Tag: tear gas

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

+ 1, Lest We Forget

Thousands of Hongkongers queued peacefully for hours in Admiralty on the first anniversary of Marco Leung Ling-kit death during the antiELAB protests wearing a yellow raincoat bearing the Chinese words “Carrie Lam kills Hong Kong; the police are cold-blooded”.

The solemn memorial for the first person killed, on the 15 June 2019, during the antiELAB demonstrations saw people lay flowers offer prayers and numerous renditions of Glory to Hong Kong.

After six hours of peaceful remembrance as the last of the massive line of mourners laid their flowers the police, needing to intimidate rather than police, marched up in riot gear banging shields and shining bright lights.

photos: internet

Joint Statement from the UK, Australia, Canada, and United States on Hong Kong

Joint statement by UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne, and US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo responding to China’s proposed new security law for Hong Kong.

Signatories to this statement reiterate our deep concern regarding Beijing’s decision to impose a national security law in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of freedom. The international community has a significant and long-standing stake in Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability. Direct imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong by the Beijing authorities, rather than through Hong Kong’s own institutions as provided for under Article 23 of the Basic Law, would curtail the Hong Kong people’s liberties, and in doing so, dramatically erode Hong Kong’s autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous.

China’s decision to impose the new national security law on Hong Kong lies in direct conflict with its international obligations under the principles of the legally-binding, UN-registered Sino-British Joint Declaration. The proposed law would undermine the One Country, Two Systems framework. It also raises the prospect of prosecution in Hong Kong for political crimes, and undermines existing commitments to protect the rights of Hong Kong people – including those set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

We are also extremely concerned that this action will exacerbate the existing deep divisions in Hong Kong society; the law does nothing to build mutual understanding and foster reconciliation within Hong Kong.

Rebuilding trust across Hong Kong society by allowing the people of Hong Kong to enjoy the rights and freedoms they were promised can be the only way back from the tensions and unrest that the territory has seen over the last year.

The world’s focus on a global pandemic requires enhanced trust in governments and international cooperation. Beijing’s unprecedented move risks having the opposite effect.

As Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity are jeopardised by the new imposition, we call on the Government of China to work with the Hong Kong SAR Government and the people of Hong Kong to find a mutually acceptable accommodation that will honour China’s international obligations under the UN-filed Sino-British Joint Declaration.

This statement was published on the UK Government website on 28 May, 2020.

Hong Kong Protests – Wanchai – 24 May, 2020

After Beijing’s announcement of the unilateral imposition of a ‘National Security’ law on Hong Kong the first post Wuhan virus protest demonstration occurred, after the police rejected an application for a march, on 24 May, 2020.

Thousands of people walked peacefully from Causeway Bay towards Wanchai to register their protest against Beijing’s actions. The streets resonating to the strains of what has become Hong Kong’s unofficial national anthem Glory to Hong Kong – including a plaintive mouth-organ version.

And as with the marches and demonstrations in 2019, attendees were peaceful – until hundreds of police dressed in riot gear and armed to the teeth with all their new ‘toys’ arrived to create tensions where none existed before.

Looking to annoy and irritate for no reason:
Blocking shoppers from using the escalator to access the bridge from Pacific Place to the Admiralty MTR and forcing people to climb the stairs outside.

30 or so police charging up onto the pedestrian bridge at Wanchai MTR threatening people going to the station, blocking the entrance for five minutes – until the about twenty people trying to use the bridge had descended the stairs to walk to use another entrance/cross the road before they ran off…

Launching rounds of tear gas down Hennessy Road, when the road was empty…

Intimidating reporters through stop and search, spraying them with pepper spray.

Apparently a couple of ‘protester’s broke the windows of a store in Causeway Bay – but there are so many plainclothes police deployed now, who have (sadly) been seen caught and charged with initiating violence and criminal damage, that it’s impossible to describe them as anything other than persons dressed in black until further information, is known.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2020/Hong-Kong-Protests-Wanchai-24-May-2020/i-DmRRvXw

What was caught on video (credit @WilliamYang120) was a policeman in riot uniform walking into a convenience store and stealing a bottle of water. Why hasn’t he been arrested and charged? If it was a member of the public, they would have been. After the video emerged on twitter, police (media liaison officers?) went to the shop to pay for the water.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2020/Hong-Kong-Protests-Wanchai-24-May-2020/i-rdCT8RF

Under Beijing’s new law, likely you would not be able to read this article. The press would not be allowed to take photos and videos of the many acts of violence the police have perpetrated on HongKongers over the last year.

If the police have nothing to hide why do they actively try to stop the media from recording arrests and enforcement actions?

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2020/Hong-Kong-Protests-Wanchai-24-May-2020/i-jSF7Kkh

More images here

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2020/Hong-Kong-Protests-Wanchai-24-May-2020/i-krVQsm4/A

Lunar New Year Fireworks Cancelled

Home Affairs Secretary Lau Kong-wah announced that the fireworks display in Victoria Harbour, traditionally held on the second day of the Lunar New Year has been cancelled for security reasons.

It appears that the government is unable to exert enough control on the HK Police to ensure public safety. And that more video of police beating and arresting random people will further erode the tourism industry.

A mainland visitor, when asked if she was afraid of coming to Hong Kong, answered: “I’m afraid of being attacked or arrested for no reason”.

Police Use Warrant For Their Own Premises, to Search Protestors Phones

Judicial review application by photographer Lee Wing Ho reveals police abuse of warrants to illegally search phones.
 
//there was something not quite right about the warrants. First, Lee wasn’t served with them. Second, the warrants authorized the police to search the 22nd floor of police headquarters. Why would the police seek a warrant to search their own premises?
….

Lawyers representing Lee therefore inferred that the police “having arrested and confiscated a large number of smartphones and electronic devices from a number of suspects on different occasions and having brought them to the 22/f of Police Headquarters” sought two warrants “to access all of them without conditions or limitations.”//

Read the full article by Mary Hui here: hong-kong-police-use-vague-warrants-to-crack-into-phones

當荒謬成為日常 / When Absurdity Becomes Everyday

當荒謬成為日常

手腳被綁，膠袋套頭被指為自殺。
街上出現腰部斷為兩截的屍體。
墜樓身亡，卻沒有任何巨響和鮮血。
海上出現雙手被綁口封膠紙的浮屍。
⋯⋯ 他們不是一堆無可疑的數字。

當荒謬成為日常，請拒絕麻木，
麻木只會令歪理變常理。
.
若從天而降一具具的屍體，你會怎樣？
.
(靈感來自Rene Magritte的作品Golconda)

image @pon.seed

Hands and feet were tied and plastic bags were alleged to have committed suicide.
Two corpses with broken waists appeared on the street.
He fell and died without any loud noises or blood.
A floating body with seams sealed in both hands appeared at sea.
…They are not a bunch of unquestionable numbers.

When absurdity becomes everyday, please refuse to be numb, Numbness can only make a fallacy common sense. What would happen to a dead body from heaven?

(Inspired by Rene Magritte’s Golconda, translation google translate)