Effective tomorrow, Hong Kong’s independence is no more scmp.com/news/hong-kong…
Too real
😢
Hong Kong businesses had been designated blue or yellow, allowing Hongkongers in support of the protests to keep their money within the yellow economy. That changes now, with free expression now deemed a national security threat.
At the stroke of midnight, Hongkongers effectively become stateless — their future stolen from them.
Hong Kong's pro-democracy political party Demosistō, led in part by Joshua Wong, has disbanded. Across the city, Hongkongers are bulldozing the glimpses of an alternate future, for fear of the consequences should they continue. There is no out.
"Promise us, don't lose faith"
"We will meet again"
"We will meet again"
This is how the disbanding story should be told.
Very few people within Hong Kong have seen what the new national security law actually states. This is the most we know:
"We haven't seen the details... But all HK delegates firmly support the law."
Without comment, or purview, Hong Kong sunsets:
"If my voice will not be heard soon, I hope that the international community will continue to speak up for Hong Kong"
Hong Kong is now in governance limbo. It will lose autonomy piece by piece. Opposition voices will almost certainly be persecuted. Hongkongers will find new and creative ways to resist. Over time, that may grow quieter. Some will flee. Many more will be left behind.
Will the west step up? Will refuge be offered to a stateless people, or will the promises to Hongkongers be yet again revealed as a false hope? theguardian.com/world/2020/jun…
"We shall never surrender."
A Hong Kong activist now in the United States: "I feel like I’m a runaway from the Titanic... Looking back, watching those calling for help on the Titanic, I honestly feel guilty."
What happens next is anyone's guess. For now, Hong Kong mourns.
Future generations may never witness the full breadth of the anti-ELAB movement, nor the incredible art it spawned, because Hongkongers today buried it. Across Twitter this evening, curation accounts like this are vanishing — set ablaze as a last oorah
23 years to the day, the long game was won ahead of schedule.
Margaret Thatcher upon the 1984 joint declaration: “A breach of a legally binding international agreement would be a most serious matter... We would of course make the strongest possible representations to the Chinese government in order to seek a remedy." scmp.com/news/hong-kong…
There it is.
Day one, tweeted out with pride. Hong Kong is no more.
At an assembly in Causeway Bay, a flag was raised, alerting participants that they were in violation of the new law.
An English version of the draconian purple flag, printed before the people of Hong Kong could even read the new law that governs their land.
“HK is dead”
The man arrested with a Hong Kong Independence flag may face secession charges, punishable by 3 to 10 years in jail.
The mere act of ‘promotion’ of what this new broad law dictates as terrorism may mean foreign media are at risk too.
There is not a corner of life in Hong Kong that this new law does not have oversight. Hong Kong too may soon be engulfed by the Great Firewall.
A piece of the law clearly articulates censorship of content or publishers deemed in violation of the new law
Among other things, the National Security Department apparatus can be staffed by non-Hongkongers, and presumably, Mainlanders. A quiet police state invasion.
What comes next for Hong Kong? Are new prisons built to hold flag-wielding dissenters? Are re-education centers next? Will mainlanders resettle Hong Kong like Xinjiang, with the pride of Hong Kong’s public housing becoming weaponized as an apparatus to accelerate integration?
The pain is palpable in this artwork
Timed perfectly with the first arrest under Hong Kong’s new authoritarian law, Chinese state media begins blasting out PLA propaganda. A not-so-quiet invasion.
Censorship is already visible in how Chinese state media covered the first arrest. “Hong Kong Independence” deemed too terroristic.
CGTN is also utilizing Twitter’s ‘Hide Reply’ feature to censor reposts of this historic arrest.
One of the most disturbing pieces of this new law appears to have been targeted at Hong Kong diaspora, but covers anyone who could otherwise travel to Hong Kong and become detained, for ‘crimes’ committed outside of the territory. An excellent breakdown here:
The Canadian government now warning its citizens living in or traveling to Hong Kong. The signal is clear: Hong Kong is no longer safe.
Hong Kong law enforcement running down journalists within days of the new national security law going into effect. Welcome to the new Hong Kong!
"Pro-democracy Hong Kong residents are deleting their Twitter accounts for fear that their postings could incriminate them under the new law. Writers are calling media outlets to delete past articles." nytimes.com/2020/07/01/bus…
"These are familiar sentiments in Beijing. After dozens of outspoken critics were jailed and many more social media accounts were deleted by censors in 2013 and 2014, liberal intellectuals went quiet."
"Writers and academics could no longer get their books and articles published. Their speeches and seminars were canceled. Human rights lawyers were almost wiped out. Many journalists quit to become public relations managers for tech companies."
"Those were changes caused by external forces. People were changing internally too. Gradually, most liberal intellectuals stopped writing and speaking publicly, partly out of fear and partly out of a sense of futility."
"'Chan Kin-man: Letters from Prison,' sold 2,000 copies in presale and bookstore orders... [He expected] only a few hundred"
“Everyone needs to face the question: In an environment with diminishing freedom and growing suppression, how are we going to keep cool and not crash?”
“Everyone needs to face the question: In an environment with diminishing freedom and growing suppression, how are we going to keep cool and not crash?”
This says it all: "A museum that commemorates the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre is rushing to digitize its archives, afraid its artifacts could be seized." nytimes.com/2020/07/01/wor…
"As a few thousand people gathered in a major Hong Kong commercial district on Wednesday, the police forced them off the streets and arrested more than 180 people... One of the seven [natsec arrests] was a 15-year-old girl waving a Hong Kong independence flag"
"The human rights group Amnesty International said it had drawn up a contingency plan."
"Amnesty International, the human rights group, has drafted plans for leaving Hong Kong, though it does not currently intend to move any employees, said Nicholas Bequelin"
“The rule of law is going to come under very severe stress in Hong Kong"
“The rule of law is going to come under very severe stress in Hong Kong"
"In recent weeks, around a dozen writers asked the editors of InMedia HK, a site that posts articles supporting democracy, to take down some or all of their archives, said Betty Lau, the site’s editor. Editors deleted more than 100 articles"
“The scope of the law exceeds the wildest of expectations" wsj.com/articles/hong-…
"Around 10 a.m. Thursday, four police officers inspected a restaurant in the Shau Kei Wan neighborhood, after receiving reports its [yellow economy] display was still up"
"Restaurant employees working to remove the protest-related materials declined to comment"
"Restaurant employees working to remove the protest-related materials declined to comment"
"On Wednesday, police arrested a man on a U.K.-bound plane for allegedly stabbing an officer in the arm during a street clash earlier in the day. Local media reported the man was turned in by a relative."
"'We will clear all the messages for your safety,' one popular Telegram group used by pro-democracy protesters wrote. 'Please watch out for what you say.'" news.yahoo.com/hong-kongers-s…
"One lawyer with pro-democracy leanings messaged an AFP journalist asking for their entire WhatsApp history to be deleted."
"Another announced they were moving all communications to Signal, which they felt was a more secure messaging app."
"Companies providing virtual private network (VPN) tools -- which can make internet access more secure -- have reported a spike in downloads since the law was announced."
As the world looks into the horror stewing in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong government is rolling out the Chinese playbook. Preempting this new era, it has begun influence building. theguardian.com/world/2020/jun…
“Addressing these perceptions to effectively tell the Hong Kong story to targeted global audiences will be critical to support Hong Kong’s economic recovery"
"The brief for the government PR contract was rewritten early this year to move the focus away from the political aspect of Carrie Lam’s administration and more on the challenge of presenting Hong Kong 'as a place to invest, do business, work and live.'"
As the world continues to suffocate the access and reach of state-run Chinese media properties, will Hong Kong become a more direct proxy? Will the free press slowly become replaced by those that toe the line?
"Britain, Taiwan, Australia and the United States are among those that have proposed special measures that would absorb Hong Kongers as refugees. The immigration proposals remain tentative in some cases" washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…
"In Taiwan, which does not have a refugee law and has historically treated mainland Chinese asylum seekers carefully and on a case-by-case basis, President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration opened a new government office Wednesday to provide aid to Hong Kong dissidents"
"As early as this week, Congress could seek President Trump’s signature on a 'Hong Kong Autonomy' bill that would enforce sanctions on banks that do business w/ certain Chinese gov entities, dramatically raising the stakes in the fight over the city of more than 8 million people"
"Lawmakers from both parties and chambers also launched 'safe harbor' legislation that would require the State Department to designate as humanitarian refugees Hong Kongers who [advocated.] Those people could arrive in the U.S. under the legislation and seek permanent residency"
"China’s Foreign Ministry responded angrily on Thursday to Johnson’s proposal to welcome Hong Kongers and warned Australia against moving down a 'wrong path.' Britain had explicitly promised it would not offer such a deal to the city’s inhabitants [in 1997]"
"As rumors spread Thursday that outbound travel could be broadly restricted, the Hong Kong government issued a statement dismissing the speculation as 'fake news.'"
"[There is little governments] could do if China moved to bar Hong Kongers from flying out."
"[There is little governments] could do if China moved to bar Hong Kongers from flying out."
"Pro-bono groups that facilitate departures of arrested protesters by sponsoring airfares or setting them up with jobs overseas say they have been inundated with requests."
"A volunteer from one of these groups said arrested protesters are now concerned that judges will be under pressure to hand down the highest sentence possible, even if the national security law is not retroactive."
Earlier today, it was revealed that pro-democracy activist Nathan Law had fled Hong Kong.
"Based on risk assessment, I shall not reveal too much about my personal whereabouts and situation now" npr.org/2020/07/02/886…
"Based on risk assessment, I shall not reveal too much about my personal whereabouts and situation now" npr.org/2020/07/02/886…
"I feel like I have the responsibility and also the credibility to continue my international advocacy work outside of Hong Kong. On the other hand, of course, this is the place that you grow up with and you spend most of your life in and you basically have to give up a lot"
"And I don't know whether I have any possibilities of going back there in the near future. We need to have a voice on the international level with a public figure, so I think it's time for me to carry that responsibility"
Over the last day, a new symbol has gripped Hong Kong. Unlike the flags and eye patches that had come before, this symbol could not be explicit. In Causeway Bay yesterday, a girl held up a blank piece of paper. To write words would be a crime.
It has become known as White Paper Protest
As Hong Kong embarks upon this winter, lessons from the mainland are being shared. Protests and information sharing can no longer be explicit, so the way Hongkongers speak will fundamentally shift. Even in private channels, information will become codified
