Tag: Hong Kong

The 47 Pro-Democracy Figures in Hong Kong’s Largest National Security Trial

Chin@Strategy

Forty-seven pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong have been accused of a conspiracy to commit subversion in a landmark political case. Many of the defendants have been in jail for nearly two years while awaiting trial. The case highlights the sweeping power of a national security law China imposed to tighten its grip on the city after massive anti-government protests. These are the politicians, academics and activists who are now facing prison sentences. Benny Tai, 58, was a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. Benny Tai, 58 Joshua…

In Hong Kong, 47 Democracy Leaders on Trial for Security Charges

Chin@Strategy

The political candidates represented the vanguard of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Numbering in the dozens, they had planned to run for the city’s legislature in 2020, after months of turbulent protests calling for greater freedom from China. By the time the election was held, more than a year later, none of the candidates could run. Most were in jail, where many still languish today, charged with subversion in the largest case yet involving the national security law Beijing imposed on the city in 2020. Their arrests laid bare the lengths…

What to Know About the ‘Hong Kong 47’ Trial and the National Security Law

Chin@Strategy

Vaguely worded and broad in scope, the law was crafted and enacted from Beijing. It quickly transformed life in Hong Kong. Boisterous demonstrations all but disappeared. Newsrooms were raided and shuttered. Labor unions, pro-democracy coalitions and other civil society groups disbanded, one after another. Chinese officials have used the national security law, as it is called, to crack down on dissent in Hong Kong, essentially discarding the “one country, two systems” pledge that guaranteed the city a high degree of autonomy after Britain gave it back to China. In the…

Hong Kong 47: trial of dozens in pro-democracy movement set to begin under national security laws

Chin@Strategy

One of the most significant national security trials in the Chinese government’s crackdown on Hong Kong will begin on Monday, two years after many of the city’s most prominent government critics were first brought into custody. The case concerns the Hong Kong 47 – a group of pro-democracy legislators, politicians, activists and community workers who have been charged with conspiracy to subvert state power under the national security law. They are accused of holding unofficial pre-election primaries – a move that the authorities say constitutes subversion. The primaries – which…

Golf Course or Housing? A Patch of Green Divides Hong Kong

Chin@Strategy

On an autumn afternoon at the Hong Kong Golf Club, hundreds of dogs — pugs, Pomeranians, Shiba Inus — strolled the verdant grounds with their owners in tow, enjoying rare access to the range that charges new members a $2 million entry fee. But these impeccable greens, in the northern reaches of Hong Kong, have become an unlikely battleground. The Hong Kong Golf Club has been fighting a government proposal to carve out less than one-fifth of its 172 acres of land and redevelop it for public housing. The open…

Hongkongers in UK ask Suella Braverman to ditch ‘repressive’ anti-protest bill

Chin@Strategy

Hongkongers in Britain have called on Suella Braverman to reconsider controversial measures in her public order bill, which they likened to the repressive measures used to crack down on democratic opposition in their home city. In a letter to the UK home secretary, aspects of the bill were described as “repressive measures that threaten to paralyse entire social movement” and posed a threat to their right to protest in Britain, including against Chinese communist repression in Hong Kong. “Many of us are, or represent and work with, Hongkongers who have…

Food, firecrackers and family reunions: how lunar new year is celebrated differently across Asia

Chin@Strategy

For billions of people across Asia and in Asian diaspora communities around the world, this weekend marks the beginning of the lunar new year celebrations, a two-week holiday marking the end of the Zodiac year of the Tiger, and ushering in the Year of the Rabbit – or Cat, if you are in Vietnam. For the first few days commercial activity slows or stops, as people gather with their families. For many migrant workers in China, it is often the only time of the year they can return to home…

Hong Kong police arrest six for selling ‘seditious’ book at lunar new year fair

Chin@Strategy

Police in Hong Kong have raided a lunar new year shopping fair and arrested six people for selling a “seditious” book related to the 2019 anti-government protests in a move critics say has spread “terror” just days before the celebrations. National security officers accused three men and three women, aged between 18 and 62, of producing and publishing “a seditious book about a series of riots that occurred in Hong Kong from June 2019 to February 2020”, and selling it in a lunar new year stall in a shopping centre…

Everything Under Control review – endearing comedy caper from Hong Kong

Chin@Strategy

Hoping to sustain a recent mini-resurgence of Hong Kong films through to lunar new year, Ying Chi-wen’s second feature is a silly, initially laboured but increasingly endearing comedy mashup. A remake of 2021 Taiwanese gangster film Treat or Trick, which is itself a do-over of 2004 Korean horror-comedy To Catch a Virgin Ghost, it manages to hit virtually every branch on the genre tree on the way down: Bad Boys buddy action comedy, dead wet girl Asian horror, knockabout Beijing opera farce, wuxia parody. Yau Shing (Hong Kong singer Hins…

Australian justice appointed to Hong Kong court argues foreign judges shouldn’t ‘vacate the field’

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The former Australian high court judge Patrick Keane has dismissed criticism of his appointment to a top Hong Kong court, saying he weighed up the role carefully but believed foreign judges should not “vacate the field”. Legal figures have noted Keane’s eminent record, but some raised concerns about the message his appointment sends in light of Beijing’s increasing crackdown on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong. Kevin Yam, a Hong Kong lawyer and democracy activist now living in Australia, said foreign judges taking up appointments in the city could be…