#FirstHand #May12
#Interview with Wong Tai Sin District Councilors on May 12 at the Tsz Wan Shan Shopping Mall

View Transcript Here.

#HKProtest #SingwithYou
#DistrictCouncillor #CheungMauChing #WongYatYuk #ShamYuHin

#FirstHand #May12
#Interview with Wong Tai Sin District Councilors on May 12 at the Tsz Wan Shan Shopping Mall

Wong Yat-yuk, Vice Chairman, Wong Tai Sin District Council
Cheung Mau-ching, Member, Wong Tai Sin District Council
Sham Yu-hin, Member, Wong Tai Sin District Council

Reporter: What brings you three here?

Sham Yu-hin (Sham): I was in the middle of a meeting. I heard that something could be happening in the mall, so I came immediately here.

Wong Yat-yuk (Wong): I read about the activity on social media, so I came to observe as I am worried about the youngsters.

Cheung Mau-ching (Cheung): I was walking around here at about 7:30pm. It was quiet, but I saw many police cars and police officers standing-by, almost encircling the whole area.

Reporter: What is your opinion on such large amount of police force stationing in the local community?

Cheung: I don’t think it is necessary. Most people on the scene are residents. They were just hanging around, singing and chanting. But when I looked at police officers, they appeared to be anxious and edgy. I really don’t think this is necessary.

Sham: I saw people hanging around in the mall were peacefully expressing their opinions, not bothering anyone while shops carried on doing businesses. But when riot police barged in, shops immediately closed, closing their doors.

Wong: I believe nature of the activity is peaceful as the civilians were to gather here to sing. But riot police on the scene were being extremely unfriendly that they started to clear out civilians just 10-20 minutes after the activity commence. This is unreasonable. People here were singing and there was no violence at all. Should Hong Kong police force an end to such a peaceful activity, this would be the end of freedom in Hong Kong.

Reporter: What makes you think the police are unfriendly? Did they say anything or do anything physically?

Wong: We were walking in front of the police officers as they kept pushing forward the cordon line, while observing civilians leaving the mall following police instructions. Councilor Cheung slowed down to assist one of the civilians. An officer suddenly walked up to Cheung and stopped right in front of him. He stared at Cheung for no reason, not showing any respect at all.
This is ridiculous as we were behaving normally. I see no reason for the officer to show aggression in such a provocative manner. This is going against the Police Commissioner’s saying that he wants to remedy the police-citizen-relationship.

Cheung: I wasn't even walking close to the police cordon line when one riot police stepped forward forcefully and tried to intimidate me. This is not going to help rectify the relationship and will only make it worse.

View Full Video Here.

#HKProtest #SingwithYou #DistrictCouncillor #CheungMauChing #WongYatYuk #ShamYuHin

#Newspaper #SelfHelp
How Hong Kong Did It:
With the government failing, the city’s citizens decided to organize their own coronavirus response

By Zeynep Tufekci, May 12, 2020

//The secret sauce of Hong Kong’s response was its people and, crucially, the movement that engulfed the city in 2019. Seared with the memory of SARS, and already mobilized for the past year against their unpopular government, the city’s citizens acted swiftly, collectively, and efficiently, in effect saving themselves. The organizational capacity and the civic infrastructure built by the protest movement played a central role in Hong Kong’s grassroots response.

1.
Many of the key information sources for Hong Kong protesters had been anonymous channels in the popular app Telegram and their own online forums. These anonymous formats protected the protesters from government repression but created a constant threat of misinformation, as someone could always pretend to be a protester or just be wrong or trolling.

Consequently, the protesters learned to become incessant fact-checkers, used to looking up multiple sources and critically analyzing information. Now they turned their powers to critical analysis to the coronavirus: criticizing their own officials, as well as the World Health Organization, which did not advise wearing masks or travel restrictions, and China, which they saw as covering up the initial epidemic (they were right on all counts).

2.
In response to the crisis, Hong Kongers spontaneously adopted near-universal masking on their own, defying the government’s ban on masks. When Lam oscillated between not wearing a mask in public and wearing one but incorrectly, they blasted her online and mocked her incorrect mask wearing.

In response to the mask shortage, the foot soldiers of the protest movement set up mask brigades—acquiring and distributing masks, especially to the poor and elderly, who may not be able to spend hours in lines. An “army of volunteers” also spread among the intensely crowded and often decrepit tenement buildings to install and keep filled hand-sanitizer dispensers.

3.
When the government refused at first to close the border with mainland China, more than 7,000 medical workers went on an unprecedented strike, demanding border closures and PPE for hospital workers. This strike was only possible because labor unions were formed during the protests.

Now they came in handy for collective action. Protesters also tried to speak symbolically and increase awareness: They advocated wearing white ribbons to show support for medical workers and made art that demonstrated proper hand-washing and correct mask wearing, and that decried the mask shortage.

4.
Hong Kong also teaches that people aren’t helpless, even when their government isn’t helpful.//

Source: The Atlantic #May12

Read the Full Article here
#WuhanPneumonia #FailedState #HongKongWay

#ProtestorStory
"Awakening"

//British feminists were arrested and sent to jail in 1910. The leader of the worker union in US fighting for an 8-hour workday was convicted to the death penalty in 1886. 500 thousand soldiers died in the civil war so that the black man may be free. “Winter on fire” was a good show right? 125 people died in Ukraine in 93 days. In the history of humankind, the improvement of the system meant the sacrifice of countless revolutionaries.

Are the Hongkongers awakened? To abandon your life in an "advanced society" built on lies? To abandon your normal life because of your conscience? Let's make it simple, Did the Hongkongers wake up, and are they ready to give it all?"//

Source: CUHK Secret #May12

Continue Reading:
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https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/20973

#ProtestorStory
“Awakening”

The following is an account of a university student in Hong Kong:

" I am a CUHK student and arrestee for the charge of rioting.

I felt sad to watch the judgement of the court to Edward Leung Tin-kei and 811 on the charge of riot a few days ago because I can sense that the day I'll be locked up is getting and I will probably spend 6 to 7 years in prison. A new idea was in my mind. Do Hongkongers need another awakening?

When you choose to rebel and fight against tyranny, it is not only the choice of politics but also consciousness. You need to abandon normal life. It’s so-called “yellow ribbon”. Even you may be a peaceful protestor or investor, you have to get ready and get used to being in and out of prison for the rest of your life.

Why? It is because totalitarianism can’t tolerate any other opinion. Suppression will be more severe, and the bottom line will be lowered further. Common sense won’t exist anymore. Hong Kong Indigenous members were called “separatists” a few years ago. All pro-democracy parties are called “separatist” now. A few years later, supporting “one country two systems” maybe a separatist action.

You can be arrested if you fight with words (attacking TVB), fight with capital (money laundering) or fight with posters (property damage). Don’t think that you are safe if you don’t come out to march. After article 23 is passed, you can be arrested by just sharing news on Instagram. In China, you may be detained in charge of treason for prison punishment 8-10 year if you get any complaints or you if are Christian.

In a society without freedom, if you choose to fight against totalitarianism, life planning, family life, and a simple and peaceful life are not for you anymore. Your daily life will be paying fines, getting beaten, locked up in prison, being threatened, kidnapped, getting house arrest and being unpersoned. Li Wangyang, Liu Xiaobo and Chen Guangcheng's lives will be yours.

Thus, don’t feel sorry that our comrades are in prison. Getting locked up is unavoidable in the process of fighting against tyranny. We will continue after getting out. Where can you find a revolution without any sacrifice?

We enjoy our rights, freedoms and fairness in court now like we took it for granted. However, behind the pearl of the orient is the sacrifice of many nameless heroes.

British feminists were arrested and sent to jail in 1910. The leader of the worker union in US fighting for an 8-hour workday was convicted to the death penalty in 1886. 500 thousand soldiers died in the civil war so that the black man may be free. “Winter on fire” was a good show right? 125 people died in Ukraine in 93 days. In the history of humankind, the improvement of the system meant the sacrifice of countless revolutionaries.

Are the Hongkongers awakened? To abandon your life in an "advanced society" built on lies? To abandon your normal life because of your conscience? Let's make it simple, Did the Hongkongers wake up, and are they ready to give it all?"

Source: CUHK Secrets #May12
https://bit.ly/2XcRykH

#CUHKSecret #NeverForget #NeverForgive #WinterOnFire #Arrestee #EdwardLeung

CSIS first alerted Ottawa to national-security concerns of two scientists at top disease laboratory

Canada’s spy agency urged the removal of security clearances for two scientists who were later dismissed from the country’s top infectious-disease laboratory because of national-security concerns relating to their work with China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to two sources.

In January of this year, Xiangguo Qiu, who headed the Vaccine Development and Antiviral Therapies Section, and her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, were fired from their positions with the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg.

Source: The Globe and Mail #May12

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-csis-first-alerted-ottawa-to-national-security-concerns-of-two/

#CSIS #Ottawa #NationalSecurity #Canada #China

#Censorship
#China censors #ZeroCovid debate after #WHO criticises policy

Source: Hong Kong Free Press #May12

Read more
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#Censorship
#China censors #ZeroCovid debate after #WHO criticises policy

//China’s censors scrambled to wipe out online debate over its zero-Covid strategy on Wednesday after the World Health Organisation (WHO) criticised the country’s hardline approach to crushing the virus.

China is the last major economy glued to a zero-Covid policy and enforces some of the most stringent virus controls anywhere in the world...

Those restrictions have trapped most of Shanghai’s 25 million people in a lockdown with no clear end date, while Beijing has also gradually coralled many of its residents indoors as it battles its biggest outbreak since the pandemic began.

On Tuesday WHO chief #Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged China to change tack, saying the approach “will not be sustainable” in the face of new fast-spreading variants.

The intervention prompted China’s army of internet censors to race to snuff out his comments.//

Read more:
https://hongkongfp.com/2022/05/12/china-censors-zero-covid-debate-after-who-criticises-policy/

Source: Hong Kong Free Press #May12

#Censorship #PressFreedom
Hong Kong Public Broadcaster cuts pro-democracy representation in Advisory Panel overseeing programme quality

A Hong Kong public broadcaster, Radio & Television Hong Kong (#RTHK), announced on May 10 that it is set to streamline its consultation framework.

Under the new framework, the advisory panel on programme standards that comprised several members of pro-democracy parties have ceased operation since April 2022. However, panellists from the pro-establishment camp can be retained.

Although Tik Chi-yuen, a member of the Advisory Panel, told the reporters that he was surprised by the RTHK's action, he defended it and said that it doesn't mean RTHK is not listening to public opinion.

Another member Fung Ying-him, a representative of Our Hong Kong Foundation supporting the new framework, said such an arrangement was "fine", as the Advisory Panel did not have an active role, but only met once a year.

Source: Inmediahk, #May12
https://bit.ly/3sviEny

#TikChiYuen #FungYingHim

Scholars see arrests of Humanitatian Fund trustees as an attempt to silence dissidents and vengeance against international criticism

Source: Chaser News; #May12

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Scholars see arrests of Humanitatian Fund trustees as an attempt to silence dissidents and vengeance against international criticism

Dr. Chung Kim-Wah, former Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (#HKPORI) said it was widely rumored that President Xi Jinping may attend the 25th handover ceremony in Hong Kong on July 1.

In Chung's view, the National Security Police's high-profile arrests of 5 trustees of 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund was a deliberate attempt to "clean out" dissidents in the city.

The Fund provided legal and financial assistance to more than 2,200 people prosecuted for their part in the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

"Although it remains uncertain whether Xi Jing-ping would be in Hong Kong," Chung elaborated, "the period before July 1, say May and June would be sensitive times when National Security Department may take organised efforts to silence dissidents in Hong Kong."

Dr. Wong Wai-kwok, former Deputy Professor of Politics and International Relationships of the Hong Kong Baptist University, considered the arrest a "vengeance" for international criticism over the Chief Executive election in Hong Kong.

Following the small-circle CE election in early May, G7 foreign ministers issued a joint statement to express their grave concern over the steady erosion of political and civil rights and Hong Kong’s autonomy, calling it Chief Executive "Selection" instead of "Election".

Source: Chaser News; #May12

#HKPORI #612 #HumanitarianReliefFund #NationalSecurityLaw

https://t.me/the_chaser_news/670