Human rights group Amnesty International said Tuesday it is opening a new Hong Kong section overseas, three years after closing its office in the territory because of a Chinese crackdown on civil society.
Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas (AIHKO), will be led by Hong Kong diaspora activists operating from key international hubs including Australia, Canada, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States, Amnesty said in a statement.
“The gutting of Hong Kong’s civil society has been a tragedy for the city with more than 100 non-profits and media outlets shut down or forced to flee,” the statement said. “We are now ready to intensify our efforts by building new communities of support driven by the Hong Kong diaspora.”
Amnesty said that since pro-democracy protests in 2019, more than 10,000 people, many of them students, have been arrested for protest-related activities. Over 300 people have been arrested for alleged acts of “endangering national security.”
It said that AIHKO is Amnesty International’s first-ever section founded and operated entirely “in exile.”
“Being overseas provides us with a degree of protection, allowing us to speak more freely and engage in advocacy work. We have a responsibility to do more to support those who remain in Hong Kong and continue their vital efforts,” Fernando Cheung, AIHKO board member and former Hong Kong legislator, was quoted as saying.
The U.K.-based human rights group was founded in 1961 with particular focus on the plight of political prisoners. Amnesty International’s local office in Hong Kong ceased operations on Oct. 31, 2021.
AIHKO, which is officially registered in Switzerland, will focus on advocating for human rights of Hong Kongers, within Hong Kong and abroad, the statement said.
Hong Kong was once a bastion of free media and expression in Asia, qualities that helped make it an international financial center and a regional hub for journalism and civil society groups.
But demonstrations in 2019 against Beijing’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s freedoms led to the passage of a national security law in 2020 that stifled dissent, making life increasingly precarious for independent groups that criticized China.
Radio Free Asia closed in its Hong Kong bureau in March 2024, saying the city’s recently amended national security law, also known as “Article 23,” had raised safety concerns for its reporters and staff members.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
A social worker and rights activist was sentenced Wednesday to three years and nine months in prison for participating in a riot during Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests.
Jackie Chen was one of several social workers who tried to mediate between police and demonstrators. She carried a loudspeaker and urged police to use restraint and to refrain from firing non-lethal bullets during a protest that took place on Aug. 31, 2019.
At Wednesday’s hearing in the Hong Kong district court, three co-defendants were sentenced to two years and five months in prison after entering a guilty plea. Chen, who pleaded guilty and got the stiffer sentence, had faced up to seven years in prison.
Police made more than 10,000 arrests during and after the 2019 protests, which began as a show of mass public anger at plans to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China.
They broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.
Chen was acquitted in 2020, but prosecutors appealed and won a retrial in another example of the harsh stance that Hong Kong authorities have taken with political cases.
When Chen was convicted last month, Judge May Chung wrote in her verdict that Chen used her position as a social worker to support the protesters and used the loudspeaker to shout unfounded accusations against the police.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.
The Sino-British Joint Declaration signed on Dec. 19, 1984 in Beijing – and the 1990 Hong Kong mini-constitution known as the Basic Law – promised that Hong Kong would retain its legislative system, rights and freedom for fifty years, as a special administrative region of China, while the central government in Beijing controlled Hong Kong’s foreign affairs. Beijing’s retention of control over legal interpretation of the Basic Law, which had promised universal suffrage, planted the seed of future protests.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Paul Eckert.
In the year since Hong Kong passed its “Article 23” legislation, national security police have hauled in the friends of a pro-democracy activist in Taiwan over comments he made on social media, and are increasingly monitoring people’s social media interactions.
Fu Tong, who now lives in democratic Taiwan, said police back home seem to be targeting online speech since the passing of a second national security law that includes a broader “sedition” offense than earlier legislation.
“It’s pretty serious now,” Fu told RFA in an interview on Monday. “Before, they would just read my posts. But since Article 23, they have even been monitoring my interactions with my friends.”
A friend of his was hauled in for questioning by national security police after Fu left a comment on their Facebook account, he said.
“Now, I daren’t leave comments on my friends’ Facebook [posts],” he said.
Images of activists Simon Cheng, Frances Hui, Joey Siu, Johnny Fok and Tony Choi are displayed during a press conference to issue arrest warrants in Hong Kong, Dec. 14, 2023.(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)
The Safeguarding National Security bill, commonly known as Article 23, was passed on March 23, 2024.
It came amid a crackdown on dissent that has used both the 2020 National Security Law and colonial-era sedition laws to prosecute and jail people for protest and political opposition in unprecedented numbers.
Chilling effect
The government said the legislation was needed to plug “loopholes” left by the 2020 National Security Law and claims it is needed to deal with clandestine activity by “foreign forces” in the city, which the ruling Communist Party blames for the 2019 mass protest movement that was sparked by plans to allow extradition to mainland China.
The law proposes sentences of up to life imprisonment for “treason,” “insurrection,” “sabotage” and “mutiny,” 20 years for espionage and 10 years for crimes linked to “state secrets” and “sedition.”
It also allows the authorities to revoke the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passports of anyone who flees overseas, and to target overseas activists with financial sanctions.
Human rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung is seen inside a vehicle after being detained in Hong Kong, Sept. 8, 2021.(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)
The concept of “collusion with foreign forces ” runs throughout the draft bill, and sentences are harsher where “foreign forces” are deemed to be involved.
Fu said Article 23 has had a chilling effect on Hong Kong-related activism, even overseas, with fewer exiled Hong Kongers turning out for protests and other events in Taiwan.
He said activists still plan to go ahead with a protest marking the first anniversary of the Article 23 legislation in Taipei on Sunday, however.
Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Center for Asian Law, Georgetown University, said there are other examples of the law being used to censor social media.
In May 2024, Hong Kong police arrested jailed human rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung and five other people — the first arrests to be made under the recently passed Article 23 security law — for making social media posts with “seditious intent” ahead of the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre.
Being watched
He said the government is using the legislation to bolster the feeling that ordinary people are being watched.
“Over the past year, the most common charge used to prosecute people under Article 23 has been sedition,” Lai said. “Sedition is kind of a catch-all offense, and the government is using it to target more ordinary Hong Kongers.”
“The point is to warn Hong Kongers that they’re not immune just because they’re not a political figure … and that ordinary people are also being monitored when they go online,” he said.
Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University, is seen in an undated photo.(Tang Zheng/RFA)
The government hasn’t made public details of the number of prosecutions under the law to date, but Lai said that the cases that make the news may only be the tip of the iceberg.
He said the recent confiscation of exiled pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui’s assets only came to light because Hui himself spoke out about it.
He said the law grants sweeping powers of surveillance to the authorities, increasing the size of the police dragnet to include everyday comments and activities.
“The biggest difference between Article 23 and the 2020 National Security Law is that Article 23 provides more powers for the Hong Kong government to chip away at the system,” Lai said.
“The government can decide not to parole people if it judges them to be a threat to national security, and it can prevent defendants from seeing a lawyer, and hold them in police stations for longer than before,” he said.
He said it was significant that the Court of Appeal allowed an injunction against the banned 2019 protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” after the Article 23 legislation was passed.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
The lack of transparency over the death of a teenage student from a prestigious Hong Kong secondary school while on a study trip to mainland China has sparked concerns among parents.
Such trips to the mainland are increasing seen as compulsory by the city government, but the standards regarding access to information in mainland China are far lower than in Hong Kong.
St. Paul’s College, a HK$44,000 (US$5,700)-a-year Christian secondary school, was informed on Feb. 28 that one of its Form 5 students had “passed away,” the school said in a press release dated March 1.
“Our teachers and students are very much saddened by the news,” the statement said, adding that the incident is “currently under investigation and it is inappropriate to speculate.”
The school has deployed a School Crisis Management Team, with educational psychologists, school social workers and guidance personnel offering emotional support to students and teachers, it said.
Students at St. Paul’s College, Hong Kong, undated photo.(St. Paul’s College/Facebook via Facebook)
The Hong Kong government’s Education Bureau said the boy’s death was an “unfortunate accident,” but denied it was linked to the study trip activities, which had gone smoothly.
An online petition calling for more information about the incident was deleted after a day, a former education official told RFA Cantonese.
No photos of the trip had been uploaded to the school’s Facebook page as of March 11.
Shift to patriotic education
Mainland study trips are increasingly seen as compulsory by Hong Kong’s Education Bureau as part of the shift from the former Liberal Studies civic education program to the patriotic Moral, Civic and National Education program in primary and secondary schools favored by Beijing, a former government examinations official told RFA Cantonese.
While the government has sent a delegation to Hangzhou following the incident, it hasn’t commented publicly on how the boy died, prompting concerns among parents.
“As for the unfortunate accident in Hangzhou earlier, we are very sad and extend our deepest condolences to the family,” Secretary for Education Christine Choi told reporters on March 7.
“At present, the investigation has come to an end, and we clearly understand that the incident has nothing to do with the exchange activities or the inspection trip,” she said. “We respect the family’s wishes … and will not disclose the details of the case.”
‘Everything is compulsory’
The lack of transparency around the boy’s death has prompted widespread speculation on social media over the reason for it, including unconfirmed reports that he died in a “schoolyard bullying” incident.
But the government and school have declined to comment.
Hans Yeung, a former government examinations official who runs the Edulancet Instagram account, said the boy’s death comes as the government is urging Hong Kong schools to send students on more and more study trips to mainland China as part of its “sister schools” initiative.
St. Paul’s has sister schools in Xi’an and Shenzhen, with another possible connection to a school in Wuhan, according to its Facebook page.
Under the new approach, a Beijing-backed subject titled “Citizenship and Social Development” has been made a compulsory part of the high school diploma.
Yeung said Hong Kong — once a target for the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s United Front outreach and influence program — is now expected to engage in compulsory patriotic education.
“When it’s United Front, they show you the fun stuff, give you some nice food to make you feel good [about China], but now they are under its rule, so everything is compulsory,” he said.
“Now, the food they get will be very ordinary, and everything will be rushed,” Yeung said, adding that the Education Bureau has made attendance on a mainland China study trip a prerequisite for applicants to take the social studies paper in the high school diploma.
That in turn will affect their eligibility to go to college, he said.
“Citizenship and Social Development … is a compulsory subject, and a small thing like a study trip can affect eligibility to sit the exam,” Yeung said. “If they are ineligible for this exam … they can’t apply to university.”
He said there is little parents can do about this.
“Parents will kick up more of a fuss and ask more questions but … there is no room for protest in the education sector any more,” Yeung said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.
The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association is appealing to journalists to preserve Facebook live video footage of 2019 protests after Meta said it will start deleting archived videos from its servers.
There are concerns that much of the online footage of those protests, most of which is banned in the city amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent, will no longer be available to the general public.
That will make it easier for the authorities to impose their own narrative on events in the city’s recent history.
Facebook notified users last month that it will be deleting archived live video streams from June 5, while newly streamed live video will be deleted after 30 days from Feb. 19, 2025.
“Since the Hong Kong news media have relied heavily on Facebook Live for reporting in the past, the Journalists Association now calls on the heads of mainstream, independent and citizen media and online editors to back up their videos as soon as possible,” the Hong Kong Journalists Association said.
“If necessary, you can follow the platform’s instructions to apply for an extension to up to six months before deletion,” it said.
Capturing history
In one livestream still available on YouTube from Oct. 1, 2019, an out-of-breath protester collates video feeds from several sources on the ground, commenting on what is unfolding while sounding out of breath from “running” at a protest a minute earlier.
Meta’s webpage outlining their process to update Facebook Live videos.(Meta)
While one feed is run by protesters and the other by a professional journalist, both offer a sense of boots-on-the-ground immediacy that would be crucial for anyone seeking to learn what the protests were about many years later.
A reporter for an online media outlet who gave only the pseudonym Ken for fear of reprisals said a very large proportion of the public record of the 2019 protests was streamed live on Facebook, with more than 100 videos stored there.
While current media organizations have made backups, the footage will no longer be there for anyone to browse, making the record of that year less publicly available, Ken said.
“It’s like we’ve lost an online library,” he said. “Unless someone is willing to back it up and put it all online, there’ll be no way of finding that history any more, should you want to.”
Ken and his colleagues are concerned that online records of the 2019 could disappear entirely in a few years’ time, especially as republishing them from Hong Kong could render the user vulnerable to accusations of “glorifying” the protests, and prosecution under two national security laws.
Photographers document pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, left, as he speaks at the police headquarters in Hong Kong, June 21, 2019.(VIncent Yu/AP)
“This is a very serious problem, because certain events or people may be completely forgotten about in a few years, maybe 10 years,” Ken said.
But there are risks attached to republishing video content — especially for residents of Hong Kong.
“You don’t know whether you will be accused of incitement if you post it again,” Ken said. “You never know what your live broadcast captured and whether there was issue … under the two national security laws.”
Permanent loss of historical material
A fellow journalist who gave only the pseudonym Mr. G for fear of reprisals said his media organization still has access to its own live streamed footage of the 2019 protests from both Facebook and YouTube.
But he said the planned deletions could lead to “the permanent loss of some historical material.”
Facebook said that the owners of the videos will receive an email or notification in advance “and can choose to download the videos, transfer them to the cloud, or convert them into reels short videos within 90 days.”
“If users need more time to process old videos, they can apply to postpone the deadline by 6 months,” it said, adding that most live video is viewed in the first few weeks after being uploaded.
Veteran media commentator To Yiu-ming said social media platforms aren’t suited for use as a historical archive.
“There’s no point criticizing them,” To said. “Users may well encounter similar practices even … if they move to another social media platform.”
“If you want to preserve the historical record, you have to use less convenient methods, and spend a bit of time and money,” he said.
The concerns over the deletion of live video come after a report claimed that Meta was willing to go to “extreme lengths” to censor content and shut down political dissent in a failed attempt to win the approval of the Chinese Communist Party and bring Facebook to millions of internet users in China.
Citing a whistleblower complaint by Sarah Wynn-Williams from the company’s China policy team, the Washington Post reported that Meta “so desperately wanted to enter the lucrative China market that it was willing to allow the ruling party to oversee all social media content appearing in the country and quash dissenting opinions.”
The notice in Chinese from Facebook warning users that archived live video will be deleted, Feb. 19, 2025.(Meta)
So it developed a censorship system for China in 2015 and planned to install a “chief editor” who would decide what content to remove and could shut down the entire site during times of “social unrest,” according to a copy of the 78-page complaint exclusively seen by The Washington Post.
Meta executives also “stonewalled and provided nonresponsive or misleading information” to investors and American regulators, the complaint said.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone told the paper that it was “no secret” the company was interested in operating in China.
“This was widely reported beginning a decade ago,” Stone was quoted as saying. “We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we’d explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.
A social worker and rights activist was convicted on Tuesday of participating in a riot during Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests.
Jackie Chen was one of several social workers who tried to mediate between police and demonstrators. She carried a loudspeaker and urged police to use restraint and to refrain from firing non-lethal bullets during a protest that took place on Aug. 31, 2019.
Police made more than 10,000 arrests during and after the 2019 protests, which began as a show of mass public anger at plans to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China.
They broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.
Chen was acquitted in 2020, but prosecutors appealed and won a retrial in another example of the harsh stance that Hong Kong authorities have taken with political cases.
Before heading to Hong Kong district court for the verdict, Chen told Radio Free Asia that she felt “peaceful.”
“As long as my body is healthy, there are still a lot of things I can do,” she said. “So why not face it calmly?”
Later, she gathered with supporters in front of the court building while wearing a backpack, a sweatshirt with colorful drawings and a cheerful expression.
Judge May Chung wrote in her verdict that Chen used her position as a social worker to support the protesters and used the loudspeaker to shout unfounded accusations against the police.
Chen was taken into custody and is scheduled to be sentenced next month. She could face up to seven years in prison.
Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal on Thursday overturned the convictions of jailed human rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung and two fellow organizers of a candlelit vigil for victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, although the three have already served their sentences.
The ruling relates to charges of failing to hand over alliance documents to national security police, a requirement that only applies to “foreign agents.”
Chow, Tang and Tsui were jailed in 2023 for four-and-a-half months each for refusing to comply with the request.
The Court of Final Appeal cited the use of documents by the prosecution that were “heavily redacted” as a key plank in its decision.
Tang Ngok-kwan, center, a core member of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, and Medina Chow Lau Wah-chun, left, mother of Chow Hang-tung, a core member, leave the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong, March 6, 2025.(AP)
“The Court held that in such circumstances the redactions were not only self-defeating by removing from evidence the only material relied upon for establishing that the [Alliance] were foreign agents, but also made it impossible for the Appellants to have a fair trial as they were deprived of all knowledge as to the nature of the prosecution’s case on an essential element of the offense,” the judgment said.
“Accordingly, the Court unanimously allowed the appeals, and quashed the convictions and sentences.”
‘Convincing reasons’
Chow made a V sign for “victory” in court after hearing the decision.
Former Alliance member Tang Ngok-kwan told reporters outside the court on Thursday that the ruling had proved that the Alliance was never a “foreign agent” as accused by police.
“Chow Hang-tung … played a leading role in the process and put forward very convincing reasons to explain why the police’s request was an abuse of power, which made us more confident,” Tang said. “She was hugely important in bringing this about.”
“If we hadn’t persisted, we would have been forced to give in, and in the end, the Court of Final Appeal also checked and prevented this abuse of power,” he said.
Overseas-based lawyer Kevin Yam said the police had acted “outrageously” in demanding the Alliance’s documents.
“The Hong Kong police went too far,” he said. “They were deliberately testing how far the National Security Law would allow them to go.”
He said the police actions hadn’t even met the standards of courts in mainland China, which are tasked with doing the bidding of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
‘Crime’ of organizing a vigil
Chow remains behind bars pending a separate trial for “incitement to subversion” under the 2020 National Security Law, alongside two other former Alliance leaders, rights lawyer Albert Ho and labor unionist Lee Cheuk-yan.
“Their ‘crime’ is being the organisers of the large public annual vigil which was held in Hong Kong every year on 4 June from 1990 to 2020, to commemorate the victims of the Beijing Massacre on 4 June 1989,” former Hong Kong Bar Association Chairman Paul Harris wrote in a March 6 op-ed piece for the British legal paper The Counsel.
Harris criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for not stopping to listen when he tried to raise Chow’s case with him in 2024.
“This was a bad omen for the attitude of a new Labour government towards Hong Kong,” Harris wrote. “Since then my fears have been realised as I watched Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ trade promotion visit to Beijing in which Hong Kong seems to have been studiously ignored.”
Chow has been behind bars since 2021, when she was a recently engaged 36-year-old, with most of that time served in pretrial detention, he said.
“Like her co-defendants, she is detained simply for exercising the rights of free speech and freedom of assembly which were guaranteed to them by Britain and China in 1984, and which are exercised by everyone in the U.K. all the time,” he said.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has stated that her detention is arbitrary, and Amnesty International has recognized her as a prisoner of conscience, he added.
Setback for free speech
The Court of Final Appeal also ruled on Thursday in the sedition case of talk-show host and People Power activist Tam Tak-chi, the first Hong Kong person tried on a sedition charge since the city’s handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
Tam had appealed on the basis that free speech must be protected, and that incitement to violence must be proven in sedition cases, but the court rejected that argument on Thursday, upholding his conviction.
Tam, also known by his nickname Fast Beat, was found guilty on eight counts of sedition linked to slogans he either spoke or wrote between January and July 2020.
Hong Kong talk show host Tam Tak-chi is escorted, in hand-restraints, to court from Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre, March 2, 2021.(Kin Cheung/AP)
He is also being tried for “inciting an illegal assembly” and “disorderly conduct,” after he gave a number of public speeches calling for the “liberation” of Hong Kong, some of which were peppered with Cantonese swear-words.
Tam also stands accused of using the now-banned slogan of the 2019 protest movement — “Free Hong Kong, revolution now!” — and of saying that the authorities should “delay no more” in disbanding the police force, using a homonym for a Cantonese epithet involving the target’s mother.
Tam allegedly also shouted: “Down with the [ruling] Chinese Communist Party (CCP)!”
1938 law
In the sweeping colonial-era legislation under which Tam’s charges were brought, sedition is defined as any words that generate “hatred, contempt or dissatisfaction” with the government, or “encourage disaffection.”
The law was passed under British rule in 1938, and is widely regarded as illiberal and anti-free speech. However, by the turn of the century, it had lain dormant on the statute books for decades, until being resurrected for use against opposition politicians, activists, and participants in the 2019 protest movement.
The Court rejected Tam’s appeal on Thursday, in a move that the overseas-based Hong Kong Democracy Council said would have “wide-ranging implications” for future sedition cases in Hong Kong.
“It’ll allow the regime to continue to easily convict for sedition,” the Council said via its X account. “Up to now it has a 100% conviction rate … The regime’s used sedition to throttle political speech.”
Kevin Yam said the decision had “set human rights protections in Hong Kong back 70 years, to the 1950s.”
“The chances of being found guilty … are now much greater,” he said, in a reference to “sedition” charges.
Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who is himself wanted by national security police, said the use of “sedition” charges was tantamount to a “literary inquisition” in Hong Kong.
“The door is wide open for the government to use sedition as political retaliation against anyone who says some embarrassing to the government, for example criticizing the budget for cutting bus concessions for the elderly,” Hui told RFA Mandarin.
“The court has made the threshold for sedition convictions very low indeed,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
A court in Hong Kong has handed down a three-year, one-month jail term to a former pro-democracy lawmaker for “rioting,” after he livestreamed unrest at the height of 2019 pro-democracy protests.
Lam Cheuk-ting’s footage, which appeared on Facebook, showed attacks by white-clad pro-China thugs on passengers at the Yuen Long Mass Transit Railway station on July 21 of that year.
It depicted panicked passengers and bystanders calling for police help that took nearly 40 minutes to arrive.
Lam, 47, who was himself attacked for his pains, was sent to the hospital with head and arm injuries that required about 18 stitches.
Lam is currently serving a prison sentence of nearly seven years for “subversion” as one of the 47 pro-democracy activists prosecuted for organizing a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.
He can expect to serve 34 months of his rioting sentence after that term finishes.
Courts have skewed toward Beijing
Since the imposition of the 2020 National Security Law, Hong Kong’s once-independent courts have tended to issue rulings along pro-Beijing lines, particularly in politically sensitive cases, according to a 2024 report by law experts at Georgetown University.
Lam, a former Legislative Council member, was sentenced on Thursday alongside six other people convicted of the same charge, despite not being among the white-clad mob.
District Judge Stanley Chan said the defendants had taken part in “another riot” inside the station that was triggered by the attacks from the men wielding sticks and clubs.
He handed down sentences ranging between two years, one month to three years, one month.
Referring to 2019 as “the year when the Pearl of the Orient lost its luster,” Chan said that the defendants had “responded to provocation” from around 100 men in white, about a dozen of whom have since been jailed for “rioting” and “conspiring to wound with intent.”
Chan said Lam hadn’t tried to calm people down, but had rather added “fuel to the flames” by providing a gathering point for people trying to resist the attacks.
6 others sentenced
The six other defendants — Yu Ka Ho, Jason Chan, Yip Kam Sing, Kwong Ho Lam, Wan Chung Ming and Marco Yeung — were sentenced to between 25-31 months.
They had tried to form a defensive line against the attackers, using fire extinguishers and water bottles, and pleaded self-defense during their trial.
But Chan said their actions were “unlawful assembly” and “breach of the peace,” saying that some of them had yelled at the attackers in white to come and fight them, as well as throwing objects at them.
“It is clear that at the time in question … the defendants became the rioters,” he told the sentencing hearing.
During the attack–carried out by dozens of unidentified thugs in white T-shirts carrying wooden and metal poles–police were inundated with emergency calls, but didn’t move in until 39 minutes after it began.
Pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting gestures outside of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Magistrates Court on Aug. 27, 2020.(Anthony Wallace/AFP)
In a recent book about the protests, former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin wrote that the Hong Kong authorities knew about the attacks in advance.
Members of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld “triad” organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book said.
The weeks and months after the incident saw a massive wave of public anger at the police, who were later seen as legitimate targets for doxxing and even violent attacks.
But instead of investigating, then Chief Executive Carrie Lam rejected any allegations of collusion, and later quashed a full report from the city’s police supervisory body on the handling of the protests.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party insists that the 2019 protests were an attempt by “hostile foreign forces” to foment an uprising against the government in Hong Kong.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Hong Kong plans to eliminate 10,000 civil service jobs and freeze public sector salaries as part of an effort to curb a growing fiscal deficit, its top finance official announced on Wednesday, as the city grapples with its third year of budget shortfalls.
Hong Kong’s deficit for the fiscal year ending in March 2025 stands at an estimated HK$87.2 billion (US$11.2 billion), following deficits of HK$122 billion in 2022/23 and HK$101.6 billion the previous year.
Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan outlined in his 2025 budget speech on Wednesday measures to address the financial challenges, including a 7% reduction in government spending over the next three years.
As part of the initiative, the government will cut 10,000 civil service positions by April 2027, representing a 2% workforce reduction per year over the next two years, said Chan.
“The spending cut will establish a sustainable fiscal foundation for future development,” said Chan. “It provides a clear pathway toward restoring fiscal balance in the operating account in a planned and progressive manner.”
Chan added he had also instructed all government bureaus and departments to reassess resource allocation and work priorities. He emphasized the need for streamlining procedures, consolidating resources and leveraging technology to deliver public services more effectively.
Challenges after National Security Law
Since the introduction of a National Security Law in 2020, in response to sometimes violent pro-democracy protests the year before, Hong Kong’s economy has faced mounting challenges, including U.S. and Western sanctions, capital outflows, and shifts in investor confidence.
Gross domestic product contracted by 6.1% in 2020 before rebounding to 6.4% in 2021, but growth has since slowed to 3.2% in 2023 and 2.5% in 2024.
The real estate sector has been hit hard, with property prices dropping nearly 30%, significantly reducing government revenue from land sales, which once contributed over 20% but now make up only about 5%.
The city’s financial sector has remained a cornerstone of its economy, attracting Chinese company listings.
In 2024, funds raised through initial public offerings, or IPOs, in Hong Kong more than doubled in the first three quarters, despite a global downturn in IPO activity. This surge is attributed to market efficiency improvements and enhanced access to mainland financial markets.
However, the landscape has shifted, with multinationals increasingly reconsidering their presence in the city. Western banks play a diminished role in major IPOs, leading to layoffs and a strategic pivot towards wealth management over investment banking – a trend reflecting Hong Kong’s closer alignment with Beijing and a retreat of Western financial players.
The retail and tourism sectors, once vital to the city’s economy, have faced significant challenges due to pandemic restrictions and a decline in mainland Chinese visitors.
In November 2024, retail sales fell by 7.3% year-on-year, marking the ninth consecutive month of decline. Notably, 53% of mainland visitors were day-trippers, spending about HK$1,400 each – 42% less than in 2018.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.
A court in Hong Kong has seized the assets of exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, claiming they were “obtained from committing offenses endangering national security.”
Hui’s assets–funds totaling more than US$300,000–were frozen by court order on Feb. 17 after an application by the city’s Department of Justice, the government said in a statement on Tuesday.
Hui had transferred this amount to his wife and mother prior to leaving the country in 2020, while he was out on bail.
The move comes amid an ongoing crackdown by Beijing on public dissent in Hong Kong under two security laws.
The statement said Hui had committed “numerous heinous crimes,” including “conspiring with foreign politicians in 2020 to forge documents and deceive the court with false information in order to obtain the court’s permission to leave Hong Kong while he was on bail,” and added that he had “jumped bail and absconded overseas.”
But Hui is also accused of committing offenses “endangering national security” overseas, the statement said, adding that he stands accused of “inciting secession” and “inciting subversion of state power,” as well as “colluding with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.”
Hui said the confiscation order was “absurd and a blatant violation of my human rights,” and a form of political retaliation amid the crackdown.
According to the government, Hui had transferred nearly $2.5 million Hong Kong dollars (US$321,500) in personal assets as gifts to his mother and wife before he skipped bail.
Under Hong Kong law, if a defendant benefits from committing an offense endangering national security and makes a gift at any time from six years before the date of prosecution onwards, the property held by the recipient of the gift may be regarded as the defendant’s property and confiscated, the spokesman said.
Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa program. Others have made their homes anew in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.
Hui said in a post to his Facebook page that the money he had given to his mother and wife had been intended as living expenses in his absence.
“That works out at 10,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$1,286) a month over the six years since I left Hong Kong,” Hui said. “Some people might not even think that’s very much.”
“The people of Hong Kong can see all too clearly what is happening, and they’ll be sure to take their money overseas.”
He told RFA Mandarin in a later interview: “Luckily, my parents sold their home in Hong Kong a few years ago and transferred the proceeds elsewhere.”
‘No Money left in Hong Kong is safe.’
He said the authorities had already frozen his bank accounts in Hong Kong after he fled the city amid a crackdown on dissent and political opposition.
“What they confiscated on this occasion was our only asset left in Hong Kong,” he said. “This has shown us that our concerns were reasonable.”
“A regime that violates human rights will do anything, and no money left in Hong Kong is safe,” Hui said.
The government has also hit back at criticisms of the move.
“The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has noted the unfounded smear and malicious attacks online regarding the actions taken by the Court in accordance with the law,” the statement said. “The HKSAR Government strongly condemned and opposed this.”
The authorities “will do everything possible and use all legal means to pursue and combat criminals who endanger national security,” he said.
Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the authorities’ claim that Hui’s writings on Patreon had somehow paid for the money given to his wife and mother were ridiculous.
“Now this precedent has been set, as long as they can attach a ‘national security’ label to it, everyone’s assets and personal freedom are under threat,” Sang said.
Taiwan-based Hong Kong activist Fu Tong said the move on Hui’s assets is very worrying for Hong Kongers in exile.
“I’m worried because their methods are escalating,” Fu said. “Anyone who continues to speak out overseas will find they can go after people you care about back in Hong Kong, to silence you.”
But he said he would continue to protest and advocate for the return of Hong Kong’s former freedoms.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
For decades, Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, or HKPORI, tracked public attitudes on sensitive political topics that revealed a public perception of disappearing press freedom and poor popularity scores for the city’s leaders.
But after its premises were searched and the family members of a former director were questioned by police, it has decided to halt all research activities and review its situation.
The decision is the latest fallout from a crackdown by Beijing on public dissent in Hong Kong under two security laws.
“HKPORI will suspend all its self-funded research activities indefinitely, including its regular tracking surveys conducted since 1992, and all feature studies recently introduced,” the institute said in a statement on its website.
The pollster said it will “undergo a transformation or even close down.”
“HKPORI has always been law-abiding, but in the current environment, it has to pause its promotion of scientific polling,” the statement said.
The announcement came a few weeks after police took away and questioned the wife and son of U.K.-based pollster and outspoken political commentator Chung Kim-wah, who has a HK$1 million (US$128,500) bounty on his head.
Chung Kim-wah, deputy chief executive of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Research Institute, during an interview, August 2020.(RFA)
President and CEO Robert Chung said “interested parties” are welcome to take over the institute, adding that he plans to “promote professional development around the world” until his current term ends after 2026.
“The research team hopes there will be another opportunity to resume its work,” the statement said, adding that the Institute will “announce its final decision when the time is right.”
Accused of incitement
Chung, 64, a former researcher for the HKPORI and co-host of the weekly talk show “Voices Like Bells” for RFA Cantonese, left for the United Kingdom in April 2022 after being questioned amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
He is accused — alongside Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung — of “incitement to secession” after he “advocated independence” on social media and repeatedly called on foreign governments to impose sanctions on Beijing over the crackdown, according to a police announcement.
U.K.-based Hong Kong political scholar Benson Wong said the move was a huge loss to the people of Hong Kong.
“The biggest loss for the people of Hong Kong that of a professional, neutral and scientific polling organization that once played the role of doctor to the political, economic and social aspects of life in Hong Kong,” Wong told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.
“If all of that is going to disappear, I think it will do catastrophic damage to Hong Kong’s … political development,” he said.
Public opinion research viewed as a threat
Wong said the move is likely linked to the authorities’ view of public opinion research as a threat.
He said Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Xia Baolong and Beijing’s Central Liaison Office director Zheng Yanxiong don’t seem to want to know what Hong Kong public opinion is.
Police announced a warrant for Chung Kim-wah’s arrest and a HK$1 million (US$128,400) bounty on his head in December, making him one of 19 overseas activists wanted by the Hong Kong government.
Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa program. Others have made their homes anew in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.
Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the move would have a “chilling” effect on the rest of society.
“Public opinion surveys are … are a very important weather-vane,” Sang said. “If those can’t even be done any more, then it blurs the boundaries between what is regarded as political and non-political, or what are seen as sensitive and non-sensitive [topics].”
“I think this is going to have a chilling effect on a lot more people, and that nobody will dare to do public opinion surveys any more,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Yam Chi Yau for RFA Cantonese.
New tariffs ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump on imports from China will also apply to goods from Hong Kong, according to a U.S. government document, indicating that Washington has erased the city’s status as a separate trading entity.
“Products of China and Hong Kong [other than exempted categories] and other than products for personal use included in accompanied baggage of persons arriving in the United States, shall be subject to an additional 10% ad valorem rate of duty,” according to Department of Homeland Security implementation guidelines for Trump’s Feb. 1, 2025 Executive Order.
The order imposes duties on imported goods “to address the synthetic opioid supply chain in the People’s Republic of China.”
The document cites a July 17, 2020, Executive Order from the previous Trump administration, which states that China’s ongoing political crackdown in the city represents “an unusual and extraordinary threat” because it “fundamentally undermine[s] Hong Kong’s autonomy.”
“It shall be the policy of the United States to suspend or eliminate different and preferential treatment for Hong Kong to the extent permitted by law and in the national security, foreign policy, and economic interest of the United States,” the order states, citing Hong Kong’s 2020 National Security Law.
Employees check rain boots for export at a shoe factory in Lianyungang, China, March 13, 2024.(AFP)
“Under this law, the people of Hong Kong may face life in prison for what China considers to be acts of secession or subversion of state power—which may include acts like last year’s widespread anti-government protests,” the Order said, citing the lack of trial by jury and the possibility of secret prosecutions.
The new tariffs apply to all goods, even those with a value of less than US$800, but with exemptions for humanitarian and aid supplies.
“The message is very clear,” Sunny Cheung, fellow for China studies at the Jamestown Foundation, told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “Hong Kong has always been China’s main transshipment port and unaffected by tariffs on Chinese goods.”
“Now, Hong Kong is being included [in those tariffs], which can be seen as an attempt to plug a loophole and send a tougher message,” Cheung said. “It will have a greater deterrent effect on China.”
Shipping containers at a port in Hong Kong, March 2, 2022.(DALE DE LA REY, Dale de la Rey/AFP)
He said the Trump administration is keenly aware of indirect ways in which China gets what it wants, citing the recent concern in Washington over the acquisition of key strategic port facilities along the Panama Canal by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison.
Cheung said currently the tariffs only apply to goods produced in China or Hong Kong, and had stopped short of applying to goods shipped through Hong Kong.
“That would be a more nuclear-level attack,” Cheung said.
While the balance of trade has fluctuated over the years, the United States has always been in the top 10 markets for goods exported from Hong Kong, which topped US$5.9 billion for the whole of last year.
Meanwhile the Hong Kong Post said packages and parcels to the United States were suspended with effect from Feb. 5, although services for postal items containing documents only will be unaffected.
“As advised by the postal administration of the United States, Hongkong Post shall not dispatch any postal items containing goods destined to the United States with immediate effect, unless a “formal entry” has been completely and accurately filed with the United States Customs and Border Protection in accordance with United States law,” the postal service said in a statement.
It said postal items containing goods which entered into the United States on or after Feb. 4, 2025, will be returned to Hong Kong.
A “formal entry” must be made via a customs broker, and requires necessary import documents and payment of duties, it said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.
A woman has returned to Hong Kong after being rescued from a Myanmar scam park by the Thai authorities, as family members petitioned the Thai Consulate for help for those who remain, according to campaigners, local media reports and the city government.
“A Hong Kong resident, who had been detained for illegal work in Myanmar and was recently rescued, has departed Thailand for Hong Kong this afternoon with members of the [government’s] dedicated task force,” the city’s Security Bureau said in a statement on Feb. 4.
The areas all host online scam centers that have proliferated in lawless corners of Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, when many casinos turned to online fraud operations, often staffed by unsuspecting job seekers lured by false offers of work, to make up for lost gamblers.
Last month, Hong Kong authorities sent a task force to Thailand in a bid to rescue scam park victims, citing a “resurgence” in criminal activity targeting the city’s residents.
The move followed the high-profile rescue of Chinese TV actor Wang Xing from the notorious KK Park scam facility in Myawaddy, near the border with Thailand.
Former Hong Kong district councilor Andy Yu and family members of scam park victims petition the Thai Consulate in Hong Kong, Feb. 3, 2025.(Channel C HK)
Local media showed photos of the 31-year-old woman being taken across the river from Myawaddy and having her passport and other details checked by Thai officials.
According to Thai media reports, the woman was rescued after the Thai Narcotics Control Bureau dispatched the Royal Thai Army and Police to get her across the border from Myawaddy to Phop Phra county in Thailand’s Tak Province.
Hong Kong’s news site HK01.com reported that no ransom had been paid.
In good condition
Hong Kong security officials “met with the Hong Kong resident in Bangkok this morning and [were] delighted to find that she was in good mental and physical condition,” the Security Bureau said.
“She expressed gratitude for the active coordination and liaison of the dedicated task force with relevant units of the Thai authorities, as well as for the assistance of different parties that enabled her to return to Hong Kong shortly after her rescue to reunite with her family as soon as possible,” it said.
The woman arrived in Hong Kong on Feb. 4 despite concerns that her passport had a triangular section cut out of it, possibly rendering it invalid.
The statement thanked Chinese Foreign Ministry officials based in Hong Kong, Chinese diplomatic missions in Myanmar and Thailand, as well as the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Hong Kong, for their help with the rescue operation.
“The dedicated task force is continuing to actively follow up on the remaining nine request-for-assistance cases of Hong Kong residents who have yet to return, striving for their return to Hong Kong as soon as possible,” it said.
Former district councilor Andy Yu told RFA Cantonese that he and other campaigners visited the Thai consulate in Hong Kong on Monday to petition for help with the rescue of seven Hong Kongers whose family members have sought his help in recent months.
Yu, who said he didn’t represent the 31-year-old woman rescued on Sunday, said the Thai Vice-Consul had promised that his government would “do its best” to ensure the remaining Hong Kongers are rescued too.
“The deputy consul came to meet with us,” Yu said. “We told him the contents of the letter, including the latest situation of the seven people seeking help and about a new case.”
“He said … that they are maintaining contact with the Hong Kong police, that they will … do their best to rescue the remaining people, and that … they can play a coordinating role,” he said. “If necessary, they can get in contact with the Myanmar Consulate in Hong Kong, and can act as an intermediary.”
Currently, there are eight Hong Kongers trapped in scam parks in Myanmar, and one in a similar facility in Cambodia, Yu said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.
Libraries in democratic Taiwan are stocking books removed from the shelves by authorities in Hong Kong, who are waging a war on politically “sensitive” content amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent, a recent investigation by RFA Cantonese revealed.
Hong Kong’s bookstores once drew Chinese-language bibliophiles from far and wide in pursuit of some of the city’s most off-beat, salacious and politically radical writings, coupled with cute or alternative takes on art and culture.
As the political crackdown gathered momentum, libraries also made lists of books likely to run afoul of the new law, and pulled them from the shelves.
But Taiwan’s libraries now stock tens of thousands of banned books, possibly driven in part by demand from Hong Kongers living in exile there.
A recent search of the library catalog by RFA Cantonese, and interviews with experts, suggest that democratic Taiwan continues to act as a protective outlet for Hong Kong’s Cantonese culture, despite the ongoing crackdown.
A catalog search of the National Taiwan Library, Taipei City Library and Academia Sinica Library for 144 books that have been removed from libraries in Hong Kong, according to local media reports, found that 107 of the titles is now available in one of these libraries.
Among the banned titles on offer are We Were Chosen by the Times and Every Umbrella, compilations of interviews with non-prominent participants in the 2014 Umbrella Movement for fully democratic elections, now removed from the Hong Kong Central Library.
Farewell to Cynicism: the Crisis of Liberalism in Hong Kong, Parallel Space and Time I : An International Perspective Based on Locality, and Hong Kong, a Restless Homeland, a history of the city from a local perspective, once-lauded titles freely available in Hong Kong, have also found new homes in Taiwan, the catalog showed.
Readers can also choose among 17 business-related titles penned by jailed pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, now stocked at the National Taiwan Library, Taipei City Library and Academia Sinica Library.
The Taipei City Library also houses the most extensive collection of books about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the 2019 Hong Kong protests and the Umbrella Movement.
Public demand
Hong Kong historian Eric Tsui told RFA Cantonese he was surprised to see some of his banned books on the shelves of libraries in Taiwan.
“The fact that you can find these books in public libraries in Taiwan, suggests that the Taiwanese public cares about Hong Kong, and that public libraries are stocking these books due to public demand,” Tsui said.
Taipei City Library Director Hung Shih-chang said the library has added an average of 1,500 to 2,000 Hong Kong publications a year in recent years.
Taiwanese sociologist Jieh-min Wu in an undated photo.(RFA)
“Hong Kong books are mainly obtained through exchange and donations, particularly donations,” Hung told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.
Public demand and purchases are definitely also a factor.
“If the public requests Hong Kong publications that aren’t available in Taiwan, we will purchase them,” Hung said. “There may be people who have moved from Hong Kong to Taipei in recent years who want to read some books published in Hong Kong, so they may make some recommendations, and then the numbers go up a bit.”
“One of the most important purposes of a public library is to provide information to our readers freely and to ensure fair access to all kinds of information,” he said, adding that censorship in democratic Taiwan is “very unlikely” to happen.
“We will try our best to meet the needs of diverse interests in the collection and provision of library materials.”
In this case, a service that was once provided to Hong Kongers in their own city has effectively moved offshore.
Promoting national thought
“The mission of every national public library should be to collect all the works of local citizens and become a resource for national thought, so that citizens of a place can share [ideas] with each other,” Tsui said.
“Now, because of the China factor, you are afraid of offending China and deprive Hong Kongers of their public property,” he said.
Taiwanese sociologist Jieh-min Wu said Taiwan still has memories of its recent, authoritarian past.
“A lot of books were banned during the authoritarian period [here], just as they are in Hong Kong today,” Wu said.
“Libraries removed books from the shelves, but they didn’t have a list of banned books. They just quietly removed them.”
“From my research perspective, Hong Kong is going through a similar period to martial law [in Taiwan, which ended in July 1987]; a time where there are very strict controls on political topics,” Wu told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.
He said pro-democracy organizations in exile played an important role in “preserving information and then transmitting it back” home during the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo.
Taiwan began a transition to democracy following the death of President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of the island’s president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996.
While China insists on eventual “unification” with Taiwan — by armed invasion if necessary — the majority of Taiwan’s 23 million people have no wish to give up their democratic way of life to submit to Communist Party rule.
China has threatened the death penalty for supporters of Taiwan independence, while Taipei says Beijing has no jurisdiction over the actions of its citizens.
A recent public opinion poll from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research showed that 67.8% of respondents were willing to fight to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong national security police have taken away three family members of U.K.-based pollster and outspoken political commentator Chung Kim-wah, who has a bounty on his head amid a crackdown on dissent under two security laws.
Chung, 64, is a former deputy head of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute and co-host of the weekly talk show “Voices Like Bells” for RFA Cantonese.
He left for the United Kingdom in April 2022 after being questioned amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Officers took two of Chung’s brothers and a sister from their homes on Wednesday morning.
Chung’s second brother was taken to Tsuen Wan Police Station for questioning, his third sister to Central Police Station, and his fourth brother to Castle Peak Police station.
Chung is accused — alongside Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung — of “incitement to secession” after he “advocated independence” on social media and repeatedly called on foreign governments to impose sanctions on Beijing over the crackdown, according to a police announcement.
He told Radio Free Asia that the questioning of his family members came as “no surprise,” but said they had nothing to do with his professional activities.
“My brothers and sisters are all adults, so why should they be held responsible for what I do?” Chung told RFA Cantonese in an interview on Jan. 22. “They live in Hong Kong, and I’m in the U.K., so I never tell them anything.”
U.K.-based Hong Kong pollster Chung Kim-wah, who has a bounty on his head, in an undated file photo.(RFA)
Chung said the move was likely an attempt to intimidate people carrying out independent public opinion research, which often involves negative views of the government.
“It seems that they don’t want to face up to public opinion, so they’re doing this to scare us, and ‘deal with’ the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute,” he said. “It’s kind of tedious.”
‘Long-arm’ law enforcement
Exiled Hong Kong democracy activists have called for an international effort to combat the threat of Beijing’s “long-arm” law enforcement beyond its borders, saying recent bounties on the heads of 19 people are deliberately intended to create a “chilling effect” on activists everywhere.
The move came after police questioned Chung’s wife and son and former colleague Robert Chung earlier this month, as part of a “national security police investigation.”
Chung announced he had left the city on April 24, 2022, to “live for a while in the U.K.”
In a Facebook post announcing his departure, Chung said he didn’t want to “desert” his home city, but “had no other option.”
He ran afoul of the authorities early in December 2021, ahead of the first-ever elections for the Legislative Council to exclude pro-democracy candidates in a system that ensures only “patriots” loyal to Beijing can stand.
Chung was hauled in for questioning after pro-Beijing figures criticized him for including a question in a survey about whether voters intended to cast blank ballots in the election, which critics said could amount to “incitement” to subvert the voting system under the national security law.
Nineteen people now have HK$1 million (US$130,000) bounties on their heads following two previous announcements in July and December 2023.
‘Seditious intention’
Meanwhile, national security police said they had also arrested a 36-year-old man in Eastern District on Jan. 21 on suspicion of “knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intent,” a charge under the Safeguarding National Security Law, known as Article 23.
The content of the publications had “provoked hatred towards the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Hong Kong Police Force and the Judiciary, as well as called for sanctions against government officials and inciting violence,” police said in a statement dated Jan. 22.
“Police remind members of the public that “knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intention” is a serious crime,” the statement said, warning that offenders could face jail terms of seven years on their first conviction.
“Members of the public are urged not to defy the law,” it said.
More than 10,000 people have been arrested and at least 2,800 prosecuted in a citywide crackdown in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, mostly under public order charges.
Nearly 300 have been arrested under 2020 National Security Law, according to the online magazine ChinaFile.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Lee Heung Yeung and Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong’s iconic pink dolphins have dwindled to just a handful in the waters off northern Lantau Island in recent years, with concerns for the animals’ future since the city’s international airport added a third runway, researchers told RFA Mandarin.
The endangered animals, a local variant of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, a species also known as the Chinese white dolphin, were once chosen as the mascot for Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to Chinese rule, Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Project researcher Viena Mak said in a recent interview.
But their numbers have plummeted in the past decade, researchers say, despite a brief rebound during the COVID-19 travel restrictions that started in 2020.
Before the construction of the airport at Chek Lap Kok, the waters around Hong Kong’s outlying Lantau Island were teeming with marine life, with 188 pink dolphins counted in 2003, 102 of which were off North Lantau, where the airport now lies.
A security guard stands on the tarmac of the completed third runway at Chek Lap Kok airport, Hong Kong, Sept. 7, 2021.(Peter Parks/AFP)
Now, researchers estimate that just three or four pink dolphins still live in the area.
Even more worryingly, just 10 days after the city’s US$18.5 billion third runway became operational, a pink dolphin was found beached and dead nearby, Mak said.
“It was a mother who had just given birth,” she said. “We had been observing it at sea in October and were able to take pictures of the mother and the baby.”
Mak said she feared the infant wouldn’t survive, as they usually need a mother’s care until they are one or two years old, and can forage independently for food.
Vulnerable species
The Chinese white dolphin is on the Red List of Endangered Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, where it is listed as vulnerable.
Their habitat was greatly disturbed by the massive land reclamation that took place in the waters off northern Lantau Island to build Hong Kong’s International Airport at Chek Lap Kok, and sightings of the dolphins have become extremely rare in that part of the city’s coastal waters, according to the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Project, which has been monitoring them since before the handover.
In the first year of the airport’s expansion in 2016, just 11 dolphins were recorded north of Lantau. By the time the third runway was completed in 2020, researchers could only find three, although four were spotted last year, Mak said.
One of them has been named “Snowy,” although she’s known in official records simply as NL104.
“That means she’s the 104th pink dolphin to be identified in the waters off Lantau,” Mak said. “She has had three births, one of which was in October 2011. We also saw her with her baby in 2015.”
Government figures back up the Conservation Project’s findings.
People take a commercial tour boat to look for “pink dolphins” in the waters off the coast of Hong Kong, Sept. 20, 2020.(May James/AFP)
Hong Kong was home to just 34 pink dolphins in 2023, down from 47 in 2017, according to a survey by the city’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation.
“Large declines in dolphin abundance were detected over the past two decades in both Northeast Lantau and Northwest Lantau survey areas, and noticeable decline was also detected in West Lantau waters but has stabilized in recent years,” the report said.
Increase in casualties
Dolphins are increasingly showing up as casualties following increased activity in the area, Mak said, although the reason isn’t entirely clear.
Five dolphins were beached in 2016, rising to eight in 2018, and 11 in 2020, although there has been a slight fall since then.
“We’re not exactly sure what happened to these dolphins, and why they were found beached in Hong Kong, but it is a cause for concern,” Mak said. “Numbers at sea fell during the same period that the numbers found beached increased.”
A Cathay Pacific Cargo plane takes off at Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok International Airport, April 24, 2020.(ANTHONY WALLACE, Anthony Wallace/AFP)
Some of the dolphins have moved elsewhere, she said.
“We found that shortly after the third runway project started, they moved to different places, from the waters of North Lantau to West Lantau and Southwest Lantau,” Mak told RFA Mandarin. “Now that the project is completed, they don’t go back there often.”
“It’s no longer the paradise it used to be … and some of the older dolphins know this very well,” she said.
Move brings risks
The move to unfamiliar waters brings with it greater survival pressures, as the animals come into contact with other human activities like shipping, high-speed ferries and fishing. Once in their new habitat, they then compete with the other dolphins for food.
Part of the problem is that the runway was built around 1 kilometer (.6 miles) from marine coastal protection areas where the dolphins used to raise their young, and in between two conservation areas, effectively cutting off the route for animals that “commuted” between them, Mak said.
A “pink dolphin” swims in the waters off the coast of Hong Kong, Sept. 20, 2020.(May James/AFP)
Mak also cites the building of the massive Hong Kong-Zhuai-Macau Bridge as an example of a land reclamation project that has impinged on the dolphins’ ability to survive.
She said researchers haven’t seen a dolphin in the area of that project in nine years, despite the creation of a marine “reserve” for them, in the form of the North Lantau Coastal Park, once the project was completed.
“You can see from their website how big the reserve is, and what conservation measures have been put in place,” Mak said. “But none of it has worked … because the dolphins just don’t go there.”
Mak suspects that the marine reserve is just cosmetic; a bid by the government to convince people that the dolphins will return after the damage has been done.
“It’s too late now,” she said. “The damage is too severe.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Mai Xiaotian for RFA Mandarin.
Chinese authorities in Xi’an have detained Fei Xiaosheng, a prominent musician and performance artist who had publicly supported the Hong Kong democracy movement, his friends and fellow artists told RFA Mandarin.
Xi’an police caught up with Fei, 55, on Tuesday, and are now holding him the Beilin Detention Center, according to associates who knew him as part of the Songzhuang Artists’ Village scene of dissident and fringe artists in Beijing.
His detention comes as the ruling Communist Party continues to crack down on artists and other creative workers whose work or views are seen as potentially subversive.
Authorities are also holding Gao Zhen, one of the Gao Brothers artistic duo, on suspicion of ‘insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs,’ after seizing satirical artworks depicting Chairman Mao from his home studio.
“I was shocked to hear that Songzhuang musician and artist Fei Xiaosheng has been detained,” fellow artist Du Yinghong, who now lives in Thailand, said in a social media post on Wednesday.
“Two years ago, we contacted each other a number of times, and he said he envied me [living outside of China],” he wrote. “A few days ago, we had a video call, and I found out he had applied for a passport, gone to Serbia, yet somehow returned to the cage that is our country.”
“He said he planned to leave again soon, and told me to add his European number, but then we heard the bad news that he’d been arrested,” Du wrote.
Devout Christian
Du later told RFA Mandarin that Fei is being held in Xi’an’s Beilin Detention Center, but that the authorities have yet to issue any official notification of his detention.
“This is part of their cultural cleansing operation, and a settling of scores,” he said, adding that Fei had likely been targeted for his public support for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
“Fei Xiaosheng is a devout Christian who once expressed solidarity and support for Hong Kong, and was detained for more than 40 days for this,” Du said.
Du said the artist had a strong sense of social justice, and followed current affairs closely. He was expelled by state security police from Songzhuang Artists’ Village in 2020.
“He used to organize music festivals and performance art festivals in Songzhuang,” Du said, adding that police had burned Fei’s old passport.
“He had returned to China [from Serbia] for work, and was just about to leave China again,” he said.
‘China is finished’
Writer He Sanpo, who like many Chinese writers now lives in Thailand, said he was saddened to hear of Fei’s detention, but not surprised.
“But people who are really engaged in making art know that China is finished,” He said. “In today’s China, if you have a conscience and dare to speak a few truths, you will have committed some crime.”
“The only thing you can do is to escape from it.”
Fei’s detention came as Gao Zhen’s trial is expected to start.
Gao’s friends told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews that his case will be heard at the Xianghe County People’s Court in the northern province of Hebei next week, possibly Monday.
Gao’s lawyer has been warned not to make public any details of the case, they said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.
The closing weeks of 2024 brought troubling news from Hong Kong, from the jailing of 45 democracy activists to a guilty verdict for seven people charged with “rioting” for trying to stop a violent thug attack.
Away from the headlines, an equally insidious form of repression is playing out: the problem of more than 120,000 recent Hong Kong exiles who have been cut off from their retirement savings since 2021.
Hong Kong Watch has found that Hong Kongers were being denied access to over £3 billion (US$3.8 billion) of money they paid into the city’s retirement scheme, known as the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF).
On Dec. 19 in London, Hong Kong Watch joined the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and Stand with Hong Kong in a hearing on the withholding of Hong Kongers’ MPF savings in the British Parliament.
The MPF is a compulsory retirement savings scheme for the people of Hong Kong. Under the legal guidelines which govern MPF savings, Hong Kongers are entitled to withdraw their money in full once they complete a declaration form stating that they have permanently departed from Hong Kong.
However, after Hong Kong authorities announced in in January 2021 that they no longer recognized the British National (Overseas) (BNO) passport as a valid form of identity , an estimated 126,500 Hong Kongers have been blocked from accessing their MPF savings.
People walk past a branch of HSBC bank in Hong Kong, March 16, 2022.(Kin Cheung/AP)
The British Parliament heard that this number is likely higher, as the mere awareness of an overwhelming number of cases being rejected discourages Hong Kongers from applying for withdrawal.
The three Hong Kongers who testified this month also emphasized that the Hong Kong government’s non-recognition of the BNO passport has no basis in law, as there have been no legal changes made to the MPF Trust Deed.
As of the end of June, the total value of all MPF schemes was a little over £122 billion.
Taking the average MPF account size of £26,000, and multiplying it by the number of BNO visa holders at 127,000, there is over £3.25 billion worth of MPF assets that Hong Kongers are currently being denied access to as of Sept. 30.
Bank no-shows
The London-headquartered MPF trustee banks, HSBC and Standard Chartered, which manage £37 billion and £758 million worth of MPF savings respectively, were invited to testify at the hearing.
However, despite a personal request from Blair McDougall, the chair of the APPG on Hong Kong and host of the hearing, HSBC rejected the request to appear before Parliament and Standard Chartered failed to respond.
Their refusal and silence speaks louder than words.
Specifically, in their response to the APPG on Hong Kong and to 13 Parliamentarians who inquired about how the HSBC restructure will affect MPF claimants, HSBC claims that they are legally bound by Hong Kong legislation in their non-recognition of the BNO passport as proof of identity.
Yet the non-recognition of the BNO passport is not legally binding but a tactic of transnational repression against those who have fled from the quickly deteriorating human rights environment in Hong Kong.
The BNO passport is also a UK government-issued identity document, which the UK government should immediately make clear to the UK-headquartered MPF trustees.
In addition to the non-recognition of the BNO passport, MPF trustees have denied access to MPF savings for accounts which are “under investigation” by the Hong Kong government.
This is applicable for accounts connected to the Hong Kongers who were issued arrest warrants with HK$1 million bounties for participating in pro-democracy activities in 2023.
This further demonstrates that the blocking of MPF savings is a form of financial transnational repression.
Suffering, lost opportunities
The Hong Kongers who testified at the hearing included Chloe Lo, a single mother who shared, “Last winter, I could barely pay my heating bill and my child and I experienced the coldest winter of our lives.”
This could have been avoided if she had access to the £57,000 in her MPF account.
The other Hong Kongers said that accessing their MPF savings would allow them to pursue further education in the UK and to invest in British businesses.
Their testimonies coincided with a letter sent directly to HSBC last week from nearly 400 Hong Kongers in the UK, urging the financial institution to immediately release the savings that rightfully belong to them.
HSBC is mistaken in refusing to appear before Parliament, as their refusal only demonstrates HSBC’s complicity in the financial transnational repression of the Hong Kong government.
One Hong Konger who testified and whose MPF account has depreciated by 5% in 2024 alone said, “It is obvious that HSBC is arbitrarily holding our savings to roll up the assets and squeeze the administration cost and capital gains from the investment.”
Following the hearing, the Parliament is keen to continue raising this issue, and to press the UK government to issue guidance to and have conversations with HSBC and Standard Chartered about the validity of the BNO passport.
This is not just a matter for the Hong Kong authorities but also for the UK ones who issue BNO passports and are responsible for the more than 180,000 Hong Kongers who now call Britain home.
To conclude the hearing, chair McDougall said that we often talk about the cost of human rights violations against individuals around the world but how in this case, there is an actual number on that cost.
He also said that both HSBC and Standard Chartered “still have questions to answer, even if they are not willing to open themselves to scrutiny.”
This could not be more spot on, and this is not the end of HSBC and Standard Chartered being invited to appear before Parliament.
Megan Khoo is policy director at the international NGO Hong Kong Watch. Khoo, based in London, has served in communications roles at foreign policy non-profit organizations in London and Washington, D.C.. The views expressed here do not reflect the position of Radio Free Asia.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Megan Khoo.
The Hong Kong government announced on Tuesday rewards of HK$1 million (US$130,000) for help in arresting six more pro-democracy campaigners, accusing them of violating a national security law and working to undermine the territory with calls for sanctions against lawmakers and independence from China.
Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Chung Kim-wah, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung were accused of incitement to secession in a notice posted on the Hong Kong Police Force website.
The police also accused journalist Victor Ho, 69, of subversion for calling a referendum over the proposed formation of a parliament-in-exile to push for Hong Kong’s independence from China.
All of the six live abroad.
“Today was the last working day before our year-end holiday at HKDC and I just learned that I am now a wanted Hong Konger with a HK$1 million bounty for national security offences,” former Hong Kong district councillor and current Hong Kong Democracy Council member Carmen Lau, 29, posted on social media platform X.
“I have always considered serving Hong Kongers and fighting for our freedom and democracy my lifelong obligation since the day I was elected as a district councillor,” she added. “I swear to put our fight for Hong Kong before anything else, even before myself.”
Lau called on governments including the U.K., where she lives, the U.S. and the E.U. to impose sanctions on Hong Kong “human rights perpetrators” without naming anyone.
Hong Kong Security Secretary Chris Tang said the six had endangered national security through their speeches and social media posts and by lobbying foreign governments to sanction Hong Kong officials. He told a news conference the six “had little conscience.”
“Illegal acts will be prosecuted and punished no matter how far away they are,” Tang said.
Nineteen people now have HK$1 million bounties on their heads following two previous announcements in July and December 2023. Authorities plan to cancel the passports of seven of the activists on the wanted list, including ex-lawmakers Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok, Hong Kong media reported.
Hong Kong was a British colony from 1841 to 1997, when it was returned to Chinese rule under a “one country, two systems” agreement. The Sino-British Joint Declaration said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region would maintain a degree of autonomy from China for 50 years, maintaining the rights and freedoms set out in the Basic Law.
In 2019, thousands of Hong Kong people took to the streets to protest against what they saw as the erosion of democracy, prompting a crackdown by the government. The following year Beijing imposed a national security legislation that included new crimes like “collusion with foreign forces” and subversion.
In April, the city passed its own version of China’s national security law, known as Article 23, adding several new offenses, including treason, sabotage, and espionage and allowing police to hold suspects for up to 16 days without charge. Sedition was also added and its scope expanded to include “inciting hatred” against the Chinese Communist Party.
The United States and Britain have condemned what they see as the erosion of the freedoms and rights that Hong Kong was promised when it returned to Chinese rule.
The city government and Beijing reject the accusations saying stability is needed to safeguard the Asian financial hub’s economic success.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
Authorities in Hong Kong are stepping up surveillance of the city’s 7 million residents with plans to deploy automated police drones, artificial intelligence and thousands of new cameras in public places, including taxis, according to recent government announcements.
The police are currently installing an additional 2,000 surveillance cameras in public places including the controversial smart lampposts targeted by protesters in 2019, Senior Superintendent of Police for Operations Leung Ming-leung told a meeting of the Independent Police Complaints Council on Dec. 17.
By 2027, an additional 7,000 cameras will be installed to monitor “crime black-spots,” with a pilot scheme already rolled out in Mong Kok, which saw mass pro-democracy protests and gatherings in 2014 and 2019, as well as the “Fishball Revolution” of 2016.
Thousands have been arrested on public order charges and hundreds under two national security laws, which ban criticism of the authorities or references to the protests.
Taxis drive along a street in Hong Kong, Dec. 19, 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
“At places where there is a higher footfall, we would install the CCTV with a view to preserving public order and public safety,” Leung said.
Police will also install “public address systems” to boost communication with the public, he added.
Facial recognition
As early as 2019, protesters were damaging and toppling controversial “smart lampposts” that had been newly installed in the city, saying their specification included facial recognition functions, although officials said at the time they hadn’t been activated.
Police Commissioner Raymond Siu said in February that use of facial recognition technology to track people caught by the cameras was likely in future.
Leung told the Council that footage captured by CCTV has helped solve 97 cases so far this year, including assaults and murders, but it is currently not intended for use in traffic violations like running a red light.
He said the authorities used surveillance cameras to estimate the size of crowds in the Lan Kwai Fong bar district at Halloween, “to help with manpower deployment.”
Automated drone patrols
Secretary for Security Chris Tang told lawmakers police are currently looking at bringing in automated drone patrols along default routes across Hong Kong, with images analyzed by AI for policing purposes.
“This can lead to greater operational effectiveness and higher work quality,” Tang said, adding that the program would comply with current safety and privacy laws.
Hong Kong’s police force is already equipped with a range of different drones and monitoring instruments, and are already increasingly being used by police, customs and immigration for investigation purposes, Tang told the Legislative Council on Dec. 11.
Police also use drones to conduct high-rise patrols at crime black spots, he said.
“For instance, mounted thermography and infrared detection systems are used to detect the presence of suspicious persons lingering or hiding at remotely located places or at difficult terrains,” Tang told lawmakers.
Surveillance cameras on a Hong Kong street, November 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
Meanwhile, the Transport Advisory Committee has said it plans to amend the law to mandate in-vehicle and dashboard cameras and GPS systems in all taxis.
“The camera system proposal … will better safeguard the interests of taxi drivers and passengers in cases of disputes and enhance driving safety for taxis,” Committee Chairman Stephen Cheung said in a statement on Dec. 17.
“These two measures will be conducive to enhancing the overall quality and image of taxi services,” he said.
‘It’s overkill’
Not everyone thought the additional cameras would make them safer, however.
“I don’t think it will,” a passerby who gave only the surname Lai for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. “On the contrary, if the streets are being monitored, there will be no privacy.”
“I really think it’s overkill.”
A taxi driver who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said: “I don’t really agree with it, because of the privacy issues.”
“Who gets to see it? It could be misused, or used as a political tool by the government,” he said. “I’m very worried about that.”
A passerby who gave only the surname Chan told RFA in an earlier interview that he had doubts about the true purpose of the surveillance cameras because there isn’t much street crime in Hong Kong.
“There really aren’t that many thieves,” he said. “But it’ll mean that if we have something we want to speak out about in future, or to oppose, we won’t be able to.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze, Luk Nam Choi and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.
Authorities in Hong Kong are stepping up surveillance of the city’s 7 million residents with plans to deploy automated police drones, artificial intelligence and thousands of new cameras in public places, including taxis, according to recent government announcements.
The police are currently installing an additional 2,000 surveillance cameras in public places including the controversial smart lampposts targeted by protesters in 2019, Senior Superintendent of Police for Operations Leung Ming-leung told a meeting of the Independent Police Complaints Council on Dec. 17.
By 2027, an additional 7,000 cameras will be installed to monitor “crime black-spots,” with a pilot scheme already rolled out in Mong Kok, which saw mass pro-democracy protests and gatherings in 2014 and 2019, as well as the “Fishball Revolution” of 2016.
Thousands have been arrested on public order charges and hundreds under two national security laws, which ban criticism of the authorities or references to the protests.
Taxis drive along a street in Hong Kong, Dec. 19, 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
“At places where there is a higher footfall, we would install the CCTV with a view to preserving public order and public safety,” Leung said.
Police will also install “public address systems” to boost communication with the public, he added.
Facial recognition
As early as 2019, protesters were damaging and toppling controversial “smart lampposts” that had been newly installed in the city, saying their specification included facial recognition functions, although officials said at the time they hadn’t been activated.
Police Commissioner Raymond Siu said in February that use of facial recognition technology to track people caught by the cameras was likely in future.
Leung told the Council that footage captured by CCTV has helped solve 97 cases so far this year, including assaults and murders, but it is currently not intended for use in traffic violations like running a red light.
He said the authorities used surveillance cameras to estimate the size of crowds in the Lan Kwai Fong bar district at Halloween, “to help with manpower deployment.”
Automated drone patrols
Secretary for Security Chris Tang told lawmakers police are currently looking at bringing in automated drone patrols along default routes across Hong Kong, with images analyzed by AI for policing purposes.
“This can lead to greater operational effectiveness and higher work quality,” Tang said, adding that the program would comply with current safety and privacy laws.
Hong Kong’s police force is already equipped with a range of different drones and monitoring instruments, and are already increasingly being used by police, customs and immigration for investigation purposes, Tang told the Legislative Council on Dec. 11.
Police also use drones to conduct high-rise patrols at crime black spots, he said.
“For instance, mounted thermography and infrared detection systems are used to detect the presence of suspicious persons lingering or hiding at remotely located places or at difficult terrains,” Tang told lawmakers.
Surveillance cameras on a Hong Kong street, November 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
Meanwhile, the Transport Advisory Committee has said it plans to amend the law to mandate in-vehicle and dashboard cameras and GPS systems in all taxis.
“The camera system proposal … will better safeguard the interests of taxi drivers and passengers in cases of disputes and enhance driving safety for taxis,” Committee Chairman Stephen Cheung said in a statement on Dec. 17.
“These two measures will be conducive to enhancing the overall quality and image of taxi services,” he said.
‘It’s overkill’
Not everyone thought the additional cameras would make them safer, however.
“I don’t think it will,” a passerby who gave only the surname Lai for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. “On the contrary, if the streets are being monitored, there will be no privacy.”
“I really think it’s overkill.”
A taxi driver who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said: “I don’t really agree with it, because of the privacy issues.”
“Who gets to see it? It could be misused, or used as a political tool by the government,” he said. “I’m very worried about that.”
A passerby who gave only the surname Chan told RFA in an earlier interview that he had doubts about the true purpose of the surveillance cameras because there isn’t much street crime in Hong Kong.
“There really aren’t that many thieves,” he said. “But it’ll mean that if we have something we want to speak out about in future, or to oppose, we won’t be able to.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze, Luk Nam Choi and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.
The verdict by a Hong Kong court has generated widespread criticism after it found seven people — including former lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting — guilty of “rioting” when they tried to stop white-clad men wielding sticks from attacking passengers at a subway station in 2019.
Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who like Lam is a member of the Democratic Party, accusing authorities of “rewriting history.”
“It’s a false accusation and part of a totally fabricated version of history that Hong Kong people don’t recognize,” Hui told RFA Cantonese after the verdict was announced on Dec. 12.
“How does the court see the people of Hong Kong?” he asked. “How can they act like they live in two separate worlds?”
The District Court found Lam and six others guilty of “taking part in a riot” by as dozens of thugs in white T-shirts rained blows down on the heads of unarmed passengers — including their own — using rattan canes and wooden poles at Yuen Long station on July 21, 2019.
Lam, one of the defendants in the subversion trial of 47 activists for holding a democratic primary, is also currently serving a 6-years-and-9-month prison sentence for “conspiracy to subvert state power.”
Victim Galileo, a V, displays scarring and seven stitches following the July 21, 2019 attacks at Yuen Long MTR station in Hong Kong.
While the defense argued that the men were defending themselves against the thugs, the prosecution said they had “provoked” the attacks and used social media to incite people to turn up and defend against the men.
Letters of thanks
The verdict came despite Lam and former District Councilor Sin Cheuk-lam having received letters from the Hong Kong Police thanking them for their role in the incident.
Sentencing in the trial, which began in October 2023, is expected on Feb. 27, with mitigation hearings set for Jan. 22.
A conviction for rioting carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, although the District Court is limited to handing out sentences of no more than seven years.
Issuing his verdict on Dec. 12, Judge Stanley Chan said he didn’t believe that Lam had using his standing as a Legislative Councilor to mediate the conflict or monitor the police response, and accused him of trying to take advantage of the situation for his own political benefit.
Felt numb
A victim of the attacks who is now overseas and gave only the pseudonym Galileo for fear of reprisals said he felt numb when he heard Thursday’s verdict, as he had felt the result to be inevitable amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in Hong Kong.
“I used a fire extinguisher and sprayed water [during the attacks],” Galileo said, adding that he and journalist Gwyneth Ho were “beaten several times.”
Wearing a cycle helmet, Galileo, a pseudonym, left, tries to protect Stand journalist Gwyneth Ho, right, during attacks by thugs at Yuen Long MTR, July 21, 2019 in Hong Kong.
“I was panicky and scared, and my instinct was to protect myself and others,” he said.
According to Galileo, Lam’s actions likely protected others from also being attacked.
“I felt that his presence made everyone feel calmer, because he was a member of the Legislative Council at the time,” he said of Lam’s role in the incident. “He kept saying the police were coming, and everyone believed him, so they waited, but the police never came.”
Police were inundated with emergency calls from the start of the attacks, according to multiple contemporary reports, but didn’t move in until 39 minutes after the attacks began.
In a recent book about the protests, former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin wrote that the Hong Kong authorities knew about the attacks in advance.
Members of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld “triad” organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book said.
Chased and beaten
According to multiple accounts from the time, Lam first went to Mei Foo MTR station to warn people not to travel north to Yuen Long, after dozens of white-clad thugs were spotted assembling at a nearby chicken market.
When live footage of beatings started to emerge, Lam called the local community police sergeant and asked him to dispatch officers to the scene as soon as possible, before setting off himself for Yuen Long to monitor the situation in person.
On arrival, he warned some of the attackers not to “do anything,” and told people he had called the police. Eventually, the attackers charged, and Lam and others were chased and beaten all the way onto a train.
One of the people shown in that early social media footage was chef Calvin So, who displayed red welts across his back following beatings by the white-clad attackers.
So told RFA Cantonese on Friday: “The guys in white were really beating people, and injured some people … I don’t understand because Lam Cheuk-ting’s side were spraying water at them and telling people to leave.”
He described the verdict as “ridiculous,” adding: “But ridiculous things happen every day in Hong Kong nowadays.”
Erosion of judicial independence
In a recent report on the erosion of Hong Kong judicial independence amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent that followed the 2019 protests, law experts at Georgetown University said the city’s courts now have to “tread carefully” now that the ruling Chinese Communist Party has explicitly rejected the liberal values the legal system was built on.
Nowadays, Hong Kong’s once-independent courts tend to find along pro-Beijing lines, particularly in politically sensitive cases, according to the December 2024 report, which focused on the impact of a High Court injunction against the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong.”
“In our view, at least some judges are issuing pro-regime verdicts in order to advance their careers,” said the report, authored by Eric Lai, Lokman Tsui and Thomas Kellogg.
“The government’s aggressive implementation of the National Security Law has sent a clear signal to individual judges that their professional advancement depends on toeing the government’s ideological line, and delivering a steady stream of guilty verdicts.”
Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Luk Nam Choi and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.
A claim emerged in Chinese-language reports that the European Union decided to cancel favorable tariff policies towards Hong Kong.
But the claim is misleading. The reports cited an EU resolution that is a non-binding request designed to draw attention to the latest issues in Hong Kong. As of Dec. 13, the bloc had not revoked the city’s favorable customs treatment.
The claim was shared in a report published by the Taiwanese media outlet NewTalk News on Dec. 5, 2024.
“The European Parliament has recently passed a resolution to revoke the EU’s special tariff treatment for Hong Kong,” the report reads in part.
The report cited a post on X uploaded by “News Investigation” that reads: “The European Parliament has recently passed a resolution requesting the European Union to revoke favorable tariff treatment for Hong Kong. The US$500 billion in annual Chinese exports to the EU which pass through Hong Kong will no longer enjoy ultra-low tariffs.”
Online media claimed that the EU decided to cancel favorable tariffs previously enjoyed by Hong Kong.
The EU has historically granted Hong Kong favorable customs treatment, recognizing its status as a separate customs territory distinct from mainland China. This arrangement facilitated trade by simplifying customs procedures and reducing tariffs, thereby promoting economic exchange between the EU and Hong Kong.
The claim about the EU revoking Hong Kong’s favorable customs treatment is false.
EU resolution on Hong Kong
Keyword searches found a resolution regarding Hong Kong passed by the EU on Nov. 28, 2024 here.
“Calls on the EEAS [European External Action Service] and the Member States to warn China that its actions in HK will have consequences for EU-China relations; calls on the Council … to revoke HK’s favourable customs treatment and review the status of the HK Economic Trade Office in Brussels,” the resolution reads in part.
The European Parliament adopts three types of resolutions, including non-legislative ones, which offer greater flexibility by allowing the parliament to address any topic it deems relevant. These resolutions are non-binding. The recent resolution on Hong Kong falls under this category.
While such resolutions express the parliament’s views, they do not impose any obligation on other EU institutions to act on their calls. Instead, the primary purpose of these resolutions is to draw the attention of other European institutions to specific issues.
The EU’s resolution was in response to a Hong Kong court jailing 45 democracy supporters for up to 10 years.
In all, 47 Hong Kong opposition politicians and pro-democracy activists were charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the city’s 2020 National Security Law for taking part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020. Two were acquitted.
Amid growing calls for further sanctions on Hong Kong and the expansion of lifeboat visa schemes for those fleeing the ongoing political crackdown in the city, the governments of the U.S., U.K. and Australia, and the United Nations slammed the sentencing.
The EU resolution on Hong Kong, passed with 473 votes in favor, 23 against and 98 abstentions, calls on the city to immediately release the jailed activists as well as pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.
A claim emerged in Chinese-language reports that the European Union decided to cancel favorable tariff policies towards Hong Kong.
But the claim is misleading. The reports cited an EU resolution that is a non-binding request designed to draw attention to the latest issues in Hong Kong. As of Dec. 13, the bloc had not revoked the city’s favorable customs treatment.
The claim was shared in a report published by the Taiwanese media outlet NewTalk News on Dec. 5, 2024.
“The European Parliament has recently passed a resolution to revoke the EU’s special tariff treatment for Hong Kong,” the report reads in part.
The report cited a post on X uploaded by “News Investigation” that reads: “The European Parliament has recently passed a resolution requesting the European Union to revoke favorable tariff treatment for Hong Kong. The US$500 billion in annual Chinese exports to the EU which pass through Hong Kong will no longer enjoy ultra-low tariffs.”
Online media claimed that the EU decided to cancel favorable tariffs previously enjoyed by Hong Kong.
The EU has historically granted Hong Kong favorable customs treatment, recognizing its status as a separate customs territory distinct from mainland China. This arrangement facilitated trade by simplifying customs procedures and reducing tariffs, thereby promoting economic exchange between the EU and Hong Kong.
The claim about the EU revoking Hong Kong’s favorable customs treatment is false.
EU resolution on Hong Kong
Keyword searches found a resolution regarding Hong Kong passed by the EU on Nov. 28, 2024 here.
“Calls on the EEAS [European External Action Service] and the Member States to warn China that its actions in HK will have consequences for EU-China relations; calls on the Council … to revoke HK’s favourable customs treatment and review the status of the HK Economic Trade Office in Brussels,” the resolution reads in part.
The European Parliament adopts three types of resolutions, including non-legislative ones, which offer greater flexibility by allowing the parliament to address any topic it deems relevant. These resolutions are non-binding. The recent resolution on Hong Kong falls under this category.
While such resolutions express the parliament’s views, they do not impose any obligation on other EU institutions to act on their calls. Instead, the primary purpose of these resolutions is to draw the attention of other European institutions to specific issues.
The EU’s resolution was in response to a Hong Kong court jailing 45 democracy supporters for up to 10 years.
In all, 47 Hong Kong opposition politicians and pro-democracy activists were charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the city’s 2020 National Security Law for taking part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020. Two were acquitted.
Amid growing calls for further sanctions on Hong Kong and the expansion of lifeboat visa schemes for those fleeing the ongoing political crackdown in the city, the governments of the U.S., U.K. and Australia, and the United Nations slammed the sentencing.
The EU resolution on Hong Kong, passed with 473 votes in favor, 23 against and 98 abstentions, calls on the city to immediately release the jailed activists as well as pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.
