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#NationalSecurityLaw
1351 | Beijing

Xinhua News Agency: The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to consider the implementation of the National Security Law

#Jun18 #NPC #StandingCommittee
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#YellowEconomyCircle #NationalSecurityLaw
State Approved Violence?: Pro-democracy Yellow Store Was Splashed with Black Paint

According to a video posted by Southern District Councillor Tiffany Yuen, a video showing two man splashing black paint onto a pro-democracy store in Lei Tung Estate.

One man was filming as the other splashed the paint as "proof" (in order to get credit for the work). In her post, Yuen wrote, "Nobody is safe under the national security law, it doesn't matter if you are a pro-democracy politician, or just a store owner in a rural area. They're splashing paint today, but there might be more dangerous actions in the future".

Source: Tiffany Yuen's Facebook
Plainclothes Police Flashed by Riot Police: Blue on blue!

At around 2245 in Sha Tin's New Town Plaza on June 12, 2020, the riot police rushed to the 3rd and 4th floors of the mall to stop and search civilians.

Meanwhile, they flashed torchlight a group of people on the 6th floor. Several plainclothed police immediately shouted, "Why are you flashing? Blue on blue!" The riot police officer on the 4th floor then asked "Which team are you on?"

Source: Stand News #Jun12 #Shatin #BlueOnblue #HongKongPolice
#Newspaper

Zoom closes account of US-based Chinese dissidents after Tiananmen conference

Exiled dissidents of the Tiananmen Massacre used Zoom to host a forum about Beijing’s bloody Tiananmen Square Crackdown on protesters in 1989.

The event marked the first time so many high-profile figures with direct ties to the 1989 pro-democracy movement had come together in one space. The promotion was administered through WeChat only two days before to avoid the attention of China’s authorities.

The event on May 31 saw participants dial in from China to listen to the testimonies of many people tied to the events of June 4, including those who were imprisoned, exiled, and family members of the deceased.

The account used for the forum was disabled shortly after. A statement from Zoom suggested that it had taken such action because participants who were in China at the time of the conference had violated local laws by joining. Zoom offered no further elaboration on what laws had been broken and whether Chinese authorities were involved.

This is not the first time online activism related to the event appeared to be censored by even Western internet companies.

Full Articles: SCMP, (11-Jun)
https://bit.ly/2BeWCgS

#SharpPower #FreedomOfSpeech #Censorship #Kowtow #TiananmenMassacre #Zoom
#Newspaper

Zoom promised to be better at censoring global calls at Beijing’s request

// the US-based video-conferencing company admitted to shutting down meetings held to commemorate those who died during the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in China, and suspending the accounts of two activists and Humanitarian China, a US-based organization of exiled Chinese activists at the direct request of Beijing, who said the meetings were illegal. There are no Chinese laws stipulating that activities related to the June 4 massacre are illegal, but people in China, except Hong Kong, have been banned from holding any vigils or posting words related to the incident online.

//it simultaneously chastised governments for censoring their own citizens, while pledging to improve its own censorship mechanisms to better address censorship requests from different states. It sounded a contrite note over its inability to be surgically precise in its censorship, saying it “could have anticipated this need” to “block participants by country,” which would have allowed them to keep the meetings running despite “significant repercussions.” 

//the company regrets that “participants both inside and outside of China were negatively impacted and important conversations…disrupted,” but that “[i]t is not in Zoom’s power to change the laws of governments opposed to free speech.”... “for situations where local authorities block communications for participants within their borders, Zoom is developing additional capabilities that protect these conversations for participants outside of those borders.”

//Apple... came under fire for removing a Hong Kong protest app from its app store. Microsoft-owned Skype, before it was completely removed from app stores in China in 2017, also had a China-only version of its software that censored a specific list of words

//At the core of the issue is whether those companies should uphold their American values even if that means they giving up on the lucrative China market, as Google did, or continue their operations in the country by compromising certain practices such as adopting advanced censorship systems.

Full article: Quartz, (12-Jun)
https://t.co/htwTjfFmKT

#Censorship #Zoom #SharpPower #FreedomOfSpeech #China
#Disinformation
Pro-China party twists official statistics in a bid to blame economic suffering on pro-democracy movement

The pro-China political party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), created a new Facebook post entitled “How badly has black-clad violence battered Hong Kong in past one year?”. Along with the post, a set of statistics concerning the economic, crime, and unemployment statuses of Hong Kong were duly shared, with the intent to highlight the unspoken impact of anti-ELAB protest activities and clashes throughout 2019. Factwire, however, looked into these numbers, and most of which are performance data from the first 4 months of 2020, during the height of Hong Kong’s coronavirus outbreak. It is an apparent disinformation campaign attempting to mislead citizens by summing up causes of complicated economic adversities on a single factor.

Looking at the data, the value of total retail sales was compared between the April’s of this year and last year, while the comparison on travelers was drawn between January 2020 and 2019. The post also mentioned unemployment and underemployment in Hong Kong. After verification, these figures were confirmed as only seasonal adjustments for the period from February to April 2020. When issuing the relevant data, the Tourism Board and the Government both mentioned the impact of epidemic outbreak, and consistently both did not mention anti-ELAB social movement as the cause.

The post also compared the crime figures from January to March this year with the same period last year, with information from the Hong Kong Police Force, in which cases concerning robberies and fraud were said not related to anti-ELAB movement.

Source: Factwire
#Jun16 #DAB #Statistics
#DailyUpdate #Jun18 #COVID19

COVID-19 Updates (Jun 18)

At the time of writing, 8,476,295 cases of the coronavirus had been confirmed with 452,084 deaths. 4,444,375 have recovered.

The 4 most affected countries are USA, Brazil, Russia and India.

Hong Kong has reported 4 imported cases.

Hong Kong is strengthening inspections for entrants from Beijing.

The Hong Kong Disneyland Park reopens today.

China has reported 24 local cases, 21 from Beijing, and 2 from Hebei and 1 from Tianjin.

China's CDC claims Beijing's Covid-19 outbreak is under control.

WHO suggests dexamethasone should be only used on patients with serious symptoms.

From Friday onwards Japan allows people to travel across different regions.

US - Eight Kansas State student-athletes test positive for Covid-19.

Coronavirus in Africa could set back some HIV preventions by a decade.

Eight countries account for 84% of the coronavirus cases across the African region.

Source: CNN, Worldometer, Now News
#EditorialColumn

The truth of China’s sharp power in the gaming industry

Nintendo (HK) released a campaign on Super Smash Bros Ultimate on 4 June, in commemoration of the N64 console. The idea is that the gaming experience would multiply by 6.4 times. Interestingly, the day actually has little ties to the actual release day of N64. Netizens quickly concluded that this campaign is in fact giving a nod at another eventful 6.4, or what happened at China's Tiananmen Square back in 1989.

China has a huge market. However, with its current wolf diplomacy, participating in this market may come with unexpected costs. The theft of intellectual property, for one, is a risk many foreign entrants must take when working with a local proxy. Complying with local censorship laws is another.

Examples like Animal Crossing and Devotion show that the Chinese audience tends to react very poorly at the slightest amount of what they perceive to be negative content, or ones that "hurt the Chinese's feelings". It could result in a game being banned in China and the company boycotted by Chinese gamers. Normally, most foreign companies tiptoe around sensitive issues in China.

As time goes on, governments and companies realize that heavy reliance on the Chinese market would result in over dependence on the country and its industries. The recent pandemic is a perfect and very unfortunate example of how much the world relies on this global manufacturing conglomerate.

At the same time, companies realize Chinese boycott may merely be lip service, as amidst the uproar, many Chinese gamers still try to purchase parallel imported products, when the licensed alternative is banned.

In the current situation where the world is reconsidering their relationship and interaction with China, it is not surprising if some companies try to push the envelope of the communist regime, in an effort to show that they are not pawns of China.

Source: Simon Shen’s Youtube, Hitchcock Game news Youtube

#SharpPower #Nintendo #Jun4 #CCP #ChineseBoycott #GamingIndustrial
#Newspaper

Super Mario Maker 2 E-Commerca Listings removed in China

(14 Jun) Super Mario Maker 2 was removed from product listings on Taobao, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in China.

Some players make use of the sandbox game to create stages with names like "8964", "Xi JinPing the emperor of the wall nation". The game was then considered as "an insult to China" by the Chinese government. The Chinese authorities may be taking this as a preventive measure before offensive messages appear from the game.

Source: Unwire HK, Nintendosoup

#Nintendo #SuperMario2 #Censorship
#NationalSecurityLaw
Chairman of Bar Association Calls City’s National Security Law “Reverse Engineering” of Extradition Bill

The Deputy Director of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, Den Chung-hua claimed on Monday (June 15) that the SAR government holds the “primary responsibility” to safeguard national security in Hong Kong, accountable for law enforcement and judiciary issues. However, in the event of an “extremely special” incident, the China state government will retain jurisdiction over the case.

In an interview, Philip Dyes, Chairman of Bar Association stated that the Chinese state government is attempting to take control of serious cases tempering national security in Hong Kong, in such a way that he described as a “reverse engineering of the extradition bill”.

Dyes explained that, “Rather than you going to the mainland, the mainland comes to you.” He carried on criticizing that there are still no concrete details in the National Security Law. But for now, it appears to be a weird hybrid of common law and civil law.

Source: Apple Daily
#Jun16 #Failedstate #OneCountryTwoSystem
#NOWTV
NOW TV chief Cheung Chi-kong will retire in August, former TVB Chinese team head Bill Chan takes his position

NOW TV has been one of the most credible news channels in Hong Kong. Its chief Cheung Chi-kong will retire in August 2020, and retired journalist Bill Chan will take his position. Cheung admitted in his interview with Stand News that he decided to retire before the anti-ELAB movement. He suggested that it is useless to worry if his departure will affect NOW’s credibility.

A NOW TV employee expressed his worry about Cheung’s departure. It still remains a question as to whether Chan’s new position will affect the TV station in any manner.

Another senior journalist from NOW TV suggested that Chan’s arrival was unexpected, because the position should have been given to Annie Cheng, Cheung’s subordinate who has been working with NOW for 15 years. He admitted that he was not confident about the personnel change because it may affect the freedom of press and the journalistic integrity of the NOW TV news team.

Source: Stand News
#Jun18 #TVB #PressFreedom #ChinaInfiltration
#Court #IndiscriminateArrests
Another case of indiscriminate arrests: 17-year-old protester acquitted in trial

On 2 November last year, netizens called a rally against extradition bill in Victoria Park. A 19-year-old male student was arrested and charged for traffic obstruction with a traffic cone. He pleaded not guilty in a trial on Wednesday (June 17). Police officers who were in charged of the case made several amendments to his statement in the court, including allegations that the black-clad protester hurled traffic cones onto westbound line of Leighton Road, causing traffic obstruction. However, after viewing video footages recorded on that day, he admitted that the traffic was not obstructing the traffic.

Not only that the officer failed to recognize the defendant in the court, he also agreed with the defending lawyer’s that his observation on the day was inaccurate. The prosecution subsequently ended up with a decision to not provide further evidences, and the Magistrate ruled the case not substantiated.

Source: Stand News
#Jun17 #FailedState #PoliceState #PoliceBrutality #HKProtest
#WhiteTerror #Education
Chief of Education Tasks City’s Secondary Schools to Develop Personalized Discipline Correction Scheme
Targets Those Arrested for Partaking in Pro-democracy Protests

The Education Bureau dispatched letters to all secondary schools in Hong Kong urging schools to tighten student counseling support, including long-term and personalized disciplinary schemes targeting those who were arrested or prosecuted, with an aim to strengthen their "social values". As for other affected students, schools were asked to provide psychological aids to ease their emotions.

The Bureau asked schools to fill out a set of pre-designed forms to report progress on each disciplinary scheme or assistance granted, including whether a personalized scheme has been developed and strategies deployed, so that the Bureau could be kept abreast with development of the cases and needs of individual schools.

Source: Stand News
#Jun16 #FailedState
#FreedomOfExpression
Statue artist couldn’t believe University-initiated disturbances are oppressing his freedom of expression

Students of Hong Kong Polytechnic University produced and exhibited a series of plaster statues of HK protesters. Without informing the student union, the school took away these plaster statues and some statues were severely damaged.

Statue artist, Ben was furious and is considering of seeking redress through civil claims or small claims tribunal from the school. He said, “I am fully aware of potential disturbances from people with opposing political stances. Similar incidences happened to the Lennon Wall built on campus. However, I couldn’t believe that these troubles actually came from inside the University.”

Source: inmedia.net #Jun16
#FailedState #HKProtests #Censorship #WhiteTerror
#Court

A hard-working university student, aged 23, with a shining educational background was sentenced to 3 months of imprisonment for merely carrying a 90cm long plastic tube that even does not belong to her.

On 21 Sept 2019, hundreds gathered to take part in a “Reclaim Tuen Mun” march to oppose the “Dai Mas” (women who disrupt the peace for residents and park-goers with their suggestive dancing entertaining mainly older men and receiving money in return.)The march was allowed upon the reversed decision handed down by an appeal board.

The university student at the scene did nothing offensive; she has neither blocked the road nor charged against the police cordon line. While she was walking through an estate, someone passed her the plastic tube and she was arrested within the next 10 minutes.

She needs your support to get through these 3 months in prison. Please spare a few minutes and write to her some words of encouragement.

Source: https://m.facebook.com/113737406740068/posts/260689252044882/?d=n
Latest pro-democracy initiative crushed in retail sector

On Wednesday (June 16), a retail chain of kids’ wear erected a 2-meter tall Lady Liberty Hong Kong statue in its shop located in Discovery Park shopping mall, which was owned by New World Development, one of the pro-China megacorporations in Hong Kong.

The next day, management office of the shopping mall issued a letter to the shop requesting the removal of the statue, claiming that decoration for a “first class shopping center” should fulfill certain requirements and the statue is apparently not related to the shop’s retail business. While the pro-Beijing camp leaders called for their supporters to lodge complaints against the retail chain.

Source: Stand News #Jun17
#FailedState #FreedomofExpression #LadyLiberty
#Taiwan
Taiwan to provide aid to oppressed Hong Kong people who wish to live in Taiwan

Mainland Affairs Council announced today (Jun 18) the details of the plan to help Hong Kong people to stay and live in Taiwan. It is stated that the public and private sector will cooperate to help Hong Kong people settle down in Taiwan.

From 1 July 2020, a liaison office will be set up to handle enquiries from Hong Kong people wishing to stay in Taiwan. Those with threats to their lives will be given priority.

"From the anti-ELAB movement in 2019, to the forceful implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong recently, the Taiwanese were able to see the dedication of the Hong Kong people in this fighting for freedom. Beside condemning China for exploiting Hong Kong’s freedom and human rights, we will continue to show our support to Hong Kong at a institutional level."

Source: MAC website #Jun18

Further reading:
Pompeo says U.S. considers welcoming Hong Kong people, entrepreneurs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-usa-pompeo/pompeo-says-u-s-considering-welcoming-hong-kong-people-entrepreneurs-idUSKBN23837A
Zoom cuts off activist's accounts at the behest of the Chinese government

Suspending meetings that commemorate Tiananmen Square massacre and shutting down host activists’ accounts, Zoom admitted conforming to China’s demands to cut “illegal” activities, despite the meetings were held outside Chinese boarder.

Unlike other Western social media, Zoom is not blocked in China. Zoom's alarming behavior raise the question of it bowing to Chinese pressure, if not being a puppet platform at all. Several activists on Chinese issues based in US and Hong Kong shared their experience with Zoom and expressed their frustration upon being shut down.

In response, Zoom stated that the action was due to their inability to ban users based on their location and they are working on the function to comply with local authorities on their regulations. It continued to clarify that they did not provide any meeting content or user information to the Chinese government.

Zoom’s quibble however failed excusing itself from condemnation from lawmakers and human right groups, and US senators demanded it to pick a side between free-speech and censorship. While the intentions of Zoom are unclear, its deeply entangled relationship with China - through capital and intelligence - should alert the public enough about potential security risks.

#CyberSecurity #Zoom #CCP #censorship #FreedomofSpeech

Source:
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/12/zoom-admits-cutting-off-activists-accounts-in-obedience-to-china?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true

Further reading:
Zoom promised to be better at censoring global calls at Beijing’s request
https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/22601
Zoom closes account of US-based Chinese dissidents after Tiananmen conference
https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/22600
#Newspaper

Chinese Students Barred From Using Common Computer Code As US Sanctions Bite

Students at two Harbin educational facilities recently discovered that they no longer have access to MATLAB, a widely used coding language for technical computing.

MathWorks, the company that developed MATLAB, said that they are prohibited from providing technical or customer support to the two institutions due to U.S. government regulations as the two institutions are listed as ones that posed a risk of procuring items for military end-use in China.

This change is believed to have far-reaching implications for scientific research at the two Chinese institutions, with one implication being how students and staff can no longer publish research papers or carry out commercial projects using MATLAB.

Full Article: CX Tech News, (11-Jun)
https://bit.ly/3fopu5c

#USChinarelations #USSanctions #MATLAB