Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #unfreespeech
Most recents (13)
1/ Even though the imprisonment meant a lot to me, I didn't shed tears or have any strong sense of fear when the judge announced my sentence. I viewed my imprisonment as the necessary step for the whole society to embrace the cruel fact that the city’s freedom is on shaky ground.
2/ The days in prison also made me realize that the most fearful thing is not being put into jail but that ordinary life may one day look like a prison if none of our generations dares to stand up for our civil liberties.
3/ This feeling grows stronger, especially after police brutality has become ubiquitous. Without effective checks & balances, police can arbitrarily abuse power & torture citizens without consequences. Working with police, mobs can just walk away after attacking pregnant ladies.
[The most fearful thing is not being put into jail but that ordinary life may one day look like prison if none of our generation dares to stand up for our civil liberties]
1/ Even though the imprisonment meant a lot to me, I did not shed tears or have any strong sense of fear.
1/ Even though the imprisonment meant a lot to me, I did not shed tears or have any strong sense of fear.
2/ Rather than being brave, I viewed my imprisonment as the necessary step for the whole society to embrace the cruel fact that the city’s freedom is on shaky ground. This feeling grows stronger, especially after police brutality has become ubiquitous.
3/ Without effective checks and balances, the police can arbitrarily abuse their power and torture citizens without consequences. Working with the police, mobs can just walk away after attacking pregnant ladies.
[Speech is never free in a place under authoritarian rule]
1/ My just-released book, #UnfreeSpeech was part of my contemplation when I was in jail. Speech is never free, especially when you face imprisonment & deprivation of your rights for defying unjust laws and orders.
1/ My just-released book, #UnfreeSpeech was part of my contemplation when I was in jail. Speech is never free, especially when you face imprisonment & deprivation of your rights for defying unjust laws and orders.
2/ However, tremendous changes have taken place since I was released. Before the outbreak in June, it was mainly movement leaders like Edward Leung, @alexchow18, @nathanlawkc, and I who were put into jail, but now even a twelve-year-old kid was arrested.
3/ Also, ordinary people are sentenced to imprisonment just because they are accused of taking part in unlawful assemblies. When Beijing is tightening its grip on Hong Kong, Hongkongers have to pay a heavier price for a brief taste of freedom.
1/ Why are booksellers, writers & publishers seen as such a threat to undemocratic governance?
1.1/ Under digital authoritarianism, China has established successful ways of censoring. For printed materials, the cost is much higher.
1.1/ Under digital authoritarianism, China has established successful ways of censoring. For printed materials, the cost is much higher.
1.2/ Making use of that loophole, many liberal scholars & dissidents use books as an essential medium of disseminating critical voices. Many independent booksellers choose to set up bookstores in HK to sell sensitive books to travellers from China.
1.3/ Most of these books criticise China’s governance. That is why the Beijing authority has begun to close this loophole in recent years, kidnapping and imprisoning booksellers like Gui Minhai.
What value & risks for you feel solidarity from different international contexts can hold?
1/ The support for freedoms can be found in many countries. The authoritarian threat from China is real to all of them.
1/ The support for freedoms can be found in many countries. The authoritarian threat from China is real to all of them.
2/ Soon after President Xi came to power, China became increasingly hostile on an international level. Xi leverages economic shares for overseas political influence, tramples upon our human-rights standards and institutions.
3/ Also, Xi praises the superiority of the authoritarian regimes over democracies through propaganda programmes, and bends international communities to his political will. In other words, the authoritarian threat is at their doorstep, which is why they stand with Hong Kong.
1/ The answer to the question of violence and nonviolence depends on a government’s response. Hongkongers have used the most peaceful ways possible to call for change. 2 million citizens took to the street to demand political reforms.
2/ 200000 demonstrators formed the 25-mile ‘HK Way”’across the city. People lit up the city’s mountaintops with protest demands. But Beijing will not listen, and instead suppresses protestors – be they children, elderly, pregnant women, journalists – with police brutality.
3/ It is understandable, then, that tensions escalate. It is my belief, however, that all those clashes could have been avoided by – and the political dilemma can only be resolved with – genuine political reform. The democratisation experiences of South Korea & Taiwan echo this.
1/ Free speech is a complex, nuanced, contested term. It's being pulled from multiple directions. What are yr conceptions of free speech?
1.1/ The outbreak of coronavirus indeed demonstrates that free speech is more than just a matter of freedom: it’s a matter of life & death.
1.1/ The outbreak of coronavirus indeed demonstrates that free speech is more than just a matter of freedom: it’s a matter of life & death.
1.2/ When China detains whistleblower doctor & journalist for telling truth, Unfreespeech in 1 place affects other parts, all parts of the world. In societies without democratic institutions, free speech is the only weapon to hold the governments accountable for their misconduct.
2/ Joshua, you have said that you know you will return to prison. Is it immobilizing, or is it liberating?’
2.1/ Tyrannical regimes may dictate the people with an iron fist, but not their souls. Imprisonment is a common tactic that tyrants use to silence dissent.
2.1/ Tyrannical regimes may dictate the people with an iron fist, but not their souls. Imprisonment is a common tactic that tyrants use to silence dissent.
What do you fear most? And what drives you to persevere?
1/ In response to public outcry, authoritarian regimes often use force and fear. Resistance has a price; most of the time, this is a long war that makes breeds frustration.
1/ In response to public outcry, authoritarian regimes often use force and fear. Resistance has a price; most of the time, this is a long war that makes breeds frustration.
2/ When injustice prevails, hopelessness persists, and people turn apathetic, that is what I fear most. But I have trust and confidence in HKers creativity and resolve. Over past 9 months, the movement has unfolded its endless alternatives, forged by ordinary people.
3/ All of them are beyond my imagination. The people, our children, and our city’s future are the reasons I choose to continue fighting.
1/ Under China’s autocratic regime, censorship has become commonplace. Whilst whistleblower doctors are detained for telling the truth, and critical voices on social media are suppressed, literature is permanent activism. It resists China’s attempt to rewrite the history.
2/ As Milan Kundera said, the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. And the Beijing authority is extremely aware of civil society’s ability to document and archive.
3/ Unfree Speech mentions our archival project, Decoding #HongKong’s History, which is unearthing declassified files from the 1980s on Sino-British negotiations and the future of Hong Kong.
Could you speak a bit more about how HK context relates to a global context, and to liberties that are threatened internationally?
1/ In recent years, autocratic regimes like have China started to extend their tentacles worldwide, towards the retreat of global democracy.
1/ In recent years, autocratic regimes like have China started to extend their tentacles worldwide, towards the retreat of global democracy.
2/ With its swelling economic clout, China pressures the business world to take its side; attacks critics of its human-rights abuses, such as ‘re-education camps’ for Uyghurs; and jeopardises universities’ autonomy through the Confucius Institute programme.
3/ All these imperil the civil liberties that global democracies rest upon. In our global battle against tyranny, HK is at the forefront. The HK movement demonstrates the possibility of saying no to authoritarianism.
“If Carrie Lam resembled Darth Vader,” Joshua analogises about the architect of the infamous extradition bill, “the Hong Kong Police Force would be the armour-clad, blaster-brandishing stormtroopers terrorising villagers across the galaxy.”
True to this Star Wars frame of reference, #UnfreeSpeech posits a Manichean opposition between the interests of democratic HK & China, charting the ambition of the increasingly repressive PRC Gov to use its #sharppower to export its “brand of one-party rule in Asia and beyond”.
There is “a new cold war … brewing between China and the rest of the democratic world, and Hong Kong is holding the line in one of its first battles”.
theguardian.com/books/2020/feb…
theguardian.com/books/2020/feb…
[#UnfreeSpeech by Joshua Wong review – a call to arms for the Snapchat generation]
theguardian.com/books/2020/jan…
theguardian.com/books/2020/jan…
1/ This book is a memoir of an extraordinary decade in which Wong went from a nerdy obsession with Marvel comics to Netflix documentary in which he was characterised as a superhero for democracy. It's a call to arms to a generation that has known nothing but Instagram & Snapchat.
2/ A manifesto to follow news sites for warning signs of political polarisation, to use fact-checking media, to get out from behind their screens to attend rallies & organise election campaigns & to remember any effort to preserve democracy starts with 1 voice, flyer and speech.
[Joshua Wong interview at @timesuk: Xi won’t win this battle]
Beijing believes punitive prison sentences will put an end to pro-democracy protests. It couldn’t be more wrong, the 23-year-old says.
thetimes.co.uk/article/joshua…
Beijing believes punitive prison sentences will put an end to pro-democracy protests. It couldn’t be more wrong, the 23-year-old says.
thetimes.co.uk/article/joshua…
1/ In "#UnfreeSpeech - The Threat to Global Democracy and Why We Must Act, Now", Wong argues that China is not only HK’s problem (hyperurl.co/unfreespeech). “It is an urgent message that people need to defend their rights, against China & authoritarians, wherever they live.”
2/ Wong acknowledges there are gloomy scenarios but remains a robust optimist. “Freedom and democracy can prevail in the same way that they did in eastern Europe, even though before the Berlin Wall fell, few people believed it would happen."
