Hong Kong: what next?

[Yossarian]

Posted on behalf of someone in HK: This collective has posted a Twitter thread translating into English the first of three children's books published from the Hong Kong Speech Therapists Union, five members of which have been arrested under the National Security Law over the books. This one alluded to the 2019 protests and was published before the NSL; the other two came after.

 

[Yossarian]

I've just learned that the respected political science professor and democracy activist, Prof. Joseph Cheng, has retired into exile in New Zealand.

I first met him during the protests in 2003 and he's always been a sane and moderate voice. Sharply intelligent, quietly spoken, deeply modest and always cheerful, he's been a fellow traveller for nearly two decades.

It's terribly sad. He had intended to retire and live in Hong Kong but has been vilified across the pro-Beijing media and feared he would be arrested. Cultural Revolution Mark 2:0 continues.

Interviewed in New Zealand, he said "Almost all my friends are in jail". He felt he had no choice but to permanently leave his lifetime home.

It's heartbreaking.



Woof

Lot of people I know both Chinese and Western are leaving - Westerners generally announce their departure on social media etc. months in advance, Chinese HKers are tending to keep as quiet as they can until they have already left.

 

[Jessiedog]

Imagine that you live in the city centre - or distant suburbs - of London, or Manchester, or Liverpool, or Leeds, or Southampton, or Birmingham, or Glasgow, or Edinburgh, or Swansea, or Newcastle ... or your home place.

And that, suddenly, a heavily armed, fascist regime invaded and took over your city by force. You tried to defend yourselves for a year - pitched battles on the streets - David against Goliath - tens of thousands of your youth beaten, battered, bloodied, broken - ten thousand arrested, jailed.

Your leaders, intellectuals, academics, professors, teachers, unionists, activists ... all jailed without trial. Every civic institution taken over and subjugated. The whole of your society completely undermined and taken over and subsumed and transformed into a totalitarian, dystopian police state.

Forced you to send your kids to school to be brainwashed by a National Security dominated education.

Your - supposedly guaranteed - freedoms of speech, association, press, media, assembly, education, publishing, protest, legal system, courts, independent judiciary; every freedom you've always known, completely crushed. Lost. Gone. Forever. For all time. Finished.

Trust me. You can't imagine it. You have no fucking clue.

Only those who've experienced it could possibly understand.

It's completely unimaginable! Shocking. Terrifying. Stultifying. Stupifying. Stunning. Horrifying. Inconceivable. Brain exploding. Catastrophic.

And yet, it's not a dream. And I can't wake up. It's happening now. In real time. Somehow in slow motion and yet dizzyingly swiftly, day after day after day.

A living nightmare.

And they're coming after me; coming after you.

It's real.

(Edit: It's "happening" now. Not "happen".)



Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

Thanks for your posts Jessiedog . This thread seems to attract little attention despite the quite shocking nature of what's going on. Maybe, like me, people don't really know what to say.

I went to Hong Kong in 2018 - had never been before and now it looks like maybe I never will again.That was to visit an old friend, Hong Kong Chinese family but UK educated. When we were there we made some jokes about the military style training routines you could see going on inside some kind of police compound that you could see in the distance from his flat. Now just three years later here we are. I now am unsure to what extent he is not giving the full answer to things I ask about on WhatsApp messages. In fact I feel cautious asking.

I don't really know what we can do here on the outside that can help anyone.

Keep thinking.




🖐


Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

I don't do sports but decided to watch the final of the Foil Fencing this evening. Got myself quite excited I did.

Hong Kong's only previous Olympic Gold was Lee Lai-shan's in the windsurfing in 1996.





Add oil, Ka Long! Add oil!





When interviewed by local HK news channels afterwards, he said: “Everyone, persist. Never give up!”

Heh! What a good lad!



Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

Posted on behalf of someone in HK: This collective has posted a Twitter thread translating into English the first of three children's books published from the Hong Kong Speech Therapists Union, five members of which have been arrested under the National Security Law over the books. This one alluded to the 2019 protests and was published before the NSL; the other two came after.

Good stuff Yoss.

Everyone should read this. It took me fifteen minutes - including studying the illustrations.

It's seems to read as a normal, explanatory booklet, designed to help kids who were confused as to what was happening during the, peaceful, anti-extradition law, protests by millions of people in 2019 (before any violence [other than increasing police brutality,] kicked off).

I'm fortunate though.

Due to the arrest and imprisonment-without-trial of the five, mid-to-late-twenties-aged, subversive, terrorist, seditionist, (professional speech therapists,) that published this tomb, I've subsequently come to understand that I was suffering from "wrong thinking".

This "wrong thinking" was imposed upon me by the deeply subversive CIA forces long-embedded and lurking in Hong Kong.

I'm now so grateful that I have finally come to my senses and am currently undergoing self-imposed, self criticism sessions, on a daily basis.

I set my alarm clock and - every three hours, 24 hours a day - wake up to violently, lash my back, and my subversive dog's too - with a thin bamboo whip, as a painful reminder to us both that such kind of "wrong thinking" cannot and will not be tolerated in the new paradigm of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era".

Thanks goodness we have been saved by the Emperor. Now we are free.

Good night, good Urban peeps.

Rest well - if you can.

Keep thinking.



Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

And finally ('cos Bella's is [rightly,] threatening to bite me if we don't get to bed within the next five minutes!) ...


A reminder to everyone. Why did all this happen? Why?


Please, PLEASE, invest just two minutes of your life to watch this time-lapse film. It explains everything.


Eight hours of evidence - rapidly condensed into less than two minutes.


Two million people (out of a total population of 7.3 million,) on the 16th of June 2019.


And ALL of them violently rioting, burning, slashing, assaulting, killing!


It's shameful!


Two minutes of complete madness, chaos and riots that needed to be violently suppressed.


What government wouldn't try to stop this violent chaos?


These people are completely out of control!


Peaceful protest ... my arse!


This is what a massive riot looks like. Two million, crazed, people destroying their own city!


Of course it needed to be stopped!!11!!!!!!11!


Eight hours of chaos, time-lapsed into two minutes.


You decide.


Ouch! Don't bite me Bella. OUCH! Okay. Okay. Okay. To bed.


Night peeps.






OUCH! Okaaaay, Bells. Bed.


Keep thinking peeps.



Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

Given that the three judges sitting for this trial were hand picked for the task by the Chief Executive and that the defendant was denied a jury trial, the verdict was all but a certainty. Still, it's now confirmed.

On the charge of "Terrorism": Guilty. (Maximum sentence - life imprisonment.)

On the charge of "Inciting Secession": Guilty. (Maximum sentence - life imprisonment.)

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

And this is justice?


Mitigation will be heard this Thursday.


Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

Is it really any wonder?



Woof

 

[Yossarian]

Given that the three judges sitting for this trial were hand picked for the task by the Chief Executive and that the defendant was denied a jury trial, the verdict was all but a certainty. Still, it's now confirmed.

On the charge of "Terrorism": Guilty. (Maximum sentence - life imprisonment.)

On the charge of "Inciting Secession": Guilty. (Maximum sentence - life imprisonment.)

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

And this is justice?


Mitigation will be heard this Thursday.


Woof

"Terrorism," ffs, the charge should have been dangerous driving at the very most - and since the collision happened after police threw a shield at him and he tried to brake, even that would be a stretch.

 

[Jessiedog]

News is just beginning to filter out about the reporter who managed to film the cop-stabbing incident on 1st July 2021.

Apparently, the NS Police knocked on her door at 11:00pm last night (Monday), searched her home, confiscated her passport and took her down to the cop shop for questioning. Initial reports suggest she's not (currently,) under arrest but rather "assisting an investigation".

Holy Moley! What next? Breathing in public?


(Edit: UPDATE - During the search of her home, the police also confiscated her mobile phone, laptop, electronic devices, etc.

She has, for the time being, been released but it's confirmed that she is the person being investigated for potentially violating the National Security Law.)



Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

The world-renowned, traditionally fiercely and truly independent Hong Kong Judiciary is gone. Forever.

The last, final, true bastion of freedom in Hong Kong has been thoroughly, fatally and irrevocably infiltrated, subsumed and subverted by the fascist CCP - and has fallen.

It is no more. Is lost. In finality. In perpetuity.

Hong Kong. My home. Is no more.

Welcome to China. May you live in interesting times.

I'm completely broken. I have no idea how to carry on. And yet, if possible, in some way, somehow, I must.

If I can find the strength, it's time to move on.

I'm not sure I have the strength.

I'm spent. I'm so sorry. I have failed.

Be nice to each other peeps.


(Edit: 'Cos I forgot to add this link ... I'm weeping and snotting again.)








Woof

 

[vanya]

For what it's worth I think the destruction of Hong Kong by the fascist CCP is a mistake. This will not have gone down well in Taiwan. If Beijing wants to win over Taiwan it should have demonstrated that one country two systems can work. Then the Party would have been able to say look at HK. It's united with the motherland but has full autonomy and is doing very well out of it. You have nothing to fear.

Chinese propaganda during the Tiananmen Square massacre was Your movement cannot succeed. It is foreign. This is China not the United States. But Taiwan's Chinese. And it's free.

 

[Jessiedog]

"Terrorism," ffs, the charge should have been dangerous driving at the very most - and since the collision happened after police threw a shield at him and he tried to brake, even that would be a stretch.

Quite!

Essentially, he was riding at about 20 - 25 mph and the cops jumped out into the road immediately in front of him when he was about 5 yards away from them. He braked, but skidded into them, hit three, crashed his bike and was immediately jumped on and hit with truncheons.

(Shortly after the accident, he was shown, sitting, handcuffed behind his back, but not badly hurt and not in pain. A few days later, however, he was transferred to hospital and spent weeks there recovering from a badly broken leg. There are unconfirmed/suppressed reports that, while in custody, one of his legs was deliberately broken by vengeful cops - it wouldn't be the first time!)

Anyway ... in normal circumstances, any civilian jumping into the road like this would be - at a minimum - charged with "jaywalking", if not "endangering public safety".

But these are not civilians. They are cops. And these are far from "normal" circumstances.

Which leaves us now with a 24 years old Tong Ying-kit (after more than a year in jail without bail,) as a convicted "Terrorist" facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment (it won't be "life", I'm sure, but will certainly be a "deterrent" sentence - I expect 8 to 10 years).


How peculiar!

Does nobody remember the incident in November 2019 when a cop on a motorcycle deliberately and repeatedly tried to run over protesters?

Eventually, he managed to actually, deliberately, hit and run over and leave unconscious in the road one protester. A documented deliberate attempt to do what? Attempted murder by a motor vehicle? Dangerous driving? Terrorism?

No!

Although, supposedly, briefly suspended on full pay and apparently "reprimanded", the police hierarchy refused to prosecute or even to reveal the identity of the perpetrator.

One law for them. The rest of us are "Terrorists".

Fascism is as fascism does.

It is what it is. We are where we are.

Happy days.


(Watch the first 45 seconds for the "incident" and the next two minutes for the lead up to it.)





Woof

 

[vanya]

Fascism is as fascism does.

Quite so.

As a certain wandering preacher from Nazareth once said, By their fruits shall ye know them and the People's Republic of China has produced some seriously rotten fruit these past few years.

 

[Jessiedog]

For what it's worth I think the destruction of Hong Kong by the fascist CCP is a mistake. This will not have gone down well in Taiwan. If Beijing wants to win over Taiwan it should have demonstrated that one country two systems can work. Then the Party would have been able to say look at HK. It's united with the motherland but has full autonomy and is doing very well out of it. You have nothing to fear.

Chinese propaganda during the Tiananmen Square massacre was Your movement cannot succeed. It is foreign. This is China not the United States. But Taiwan's Chinese. And it's free.

Hi vanya,

As has been explained to you previously on this thread - that ship sailed at least a decade ago.

The Taiwanese for many, many years have been aware that 1C2S is a myth.

This is why the CCP is becoming more and more belligerent towards Taiwan. They are well aware that their mendacity with Hong Kong has been plain to see for a very long time. Tsai Ing-wen was re-elected on the back of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong.

It's a dangerous situation and, unfortunately, I have no doubt that, when the moment arrives, the USA will completely renege its legal duty to Taiwan under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.

Such is life. We are where we are. It is what it is. The problem is, everyone is just making too much fucking money to give a shit about ethics or morals anymore (except for me for fuck sake - verging on penniless!).

Wake up peeps. It's coming all too soon.

Blessings all.

Keep thinking.



(Come Bella. I know it's late. Bedtime now. Please don't bite me again. )


Edit: Ethics are not "eyhics" .


Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

Thanks for your posts Jessiedog . This thread seems to attract little attention despite the quite shocking nature of what's going on. Maybe, like me, people don't really know what to say.

I don't really know what we can do here on the outside that can help anyone.

Thanks, teuchter.

One thing, perhaps, would be to re-post and re-post and re-post, repeatedly, the shit that I post here into every other media, medium, fora and forum that you inhabit or can think of. And, repeatedly lobby the mainstream media, MP's, lunatics and any other shit-faced cunt you can think of.

Kick the shit out of it. Call the press. Make a fuss. Again and again and again.

Make noise. Be noisy. Scream from the rooftops.

Just an idea.

(And I'm always available for media interviews or comments. I'm a bit fed up with this stuff already, in case anyone missed that.)



Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

Leon Tong Ying-kit is sentenced to nine (9) years in jail for "terrorism" and "inciting secession".

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

Woof

 

[Flavour]

Hong Kong crowd booing China's anthem sparks police probe

Police are investigating an incident where hundreds jeered while watching an Olympics broadcast.

www.bbc.com

Big terrorism problem, as anyone will agree

 

[Jessiedog]

Hong Kong crowd booing China's anthem sparks police probe

Police are investigating an incident where hundreds jeered while watching an Olympics broadcast.

www.bbc.com

Big terrorism problem, as anyone will agree

Yup.

And it looks like the cops have nabbed at least one of the culprits.

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

Meanwhile, there was a nice little video doing the rounds a couple of days ago of another packed shopping mall. When the Chinese National Anthem was played for Edgar Cheung, it was completely drowned out, for its entirety, by the crowd repeatedly shouting: "We are Hong Kong! We are Hong Kong! We are Hong Kong! ... ".


Woof

 

[Yossarian]

Yup.

And it looks like the cops have nabbed at least one of the culprits.

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

Meanwhile, there was a nice little video doing the rounds a couple of days ago of another packed shopping mall. When the Chinese National Anthem was played for Edgar Cheung, it was completely drowned out, for its entirety, by the crowd repeatedly shouting: "We are Hong Kong! We are Hong Kong! We are Hong Kong! ... ".


Woof

How long before "We are Hong Kong" becomes a banned slogan?

 

[Jessiedog]

The Professional Teachers Union ...

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

Security Chief: We want to fuck up more Apple Daily peeps. Any grasses out there? Do your duty!


"All friends from Apple Daily, if you found anyone or your organisation violated any law, including the national security law, during your time at work, please fulfill your obligation and report to the police,"

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

And this one's been bubbling away since late last year. French part-owner, EDF, have been shouting louder and louder to shut the fucker down ...

... And finally, they did.

Not to worry, I'll be fine. After all, I'm nearly 80 miles away from it.

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

Woof

 

[Cerv]

For those of you that haven't had the chance to see it yet, "Ten Years" 2015 (not the unconnected 2011 US nonsense of the same title), is a superb little vignette of five short films released in 2015. Five separate directors. No professional actors, just local peeps and local kids. One hour, forty minutes in total. And includes a short (the last one "Self-Immolation",) by Kiwi Chow (of recent Cannes fame).

It's a series of fictional, dystopian and yet prophetic portrayals of the Hong Kong to come in 2025, imagining how things would look, ten years after 2015.

Little did we expect, then, that it would actually happen in 2020. (It should have been called "Five Years"!)

It really is essential viewing. An astonishing, low budget, local, collaborative production that was made for a total budget of under 60,000 quid. Less than GBP 60,000!

It won the Best Film award at the 2016 Hong Kong Film Festival.

It's still available on Netflix but only for the next seven days.

It can be found free online elsewhere but, unfortunately, typically low quality copies.

It's in local Cantonese (HongKongese,) with English subtitles.

Watch it. Twice. (Once for the subtitles and then for the film-work.) Beautiful acting by local amateurs and kids.

Ten Years | Netflix

Five shorts reveal a fictional Hong Kong in 2025, depicting a dystopian city where residents and activists face crackdowns under iron-fisted rule.

www.netflix.com

Two minute Trailer on Yuotube:




Keep thinking peeps. Wear a mask. Hug each other.

Blessings.



Woof

thanks for the reminder. finally got around to watching this yesterday.

anyone else with Netflix today is your last chance.

 

[Jessiedog]

How long before "We are Hong Kong" becomes a banned slogan?

How long?

Ummm ... How's about less than a day!

(See item two on this thread. Item one criminalises holding the old HK colonial flag while the Chinese anthem is being played.)



(Edit: To try and show item two, with luck - I'm not so tech savvy.)






Holy dancing fuck! I'm living in a Kafkaesque nightmare! It's beyond bizarre. The Cultural Revolution-style purge steamrolls on and on.

It's tragicomically weird, insanely ridiculous and yet truly terrifying - all at the same time.

What a mindfuck!



Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

Leon Tong Ying-kit is sentenced to nine (9) years in jail for "terrorism" and "inciting secession".

錯誤 - RTHK

錯誤 - RTHK

news.rthk.hk

Woof

Let's also not forget that after he came off his bike and was jumped on, batonned and arrested, Leon Tong Ying-kit was - essentially fine (you can see him photographed below, sitting with crossed legs and hands cuffed behind his back).


Similarly, NO police officers suffered ANY serious injury in the crash - just, like Ying-kit, bumps and bruises.







And yet, after a few hours in custody, he was taken to hospital in an ambulance with multiple, serious, bone fractures, particularly - though not exclusively - to his lower legs and feet.

He subsequently spent several weeks in hospital.

He was arrested on the 1st July 2020 and was still in a wheelchair when attending a pretrial court procedure on the 16th November that year - four and a half months later.

Today, a year later, he still struggles to walk, even while wearing the specialist "rehabilitation shoes" he needs to wear.



Terrorism?


Justice?


Nonsense?


Fascism?


Who can tell?




Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

... And while (mostly,) young people in Hong Kong are being arrested by the CCP for "inciting terrorism" when they lay a white flower down in the street, to commemorate someone who committed suicide.

... Meanwhile, in mainland China ...

"China gave a warm and very public welcome to a senior Taliban delegation."

China’s talks with Taliban could be a positive thing, US says

Delegation from militants meets Chinese foreign minister as Beijing seeks to extend influence in Afghanistan

www.theguardian.com

I'm confused!



Woof

 

[krtek a houby]

... And while (mostly,) young people in Hong Kong are being arrested by the CCP for "inciting terrorism" when they lay a white flower down in the street, to commemorate someone who committed suicide.

... Meanwhile, in mainland China ...

"China gave a warm and very public welcome to a senior Taliban delegation."

China’s talks with Taliban could be a positive thing, US says

Delegation from militants meets Chinese foreign minister as Beijing seeks to extend influence in Afghanistan

www.theguardian.com

I'm confused!



Woof

Perhaps Xi sees a power vacuum in Afghanistan after the withdrawal?

 

[Jessiedog]

And, apropos of probably nothing, I'm just going to leave this here.





“Every era has its fascism. We can see the warning signs everywhere power is concentrated so as to deny citizens the possibility and the ability to express and act on their will.

This is reached in many ways, not necessarily only through police intimidation but also by denying or distorting information, by polluting justice, by paralysing schools, by spreading in many subtle ways a nostalgia for a world when order reigned sovereign, and where the safety of the privileged few rested on the forced labour and the imposed silence of the many”.



Primo Levi - born, today, 31st July - in 1919, in Turin, Italy.





Woof