Agnes Chow and media mogul Jimmy Lai, were detained on national security charges. The Chinese authorities have said their law will target "an extremely small number of people". However, the government has signalled its net is wider by cracking down on Hong Kong's legislature, education system, media and judiciary."

 

Thus wrote staff reporter Nicolle Liu in a Financial Times piece published yesterday -- before news broke this morning of another round of arrests of now former legislative councillors Ted Hui, Ray Chan and Chu Hoi-dick, and the police going ahead and prosecuting people who were stranded on campus in the days-long siege at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University last November.  After divulging that "Others have asked me, “Are you worried about your coverage?” or “Do you think you’re in a dangerous situation?", she concluded her piece by asserting that: "As the national security law takes hold across Hong Kong, the only answer is to try and think as "normally" as possible. Prepare for the worst but pretend everything is fine -- that is, until the day comes when you cannot ignore the danger any more."

 

Her stance resonates very much with me.  At the same time though, I must admit that it's getting really hard to pretend everything is fine.  In my case: Even while I still try to live life with some degree of optimism and cheer, and find much to love and appreciate about Hong Kong, I can't completely escape my fears; with my past week's dreams (or, really, nightmares) featuring such as my packing to leave Hong Kong or being a bus that gets stop and boarded by police looking for trouble.  (It doesn't help that there's so much talk these days of people emigrating and Hong Kong feeling very much like a police state these days.)     

After being released on bail this afternoon, Ted Hui denounced the Hong Kong authorities as a "tyrannical regime" and I think few people in Hong Kong would think he's exaggerating.  At the very least, there can be little doubt that there's much repression underway.  So much, in fact, that a local mask company feels obliged to shut down its outlets in Mong Kok and Causeway Bay, as well as online store -- at least for a time -- after being accused by pro-Beijing media of violating the draconian national security law because the acronym FDNOL (which could stand for "Five demands, not one less") was printed on some of the masks produced by the company and the police have suggested that that slogan is somehow illegal.  

On a related note: the man charged with sedition for shouting "five demands, not one less", among other anti-extradition bill/pro-democracy slogans, People Power activist Tam Tak-chi, is in the news again because yesterday, the Department of Justice(DOJ)  asked the District Court to appoint a judge specially tasked with handling national security cases to take control of his trial despite his not having been charged under the national security law.  The sense many people get is that this is a move by the DOJ to get a pro-Beijing judge to be in charge of his trial; thus ensuring that justice will not be served yet again in Hong Kong. 

 

The chair of People Power, Ray Chan (yes, the same one arrested earlier today), has protested this move.  This is also the same Ray Chan whose filed private prosecution accusing pro-Beijing legislative councillor Kwok Wai-keung of assault during a meeting in the legislature in May has been stopped by the Department of Justice's head, Secretary of Justice Teresa Cheng.  So, yeah, the odds are against his objections being seriously taken into account by the DOJ -- whose recent actions (including those mentioned here) have had more than one wag suggesting that maybe it should be renamed the Department of Injustice instead!     

Two Hong Kong women's tips for "How to Survive a Disaster" (Photo-essay)

Sometimes we need with some heartwarming whimsy in our lives.  Which is where my favorite Pear Fairy often comes in.  In addition to my Funassyi desk calendar (and other Funassyi items) though, I also have a couple of wall calendars hanging about in my apartment. One of them, entitled and about "Our City", has given me quite a bit of comfort and inspiration over the months with its themed drawings featuring sayings like this month's "Stop for a moment and take in the beauty of our city".

Its creators, Joanne and Ah Li (under the aegis of their "All Things Bright and Beautiful" company), have an exhibition of their works entitled "How to survive a disaster" on at the ACO Art Space (through to November 18th). I went to check it out this past Friday afternoon and am glad I did.  And noot only did I come away with, among other things, a wall calendar for the coming year and a photo of the two women behind these lovely works but I also got to thank them for their creations which really have lifted my spirits more than once when it really was in need of some help doing so... 

It was good to see a bottle of hand sanitizer at the entrance

to the exhibition, and a "photos welcome" sign too!

 

Don't well all need some advice on "How to

Survive a Disaster" right now/this year?!

 

Pictures at at exhibition

 

A great example of Joanne and Ah Li's work

 

Explanatory label for the work

 

Another work in their "How to Survive a Disaster" series

 

A sample work from their "Our City" series

 

Joanne and Ah Li among their creations at the ACO Art Space :)

Hong Kong Pride Parade Day 2020

At the most recent Pride Parade that was allowed to 

take place on the streets of Hong Kong

 

A message and sentiment that still resonates in 2020

 

Some color and whimsy are also pretty much always welcomed :)

 

For the second straight year, there will be no Pride Parade on the streets of Hong Kong.  Instead, 2019 saw a static pride rally in Central after the Hong Kong police banned the annual march over safety concerns (hmmm...) while 2020 has seen the pride parade go online after the Hong Kong police again refused to provide a letter of no objection for the event -- citing Wuhan coronavirus pandemic fears this time around.   

With things going the way they are doing in Hong Kong (with pretty much every planned march getting banned; the latest being what would have been a journalists' march to highlight the suppression of the media and issues such as the arrest of the Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) producer Bao Choy Yuk-ling), I'm thinking the odds are pretty low that there'll be a Pride Parade in 2021.  Too bad since the 2018 Pride Parade had been such a wonderfully joyous as well as rainbow colored affair which brought together gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transexuals, couples, singles, parents, children and so forth -- all united in calling for equality for all under the law.

 

More than incidentally, heterosexual people are welcome to participate in the Pride Parade.  Just as men can be feminists, heterosexuals can be allies and friends of LGBT folks, after all.  And while 2018 saw me participating for the first time in a Pride Parade in Hong Kong, it was not the first Pride Parade I took part in -- with my maiden participatory foray having taken place decades ago when I was living in Philadelphia.  

The reason for my deciding to go march came out of an incident in a classroom at the university that I was attending in Philadelphia.  It involved the professor being casually making disgustingly homophobic remarks of the kind that just would not have been accepted in the much more liberal liberal arts college that I was an undergraduate student at.  

 

Going from a college where I had so many lesbian, gay and bisexual friends that I sometimes joked about being moved to wonder who at the college was actually heterosexual to one which was noticeably more conservative, socially and politically, had been quite a shock to the system.  Even so, I honestly hadn't realized -- and thus was pretty shaken -- that homophobia was so tolerated, probably even condoned, in that particular place and institution of higher learning.  (And the fact that the homophobic professor was an anthropologist really did make things seem so much worse in my eyes!)

 

So caught off guard was I by the homophobic remark that I actually hadn't issued any protest in the classroom.  So when I heard of a Pride Parade taking place on campus a few weeks later, I figured taking part in it would be a good way to make amends for my silence in the classroom that day.  Thus it was that I came to take part in my first protest march ever -- but by no means my last; with Hong Kong being the part of the world where I've taken part in so many protest marches over the years.  

A reminder re why Hong Kong is such a city of protest: it has never been fully or really democratic.  In lieu of voting for what was always a rigged Legislative Council (which recent events have now made into a rubber stamp legislature), people have often sought to make the voices heard on the streets.  But while the authorities are doing their utmost to deny people even that, they have not succeeded in silencing us yet.  

 

Instead, people find alternative venues to voice their concerns and demands such as  Apple Daily ads, online (like with this year's Hong Kong Pride Parade participants) and even pop concerts like the Tat Ming Pair's last night!  As one of the chants I've heard at Pride Parades go:  "We are loud; we are proud; get used to it!" (And should it not be apparent: no, we are not dead yet!)

Yet another sad day for Hong Kong as its Legislative Council is turned democrat-free

When this photo was taken three years and four months ago, there were 

Legislative Councillors as well as ousted legislators among them...

 

As of tomorrow though, there'll be just former 

Legislative Councillors in even this wider picture :(

 

This afternoon, lawyer-political commentator Antony Dapiran Tweeted that: "Dammit I am so sick & tired of writing “A sad day for Hong Kong”..."  (https://twitter.com/antd/status/1326424281727832067).  Me too, Antony, me too.  

For the record: Today, Beijing went ahead and disqualified four pro-democracy members of Hong Kong's Legislative Council.  The Hong Kong government announced the disqualification after China's National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) passed a resolution earlier in the day saying that legislators who promote or support Hong Kong independence, refuse to acknowledge China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong, ask external forces to interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs or commit other acts that threaten national security should be disqualified.  

 

The fact that Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam openly admitted that she was just the messenger -- or, actually, errand girl -- for Beijing really made clear that "One country, two systems" is dead.  So, really, the question now is: why is she still being paid a salary of over HK$5.21 million (~US$667,680) a year?!

 

As promised just two days ago, the pan-democrat bloc have announced their resignation enmasse from Legislative Council after Beijing moved to (further) disqualify members of their camp.  In so doing, Hong Kong's Legislative Council will become like China's National People's Congress: devoid of a genuine opposition and really just a rubber stamp institution.

Already, there has been international condemnation of Beijing's ousting of Hong Kong's legislators (even as pro-Beijing vultures like Regina Ip sought to heap criticism blame on the pan-democratic camp).  But will real action follow the words?  The answer, I suspect and fear, is: No.  Though, of course, the possibility does exist.

 

This past Monday, Canada's The Globe and Mail published a piece entitled "With 3.4 million nationals in Hong Kong, Canada and allies have more influence than they realize: expert".  The expert in question, is a Hong Kong-born political scientist at the University of London’s SOAS China Institute.  

 

In his testimony before the special Commons committee on Canada-China relations, which is considering how the Canadian government should respond to Beijing’s repressive moves in Hong Kong, Professor Steve Tsang stated the following:-

If you [add up] the Canadians and the [British National (Overseas)] passport holders and the Americans and the Australians and the New Zealanders passport holders together, you are talking about the bulk of Hong Kong’s economic lifeline...

If they all leave Hong Kong because of ... Chinese government policy, [Beijing] will have to think hard about this...

At the moment the Chinese government does not believe any of these governments will stand by their nationals in Hong Kong, who are mostly in fact dual nationals. We have to persuade the Chinese government that yes we really mean it, for them to take it seriously.

...That is one thing that will really get [Beijing] to take notice, more than anything else. Individually none of us will be able to persuade the Chinese government to make any change.

And yes, it's so true that, right now, many of us here in Hong Kong are feeling so helpless as well as bereft; with the only thing we're clinging to now being that we are not alone -- in our misery but also attempt to hope against hope still that all is not lost.  Yet.  

Hong Kong continues to struggle against political oppression in the wake and shadow of the American presidential election

Demands made at the first protest march I participated in

in Hong Kong (back on July 1st, 2012) included (for) "1 person, 1 vote"

 

A reminder that the anti-extradition bill protestors' five demands

include (genuine) universal suffrage for Hong Kong

 

Despite spending the afternoon hiking on Saturday, I ended up staying awake until around 3 o'clock the next morning because very late that night (Hong Kong time), Joe Biden was announced as the winner of this year's American Presidential election; whereby my American Democrat friends promptly lit up my Facebook feed and rushed to share their joy with the world.  

 

Witnessing their sheer relief that good had finally triumphed along with ecstacy that their side had won, I thought back to the euphoria I had felt when seeing the results go in favor of the pro-democrat camp at the District Council elections last November 24th.  And I must admit to feeling rather jealous that they were able to vote this year -- unlike those of us in Hong Kong who were denied the chance to do so this year after the postponement of the Legislative Council elections which many sensed would see the pro-democrat camp capture an unprecedented majority of seats.

 

Even though they could not vote in the U.S. elections, many people in Hong Kong cared about how it would go because they look to that far away country's government to stand up to China -- for Hong Kong along with the Uighurs and Taiwan as well as the American people.  But while there were Hong Kongers who wanted to Trump to win a second term because they believe Joe Biden will be less tough on China, many foreign political analysts think the American government will continue to work to counter China's aggression -- and probably be more effectively doing so under the Biden administration.

 

For the record: I've long been anti-Trump.  (Yes, his administration has imposed sanctions against Hong Kong officials in recent months, and even today -- but it's worth recognizing that the likes of Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act had (rare) bi-partisan support.  And, honestly, there's so much wrong about him that I can't even bother to go into it.)  So the result of this American presidential election has gone the way I wanted.  

 

Actually, since last November 24th, every major election I've had an interest in has been won by the candidate I was rooting for!  And I really did experience joy from seeing Tsai Ing Wen be re-elected as President of Taiwan this past January and New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern prevail at the polls this past October -- more so than this past weekend, in no large part because their victories were so much more emphatic.

 

All of which adds to my regret that Hong Kong was not able to go to the polls on September 6th; and this all the more so since we would have then been spared the whole fiasco that has included Chu Hoi-dick, Ray Chan and Tanya Chan having decided that they did not want to stay Legislative Councillors in the wake of there being no election this year, and now the entire pan-democrat contingent threatening to resign enmasse if Beijing (via its Hong Kong government lackeys) moves to have any more of them disqualified.

There are people who, to this day, believe that the pan-democrats will be playing into Beijing's hands if they do in fact leave the Legislative Council.  Back in September, I agreed with Stephen Vines that it was of benefit to Hong Kong to have opposition members in the Legislative Council to do such as officially calling the government to account.  Also, as he pointed out in his Apple Daily article, "the system has long been rigged and has dubious democratic credentials."  So it wasn't as though fighting against the odds in that legislative chamber would be anything new.

At the same time though, the circumstances really are being made harder and harder for those who value democracy and freedom to stand one's ground here in Hong Kong.  In the case of the pan-democrats still serving in the Legislative Council, the removal of their ability to filibuster really could make them weaponless.   

Yet, it's not like Hong Kongers have entirely given up their fight and are now just waiting for such as the American goverment to come and save them.  On the education front: even as the government seeks more power to punish teachers, many school principals say they are pushing back against attempts by pro-establishment figures to name and shame teachers accused of misconduct and other wrongdoing.  

 

And after appearing in court for her hearing this morning, RTHK journalist Bao Choy Yuk-ling reiterated her feeling that "I truly believe I will not walk alone" as well as that "this incident is no longer a personal matter but a matter related to public interest and press freedom in Hong Kong".  In other words: even while we wish for the world with Hong Kong, Hong Kongers are continuing to stand with one another -- against political oppression, and for freedom and democracy.