Hong Kong national security police on Thursday arrested 10 people for “collusion with foreign forces” and “inciting riot” over a now-defunct fund set up to help those targeted for involvement in the 2019 protest movement.
“The National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force today … arrested four men and six women, aged between 26 and 43, in various districts for suspected ‘conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security,’ … and inciting riot,” the police said in a statement on the government’s website.
“The arrested persons were suspected of conspiracy to collude with the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund to receive donations from various overseas organizations to support people who have fled overseas or organizations which called for sanctions against Hong Kong,” the statement said.
The arrests come after the arrests of Cardinal Joseph Zen and other trustees of the now-disbanded Fund prompted an international outcry in May 2022.
Police searched the arrestees’ homes and offices with court warrants, seizing documents and electronic communication devices, it said, adding that the 10 are being held “for further enquiries.”
“The possibility of further arrests is not ruled out,” it said, warning the general public “not to defy” the national security law.
Hong Kong police typically don’t name arrestees, but Reuters identified one of the 10 as pro-democracy activist Bobo Yip, who was photographed waving at journalists as she was taken away.
From left, retired archbishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, barrister Margaret Ng, professor Hui Po-keung and singer Denise Ho attend a press conference to announce the closure of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, in Hong Kong, Aug.18, 2021. Credit: HK01 via AP
The London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said the arrests were a “new low” in an ongoing crackdown on dissent under the national security law, which was imposed on the city by Beijing in the wake of the 2019 protests.
“Today’s arrests mark a new low in the deterioration of Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms,” the group’s research and policy advisor Anouk Wear said in a statement.
“It was already an overly broad and political interpretation of the law, including the National Security Law, to arrest and fine the trustees and secretary of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund last year,” Wear said.
In May 2022, police arrested five former trustees of the fund – retired Catholic bishop and Cardinal Joseph Zen, ex-lawmakers Margaret Ng and Cyd Ho, Cantopop singer Denise Ho and cultural studies scholar Hui Po-keung – on suspicion of “conspiring to collude with foreign forces.”
While they were never charged with the offense, the five were later found guilty of failing to register the fund – which offered financial, legal and psychological help to people arrested during the 2019 protest movement – and were each fined H.K.$4,000.
“The arrest of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund’s staff for alleged collusion and rioting is an absurd criminalization of providing legal and humanitarian aid,” Wear said.
“This is an attempt by the Hong Kong government to rewrite history and frame all association with the protest movement as criminal, which is deeply damaging to rule of law and civil society.”
Zen, whose passport had been confiscated following his arrest as a condition of his bail, was allowed to retrieve it to attend the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI in January, handing it back again on his return.
Zen was among six Hong Kongers nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize in February.
Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Simon Lee for RFA Cantonese.
A court in Hong Kong on Friday rejected the government’s bid to impose an injunction on performances of and references to “Glory to Hong Kong,” the banned anthem of the 2019 protest movement, citing a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression.
The government had wanted the court to grant the ban on broadcasting or distributing the song or its lyrics, which the government says advocate “independence” for the city, and which has been mistakenly played at international sporting events instead of the Chinese anthem, “March of the Volunteers.”
But High Court Judge Anthony Chan said he couldn’t see how an injunction, which the government wanted to include online platforms, would help.
“I am unable to see a solid basis for believing that the invocation of the civil jurisdiction can assist in the enforcement of the law in question,” Chan said in the ruling.
When the government announced last month it was seeking an injunction, downloads of the song spiked on international streaming platforms before it was removed from several platforms.
The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.
The song is still frequently sung by pro-democracy activists outside of Hong Kong.
‘Chilling effect’
In a decision seen as a partial reprieve for dwindling freedom of expression in the city, the court also took into account the potential “chilling effect” an injunction would have on freedom of expression and its effect on “innocent third parties.”
The judgment went on to say that contempt proceedings for breach of an injunction would involve proving the relevant criminal offense and would therefore not be easy to enforce. There was also a risk of “double jeopardy,” in which a person could potentially be prosecuted for overlapping offenses under the National Security Law and for breach of the injunction, it said.
Dozens of people sing “Glory to Hong Kong” outside the main railway station in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 6, 2023, to mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the 2019 mass protest movement. Credit: Zhong Guangzheng
The government had argued that the injunction was necessary to prevent people disseminating the song anonymously, and to prevent its use at public events “which can arouse certain emotions and incite people to secession, endangering national security.”
Hong Kong’s leader John Lee said his administration would be “studying the matter and following up.”
“The Special Administrative Region government has a duty to effectively prevent, stop and punish actions and activities that endanger national security,” Lee told journalists in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. “I have asked the Department of Justice to study the verdict actively and follow up as soon as possible.”
He said anyone who calls the song “the true national anthem of Hong Kong” is breaking the National Anthem Law banning insults to China’s national anthem.
“The threat of endangering national security can come suddenly, so we must take effective measures to prevent it,” he said.
Law bans insults to PRC anthem
Hong Kong passed a national anthem law in June 2020 banning ‘insults’ to the Chinese national anthem after Hong Kong soccer fans repeatedly booed, yelled Cantonese obscenities or turned their backs when it was played at matches.
In November, Hong Kong police announced a criminal investigation into the playing of “Glory to Hong Kong” at a rugby match in South Korea.
“I welcome this ruling, which is very reasonable,” Ronson Chan, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, told media outside the High Court in Hong Kong on Friday, July 28, 2023. Credit: Isaac Lawrence/AFP
Hong Kong Journalists’ Association president Ronson Chan welcomed the court’s ruling.
“I welcome this ruling, which is very reasonable,” Chan said. “I agree that the relevant matters are already covered by criminal law, so there is no need for an injunction.”
“I’d like to thank the judge for pointing out … the potential for a chilling effect in the exercise of such powers,” he said.
“If we want to tell good stories about Hong Kong, I don’t think further restrictions are a good idea,” Chan said.
The government has repeatedly said that it respects freedoms protected by the city’s constitution, “but freedom of speech is not absolute.”
“The application pursues the legitimate aim of safeguarding national security and is necessary, reasonable, legitimate, and consistent with the Bill of Rights,” it said in a statement about the injunction application last month.
Press freedom groups have warned that the government has “gutted” freedom of expression in the city, amid an ongoing cull of “politically sensitive” books from the shelves of public libraries.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Ting Hong and Gigi Lee for RFA Cantonese.
A Hong Kong court on Thursday imposed a three-month jail term on a man for insulting China’s national anthem after he paired footage of a Hong Kong athlete winning a medal with audio of the banned protest song, “Glory to Hong Kong,” and posted the clip to YouTube.
Cheng Wing-chun, a 27-year-old photographer, became the first person to be convicted of insulting the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China under a new law banning disrespect to the anthem – called “March of the Volunteers” – in the city when he was found guilty by Magistrate Minnie Wat at Eastern Magistrate’s Court on July 5.
Cheng was accused of creating and uploading a video clip of Hong Kong fencer Edgar Cheung winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in July 2021 in which the soundtrack of China’s national anthem had been replaced with the banned protest anthem used widely in the 2019 protest movement in the city.
He was also accused of “desecrating the national flag.”
Handing down a three-month jail term on Thursday, Wat told the court that Cheng had edited the footage in a way that made it seem as if people were applauding it.
‘Glory to Hong Kong’
Wat dismissed Cheng’s claim that he didn’t understand the meaning of the song, saying he had once worked for a political party, and had taken part in demonstrations during the 2019 protest movement.
Cheng’s clip had also attracted comments mentioning “Hong Kong independence” and calling “Glory to Hong Kong” the city’s national anthem, she said.
“Not only did the defendant’s behavior disrespect the athlete who won the medal — it also encouraged others to commit acts damaging to national dignity,” Wat told the sentencing hearing.
Hong Kong soccer fans turn their backs as China’s national anthem is played in South Korea’s Busan Asiad stadium, Dec. 18, 2019. Credit: Jung Yeon-je/AFP
She said the sentence should serve as a warning to others not to imitate Cheng’s actions. The defense had argued for leniency due to the fact that the video had merely replaced the national anthem, and hadn’t insulted it in any way.
Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China’s national anthem on pain of up to three years’ imprisonment, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem.
In November 2022, Hong Kong police launched a criminal investigation into the playing of “Glory to Hong Kong” at a rugby match in South Korea instead of the Chinese national anthem. A similar gaffe took place days later at a weightlifting competition in Dubai.
E-sports player banned
Cheng’s jailing came as the authorities banned a top e-sports player from competing in the Asian Games after he used the word “Glory” in an online team title.
Lam Kei-lung was issued with a three-year ban after a recent tournament with mainland Chinese players in which he called himself “Eazy D.L. 光復,” a reference to a banned slogan from the 2019 protest movement that is typically rendered in English as “Free Hong Kong,” or “Liberate Hong Kong,” but it is more fully translated as “restore Hong Kong to its former glory.”
The slogan is so taboo under an ongoing crackdown on dissent in the city that motorcyclist Tong Ying-kit was jailed in July 2021 for nine years for “terrorism” and inciting “secession” after he flew the slogan from his bike during a street protest, the first person to be sentenced under the national security law that took effect from July 1, 2020.
“The Association announces that player Lam Kei-lung is disqualified from participating in the Asian Games due to the use of sensitive words in his gaming name,” the Asian E-Sports Association said in a July 17 statement on its Facebook page, adding that the ban would extend through July 16, 2026.
An e-sports player who gave only the nickname Shanguang said the three-year penalty would likely end Lam’s career in what is a very fast-moving area of online competition.
“The value of a gamer comes from the fact that they keep playing in different competitions, and people are expecting to see them play,” Shanguang said.
‘Completely irrational’
The 19th Asian Games in September will include e-sports as an official event for the first time, and Hong Kong will send 35 players to take part.
Current affairs commentator and sociologist Chung Kim-wah said the ban was about the sports association showing loyalty to Beijing.
“We’ve gotten to the point where these institutions act in completely irrational ways in order to show loyalty to Beijing,” Chung said. “They would be better off coming up with a list of sensitive words that you can’t use.”
“There aren’t any regulations about which words you can use.”
The gaming world is seen as potentially subversive by the authorities because young people played such a key role in the street resistance movement of 2019, current affairs commentator Yu Fei said.
In 2020, an esports player was removed from a Hong Kong gaming tournament after he shouted “Free Hong Kong, revolution now!” during an interview after a game.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Ting Hong and Jojo Man for RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong police on Thursday took away for questioning several family members of exiled pro-democracy activists wanted for “collusion with foreign forces” for campaigning against an ongoing crackdown on dissent in the city.
Police raided the home of trade unionist Mung Siu-tat’s brother, taking him, his wife and their son for questioning on suspicion of “assisting fugitives to continue to engage in acts that endanger national security,” a police spokesperson told Radio Free Asia.
Police also took away the parents, brother and sister-in-law of exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Dennis Kwok and questioned them on suspicion of the same offense, the South China Morning Post and Standard newspapers reported.
No arrests were made, and all of the activists’ family members were released after questioning, the reports said.
Eight bounties
The raids came after similar action against the family members of exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law, who is also on a wanted list of eight prominent overseas activists.
On July 3, national security police issued arrest warrants and offered bounties for U.K.-based Mung, Kwok, Law and five other exiled campaigners, saying they are wanted in connection with “serious crimes” under Hong Kong’s national security law.
U.K.-based Finn Lau, Australia-based Ted Hui and Kevin Yam and U.S.-based Anna Kwok and Elmer Yuen are also on the wanted list, with bounties of HK$1 million (US$127,700) offered for information that might lead to an arrest.
A police spokesperson confirmed to Radio Free Asia that Mung’s three relatives were questioned for “assisting fugitives,” but declined to say why Kwok’s relatives were questioned.
“This operation is still ongoing, and further law enforcement action, including arrests, cannot be ruled out,” the spokesman said.
Instilling fear
Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the raids, which have targeted 10 family members of the eight wanted activists to date, seemed calculated to create an atmosphere of fear.
“If there is evidence, then make an arrest,” Sang said. “But what do they mean by taking people away for hours of interrogation without any evidence, then letting them go?”
“Is this a bid to … create panic by banging on doors first thing in the morning?”
People walk past the police notices for pro-democracy activists at Wah Fu Estate in Hong Kong on Thursday, July 20, 2023. Credit: Bertha Wang/AFP
Elmer Yuen’s son Derek and daughter-in-law Eunice Yung – a pro-China lawmaker – haven’t been interrogated yet.
Yong made a high-profile announcement last August that she was cutting off ties with Yuen, calling him to return to Hong Kong and turn himself in.
Derek Yuen said in a recent media interview that they had spoken briefly with Elmer Yuen during a recent trip overseas, but had avoided any financial transactions with him.
Sang said it was telling that the couple – whose pro-China credentials are fairly solid – haven’t been questioned yet.
The London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said the raids are the “latest escalation” in the crackdown on opposition figures.
“This is a drastic escalation since the arrest warrants and bounties against the eight activists and the threats against Nathan’s family, which were already outrageous and completely unacceptable,” the group’s chief executive Benedict Rogers said.
“The Hong Kong government is openly and increasingly threatening activists abroad, in an attempt to silence them and spread fear among the community,” Rogers said in a statement on the group’s website.
“This situation is increasingly similar to that in mainland China, and we are seeing Hong Kong plummet to this level in terms of human rights, particularly civil and political rights,” he said, calling on governments to protect the rights and freedoms of activists in exile.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gigi Lee for RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong police on Tuesday questioned the family of exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law, who the city’s leader has vowed to “pursue for life” under a national security law criminalizing public criticism of the authorities.
“Today, the Hong Kong national security police went to the apartments of Nathan Law’s parents and brother and took them away for questioning,” advocacy group Hong Kong Watch said in a statement on its website. “They were later released without arrest.”
The move came after national security police last week issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight prominent Hong Kong activists living in exile, accusing them of “collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security.”
Law, who now lives in the United Kingdom, announced in 2020 that he had cut ties with his family back in Hong Kong in a bid to protect them.
But police raided his parents’ home early Tuesday morning, taking away his parents and brother and questioning them about whether they had provided him with any financial support, or whether they were his “agents” in Hong Kong, according to multiple media reports.
“At around 6.00 a.m. today (July 11), the national security department [of the Hong Kong police force] searched two units in Yat Tung Estate, Tung Chung, where Nathan Law’s parents and elder brother live, and took [the three of them] away to take their statements,” the pro-Beijing Sing Tao Daily reported.
Police wanted to know if they had been providing financial assistance to Law or had acted on his behalf in Hong Kong, it said.
“After the three had made their statements, they were allowed to leave the police station,” the report said, versions of which also appeared on iCable News and in the South China Morning Post.
Bounties on their heads
The July 3 warrants also listed former pro-democracy lawmakers Ted Hui, now in Australia, U.K.-based Dennis Kwok, U.S.-based activist and political lobbyist Anna Kwok and Australia-based legal scholar Kevin Yam among the wanted.
U.K.-based activists Finn Lau and Mung Siu-tat and U.S.-based businessman Elmer Yuen are also on the wanted list.
Authorities have offered bounties of HK$1 million (US$127,700) for information that might lead to an arrest or a successful prosecution.
Those named face a slew of charges including “collusion with foreign powers” and “inciting subversion and secession” under a law imposed on Hong Kong by the Communist Party in the wake of the 2019 protest movement that effectively bans public dissent and peaceful political opposition.
Hong Kong police on Monday, July 3, 2023, issued arrest warrants and offered bounties for eight activists and former lawmakers who have fled the city. They are [clockwise from top left] Kevin Yam, Elmer Yuen, Anna Kwok, Dennis Kwok, Nathan Law, Finn Lau, Mung Siu-tat and Ted Hui. Credit: Screenshot from Reuters video
The warrants were quickly followed by five more arrests of former associates of Law and the now-disbanded pro-democracy party Demosisto that he co-founded in the wake of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, who were accused of using the “Punish MEE” pro-democracy crowd-funding app to bankroll overseas activists.
The escalating crackdown has sparked international criticism of the authorities’ ongoing attempts at “long-arm” law enforcement overseas.
Hong Kong’s three-year-old national security law bans public criticism of the authorities as “incitement of hatred,” and applies to speech or acts committed by people of any nationality, anywhere in the world.
More targeted
Meanwhile, Secretary for Justice Paul Lam has lodged complaints to the Hong Kong Bar Association and The Law Society of Hong Kong against two others on the “wanted” list: former lawmaker Dennis Kwok and solicitor Kevin Yam, for “professional misconduct,” Hong Kong Watch said, adding that both could have their licenses to practice law in Hong Kong suspended.
“This is a drastic escalation since last week’s arrest warrants and bounties against the eight activists, which were already outrageous and completely unacceptable,” the group’s Chief Executive Benedict Rogers said.
The group called on British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly to summon the Chinese ambassador and ask him to explain why the authorities are targeting the families of Hong Kongers under the protection of the United Kingdom. Law has been granted political refugee status.
“The Hong Kong government is openly threatening activists abroad, in an attempt to silence them and spread fear among the community,” the statement said.
It said the threats against Law’s family showed that the situation in Hong Kong is increasingly similar to that of mainland China, and that any difference between the two systems of governance has been totally dismantled.
‘Rats crossing the street’
Chief Executive John Lee on Tuesday repeated his vow to “hunt down” Law and the other activists for the rest of their lives.
“I have said many times that we will hunt them down for the rest of their lives, and that we will use every means in our power to do so, including going after anyone providing them with financial or other kinds of assistance,” Lee told reporters on Tuesday.
“We will also go after the forces behind the scenes, who may even be controlling them,” he said, without elaborating on who those forces might be.
He likened the exiled activists to “rats crossing the street,” to be shunned unless anyone has information leading to their arrest or prosecution, in which case a reward could be offered.
Former Security Secretary Regina Ip earlier told reporters that she believed that while “normal” family contact with overseas activists wasn’t an issue, anyone sending funds to overseas activists who then used the money to lobby overseas parliaments to sanction Hong Kong “or other violations of the national security law,” could face prosecution.
More than 260 people have been arrested under the national security law, including dozens of former opposition lawmakers and political activists and senior journalists including pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen.
An estimated 10,000 have been prosecuted for “rioting” or public order offenses in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, which Beijing views as an attempt by “hostile foreign forces” to foment a “color revolution” in Hong Kong.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Simon Lee for RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong’s “last elected district councilors” have called on the international community to withdraw recognition for the city’s legislature after it voted to slash the number of directly elected district council seats.
The city’s legislature – which has been packed with pro-Beijing members since changes to the electoral system that saw chief executive John Lee “win” an election in which he was the only candidate – voted unanimously last week to slash the number of directly elected seats on District Council from 452 to just 88.
The move comes amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition in Hong Kong, and after millions of voters in Hong Kong delivered a stunning rebuke to Beijing and their own government with a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates across the city’s 18 district councils at the height of the 2019 protest movement.
Lee welcomed the changes to the District Council election rules, which will also ensure that pro-democracy candidates won’t be able to run in the next election.
“We must … completely exclude those anti-China and destabilizing forces from the District Councils,” Lee said in a July 8 statement. “This legislative exercise [will] ensure that the District Councils are firmly in the hands of patriots.”
Lee said the government is looking for candidates who are “capable, experienced, with relevant skill sets suited to the needs of the districts, and patriotic,” although the government has yet to set a date for the district election.
Under the new rules, which took effect on Monday, candidates will have to pass a national security background check and secure at least three nominations from several committees loyal to the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.
More than 20 former District Council members in exile have called on the international community to withdraw official recognition of Hong Kong’s Legislative and District Councils, which no longer “legally represent the people of Hong Kong.”
Elections for show
The joint letter authored by former Shek Tong Tsui district councilor Sam Yip, who fled the ongoing crackdown to live in Japan, said that the latest legislation has sounded the death knell for any kind of democracy in Hong Kong.
“Under the framework of the Hong Kong government’s so-called ‘patriots governing Hong Kong’ policy, candidates must show their loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party before they can run for election,” Yip said. “[They have to] go to these pro-government people to get nominated.”
Former Legislative Council member and former District Council member Ted Hui, who is among eight prominent overseas activists wanted by national security police for “collusion with foreign forces,” said he, Yip and the other signatories to the letter were “the last democratically elected district councilors.”
“Maybe we would never get through the government’s review process … but the public opinion we represented still exists,” Hui said. “We may scatter all over the world, but we still want to serve the people of Hong Kong.”
Former Hong Kong district councilor Sam Yip, who fled the crackdown in the city to live in Japan, initiated the letter calling for the international community to withdraw recognition for the city’s legislature. Credit: Provided by Ye Jinlong, undated photo
Daniel Kwok, a former Hong Kong district councilor now living in the United Kingdom, said the whole electoral system in Hong Kong is now just there for show.
“You have to pass the qualification review [examining your loyalty to Beijing] and a political review process,” Kwok said. “It’s a high threshold.”
“The motivation is clear — it’s to cling to the principle that only patriots can rule Hong Kong, and eliminate any of the voices of the so-called ‘anti-China chaotic elements’ in Hong Kong,” he said.
2020 National Security Law
Kwok said it’s important to amplify these changes to the rest of the world.
“Many Western democracies may not have a timely understanding of the situation,” he said. “Nobody has yet formally discussed the changes to the electoral rules for the Legislative Council and District Council at the United Nations Human Rights Council.”
“We have to keep on speaking out and keep the issue alive in the international community,” he said.
A pro-China lawmaker watches a video on a phone showing the 1945 Yalta Conference during the third reading of a bill that will overhaul district council elections in Hong Kong, July 6, 2023. Credit: Louise Delmotte/AP
The European Union said in a July 6 statement that the changes go against China’s commitment to democratic representation under the terms of the 1997 handover.
“This severely weakens the ability of the people of Hong Kong to choose representatives overlooking district affairs,” it said, noting that the decision follows the imposition of a draconian national security law on Hong Kong from July 2020.
“These developments raise serious questions about the state of fundamental freedoms, democracy and political pluralism in Hong Kong that were supposed to remain protected until at least 2047 under the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 and China’s international commitments,” it said.
The Hong Kong government “vehemently rejected” the EU statement and said the bloc was “interfering in Hong Kong matters, which are purely China’s internal affairs.”
It said there was no mention of democratically elected district councilors in the handover treaty or Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
It said the elected component under the new rules would still be larger than it was under British rule during the 1980s.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Paul Eckert.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gao Feng for RFA Mandarin.
The Hong Kong government has paid millions of dollars to political lobbyists in Washington in recent years in a little-known overseas influence operation that aims to get U.S. politicians doing Beijing’s bidding, according to a new report from a Hong Kong activist group.
“Heavyweights and the well-connected in Washington … play an active role in advancing Beijing’s interests on American soil,” according to a new report from the Hong Kong Democracy Council.
The group has set up an influence and lobbying database to provide a detailed breakdown of lobbying activities sponsored by the Hong Kong government, and by extension, the Chinese government.
The database, drawn from publicly available filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, lists over 1,000 interactions between U.S. government officials and Hong Kong government-funded lobbyists, the council said in a summary of the July 5 report published on its website.
The council also called on Congress to pass a bill currently in the pipeline that would revoke the diplomatic privileges of the Hong Kong government’s representative offices in the United States, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices.
The report found that China, “which has a well-documented history of orchestrating foreign-influence campaigns, has been ramping up efforts to sway U.S. politics, media, and society,” spending more than US$292 million over the past six years on its American influence operations.
Key role
It said the government-linked Hong Kong Trade Development Council, which is registered in the United States as both an agent of a foreign government and a foreign principal directing lobbying efforts, plays a key role in those operations, playing “an important role as a financial facilitator of the [Hong Kong] government’s overseas political activities.”
Contacts between American officials and agents of foreign governments, including those that use lobbying firms, are reported under legislation governing foreign agents, and the listings show that officials from both the Trade Development Council and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices have been active in lobbying activities in recent years.
“Throughout the 2019 protests and in the years following, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council has continued to act as a conduit for [Hong Kong] government funds, appearing as the foreign principal for every single one of the more than 400 reported interactions between [Hong Kong] government lobbyists and American politicians and government
officials,” the Hong Kong Democracy Council report found.
One of the Hong Kong government lobby’s key aims during the protests was to prevent the passage of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which rewrote U.S. policy towards the city, the report said.
Such lobbying attempts were “in direct conflict with the overwhelming democratic aspirations of Hong Kongers in both Hong Kong and the United States,” it said.
Lobbyists hired by the body report to the Washington Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, the report said, citing its contract with lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
Tapping into influential network
And while those who lobby for the Hong Kong pro-democracy camp are typically refugees and exiles who lack funding, and who may not yet even enjoy secure immigration status, the government is able to tap into a network of wealth and privilege at the heart of American political life.
“People who lobby on behalf of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government are basically well-connected, wealthy and powerful people who move in government circles in Washington,” Hong Kong Democracy Council researcher Mason Wong told Radio Free Asia. “Many are former members of Congress and former officials from both parties.”
“There’s a broad, bipartisan network of well-connected elite people who are helping the Hong Kong government with its advocacy work and extending Chinese Communist Party interests on U.S. soil,” he said.
According to the report, that network includes the Sing Tao media group, which is registered as the non-government client of a foreign power under FARA.
“A questionable entity like Sing Tao advances Beijing’s interests in multifaceted ways, far beyond taking advantage of the American free press — as do the likes of China Central Television and Russia Today — to shape public opinion,” the report said in a case study summarizing reports that the media group is part of Beijing’s secretive United Front influence and outreach operations in the United States.
Yet the group is the single largest spender among FARA-registered entities from Hong Kong, according to the report.
“Little information is available on what exactly it does, or what the specific nature of its work as a ‘foreign agent’ entails,” it said.
‘Serious problem’
Hong Kong Democracy Council executive director Anna Kwok, who is among eight overseas activists listed on Monday as wanted by the city’s national security police, who have offered a bounty of H.K.$1 million for information leading to her arrest and prosecution, said she finds a certain irony in the fact that she has been accused of “colluding with a foreign power” under the national security law.
“What I find ironic here is that the Hong Kong government was accusing me just a few days ago of collusion with foreign forces,” but if you actually look into it, you will see that they’re actually working very hard themselves to be in contact with foreign forces, to work with them, and to win their support,” Kwok said.
According to Wong, who wrote the report, people might be forgiven for thinking that when Hong Kong’s economic and trade representatives in Washington contact local politicians, they want to discuss trade and economic ties.
“But when they meet up with American congressmen and women, they don’t want to talk about trade, but about the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act,” he said. “It’s a white glove operation for the Chinese Communist Party … countering groups that advocate democracy and human rights for Hong Kongers in the United States.”
“It’s a very serious problem.”
‘Disguised’
Current affairs commentator Sang Pu agreed.
“These are [Chinese Communist Party] United Front operations disguised as trade and economic relations,” he said. “They want to expand these operations using state-run enterprises or quasi-government organizations.”
“It’s not just the Trade Development Council; any organization with the word ‘development’ in its name is worthy of attention,” Sang said, citing the Arts Development Council and Hong Kong Tourism Board, which has “development” in its Chinese name, as examples.
“It’s not the same as pre-1997: these quasi-government organizations have become the mouthpieces of the party-state,” he said.
Ja Ian Chong, assistant politics professor at the National University of Singapore, said that while political lobbying is legal in the United States, people may not always be aware of the provenance of some of the lobbying that goes on.
“People who aren’t familiar with Hong Kong’s situation could treat these official organizations, for example, regional and city governments, and are actually sent to lobby for the Hong Kong government,” Chong said.
“They may think they have little to do with the Chinese central government.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hoi Man Wu for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
Hong Kong police on Thursday arrested a former leader of a pro-democracy party they said had “colluded with foreign forces to endanger national security,” bringing the total number of arrests under the national security law this week to five, government broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong reported.
Police arrested Calvin Chu, 24, a former standing committee member of Demosisto, which was founded by U.K.-based former student protest leader and lawmaker Nathan Law, who had a HK$1 million bounty placed on his head earlier this week, the station said.
Police had earlier arrested four men on the same charges, they said in a statement on Wednesday.
Commentators said the five arrests are directly connected to the issuing of warrants for Law and seven other prominent overseas activists earlier this week.
According to a report in the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper, the four stand accused of funding Law’s activities via a pro-democracy app call Punish MEE, which was originally designed to give money to businesses that openly supported the 2019 pro-democracy protests, known as the “yellow economic circle.”
While police didn’t name him in their statement about the four arrests, multiple media reports said one of the four arrested on Wednesday was former Demosisto Chairman Ivan Lam.
According to the Ming Pao, the four arrestees including Lam stand accused of helping to fund Law’s activities in the United Kingdom via the Punish MEE app. Chu is described in the report as “an employee” of the app.
Trying to ‘scare people’
Chu’s arrest brings to five the number of people arrested this week on suspicion of “conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security” and of “conspiracy to commit an act or acts with seditious intention.”
The arrests are part of an attempt to create a chilling effect among overseas activists lobbying for sanctions and other measures in response to the current crackdown in Hong Kong, said current affairs commentator Sang Pu.
“If they keep arresting people in Hong Kong, that’s going to scare people overseas,” Sang said. “That’s their aim.”
Material in boxes, collected as evidence are loaded to a truck following the arrest of four men on charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in Hong Kong, July 5, 2023. Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters
“They may even bring in a crowdfunding law making it illegal to donate to anyone raising funds [for overseas activism],” he said. “It’s about frightening people and cutting off the flow of funding.”
National security police on Monday issued arrest warrants for eight Hong Kong activists in exile, offering a HK$1 million bounty per person for information leading to their arrest and prosecution, sparking international criticism of the authorities’ attempts at “long-arm” law enforcement overseas.
Cracking down
Hong Kong’s three-year-old national security law bans public criticism of the authorities and peaceful political opposition, and applies to speech or acts committed by people of any nationality, anywhere in the world.
“The arrested persons were suspected of receiving funds from operating companies, social media platforms and mobile applications to support people who have fled overseas and continue to engage in activities that endanger national security,” the police said in a July 5 statement that didn’t name anyone.
“They were also suspected of repeatedly publishing posts with seditious intention on social media platforms, including content which provoked hatred towards the Central Authorities and the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and advocated Hong Kong independence,” it said.
Police searched the arrestees’ homes and confiscated documents and communications devices, it said, adding that further arrests could be made.
The statement warned members of the public that they could go to jail for helping people deemed to have colluded with “external elements to endanger national security.”
So far, more than 260 people have now been arrested under the national security law, including dozens of former opposition lawmakers and political activists and senior journalists including pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen.
An estimated 10,000 have been prosecuted for “rioting” or public order offenses in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, which Beijing views as an attempt by “hostile foreign forces” to foment a “color revolution” in Hong Kong.
British response
Meanwhile, calls are growing for the British government to come up with a more robust response to China’s attempts to enforce its laws on foreign soil.
U.K.-based activist Finn Lau, who was among the eight listed as wanted by national security police on Monday, called for immediate meetings with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Home Secretary Suella Braverman to discuss potential threats to the safety of Hong Kongers in the U.K. from agents and supporters of the Chinese state.
“The U.K. government should ensure that if anyone attempts to kidnap anyone due to the bounties or the #NationalSecurityLaw, they should be tried and prosecuted on British soil,” Lau told a news conference in London on Wednesday.
He also called for a ban on British judges serving in Hong Kong’s judiciary.
Veteran trade unionist Mung Siu-tat, also known as Christopher Mung, said there are now concerns that the wanted list has ushered in an intensification of the crackdown, with many more arrests to follow.
“Where is the crime in supporting one’s own ideas through running a business?” Mung said. “Anyone doing this will now be suppressed, or arrested.”
“Those warrants weren’t just about putting pressure on overseas activists — they will also lead to more intense daily suppression and arrests in Hong Kong itself,” he said.
Lau said there is little he can do to protect himself beyond hoping that he will be protected by being on British soil.
“I will try not to worry too much, and won’t restrict myself — I’ll do more,” he said. “I’ll keep going despite the personal danger.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jojo Man and Amelia Loi for RFA Cantonese.
Concerns are growing that China could start using the Interpol “red notice” arrest warrant system to target anyone overseas, of any nationality, who says or does something the ruling Communist Party doesn’t like, using Hong Kong’s three-year-old national security law.
Dozens of rights groups on Tuesday called on governments to suspend any remaining extradition treaties with China and Hong Kong after the city’s government issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight prominent figures in the overseas democracy movement on Monday, vowing to pursue them for the rest of their lives.
“We urge governments to suspend the remaining extradition treaties that exist between democracies and the Hong Kong and Chinese governments and work towards coordinating an Interpol early warning system to protect Hong Kongers and other dissidents abroad,” an open letter dated July 4 and signed by more than 50 Hong Kong-linked civil society groups around the world said.
“Hong Kong activists in exile must be protected in their peaceful fight for basic human rights, freedoms and democracy,” said the letter, which was signed by dozens of local Hong Kong exile groups from around the world, as well as by Human Rights in China and the World Uyghur Congress.
Hong Kong’s national security law, according to its own Article 38, applies anywhere in the world, to people of all nationalities.
The warrants came days after the Beijing-backed Ta Kung Pao newspaper said Interpol red notices could be used to pursue people “who do not have permanent resident status of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and commit crimes against Hong Kong outside Hong Kong.”
“If the Hong Kong [government] wants to extradite foreign criminals back to Hong Kong for trial, [it] must formally notify the relevant countries and request that local law enforcement agencies arrest the fugitives and send them back to Hong Kong for trial,” the paper said.
While Interpol’s red notice system isn’t designed for political arrests, China has built close ties and influence with the international body in recent years, with its former security minister Meng Hongwei rising to become president prior to his sudden arrest and prosecution in 2019, and another former top Chinese cop elected to the board in 2021.
And there are signs that Hong Kong’s national security police are already starting to target overseas citizens carrying out activities seen as hostile to China on foreign soil.
Hong Kong police in March wrote to the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch ordering it to take down its website.
And people of Chinese descent who are citizens of other countries have already been targeted by Beijing for “national security” related charges.
Call to ignore
To address a growing sense of insecurity among overseas rights advocates concerned with Hong Kong, the letter called on authorities in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe to reiterate that the Hong Kong National Security Law does not apply in their jurisdictions, and to reaffirm that the Hong Kong arrest warrants won’t be recognized.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the “unlawful activities” the eight are accused of should all be protected under human rights guarantees in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
Hong Kong police on Monday, July 3, 2023, issued arrest warrants and offered bounties for eight activists and former lawmakers who have fled the city. They are [clockwise from top left] Kevin Yam, Elmer Yuen, Anna Kwok, Dennis Kwok, Nathan Law, Finn Lau, Mung Siu-tat and Ted Hui. Credit: Screenshot from Reuters video
“In recent years, the Chinese government has expanded efforts to control information and intimidate activists around the world by manipulation of bodies such as Interpol,” it said in a statement, adding that more than 100,000 Hong Kongers have fled the city since the crackdown on dissent began.
“The Hong Kong government’s charges and bounties against eight Hong Kong people in exile reflects the growing importance of the diaspora’s political activism,” Maya Wang, associate director in the group’s Asia division, said in a statement.
“Foreign governments should not only publicly reject cooperating with National Security Law cases, but should take concrete actions to hold top Beijing and Hong Kong officials accountable,” she said.
Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee told reporters on Tuesday that the only way for the activists to “end their destiny of being an abscondee who will be pursued for life is to surrender” and urged them “to give themselves up as soon as possible”.
The Communist Party-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper cited Yiu Chi Shing, who represents Hong Kong on the standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, as saying that those who have fled overseas will continue to oppose the government from wherever they are.
“Anyone who crosses the red lines in the national security law will be punished, no matter how far away,” Yiu told the paper.
The rights groups warned that Monday’s arrest warrants represent a significant escalation in “long-arm” law enforcement by authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong.
Extradition
While the U.S., U.K. and several other countries suspended their extradition agreements with Hong Kong after the national security law criminalized public dissent and criticism of the authorities from July 1, 2020, several countries still have extradition arrangements in force, including the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa and Sri Lanka.
South Korea, Malaysia, India and Indonesia could also still allow extradition to Hong Kong, according to a Wikipedia article on the topic.
Meanwhile, several European countries have extradition agreements in place with China, including Belgium, Italy and France, while others have sent fugitives to China at the request of its police.
However, a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in October 2022 could mean an end to extraditions to China among 46 signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights.
“The eight [on the wanted list] should be safe for now, but if they were to travel overseas and arrive in a country that has an extradition agreement with either mainland China or Hong Kong, then they could be arrested on request,” researcher Wang Hsin-li of Taiwan’s Association of Strategic Foresight said.
Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee on Tuesday urged the eight Hong Kong activists who are sought under arrest warrants “to give themselves up as soon as possible.” Credit: Peter Parks/AFP
But he said he doesn’t believe that the government in China or Hong Kong cares much about the international outcry in response to the warrants, which have included growing calls for Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee to be barred from entering the United States to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November.
“They’re pretty indifferent to international calls for sanctions,” Wang said. “Their thinking now is that national security trumps everything else.”
UK ‘strongly objects’
Lawyer and current affairs commentator Sang Pu agreed that officials could start using Interpol red notices, adding that the purpose of such international pressure seems to be to stop people from speaking up or protesting against the Chinese Communist Party overseas.
“This wasn’t aimed at those eight in particular, but at many more like them who are engaged in human rights advocacy and community building work,” Sang said of the Hong Kong warrants.
“There are many people like that in Taiwan, Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia.”
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said his government “strongly objects” to the national security law.
“The decision to issue arrest warrants for 8 activists, some of whom are in the UK, is a further example of the authoritarian reach of China’s extraterritorial law,” Cleverley said via Twitter, echoing earlier objections from the State Department.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said such criticisms were “flagrant slander,” and said the eight activists were “acting as pawns for anti-China forces overseas.”
“Relevant countries need to respect China’s sovereignty and the rule of law in Hong Kong, stop lending support for anti-China elements destabilizing Hong Kong, and stop providing a safe haven for fugitives,” she told a regular news conference in Beijing.
British Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said the warrants were “trying to interfere with our internal affairs.”
“Nathan Law and his fellow pro-democracy activists are under our protection, and enjoy our full support,” he said via Twitter in response to the arrest warrants.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gao Feng for RFA Mandarin.
Three years after Beijing imposed a law criminalized public dissent and peaceful political opposition in Hong Kong, a dwindling band of social activists say they’re not giving up just yet.
Opposition party leader Chan Po-ying, who chairs the League of Social Democrats, was recently detained by police on a downtown shopping street carrying an electric candle and a yellow paper flower on the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, commemoration of which is now banned in Hong Kong.
Undeterred, she showed up a few days later outside the headquarters of HSBC Bank, protesting the closure of the party’s bank accounts — something that is increasingly happening to opposition parties and activists in the city since the crackdown on dissent began.
Chan’s husband Leung Kwok-hung is one of 47 political activists and former lawmakers currently standing trial for “subversion” after they organized a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.
Police also forced Chan and fellow women’s rights and labor activists to call off a march on International Women’s Day in March, in a move she told reporters was due to pressure from Hong Kong’s national security police.
So why does she keep going, when so many have already left?
“Why do I still want to stay in Hong Kong?,” she said. “It’s not to prove how brave we are, but because we still hope to speak out when we see political, economic, social or intellectual injustice in Hong Kong.”
“Dissent must be voiced, regardless of how much room is allowed for it,” she said. “There are still some people willing to speak out, even in such a high-pressure situation.”
“It also inspires other people.”
Stalking street stalls
Still, even a simple plan of action like handing out leaflets on the street is now fraught with difficulty.
“Sometimes we set up a street stall with just four of us, and there are sometimes more than 10 plainclothes police standing right next to us,” Chan said. “They may try to charge us under laws they haven’t used before, such as illegal fundraising.”
Police officers take away a member of the public on the eve 34th anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square massacre in Hong Kong, June 3, 2023. Credit: Louise Delmotte/AP
And it’s not just the national security law they need to watch out for.
“The easiest way for them to prosecute us is under colonial-era sedition laws, because they can charge us for posting any opinion online that the authorities don’t like,” she said.
“They are gradually starting to use a whole variety of laws to curb the freedoms granted to us in the Basic Law,” Chan said, referencing the promises in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution that the city would retain its freedoms of press, expression and association beyond the 1997 handover to Chinese rule.
What’s more, the League is now having huge difficulties funding its activities in the face of bank account closures, and can only hope that its members will work voluntarily to further the party’s agenda.
‘Destroying a system’
Former pro-democracy District Council member Chiu Yan Loy has also decided to stay for the time being, to serve his local community.
“District councilors spend 90% of their working hours on issues that have little to do with politics, but which serve important social service functions,” Chiu said.
Until the authorities recently rewrote the electoral rulebook to ensure that there would be no repeat of the landslide victory seen in the 2019 district elections, which was seen as a huge show of public support for the 2019 protest movement and its goals, which included fully democratic elections.
University students observe a minute of silence to mourn those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, in front of the “Pillar of Shame” statue at the University of Hong Kong, June 4, 2021. Credit: Kin Cheung/AP
“When you destroy a system, but don’t replace it with a new system, this will only create more social problems that will start occurring in Hong Kong,” he said, adding that he is putting his own money into community-based projects to try to address these issues.
“These services don’t involve the sort of politics that the government often talks about, so there is still room to keep doing this work,” he said, despite being in a financially precarious situation.
Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said that while the risks have risen, Hong Kong’s activists have yet to be totally silenced.
“Of course there are far more obstacles under the national security law than before,” he said. “The so-called red lines are constantly moving, and there are a lot of people watching and reporting people.”
“It’s still OK to talk about issues affecting people’s livelihoods,” Lau said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
Taipei, June 30, 2023—In response to Hong Kong immigration authoritiesdenying entry to freelance Japanese journalist Yoshiaki Ogawa on Thursday, June 29, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:
“Hong Kong authorities should explain their reasons for denying journalist Yoshiaki Ogawa’s entry or grant him permission to return to the city at once,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “Blocking access to foreign journalists reflects Hong Kong authorities’ shameful attempts to stifle critical reporting.”
On Thursday, immigration officials at the Hong Kong International Airport took Ogawa into a room and interviewed him for about an hour before asking him to sign a document acknowledging that he would not enter the city. He returned to Tokyo the next day, according to news reports, which said authorities did not disclose the reason for his refusal.
Ogawa has covered Hong Kong since 2014, including the 2019 democracy protests, and authored the 2020 book “Chronicles of Hong Kong’s Protests.” He was planning to investigate the situation in the city three years after the Beijing-imposed national security law took effect.
Hong Kong authorities previously denied entry to Michiko Kiseki, a Japanese freelance photographer known for her coverage of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrations, in December 2022.
CPJ reached out to Ogawa via messaging app, but did not receive any reply. The Hong Kong immigration department did not immediately respond to CPJ’s email requesting comment.
Separately, pro-democracy broadcaster Citizens’ Radio ceased operations Friday due to what its founder Tsang Kin-shing described as the “dangerous” political situation and the freezing of its bank account. Its office was vandalized in July 2019. Tsang did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment.
CPJ has documented the drastic erosion of press freedom in the former British colony. China was the world’s second-largest jailer of journalists in 2022, according to CPJ’s annual prison census. Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai is among those behind bars; he faces a possible life sentence on national security charges.
The Russian private military company Wagner Group, which made headlines over the weekend by starting to march on Moscow amid an apparent dispute with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has longstanding ties to Hong Kong, records show.
Public domain information shows that its predecessor, the Slavonic Corps, was founded in the city by two employees of the Russian private security firm Moran Security.
And Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch-turned-military leader known as “Putin’s chef,” has raised funds for at least some of his ventures in the city, via a number of Hong Kong-registered companies held by several affiliated parent companies, according to a survey of public records carried out by RFA Cantonese.
The Wagner crisis comes amid growing concern over the use of Hong Kong as a domicile for a growing number of shell companies hiding illicit operations following the 2018 arrest in Canada of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou for alleged business dealings with sanctioned Iranian companies.
Hong Kong has also been used by the ruling Communist Party’s financial and political elite as both a haven and channel for its private wealth, with top Chinese leaders and their families owning luxury property in the city.
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and other studies have detailed how the Corps’ first deployment – to Syria in 2013 – ended in disaster due to supply and logistical problems at Deir al-Zour, after which it was disbanded.
Along with the Russian opposition-backed Dossier Center, CSIS describes Wagner as an unofficial Russian army with operations in Ukraine, Syria and Africa in recent years.
Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin [center] meets with Russia’s Deputy Minister of Defense Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, at the headquarters of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces, in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, in this screenshot from a video released on June 24, 2023. Credit: Screenshot from video obtained by Reuters
However, affiliated companies remained in existence in Hong Kong until 2020, when they were named and sanctioned by the United States.
Research has shown that Wagner Group doesn’t actually exist as a legal corporate entity, yet until last weekend, it enjoyed the full support of the Kremlin, according to the CSIS.
Yet the group’s affiliates have longstanding ties to Hong Kong and mainland China.
Slavonic Corps
Customs records show that these companies have had frequent transactions with Russian companies over the past 10 years, and reveal a network of Russian financial dealings criss-crossing Hong Kong and mainland China.
Wagner’s predecessor, the Slavonic Corps, is typically reported as having been founded in 2013, but a search of Hong Kong’s Companies Registry showed it was established in 2012, with the founder named on the record as “Vadim Gusev, deputy director of Moran.”
Another board member is named as Sergei Kramskoi, another former Moran employee.
Wagner’s predecessor, the Slavonic Corps, had a Hong Kong address in an office building at 1 Duddell Street, Central [shown], according to RFA Cantonese research. Credit: Google Street View
In early 2013, the Slavonic Corps placed a recruitment ad on several Moscow military websites, successfully recruiting 267 people, some of whom were military veterans, including one Dmitry Utkin, a former high-ranking officer of the Russian intelligence special ops forces, Spetsnaz GRU.
Dmitry Utkin later used the call sign “Wagner,” sparking speculation that he founded the group from the ashes of the Slavonic Corps.
An investigation by RFA Cantonese found a copy of the advertisement, which shows a Hong Kong address for the company in an office building at 1 Duddell Street, Central.
However, the company’s 2013 and 2014 annual reports show the company address as being in New Trade Plaza, Shatin. Few contact details are given other than an email address.
At the end of the same year, the Slavonic Corps started operating under the name Wagner. It took part in the annexation of Crimea the following year, including attacks on Ukraine.
The company registration in Hong Kong remained unaffected, and it wasn’t until 2021 that it was officially deleted and dissolved by the Hong Kong Government Companies Registry, because it was believed not to have been operating for several years.
U.S. sanctions
By July 2020, the US Department of Defense had accused the Russian government of running a huge mining operation in Tripoli through Wagner, bankrolling the now-fallen dictatorship in Sudan and exacerbating the Libyan conflict.
The resulting sanctions targeted Wagner and Prigozhin, along with various companies in Hong Kong and Thailand that U.S. officials said had helped Prigozhin conduct 100 transactions worth a total of U.S.$7.5 million between 2018 and 2019.
Fighters of Wagner private mercenary group pull out of the headquarters of the Southern Military District to return to base, in the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, June 24, 2023. Credit: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
According to the U.S. Treasury, the list of sanctioned companies included three Hong Kong-registered companies: Shen Yang Jing Cheng Machinery Imp & Exp Co. Ltd (formerly Anying Group Ltd); Shine Dragon Group Ltd and Zhe Jiang Jiayi Small Commodities Trade Co. Ltd, all of which were held and managed by Russian businessman Igor Valerievich Lavrenkov, acting as an intermediary.
The address given in the Hong Kong Companies Registry for all three companies was “Chaoyang, China.”
In its July 15, 2020 statement announcing the sanctions, the Treasury described Prigozhin as the financier of Wagner, “a designated Russian Ministry of Defense proxy force.”
“Wagner’s activities in other countries, including Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, and Libya, have generated insecurity and incited violence against innocent civilians,” the Treasury said.
The three companies had “facilitated transactions … [that] supported [Prigozhin’s] activities in Sudan and maintenance of his private aircraft,” it said.
“Shine Dragon Group Limited, Shen Yang Jing Cheng Machinery Imp&Exp. Co., Zhe Jiang Jiayi Small Commodities Trade Company Limited, and Lavrenkov are being designated for having materially assisted Prigozhin,” the statement said.
All three companies were founded in 2009 and dissolved between 2021 and 2022, according to Hong Kong company records.
A police van is parked outside Wagner’s headquarters in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on June 24, 2023. Credit: Olga Maltseva/AFP
The U.S. customs trade data platform Import Genius shows that Shen Yang Jing Cheng mostly served Russian clients, exporting some 50 tons of oil-drilling and pipeline equipment on five occasions to several different Russian companies between 2014 and 2017.
Zhe Jiang Jiayi Small Commodities shipped more than 7,000 tons of plastic products and parts to at least 10 Russian companies over a 10-year period; the two companies report that most of their products are sourced from China.
According to the U.S. Treasury, Lavrenkov set up another company in Hong Kong in 2012 called SD Airport Security Systems Ltd, using a different passport, but the registration was suddenly withdrawn in January 2017.
According to “Import Genius”, a company using the same name repeatedly shipped metal detectors, X-ray detectors and related parts to the same Russian company in May 2015.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gigi Lee and Fong Tak Ho for RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong’s government broadcaster has removed thousands of episodes of old shows from its podcast platform in recent months, amid an ongoing purge of dissent in the city under a draconian national security law.
Episodes of several shows that were canceled but their archive retained on Radio Television Hong Kong’s Podcast One website have now disappeared entirely, a survey of the site on Wednesday revealed.
The move has been likened to – and is possibly coordinated with – the removal of “politically sensitive” books and other content from Hong Kong’s public libraries for fear of running afoul of the law, which bans public criticism of the authorities, according to an industry insider.
The deleted content includes the whole of the 30-year-old satirical news show “Headliner,” axed in May 2020 after being criticized by top police officers for poking fun at their denials of violence against pro-democracy protesters during the 2019 protest movement.
Actors perform in the television show “Headliner” at a studio in Hong Kong, June 17, 2020. Radio Television Hong Kong’s Podcast One has removed 30 years of episodes of the show, which was axed in 2020. Credit: Kin Cheung/Associated Press
A keyword search for the show, which prompted the government’s Communications Authority to warn RTHK for “denigrating and insulting” the police, on the Podcast One website turned up the response “No results.”
Similar results appeared after a search for “City Forum,” a former live show that featured voices from across the political spectrum debating current affairs and ran for more than four decades until 2021.
Selected episodes of other shows dealing with topics viewed as “sensitive” by the ruling Chinese Communist Party — including the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, police violence, the political cartoonist Zunzi and the national security law itself — had also been removed from the platform.
According to an in-depth investigation of the Podcast One site by independent Cantonese news site The Collective, several other shows have been removed from the site entirely in recent months, including “Left, Right, Red, Blue, Green,” “Police Report” and “This Week.”
Talk-show host Tsang Chi Ho, who anchored the last-ever episode of “Headline News,” said all trace of the show now appears to have been removed from the public domain, and said it was similar to the recent purge of pro-democracy content from Hong Kong’s public libraries.
“Now, future generations will think that there wasn’t any satire in the media, if they don’t know everything that happened in the past 10 or 20 years,” Tsang said. “It’s a similar effect to removing books from public libraries in Hong Kong.”
“Even if the general public can hold onto their copies of these banned books, and are able to read them, they are denied as a part of official history,” he said. “I think this will lead to historical errors.”
Cartoonist Huang Jijun, who uses the pen name Zunzi, poses for photos after his comic strip has been scrapped from the local newspaper Ming Pao in Hong Kong, May 15, 2023. Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters
A former high-ranking executive at Radio Television Hong Kong who gave only the pseudonym Mary said the removal of RTHK’s podcast episodes is part of the responsibility of the station’s “new media” department, and has been timed to coincide with the culling of politically sensitive books from public libraries.
“Only people on the inside know who is giving these orders, and which content is being selected [for deletion],” she said. “But these orders don’t need to come down [the chain] — everyone in middle-management knows what the criteria are, and they are interpreting them in the safest way possible.”
“It seems that everyone knows they can’t [interview] anyone from the ‘yellow camp’ — pro-democracy supporters — or anyone whose speech is fairly outspoken, free and straightforward,” she said.
Government control
The government took steps in March 2021 to strengthen editorial control over its official broadcaster, bringing in career bureaucrat Patrick Li and reforming its editorial structure to “ensure it complies” with government directives.
The move, which came after repeated criticism of RTHK from senior figures including police commissioner Chris Tang, was lambasted by journalists as a further attack on press freedom in the city. The government then ordered the station to rebroadcast more “patriotic” content produced by the ruling Chinese Communist Party-backed China Media Group, to build “a sense of Chinese identity” among listeners.
Mary described Patrick Li’s appointment as a turning point for the broadcaster.
“It’s pretty clear what’s allowed now … He’s been in office for [two years] and everyone knows where the lines are drawn,” she said. “It’s not just a question of who the director is — it’s the overall atmosphere and various external events like what happened to Zunzi, which means everyone would understand that he is a target for deletion.”
She described the deletion of content as an “erasure” that would leave the public with a blank slate when it came to understanding their city’s recent history.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Paul Eckert.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gigi Lee for RFA Cantonese.
Taiwanese authorities have warned their nationals planning to travel to Hong Kong to avoid carrying electronic tealights, wearing T-shirts referencing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre or possessing news materials relating to the city’s 2019 mass protest movement.
To avoid running afoul of a national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party to clamp down on several waves of popular protest in recent years, Taiwanese traveling to Hong Kong are also warned to avoid “seditious” publications referencing the protests, banned slogans and even songs linked to the movement.
The national security law – imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020 – ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and criticism of the authorities that has seen senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from “collusion with a foreign power” to “subversion.”
It applies to speech and acts committed anywhere in the world, and has been used to issue the leaders of a London-based rights group with a takedown order for its website.
Shouting or displaying protest slogans in a public place, including the banned “Free Hong Kong! Revolution Now!” playing the British national anthem in public or appearing to mourn any protesters who died were also on the list of actions to avoid published by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council.
Social post leads to charges
As if to illustrate the point, police in Hong Kong last week charged a young woman with “carrying out one or more acts with seditious intent” after she posted one of the banned protest slogans to a Hong Kong forum while she was studying in Japan.
Yuen King-ting, 23, was charged on June 15 following her arrest in March with “arousing hatred or contempt” for the authorities, unlawful attempts to change “legally enacted matters” and inciting others to break the law.
The case against her is based on her posting of “inflammatory remarks” to social media platforms, including the slogan “Free Hong Kong! Revolution now!” while she was studying in Japan, including posts she made before the national security law took effect.
Yuen was granted bail on condition that she delete all of her social media and hand over the data to police.
A protester holds a slogan reading “Liberate Hong Kong” during a march in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 25, 2020. Shouting or displaying Hong Kong protest slogans is also to be avoided, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council says. Credit: Chiang Ying-ying/Associated Press
A Taiwanese resident who gave only the surname Wang said he had no plans to travel to Hong Kong any time soon.
“They can just do whatever they want, because it’s not free or democratic enough [to stop them],” he said.
People asking questions
Mainland Affairs Council spokesman Chan Chi-hung said his department, which is in charge of relations with China, has received a large number of queries from members of the public worried about traveling to Hong Kong and inadvertently getting arrested.
“Some people call us up and ask if they could get into trouble for singing a song, or having a particular song [on their devices],” Chan said. “They even ask if it’s risky to wear black.”
“There are some ways in which this makes life harder, but we don’t want to demonize them, and make it even harder for there to be peaceful exchanges between the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan,” he said.
However, Chan’s department’s new guidelines detail a litany of potential traps for the unwary, particularly now that the Hong Kong government has applied for a High Court injunction banning recordings of the now-banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong.”
Local downloads of the song from iTunes and Spotify spiked after the news, which came amid an ongoing crackdown on public expression that has seen hundreds of titles removed from public libraries and bookshops, as well as bans on the screening of some movies in the city.
The Council has a section of its website dedicated to the impact of the national security law in Hong Kong, and Chan said Taiwanese can leave their personal details with the Taiwan government before they travel in case they later need assistance.
International Schools
The growing worries about running afoul of the law come as Hong Kong schools — including English-medium and international schools — are being told to take steps to ensure they are monitoring the actions of students and staff for potential breaches, in a further indication of the Communist Party’s encroachment on civil liberties in Hong Kong.
“International schools as well as other private primary schools, secondary schools and kindergartens solely offering non-local curricula also have the responsibility to help their students (regardless of their ethnicity and nationality) acquire a correct and objective understanding and apprehension of the concept of national security and the National Security Law, as well as the duty to cultivate a law-abiding spirit among their students,” the Education Bureau said in fresh guidelines published this month.
Publicly funded schools are also required to set up a working group and find a national security “coordinator” to ensure the law isn’t being broken by students or staff, it said.
That includes monitoring all books and teaching materials, the political credentials of anyone hiring school facilities for events, and attempts to spread “political propaganda” in schools, the guidelines said.
Police should be contacted “if suspected illegal acts are involved,” it said.
Last month, Hong Kong police called for surveillance cameras to be installed in school and university classrooms and public spaces, prompting fears among teachers and students that the “security” measures would be used to listen in on everything said by students and staff alike.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jojo Man, Ng Ting Hong and Cheryl Tung for RFA Cantonese.
A banned Hong Kong protest anthem has disappeared from music streaming services around the world after the city’s government applied for a court injunction banning its dissemination.
“Glory to Hong Kong,” which has sparked a police investigation after organizers played it instead of China’s national anthem at recent overseas sports events, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 pro-democracy and anti-extradition movement.
It is still sung at rallies and protests by Hong Kongers in exile around the world, but has been targeted by an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under a draconian national security law since 2020.
Last week, the Hong Kong government applied for a High Court injunction banning it from being disseminated in any way, prompting mass downloads of the song that propelled it to the top of local music charts.
The hearing has been postponed to July 21, yet many versions of the song have already been removed from Spotify, Apple’s iTunes and other music platforms.
The song’s creators said they were having “technical issues.”
“Working on some technical issues not related to the streaming platform, sorry for the temporary impact,” they said in a post on their Facebook page. “Thank you to all our listeners.”
‘Live on in everyone’s hearts’
Comments under the announcement were sad but defiant.
“Really sad! It’s been taken down from Apple Music regardless of country,” wrote one user, while another said: “Even if it’s banned, this song will live on in everyone’s hearts. Go Hong Kong!”
Another added: “The most important thing is that you are safe.”
Spotify said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press and Reuters that the song had been pulled by its distributor and not the platform itself, while Facebook, Instagram, and Apple Music did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of the current crackdown on dissent.
The high court has set the hearing date for the injunction at July 21.
If granted, the injunction will ban “broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing [the song] in any way including on the internet,” according to a police statement on the injunction.
Francis Fong, president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said there are two possible reasons for the song’s disappearance from music platforms.
“It could be that the creators are worried about violating the national security law, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they removed it themselves,” Fong said. “It’s not the same as uploading to YouTube, where anyone can create an account and upload something.”
“You can’t just do that on iTunes, where you have to apply for an account so as to receive money, which means that [the authorities] have a way to track down whoever the author is,” he said.
“If they feel that things could be getting dangerous, they could have removed it themselves.”
Fong said many global platforms are also pretty responsive to government takedown requests, particularly relating to defamation, pornography and violent content, either with or without court orders.
“They will remove certain things if the police ask them to,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hoi Man Wu for RFA Cantonese.
A social media news channel set up by former journalists from shuttered pro-democracy media outlets in Hong Kong has put out an emergency call for new subscribers, citing the imminent threat of bankruptcy.
Channel C, which was founded by former journalists from the Apple Daily and other pro-democracy news outlets forced to close amid aggressive “national security” investigations, used its Thursday night broadcast to announce a financial emergency, citing monthly running costs of around HK$600,000 (US$76,500).
If supporters are unable to raise enough money in the next month, the channel — which currently boasts an audience of some two million people across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — expects to shut down on July 12, two years after it was founded, it told viewers in an announcement.
At least eight pro-democracy news organizations have folded since Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, banning public criticism of the authorities as “subversive.” Police and prosecutors have also used colonial-era sedition laws to target some journalists and publications.
While Channel C commands the biggest audience among the handful of Cantonese pro-democracy news outlets still operating outside Hong Kong, its viewing figures have struggled to take off since its launch to a degree that would keep it solvent, multimedia production director Ronson Chan told Radio Free Asia.
Copies of Apple Daily on July 1, 2020, edition with its front page title “Draconian law is effective, one country two system is dead” at the newspaper’s printing house in Hong Kong. Credit: Vincent Yu/AP
Chan, who also heads the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association, said the channel only had around 600 subscribers when it made the announcement, but had received offers of assistance from around 80 more sources in the wake of the announcement.
“We will definitely be able to keep going for this month and next, but it’s hard to say how things will be in 18 months from now,” Chan said. “It’s too far ahead to say.”
“If people aren’t able to keep us afloat, then we’ll have no choice [but to shut down],” he said. “There’s a limit to the number of times you can cry ’emergency,’ after all.”
Will they get support?
Current affairs commentator To Yiu-ming said the fact that many pro-democracy Hong Kongers are scattered around the world could make it hard for Channel C to hold all of their attention.
“Will they still care about current affairs in Hong Kong as much as they did back then [during the 2019 protest movement]?” To said. “Enough to support media like this?”
“There are a lot of independent outlets [for Hong Kongers] but they are all in different places, and they are trying to make themselves unique,” he said. “But they are all competing for the attention and support of the same group of Hong Kongers … overseas.”
“So it’s inevitable that they will run into difficulties.”
Since jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily newspaper was forced to close in 2021, when its assets were frozen by national security police, similarly independent and hard-hitting outfits like Stand News, FactWire and Citizen News have also been forced to close by the ongoing crackdown on dissent.
Former members of Hong Kong’s once-freewheeling press corps responded by launching their own media outlets aimed at covering the city from overseas, including The Chaser, Commons, Photon and Channel C.
They have warned that Hong Kong journalists still working in the city are being reduced to the status of government stenographers, as a climate of fear leads to widespread self-censorship.
Mike Hui, right, takes a selfie of his family and friends before his departure to England, in Hong Kong airport on May 21, 2021. Hui, a former photojournalist for the Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper that was shut down following the arrest of five top editors and executives and the freezing of its assets under a national security law. Credit: Kin Cheung/AP
To believes some independent outlets will survive, due to sheer dedication, however.
“These independent online media organizations really care about this, so I believe they’ll find a way to adapt … to meet the needs of their audiences,” he said. “The worst-case scenario will be that we see some mergers and reorganization.”
International press freedom groups say the ruling Chinese Communist Party under supreme leader Xi Jinping has “gutted” press freedom in the formerly freewheeling city amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.
Meanwhile, journalists who fled the city continue to campaign for press freedom for the city from overseas.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Cheryl Tung for RFA Cantonese.
Opposition party activists staged a protest outside the iconic headquarters of HSBC in Hong Kong this week after the bank shut down their party’s accounts.
Five League of Social Democrats members gathered by the lion statues outside the bank’s headquarters in Hong Kong’s Central business district on Tuesday, holding up a banner that read: “Dollar signs in their eyes – aiding and abetting tyranny.”
“Cancellation of bank accounts is soft political persecution!” the protesters, who included party chairwoman Chan Po-ying, chanted. “Everyone is at risk in this international financial center!”
“Don’t trample on our rights of association!” they shouted, watched closely by around a dozen police officers.
The protest comes amid a citywide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under the 2020 national security law, which has included the freezing of politicians’ assets by Hong Kong banks.
Party leader Chan Po-ying, who was arrested at the weekend on a downtown shopping street carrying an electric candle and a yellow paper mourning flower on the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, said the move had stopped the party’s operations in their tracks.
“The closure of the League of Social Democrats’ bank accounts for no reason affects our day-to-day operations, but also our survival as a political organization,” Chan told journalists at the scene. “We were dependent on digital transfers from people’s bank accounts, because we’re not allowed to raise money on the street.”
“We may live in an international financial hub, but we lack access to even the most basic banking services,” she said.
Vice chairman Dickson Chau said he had received an initial notification from HSBC in February that the bank would be closing down the party’s three bank accounts, which were held at different branches of the bank, but without explaining why.
At least four other members of the party have had their personal accounts shut down, too.
“Based on our political stance, but without explaining the reason, HSBC unilaterally and recklessly canceled our accounts, affecting the day-to-day running of our organization,” Chau told journalists at the protest.
“We believe that this is part of the systematic suppression of Hong Kong people’s freedom of association and freedom of speech,” he said.
He said the bank’s actions had affected the party’s ability to raise funds of its jailed former chairman Leung Kwok-hung, who is one of 47 political activists and former lawmakers currently standing trial for “subversion” after they organized a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.
Veteran activist Tsang Kin-Shing [left], a member of the “League of Social Democrats,” speaks during a protest outside the headquarters of The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) in Hong Kong on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Credit: AFP
Chau said the League had been forced to return “thousands of Hong Kong dollars” in donations due to the move by HSBC, adding that he wasn’t optimistic that the party would be able to open new accounts anywhere in Hong Kong.
A security officer from HSBC received a letter from the protesters at the scene.
But requests for comment from the bank had met with no response by the time of writing.
The protest came after the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch accused banks including HSBC of perpetrating a “brazen asset grab” by withholding up to U.S.$2.4 billion in the pension pots of Hong Kongers who have emigrated to the United Kingdom under its British National Overseas visa scheme.
The group called it a form of “punishment” for leaving amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent, and singled out HSBC for criticism, saying the bank had been supportive of a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the Communist Party from July 1, 2020.
In January 2021, HSBC came under fire for freezing the accounts of self-exiled former opposition lawmaker Ted Hui and his family after he said he was resettling in the U.K., as well as that of a Hong Kong church that had helped protesters during the 2019 pro-democracy movement.
Police watch as the “League of Social Democrats” protests outside the headquarters of The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) in Hong Kong on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Credit: AFP
Former finance channel chief at i-CABLE News Joseph Ngan said such actions damage Hong Kong’s image as an international financial center.
“Before, [this would only happen in the case of] illegal activities like money-laundering, which would have been explained and understood,” Ngan said.
“But this is purely a case of targeting a political party, an organization that is legally registered in Hong Kong, yet it is still being restricted.”
Ngan said it was unclear whether the political pressure on the bank was coming from the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, or the Hong Kong government.
He said HSBC had a responsibility to explain “in a clear and reasonable manner,” why it was restricting customers’ access to banking services.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Paul Eckert.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Yuk Yue for RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong authorities sought a court injunction prohibiting the dissemination and performance of the banned protest anthem, “Glory to Hong Kong,” prompting downloads of the song to surge.
It was banned in 2020 as Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on the city.
The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.
“It is very unreasonable to ban the broadcast of ‘Glory to Hong Kong’,” said a Hong Kong resident who gave only the nickname May for fear of reprisals. She said had downloaded the song in the past 24 hours. “As a citizen, I feel very uneasy about this.”
“I want to listen to it more, now — I want to hear it again before it is taken off the shelves, or there is no way to listen to it any more — to commemorate the social events of that time,” May said.
Played at sports events
The lyrics of the song contain speech ruled by the court as constituting “secession,” a government statement said, referring to recent broadcasts of the song in error at overseas sports events featuring Hong Kong athletes.
“This has not only insulted the national anthem but also caused serious damage to the country and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,” it said.
Radio Free Asia’s translation of the banned 2019 protest anthem, with music. Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
“The Department of Justice of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) applied to the Court … to prohibit four items of unlawful acts relating to the song “Glory to Hong Kong,’” the statement said.
In November, Hong Kong police announced a criminal investigation into the playing of “Glory to Hong Kong” at a rugby match in South Korea.
If the court injunction is granted, it will outlaw the broadcasting, performing, publishing or other dissemination of the song on any platform, especially with “seditious” or “pro-independence” intent, the government said.
It will also become harder to track down the song online, as global platforms could seek to conform with the ruling simply by taking it down.
The news prompted a spike in digital downloads of the song from iTunes, with different versions of the song featuring in nine of the top 10 download spots for the Hong Kong market.
Meanwhile, keyword searches for “Glory to Hong Kong” in Chinese surged following the government statement, remaining at a new high on the Google Trends tracking app at 7.00 a.m. local time on Wednesday.
‘Attack on freedom of speech’
Former pro-democracy District Council member Carmen Lau, now in exile in the United Kingdom, said the move is part of an ongoing crackdown on public expression in Hong Kong since the national security law took effect that has seen hundreds of titles removed from public libraries and bookshops, as well as bans on the screening of some movies in the city.
“As far as I know, this is the first time that the government has used a court procedure to apply specifically to the release or broadcast of this song in Hong Kong,” Lau said. “This is a precedent, and is a serious attack on the freedom of speech, and on artistic freedom.”
“Now this precedent has been set, many other freedoms of the press, and cultural freedoms, will be suppressed too,” she said.
Demonstrators sing “Glory to Hong Kong” at the Times Square shopping mall in Hong Kong, Sept. 12, 2019. Credit: Associated Press
Benson Wong, former assistant politics professor at Hong Kong Baptist University who is now in Britain, said the ban, if issued, will send a strong message to the international community.
“If the court really does issue an injunction banning the playing of ‘Glory to Hong Kong,’ this will be the first song ban in Hong Kong,” he said.
“It will also become clear that there is nothing left of the rule of law or judicial independence in Hong Kong,” Wong said.
He said the move was likely prompted by massive official embarrassment over the playing of the wrong anthem at recent sporting events, adding that Hong Kongers would likely have to turn to circumvention software to access the song in future.
The spirit of Hong Kong
U.K.-based former pro-democracy councilor Daniel Kwok said the song remains hugely popular among Hong Kongers.
“Everyone likes this song very much, protesters and the international community alike,” Kwok said. “Hearing this song is like hearing the spirit of Hong Kong.”
“It represents Hong Kongers as an ethnic group far better than [the Chinese national anthem],” he said. “This is a song that belongs to and represents the people of Hong Kong.”
Executive Council member Ronny Tong said anyone found downloading the tune could face up to seven years’ imprisonment for “contempt of court,” if the injunction is granted.
He called on residents of Hong Kong to delete the tune if they have downloaded it already, just to be on the safe side.
Lau said she still expects to hear the song at overseas protests by Hong Kongers, however.
Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the Hong Kong authorities are unlikely to be able to enforce the ban outside the city.
“Injunctions granted by a Hong Kong court are only applicable to Hong Kong,” Sang said. “Many overseas versions have been posted overseas, to accounts on YouTube and Instagram, so how will they implement it there?”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Cheryl Tung for RFA Cantonese, Amelia Loi for RFA Mandarin.
In a rare ruling supporting press freedom in Hong Kong, a court overturned a conviction against investigative journalist Bao Choy, who had investigated the 2019 subway station attack by men in white T-shirts on civilians.
Choy was found guilty of “improper searches” of an online car license database in April 2021, after she used the site to access vehicle license plate ownership records for her documentary on the July 21, 2019, attacks at the Yuen Long MTR station.
She was fined HK$6,000 (US$770), and lost an appeal against the conviction at the High Court in November 2022.
But she won an appeal at the Court of Final Appeal, which said she had been wrongly accused of misusing the search function.
“It’s been a long time since I had news this good,” said Choy.
But she also alluded to the ongoing erosion of press freedom in Hong Kong, pointing to the “quiet disappearance of many things” in recent years.
Men in white T-shirts and carrying poles are seen in Yuen Long after attacking anti-extradition bill demonstrators at the MTR station in Hong Kong, July 22, 2019. Credit: Reuters
“I don’t think it’s so easy to take away people’s beliefs,” Choy said. “The persistence [we have seen] over the last few years is already pretty meaningful.”
In its written judgment, the court found that Choy’s use of the site had been due to “bona fide journalism.”
“The issues of falsity and knowledge were wrongly decided against the appellant because her journalistic investigation into the use of the vehicle on the dates in question did fall into the wide catchall category of ‘other traffic and transport related matters,” it said.
At the time of her arrest, Choy was working for government broadcast Radio Television Hong Kong, producing documentary and investigative films for a weekly series titled “Hong Kong Connection.”
Choy’s film showed that police were present as the attackers gathered in Yuen Long, but delayed their response for 39 minutes as men in white T-shirts started attacking train passengers at the MTR station.
The film used footage filmed by witnesses and security cameras – as well as number plate searches and interviews – to piece together events, uncovering links between some of the attackers and the staunchly pro-Beijing Heung Yee Kuk rural committees.
Bao Choy speaks to members of the press after being cleared by top Hong Kong court in Hong Kong, Monday, June 5, 2023. Credit: Associated Press
Choy’s program also showed that stick-wielding men had been brought into the district in specific vehicles hours before the attack, and that police had done nothing about the build-up in numbers.
She was arrested after the documentary aired in November 2020, allegedly because her use of the government vehicle database wasn’t for the permitted purposes.
Shift in how journalists are regarded
Choy told Radio Free Asia in November that there has been a fundamental shift in the way journalists are regarded in Hong Kong amid an ongoing crackdown on press freedom under the national security law.
“In the past, there was a belief that journalists had fourth estate rights, and that reports that used such services to verify information were legitimate,” she said. “Society recognized and believed in the principle that certain events were a matter of public interest, so journalists had the right to access this kind of information.”
Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), a government department that had enjoyed editorial independence before a draconian national security law banned criticism of the authorities, let Choy’s colleague Nabela Qoser go after her hard-hitting questioning of city officials during the 2019 protest movement, as the government moved its preferred officials into top jobs at the station.
Management had earlier terminated the permanent civil service contract of TV current affairs anchor Qoser after she fired a series of hard-hitting questions at chief executive Carrie Lam in the wake of a July 31, 2019, attack by armed thugs on train passengers in Yuen Long, prompting Lam and other top officials to walk out of a news conference.
RTHK was later criticized by police commissioner Chris Tang over its reporting of police violence during the protests.
In March 2021, the government replaced the director of broadcasting and reformed RTHK’s editorial structure to “ensure it complies” with government directives.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Ting Hong and Jojo Man for RFA Cantonese.
In a rare ruling supporting press freedom in Hong Kong, a court overturned a conviction against investigative journalist Bao Choy, who had investigated the 2019 subway station attack by men in white T-shirts on civilians.
Choy was found guilty of “improper searches” of an online car license database in April 2021, after she used the site to access vehicle license plate ownership records for her documentary on the July 21, 2019, attacks at the Yuen Long MTR station.
She was fined HK$6,000 (US$770), and lost an appeal against the conviction at the High Court in November 2022.
But she won an appeal at the Court of Final Appeal, which said she had been wrongly accused of misusing the search function.
“It’s been a long time since I had news this good,” said Choy.
But she also alluded to the ongoing erosion of press freedom in Hong Kong, pointing to the “quiet disappearance of many things” in recent years.
Men in white T-shirts and carrying poles are seen in Yuen Long after attacking anti-extradition bill demonstrators at the MTR station in Hong Kong, July 22, 2019. Credit: Reuters
“I don’t think it’s so easy to take away people’s beliefs,” Choy said. “The persistence [we have seen] over the last few years is already pretty meaningful.”
In its written judgment, the court found that Choy’s use of the site had been due to “bona fide journalism.”
“The issues of falsity and knowledge were wrongly decided against the appellant because her journalistic investigation into the use of the vehicle on the dates in question did fall into the wide catchall category of ‘other traffic and transport related matters,” it said.
At the time of her arrest, Choy was working for government broadcast Radio Television Hong Kong, producing documentary and investigative films for a weekly series titled “Hong Kong Connection.”
Choy’s film showed that police were present as the attackers gathered in Yuen Long, but delayed their response for 39 minutes as men in white T-shirts started attacking train passengers at the MTR station.
The film used footage filmed by witnesses and security cameras – as well as number plate searches and interviews – to piece together events, uncovering links between some of the attackers and the staunchly pro-Beijing Heung Yee Kuk rural committees.
Bao Choy speaks to members of the press after being cleared by top Hong Kong court in Hong Kong, Monday, June 5, 2023. Credit: Associated Press
Choy’s program also showed that stick-wielding men had been brought into the district in specific vehicles hours before the attack, and that police had done nothing about the build-up in numbers.
She was arrested after the documentary aired in November 2020, allegedly because her use of the government vehicle database wasn’t for the permitted purposes.
Shift in how journalists are regarded
Choy told Radio Free Asia in November that there has been a fundamental shift in the way journalists are regarded in Hong Kong amid an ongoing crackdown on press freedom under the national security law.
“In the past, there was a belief that journalists had fourth estate rights, and that reports that used such services to verify information were legitimate,” she said. “Society recognized and believed in the principle that certain events were a matter of public interest, so journalists had the right to access this kind of information.”
Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), a government department that had enjoyed editorial independence before a draconian national security law banned criticism of the authorities, let Choy’s colleague Nabela Qoser go after her hard-hitting questioning of city officials during the 2019 protest movement, as the government moved its preferred officials into top jobs at the station.
Management had earlier terminated the permanent civil service contract of TV current affairs anchor Qoser after she fired a series of hard-hitting questions at chief executive Carrie Lam in the wake of a July 31, 2019, attack by armed thugs on train passengers in Yuen Long, prompting Lam and other top officials to walk out of a news conference.
RTHK was later criticized by police commissioner Chris Tang over its reporting of police violence during the protests.
In March 2021, the government replaced the director of broadcasting and reformed RTHK’s editorial structure to “ensure it complies” with government directives.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Ting Hong and Jojo Man for RFA Cantonese.
New York, June 5, 2023—In response to a ruling by Hong Kong’s highest court on Monday to overturn the conviction of journalist Choy Yuk-ling, also known as Bao Choy, on charges of giving false statements, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following the statement calling on authorities to end their targeting of independent journalism:
“We welcome the Hong Kong court decision to quash the conviction of journalist Choy Yuk-ling. It’s high time for the Hong Kong government to stop persecuting the media and drop all criminal cases against journalists for their work,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Press freedom is constitutionally guaranteed in Hong Kong. No journalists should be criminally charged, let alone convicted, for their reporting.”
Choy was convicted in April 2021 on two counts of giving false statements to obtain car ownership records on a public registry while researching a documentary for Hong Kong’s public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong about a mob attack on a group of protesters. The court fined her 6,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$765).
In unanimously overturning her conviction on Monday, June 5, a panel of five judges at the Court of Final Appeal ruled that when Choy chose “other traffic and transport related matters” to search the public registry, that category should not exclude “bona fide journalism.”
Separately, on Sunday evening police detained Mak Yin-ting, a correspondent with French broadcaster Radio France Internationale and former chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, while she reported on public attempts to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to the HKJA, a report by the journalist in RFI, and news reports. She was released after a few hours without charge.
CPJ has documented the dramatic decline of press freedom in Hong Kong, once a beacon of free press in the region, since Beijing introduced a national security law on June 30, 2020, with journalists being arrested, jailed, and threatened.
Among them include Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, editors of the now-shuttered news website Stand News, who are on trial for conspiracy to publish seditious publications.
Jimmy Lai, founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and CPJ’s 2021 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Awardee, is facing life imprisonment on national security charges in a trial that is due to start in September. Lai, a British citizen, is serving a sentence of five years and nine months on fraud charges. He has been behind bars since December 2020.
New York, June 5, 2023—In response to a ruling by Hong Kong’s highest court on Monday to overturn the conviction of journalist Choy Yuk-ling, also known as Bao Choy, on charges of giving false statements, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following the statement calling on authorities to end their targeting of independent journalism:
“We welcome the Hong Kong court decision to quash the conviction of journalist Choy Yuk-ling. It’s high time for the Hong Kong government to stop persecuting the media and drop all criminal cases against journalists for their work,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Press freedom is constitutionally guaranteed in Hong Kong. No journalists should be criminally charged, let alone convicted, for their reporting.”
Choy was convicted in April 2021 on two counts of giving false statements to obtain car ownership records on a public registry while researching a documentary for Hong Kong’s public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong about a mob attack on a group of protesters. The court fined her 6,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$765).
In unanimously overturning her conviction on Monday, June 5, a panel of five judges at the Court of Final Appeal ruled that when Choy chose “other traffic and transport related matters” to search the public registry, that category should not exclude “bona fide journalism.”
Separately, on Sunday evening police detained Mak Yin-ting, a correspondent with French broadcaster Radio France Internationale and former chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, while she reported on public attempts to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to the HKJA, a report by the journalist in RFI, and news reports. She was released after a few hours without charge.
CPJ has documented the dramatic decline of press freedom in Hong Kong, once a beacon of free press in the region, since Beijing introduced a national security law on June 30, 2020, with journalists being arrested, jailed, and threatened.
Among them include Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, editors of the now-shuttered news website Stand News, who are on trial for conspiracy to publish seditious publications.
Jimmy Lai, founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and CPJ’s 2021 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Awardee, is facing life imprisonment on national security charges in a trial that is due to start in September. Lai, a British citizen, is serving a sentence of five years and nine months on fraud charges. He has been behind bars since December 2020.
Authorities in Hong Kong have revoked bail for former healthcare union chief and democracy activist Winnie Yu, putting her back behind bars on International Women’s Day.
Yu, 34, had been out on bail awaiting trial for “subversion” under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fromJuly 1, 2020.
She is among 47 defendants charged with the same offense in connection with an unofficial democratic primary election in the summer of 2020 that was deemed to be an attempt to overthrow or undermine government power because it aimed to maximize the number of pro-democracy members of the city’s Legislative Council (LegCo).
Soon after the primary, the government announced that LegCo elections slated for September would be postponed toDecember 2021, and rewrote electoral rules to ensure that only candidates loyal to the government and the CCP would be allowed to stand.
The Hong Kong national security police issued a statement onMarch 7saying that a 34-year-old woman had her bail revoked “on suspicion of violating her bail conditions.”
Media reports later identified the woman as Yu, a nurse and founder of the now-disbanded healthcare union, the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, for public sector healthcare workers.
Yu was arrested after reporting as required to her local police station, the reports said.
She had been granted bail by the High Court onJuly 28, 2021 on condition that she refrain from “directly or indirectly making, distributing or reproducing in any way any remarks or related acts that violate the national security law or that amount to crimes of national security under Hong Kong law.”
Yu was also proscribed from “directly or indirectly organizing, arranging or participating in public or private elections of any level in any way, except by voting, contacting foreign officials, parliamentarians or members of parliament at any level and other persons serving the above in any way, directly or indirectly, and leaving Hong Kong.”
Yu’s bail was revoked because of posts she made to social media criticizing the government’s handling of the current wave of COVID-19 in the city, which has left nearly 3,000 people dead and hospitals overwhelmed.
The national security law judge at the bail hearing found that Yu had violated the conditions of her bail, and couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t do so again.
As Yu left the court, she called out to her supporters in the public gallery: “Take care of my cat for me!”
Her jailing came as top Chinese lawmaker Li Zhanshu praised the electoral changes that followed the democratic primary, saying they ensured the city is being “administered by patriots.”
“The new system provides fundamental political and institutional safeguards for good governance of Hong Kong,” Li told the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC).
Meanwhile, Hong Kong politician Tam Yiu-chung, who sits on the NPC standing committee, said Li’s comments suggested that further electoral changes could be in the pipeline.
“There’s no mention of any concrete details,” Tam said in comments reported by government broadcaster RTHK. “I believe maybe something is still being studied. If the NPC standing committee needs to enact laws, we’ll do it.”
“These are matters for the central government to decide,” he said.
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jojo Man.
Authorities in Hong Kong scrambled to try to control soaring COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, as plans for compulsory mass testing of seven million people appear to have been put on hold.
The city reported 195 new COVID-19-linked deaths in the last 24 hours on Wednesday, with an additional 25,991 new cases confirmed during the past 24 hours.
“As of 0.00am, March 9, a total of 2,656 deaths related to COVID-19 during the fifth wave (since Dec. 31, 2021) was recorded … Hong Kong has so far recorded a total of 2 869 deaths related to COVID-19,” the city’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said in a statement.
“There is a continuous increase in the number of cases involving mutant strains that carry higher transmissibility,” a CHP spokesman said. “With the higher transmissibility and risk of infection of the Omicron mutant strain, the CHP strongly appeals to the community to continue to comply with the social distancing measures, avoid going out and refrain from participating in unnecessary or crowded activities or gatherings (particularly religious or cross-family activities and gatherings).”
The high death rate is likely linked to relatively low levels of vaccination in the city, which has only offered its residents Chinese-made vaccines to date, amid growing calls for imported vaccines to be on offer as well.
Former public doctors’ union leader Arisina Ma, now based in the U.K., said the Hong Kong government had mostly offered inactivated vaccines for COVID-19, for which immunity had waned considerably in recent month.
She said the high death rate in Hong Kong is definitely due to low uptake of vaccinations.
“I know some people were worried that mRNA vaccination could affect their genes, but there are two other vaccines on the market that are recombinant protein vaccines, made by Novavax and Medigen of Taiwan, yet the Hong Kong government has never imported them,” Ma said. “These vaccines can be stored between six and eight degrees C, yet they just insist on sticking with those two [Chinese-made] vaccines.”
“How are they going to break through public reluctance if they don’t offer a different vaccine?”
Preparing beds
Tony Ko, chief executive of the Hospital Authority, said the authorities are switching over large numbers of hospital beds to designated COVID-19 wards.
“Our target is to convert about 50 percent of all our inpatient beds at general hospitals to be able to accommodate COVID patients,” Ko told a news conference on Wednesday. “The other major initiative is to arrange some hospitals to be designated hospitals.”
North Lantau and Tin Shui Wai hospitals have already been converted to COVID treatment centers, while Queen Elizabeth Hospital will soon follow suit, Ko said.
The government is also rushing to build facilities for COVID-19 patients, Reuters cited drone footage as showing, after a temporary bridge was laid linking the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen to Hong Kong.
“Drone footage over the rural Hong Kong district of Lok Ma Chau close to the border with China showed … dozens of makeshift tents and a steady stream of trucks taking materials across the new bridge were also visible as building at the site ramps up to construct a temporary hospital with 1,000 beds and quarantine facilities for 10,000 people,” the agency reported.
A top Chinese health official warned on Tuesday that the city’s health system was at risk and the situation had to be turned around as soon as possible, urging the government to stick to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s zero-COVID strategy.
In an interview with state news agency Xinhua, Liang Wannian, who heads the mainland Chinese COVID-19 taskforce in Hong Kong, said the government should first focus on “reducing transmission, reducing severe cases and reducing deaths,” before worrying about a promised mass compulsory testing program.
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Cheryl Tung and Hoi Man Wu.
The former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association (HKBA), who resigned following a string of attacks on the organization from media backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has left the city after being interviewed by national security police.
British human rights lawyer Paul Harris was summoned by national security police, the pro-CCP Wen Wei Po reported, saying he declined to respond when asked if he was suspected of violating a national security law that outlaws public criticism of the government, as well as political opposition activities.
Harris was seen entering Wanchai police station at 11.00 a.m. onMarch 1, later appearing at Hong Kong International Airport and boarding a flight to Turkey with his wife and children, the paper said.
Harris told Reuters he was on his was to visit his mother in England, but gave no further details, the agency reported.
Harris resigned as chairman of the HKBA, which represents some 1,500 barristers in Hong Kong, in January without seeking re-election, following repeated criticisms in the pro-CCP media and from Hong Kong and Chinese officials, who said he was “anti-China.”
He had been involved in a number of cases under the national security law. His replacement, Victor Dawes, is seen as more sympathetic to Beijing.
The attacks followed his public comments on the sentencing of several democracy activists, and on the draconian national security law imposed by the CCP on Hong Kong fromJuly 1, 2020.
The Wen Wei Po said Harris had spoken out against the charging of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, currently in jail awaiting trial under the national security law, when Lai was charged with separate counts of “illegal assembly” in connection with a peaceful protest inAugust 2019.
British human rights lawyer Paul Harris, the former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association (HKBA), in an undated studio photo. Credit: Paul Harris
‘Revolution of our Times’
The paper said Harris’ U.K. law firm, Doughty Street Chambers, “has strong political overtones,” and had recently offered to defend Lai at his forthcoming court hearing onMarch 10.
It cited sources as saying that the Chinese-language version of Harris’ book about the Hong Kong protest movement “may have content that smears the rule of law in mainland China and promotes independence for Hong Kong.”
Meanwhile, documentaries about the 2019 protest movement that sought to resist the erosion of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms will be shown in the U.K. after being banned in Hong Kong under the national security law.
Tickets are selling fast for the first Hong Kong Film Festival in the country, where thousands of Hongkongers have taken up the offer of a safe haven and pathway to citizenship under the U.K. government’s British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme.
The festival will open with “Revolution of our Times,” a documentary about the protest movement that uses a slogan once chanted by protesters that has resulted in arrests and jailings under the law. “Inside Red Walls,” a documentary about the siege of Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, will also be screened.
Documentary filmmaker and writer Wong Ching, a co-curator of the festival, said the film is a testament to the struggles of young people in Hong Kong over the past two or three years.
“We have some fairly commercial mainstream films, and some independent films as well,” Wong told RFA. “Some would be pretty marginal back in Hong Kong, and have little chance of being released.”
“But there are more art cinemas in the UK, and the festival also wants to include Hong Kong stories from a more indy perspective, so the audiences gets a wider exposure to different takes, and different film languages,” Wong said.
The festival is also hoping that the films will be seen by everyone, not just exiled Hongkongers.
“We have focused on how to show the reality of Hong Kong at different levels, presenting multiple versions of the story,” Wong said.
The festival runs fromMarch 30throughApril 6in London, Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh.
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lu Xi and King Man Ho.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership in Beijing has told Hong Kong it must get the current current COVID-19 outbreak under control within the next two months, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover to Chinese rule onJuly 1, according to a CCP-adjacent commentator.
Lu Wenduan, vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, which is part of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, said in a commentary in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper that CCP leader Xi Jinping wants a zero-COVID outcome by the time the celebrations begin.
Judging from recent comments from Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office under China’s cabinet, the State Council, Xi doesn’t want incumbent Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to serve another term in office if she can’t achieve that goal.
“As long as the epidemic is controlled within the next two months, Hong Kong can have a normal and successful election for chief executive,” Lu wrote.
Ivan Choy, senior politics lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), said the 25th anniversary of the handover is a landmark date for Beijing, and comes two years after the CCP imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong, rewrote the city’s electoral rules to ensure opposition voices were excluded, forced the closure of pro-democracy media outlets and arrested dozens of former lawmakers and opposition activists for “subversion.”
“They have put so much effort into bringing in the national security law and on ‘improving’ the electoral system, that it will be hard to justify if Hong Kong is even less stable than it was before,” Choy told RFA.
“So they want to ensure Hong Kong is stable … as well as offering some kind of justification to the outside world on the 25th anniversary,” he said.
Hong Kong current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said it will be hard for the CCP to claim that Hong Kong is a united city under the new regime if it is still reeling from the current wave of COVID-19 infections, which has filled up the city’s public hospitals and prompted calls from pro-Beijing commentators for mass, compulsory testing aided by supplies and experts from mainland China.
But Beijing is still willing to allow some quarter to Hong Kong officials, rather than firing them for failing to achieve zero-COVID as has happened in mainland Chinese cities.
“The way China’s political culture works, they won’t want to focus on the way certain officials have handled the crisis at the expense of focusing on external forces,” Lau said, in a reference to Beijing’s blaming of the 2019 protest movement on infiltration by “hostile foreign forces.”
“The more these two ideas are kept separate, the better,” he said. “It’s not really a question of official accountability in Hong Kong.”
A construction crew member works at the site of a temporary isolation facility to house Covid-19 coronavirus patients at Kai Tak in Hong Kong Feb. 20, 2022. Credit: AFP
No triage system
Hong Kong onMondayreported a further 7,533 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including the death of an 11-month-old baby.
According to the Hospital Authority, its public hospitals are currently at 89 percent on average, with an occupancy rate of 109 percent at the Caritas Hospital, 102 percent at Tseung Kwan O Hospital and 100 percent occupancy rate at two other public hospitals.
While many of the outdoor holding areas, where patients were left waiting for hours in parking lots under emergency blankets pending test results or triage, have now disappeared, some outdoor lines were still being photographed onMonday.
Hospital Authority Employees Alliance chairman David Chan said hospitals remain short-staffed, and many lack an effective triage system for COVID-19 patients.
“There are many members of the general public who don’t know how to tell if they have mild or severe illness, and there isn’t enough information about that,” Chan told RFA. “They are saying that people with mild illness can stay home, but a lot of people don’t know this.”
“Some people just go straight to hospital for treatment the moment they get a positive test result.”
But he said the 1,000 or so place available at private clinics were nowhere near enough to meet demand for outpatient appointments.
There is also a growing issue with nosocomial infections — those acquired in hospital — according to Edmund Lam, a family doctor who serves on the Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases.
“If private hospitals are able to provide negative pressure wards or better air circulation, for example, in outpatient clinics where patients don’t need to get admitted to hospital, then there will be a reduction in emergency room infections and community transmissions,” he said.
Postponing non-urgent surgeries
Ho Siu-wai, chairman of the Federation of Private Hospitals, said private hospitals are postponing non-urgent surgeries and using their resources to see COVID-19 patients instead.
The Hong Kong government has reopened the AsiaWorld-Expo venue as a community treatment facility, providing about 1,000 beds, while commissioning the China State Construction Group to build a total of 10,000 beds in community isolation and treatment facilities in Penny’s Bay and on the former Kai Tak airport site to receive patients with mild or asymptomatic infections.
Lam announced onSaturdaythat she will also requisition newly completed public housing, rent hotels and renovate public leisure and sports facilities, to yield a further 20,000 beds and isolation facilities.
Quarantine facilities are already running at around 4,400 hotel rooms in the Dorsett Tsuen Wan, iclub Ma Tau Wai Hotel, iclub Fortress Hill Hotel and Regal Oriental hotels, with a further 20,000 hotel rooms likely to become available for community quarantine measures at a later date.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam onFridayannounced the postponement of elections for the city’s top job after Xi told her government to throw all of its resources at pursuing a “zero-COVID” strategy, as a wave of the omicron variant of COVID-19 infections started to take its toll.
Nominations had been slated to begin on Feb. 20 for theMarch 27election, which has now been postponed toMay 8, to enable her administration to “focus on the epidemic,” Lam said.
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Cheryl Tung and Jojo Man.
![Veteran activist Tsang Kin-Shing [left], a member of the “League of Social Democrats,” speaks during a protest outside the headquarters of The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) in Hong Kong on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Credit: AFP](https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/hongkong-hsbc-06092023102516.html/eng_chn_hsbcoppositionaccounts_06062023-2.jpg "ENG_CHN_HSBCOppositionAccounts_06062023.2.jpg")
