Hong Kong security law

The local government is asking the Legislative Council (which it controls) to approve a new regulation that would hand over jurisdiction to mainland China in "complex cases" involving foreign countries. The measure appears tailored to the case of Jimmy Lai. The "geopolitical situation" is cited as justification. It was opposition to extradition that sparked the pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Police search the premises of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute after bringing its president, Robert Chung, from his home. The latter is under investigation for providing assistance to his former deputy, Chung Kim-wah, one of six pro-democracy activists in exile against whom an arrest warrant has been issued. The authorities say they do not want to affect the institute's activities, but they took away servers and loads of documents.

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing administration wants to introduce “smart ballot boxes” for next year’s legislative election, already restricted to “patriotic" candidates. Scanners would warn voters of any “error” in their ballot. The proposal was withdrawn after a few hours due to obvious objections to secrecy of the vote.

One of the 45 people given very harsh sentences yesterday for organising primary elections in Hong Kong was able to smuggle her thoughts out of prison. “We dared to confront the regime with the question,” she writes. “Will democracy ever be possible within such a structure? The answer was a complete crackdown on all fronts of society.” “Defend and repair your own democracy,” she says in an appeal to the world. “Give authoritarian dictators one less example of failed democracy to justify their rule, and give freedom fighters around the world one more inspiration to continue the struggle”.

Local authorities alarmed by labour force shortages amid an aging population. This is the other side of the brutal repression against pro-democracy groups in 2019 that drove thousands of people out of the city.

Five years now since the pro-democracy protests out of 10,279 people arrested only 28.8% have been remanded for trial. But for Justice Secretary Chris Tang, ‘the authorities must be given time to gather evidence’. Chow Hang-tung's request to call people living abroad to testify on video at the trial was rejected.

Mark Clifford and Gordon Crovitz, senior officials at Next Digital, filed a complaint against the global accounting firm. They allege BDO enabled rights violations by providing essential services to Hong Kong authorities. The case casts more than a shadow on the "assistance" the company provided to the government in muzzling critical voices.

The editors of the newspaper (already forced to close like the Apple Daily) Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam face up to two years in prison in a verdict expected by September. The ruling is likely to have further profound implications for press freedom in Hong Kong. For the police chief, it is proof of the ‘necessity and legality’ of the crackdown on activists and critical voices. Reporters sans Frontières: 28 journalists prosecuted since 2020.

The exhibition tells “a very different story" about the unrest and the "colour" revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. Unlike the narratives in the Western media, the protests were not demands for freedom, but attacks on security and order, while Xi Jinping stressed “social stability” as a “prerequisite for building a strong and prosperous China”.

The PIME missionary from Italy today began a hunger strike in front of the government headquarter, Admiralty district. He is moved by the injustice inflicted upon an African immigrant’s daughter and hundreds of prisoners jailed for crimes of opinion. “It is as if the problem does not exist,” he laments, noting that freeing them would create a climate of trust.

The region’s legislature passed a new law that changes the role of the regulator, who can now deregister social workers who supported the pro-democracy movement. Hong Kong’s welfare secretary called for the depoliticisation of the sector after so many social workers backed the 2019 demonstrations. The most vulnerable will pay for this in a society where the exodus of young families is creating an emergency for seniors.

The bishop penned his thoughts about the "sensitive” date, which is taboo in Hong Kong, in an article published yesterday by the diocesan weekly Sunday Examiner. In it, the bishop remembers the “life sapping event that took place 35 years ago” in Beijing on 4 June 1989. Although impossible to forget, he suggests to look at it through the eyes of “God’s unconditional love” who forgives even those who “are not yet courageous enough to ask for it.