Category: HK protests

‘I was so naive’: 10 years after Umbrella protests…

Anniversary of pro-democracy demonstration takes place in city where protest has been largely criminalised and activists silenced

Today Hong Kong’s streets are quiet. Protest has been largely criminalised, and many of the leaders of the Umbrella movement have been exiled, jailed or otherwise silenced.

Looking back, Wendy* remembers the feeling of that first day of Occupy. She was 25 and believed in Hong Kong’s Basic Law, and its promise to deliver universal suffrage to the people now that the territory had been returned from British to Chinese control. But instead, China’s government announced that in elections people would only be able to choose from a few candidates handpicked by a mostly pro-Beijing committee.

“It seemed that the government wanted to break their promise,” Wendy tells the Guardian from Hong Kong. “So I went out.”…

Read the full article on The Guardian website

Police Seize ‘Pillar of Shame’

The Hong Kong national security police have seized a sculpture created to commemorate the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in connection with a subversion investigation. The sculpture, known as the “Pillar of Shame,” was confiscated from the Kadoorie Centre in Yuen Long, an agricultural research facility run by the University of Hong Kong (HKU), on Friday.

The seizure of the “Pillar of Shame” has sparked outrage from human rights groups and the artistic community. The sculpture was created by Danish artist Jens Galschiot and erected on the campus of HKU in 1997 as a symbol of democracy and human rights, and as a tribute to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The sculpture has since become an important landmark for activists and pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong.

According to a source familiar with the case, the police used a subversion investigation as a pretext to seize the sculpture, raising serious questions about the state of artistic freedom in Hong Kong. The seizure of the sculpture has been condemned by NGO DEI (我地), which has called for the immediate return of the “Pillar of Shame” and for the Hong Kong authorities to respect artistic freedom….

Continue reading the full article at HK01

police seize pillar of shame - vawongsir

image: vawongsir

1672 – Yuli Riswati: Domestic Worker and Citizen Journalist

https://youtu.be/pNTykPfp0fU

“If I can do something small to help Hong Kong people and Indonesians to put the truth in front of them to see, then it’s worth it.”

Yuli Riswati worked in Hong Kong as a domestic helper and on her days off covered news and events for Indonesians in Hong Kong on Migran Pos –  a website she launched with her friends.

“Suddenly, not only was my connection with the outside world severed the connection between my name and myself was gone. My existence as a human instantly turned into a string of numbers. 1672.”

After a month in detention, Yuli was deported by Hong Kong Immigration in 2019 – even though she had a valid work visa and her employers were happy with her work.

yuli riswati -1672

Picnic at Tamar Park – 3rd Anniversary

Deported lawyer Samuel Bickett has published an article about what he witnessed and photographed when the Hong Kong Police attacked a peaceful anti-extradition law protest on 12 June, 2019.

June 12, 2019: What I witnessed on the Hong Kong protest movement’s first violent day

Hong Kong’s protest movement is often referred to abroad as a democracy movement. It is true that universal suffrage was, and is, one of Hongkongers’ goals. But democracy was never the primary focus of the 2019 protests. After initial protests against an onerous bill that would have allowed Hongkongers to be extradited to the Chinese Mainland, attention shifted to police brutality and justice for its victims. Of the five demands made by the protesters, three were related to police and prosecutorial abuses, and all three initially stemmed from a single day of violence: June 12, 2019.

Sunday is the third anniversary of that day. Known in Hong Kong simply as 612 (luk-yat-yi in Cantonese), that afternoon the Beijing-controlled Legislative Council (or LegCo) was planning to force through the deeply unpopular extradition bill. In response, Hongkongers staged a general strike and organized a protest in front of the LegCo Building. The demonstration was authorized and largely peaceful, but police soon rushed in with batons and shields, and shot tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds into the crowd. Protesters were arrested, and countless people were injured. The police declared the event a riot, despite the fact that they instigated the violence themselves.

I was at the demonstration that day. This is what I witnessed…

Read the rest of the article here https://samuelbickett.substack.com/

image and text: Samuel Bickett

Life in Hong Kong’s Prisons During the Pandemic

American lawyer Samuel Bickett recently deported from Hong Kong at the completion of his prison sentence, has written about life in Hong Kong’s prisons during Covid.

On 22 April 2022 Bickett applied to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal to appeal his 2021 assault conviction.

“The Black Box: My Experience in Hong Kong’s Prisons During the Pandemic Lockdown

Prisoners have been harmed more by pandemic lockdown measures than by Covid

My intention is for this to be the first in a series of articles about my second stint in Hong Kong’s prisons earlier this year. In truth, I’ve found it more traumatic than expected to recall and write about these events, so I’ll make no guarantees about future articles. But there is a lot to tell, and I promise I will do my best to share it with you.

A cancer-stricken 75 year-old political detainee housed in the same cell as me at Lai Chi Kok Prison had his court hearing cancelled and was forced to remain locked up without bail, and without any indication of when he’d be able to seek release.

Hundreds of prisoners at Stanley Prison were locked alone in tiny cells for six weeks, only permitted out briefly every other day for a shower.

A dead prisoner’s corpse was left in a shared cell for hours, as other prisoners bunched together on the furthest wall in the small room to avoid getting too close… ”

Read the full article here samuelbickett.substack.com/p/the-black-box-my-experience-in-hong

Vice News HK Triads Video Geo-Blocked

An informative VICE News video on Hong Kong’s Organized Crime Societies (often known as triads) and the 721 Yuen Long attack that was uploaded to YouTube on 26 March 2022 is now geo-blocked.

It’s an informative video about Hong Kong’s triads – how they originated and have evolved from community support groups to the profit-driven enterprises of today.
Today however the link appears to be geo-blocked – whether this is by Vice or the HK Government is not clear. We have asked Vice why the video is no longer available in Hong Kong and will update this article when/if we receive a reply.
At the moment to watch the video in Hong Kong will need a vpn or similar.  The simplest way is to do this is to download and use a browser called Opera and turn on the built-in VPN.

American Lawyer Samuel Bickett Deported

American lawyer Samuel Bickett who was convicted of ‘assaulting’ an undercover policeman who denied he was a cop – has been released from jail and deported.

721 Yuen Long – Second Anniversary

Two years ago today… 721, as police turned their backs, hundreds of armed white-shirted men (alleged triads) attacked MTR passengers in Yuen Long station.

The police narrative of what happened in Yuen Long on the evening of 21 July, 2019 has morphed from an attack by white-clad men on ordinary people into a violent confrontation between men in white T-shirts and men wearing black.

Here’s the New York Times description of events.

HKCNews have a graphic with links and explanations of the attack.

The RTHK programme Hong Kong Connection: 721 Yuen Long Nightmare investigating the attack has been deleted as the censorship and coverup continues… The programme and a second collected CCTV footage dated 21 July from different cameras and interviewed several people there that night to reconstruct the attack’s timeline and take a closer look at the police’s action during Yuen Long’s ‘nightmare’.

https://youtu.be/mrHywuxPMV0