Three journalists told CPJ that investigative reporting on major economic events, a cornerstone of Hong Kong’s financial transparency, has nearly disappeared amid government pressure and the departure of major outlets. 

The sharp decline in press freedom, the journalists said, is a direct result of the National Security Law. This law, enacted on June 30, 2020, was imposed directly by Beijing, bypassing Hong Kong’s local legislature, and included offenses for secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign forces, with penalties ranging from a three years to life imprisonment.  

In the five years since it was enacted, authorities have shut down media outlets and arrested several journalists, including Jimmy Lai, the founder of one of Hong Kong’s largest newspapers, the pro-democracy Apple Daily. Several major international news organizations have either relocated or downsized their operations in Hong Kong, leading to a decline in reporting on the city and its financial hub.

“Hong Kong’s economic boom happened because journalists could work without interference,” said a veteran reporter with 11 years’ experience in television, newspapers, and digital platforms in Hong Kong, who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

While markets still function, at least three media professionals told CPJ that the erosion of press freedom — often overlooked — is a key factor behind Hong Kong’s fading financial appeal to market participants. One reporter described the media as “paralyzed.” 

Another hastily passed security law enacted in March 2024 in Hong Kong further deepened fears that it would be used to suppress press freedom and prosecute journalists.

“There has never been an international financial center in history that operates with restrictions on information,” Simon Lee, an economic commentator and former assistant CEO of Next Digital Group, the parent company of Apple Daily, told CPJ.

Hong Kong long served as a base for reporting on China’s economy and power structures, said a former financial journalist on the condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns.

“Most Hong Kong-listed companies come from the mainland [China]. Foreign media used Hong Kong to observe China’s economic operations or wealth transfers,” the former financial journalist told CPJ. “Now the risks feel similar to reporting from inside China.”

Crackdowns, shutdowns, and an exodus of major media

Since the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020, at least eight media outlets have shut. These included Apple Daily, news and lifestyle magazine Next Magazine, both published by Lai’s Next Digital group, and the online outlet Stand News, after they were raided by authorities.

At least four other media organizations — Post852, DB channel, Citizen News, and FactWire — ceased operations voluntarily, citing concerns over the deteriorating political environment.

Reporting was also criminalized in several cases, with journalists prosecuted for “inciting subversion” or “colluding with foreign forces.”  

China had the world’s highest number of imprisoned journalists in CPJ’s latest prison census — 50 in total, including eight in Hong Kong.

The New York Times moved part of its newsroom to Seoul in 2020. In March 2024, Radio Free Asia closed its Hong Kong office, and in May, The Wall Street Journal relocated its Asia headquarters to Singapore.

 “With fewer foreign correspondents based in the city, there’s simply less reporting on Hong Kong,” the former financial journalist told CPJ. “As a result, the city’s economy may receive less objective attention on the global stage.”

The former financial journalist said that one of the biggest losses after the security law was the disappearance of Apple Daily. Unlike most local media, which focused on routine market updates, Apple Daily connected business to politics and mapped interest networks — an increasingly rare practice.

Next Digital, through Apple Daily, built a reputation for investigative financial reporting. A former staff member told the BBC that the company once spent over 100,000 yuan (US$14,000) tracing dozens of property owners to uncover a developer’s hidden ties with a bank.

“From a financial news perspective, one of our biggest problems is losing Apple Daily,” the former financial journalist told CPJ.

Local business reporting also fades away

As Hong Kong’s financial hub reputation comes under question, stories on high unemployment rates, struggling small businesses, and store closures are increasingly out of sight.

“One direct effect is feeling increasingly unable to grasp what’s happening in the city; important information no longer seems easy to access,” Lee said. “Previously, competition among professional outlets encouraged source sharing and helped maintain a power balance. Now, one-way government-controlled information faces little resistance.”

Lee told CPJ that changes in Hong Kong’s media landscape are particularly evident in major financial events, pointing to the coverage of the 2024 sale of Li Ka-shing’s port assets, in which local outlets failed to question the deal’s structure, rationale, or political implications.

“Beijing called it a national security matter, and the other side of the story disappeared,” Lee told CPJ. “Many focus on the judicial system when discussing fairness, but true fairness also depends on the free flow of information … Without information freedom, public oversight fades, and the market’s system of checks and balances collapses.”

Lee also cited the case of Alvin Chau, a casino tycoon in Macao who was sentenced in 2023 to 18 years for illegal gambling. While foreign media uncovered his alleged links to oil smuggling operations to North Korea, local media offered little follow-up.

“These investigations and reports simply no longer exist,” Lee said.

Sources can’t speak freely

Two journalists told CPJ they have noticed increasing reluctance from interviewees. 

During previous years of the Annual Budget Speech, Hong Kong’s yearly announcement of its public spending and economic plans, the media would host analysis shows with economists debating government spending and policies. 

“We would ask about the fiscal surplus, support for the poor, and whether measures were targeted,” the veteran reporter told CPJ, adding that now, “only one professor is willing to speak openly.”

Lee told CPJ that the atmosphere of “not being allowed to criticize” the broader structure or government policy has also extended to the reporting on how financial markets operate.

Market participants should be free to take either optimistic or pessimistic views of the economic outlook, Lee told CPJ, adding that today in Hong Kong, it is discouraged to express pessimism, and even silently shifting toward defensive investment strategies or risk-averse behavior may be interpreted as making a political statement.

“It’s hard for any place with such high information costs to remain a global financial hub,” Lee said. “Because even pulling back on investment can send a signal. If investors are accused of intentionally dragging down the market just because they try to hedge or take a cautious view, they may decide it’s safer to avoid the market altogether.”

In response to CPJ’s request for comment, a Hong Kong government spokesperson referred CPJ to a statement that said the security law has enabled the city to “make a major transition from chaos to order” and “the business environment has continuously improved,” while press freedom is protected under the law.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ's Asia-Pacific program staff.

“Next year would have marked the 20th anniversary of our founding, but we will not make it to that day,” LSD said in a media notice on Friday. “We are announcing our dissolution.”

A source told RFA Cantonese that LSD was warned several times, beginning in April, that it must dissolve before July 1 or risk being forcibly disbanded.

Incumbent LSD chairperson Chan Po-ying has previously declined to comment. On Friday, she again said she would not respond before the press conference.

“No Resistance, No Change”

Founded in 2006, LSD’s slogan was “No resistance, no change.” The party made headlines in 2008 when it secured three seats in the Legislative Council with Wong Yuk-man, Leung Kwok-hung, and Albert Chan, becoming the third-largest pro-democracy party. Known for its confrontational style, LSD lawmakers famously threw bananas at then-Chief Executive Donald Tsang during a LegCo session, becoming a symbol of the city’s radical democrats. Outside the legislature, LSD organized and participated in numerous protests and civil disobedience campaigns.

In 2009, LSD and the Civic Party launched the “Five Constituencies Referendum” campaign, in which five lawmakers resigned and re-contested their seats to demand universal suffrage. All five, including LSD’s Leung Kwok-hung, Wong Yuk-man, and Albert Chan, and Civic Party’s Alan Leong and Tanya Chan, were re-elected in the May 2010 by-election.

(Anthony Wallace/AFP)

Legislative filibusters and internal splits

In 2011, LSD launched a “vote repayment” campaign targeting the Democratic Party for its role in pushing forward Beijing-approved electoral reforms. Internal disagreements over strategy led to a split, with Wong Yuk-man and Albert Chan forming People Power. Leung Kwok-hung then took over as LSD chair. The party retained only one LegCo seat in the 2012 and 2016 elections but continued legislative filibusters and budget protest actions alongside People Power.

In 2016, Leung Kwok-hung was disqualified from LegCo for holding a yellow umbrella and tearing up a copy of the NPC’s “831” decision during his oath-taking. Since then, LSD has had no seats in the legislature but continued grassroots activism and protest actions.

Leung Kwok-hung still imprisoned

Many LSD members have served jail time for civil disobedience. Leung Kwok-hung, now 69, remains in prison as a defendant in the 47 democrats’ national security case. LSD vice-chair Jimmy Sham, also one of the 47, was released last month after serving his sentence.

Even after other pro-democracy parties such as the Democratic Party and Civic Party disbanded, LSD continued street actions under the National Security Law era — addressing issues like labor importation and minimum wage.

Earlier this year, the party planned a protest outside government headquarters on Budget Day but canceled due to “immense pressure.” Some LSD members also had their bank accounts frozen or closed, and several were charged for “unauthorized fundraising in public” and “unauthorized display of posters.”

Edited by Greg Barber

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

Sebastien Lai has sought a meeting with Starmer for more than two years to advocate for the release of his father, 77-year-old Jimmy Lai, who founded Apple Daily. His health is deteriorating and he risks dying in jail.

Lai has been imprisoned for over 1,600 days, mostly in isolation, while awaiting the outcome of a long-delayed trial for sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law. After Lai’s arrest in 2020, Apple Daily was shuttered on June 24, 2021, following police raids and the freezing of the paper’s assets.

Read the full joint letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CP Staff.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said Tuesday that since the promulgation of the National Security Law in 2020, 332 individuals have been arrested. That was an increase of six arrests since Secretary for Security Chris Tang stated on June 1 that 326 people had been arrested under the law, with 165 convictions.

When local media asked about the new arrests, the Security Bureau said detailed breakdowns of arrest figures are “classified information related to safeguarding national security in the HKSAR and thus will not be made public.” HKSAR stands for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Political commentator Sampson Wong said that in the past the Hong Kong government rarely used national security as a reason to withhold information, and now the public’s basic right to know was being damaged.

“At this point, reporters can still detect some of these arrests, but how long will that last? In the future, will people be arrested without anyone knowing?” Wong asked.

“Anything could be labelled a breach of confidentiality. If this continues, the truth will be completely under the control of national security authorities,” he said.

(Louise Delmotte/AP)

The National Security Law was adopted after massive pro-democracy protests in 2019 as Beijing tightened controls over Hong Kong, which had enjoyed greater civic freedoms than mainland China and greater government transparency, including by police. China maintains the 2020 law was required to maintain order.

Last month, the Hong Kong government bypassed Legislative Council procedures and unilaterally enacted two new subsidiary laws under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which significantly expanded the powers of Beijing’s office overseeing national security in the city.

Under the measures, it is prohibited to disclose or film the office’s operations; civil servants must cooperate with and support national security operations; and any act that obstructs national security officers from performing their duties is criminalized.

While it remains unclear which six arrests happened in the past two weeks, on June 2, the National Security Department arrested one man and four women for allegedly conspiring to commit terrorist activities. The suspects had reportedly used phones, emails, and messaging apps to send messages threatening to bomb central government offices and a sports park, while also promoting pro-independence messages for Taiwan and Hong Kong.

On June 6, prominent democracy advocate Joshua Wong, who is already serving a four-year-and-eight-month sentence for subversion, was formally arrested on an additional charge of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.”

Last week, authorities also launched a national security investigation into six unnamed persons on suspicion of “colluding with a foreign country.” But the Security Bureau clarified that no arrests had been made as yet related to that probe.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

The closure of China Labor Bulletin, announced Thursday, came as authorities launched a new national security investigation into six unnamed people and one organization suspected of “colluding with a foreign country.”

Shortly after officials launched the probe, China Labor Bulletin – which receives funding from various foundations based outside China – announced its closure, saying: “The company is no longer able to maintain operations and has decided to dissolve and initiate the relevant procedures.”

Radio Free Asia could not immediately reach Han, a long-time contributor to RFA’s Mandarin Service, producing radio segments focusing on workers’ issues in China.

But Han, who founded China Labor Bulletin in 1994, told Taiwan’s Central News Agency that the shutdown was his decision and that he would remain in Hong Kong.

The bulletin advocated for the rights of Chinese workers and provided them legal support. It has served as a source of information for activists, journalists, and scholars on worker issues and unrest in China.

In its statement, the bulletin said: “As of today, our website will stop updating content and other social media platforms have also been removed,” the statement said.

RFA found that China Labor Bulletin’s website appeared to have been shut down on Friday, displaying a host error message, and its social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram have been deactivated.

(Anthony Wallace/AFP)

The development came as China’s National Security Office in Hong Kong ordered Hong Kong authorities to “interview” and investigate six individuals and one organization suspected of “colluding with a foreign country or external forces to endanger national security” between November 2020 and June 2024.

Authorities on Thursday executed court-approved searches of the homes of the six people and an office, located in Hong Kong’s Kwai Chung district, of the organization under investigation, seizing bank documents and equipment. All six individuals were required to surrender their travel documents.

The authorities did not provide the names of the six people or the organization under investigation.

The development underscores Beijing’s systematic dismantling of Hong Kong’s once-vibrant civil society, as authorities continue using broad national security provisions to investigate suspected foreign collaboration and force long-established organizations to shutter operations.

Since the implementation of Hong Kong’s National Security Law in 2020, at least 58 civil society organizations have been forced to disband.

Written by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

But it seems like whichever side you choose, it could get you into trouble in Hong Kong.

This week, the city’s police issued a stark warning against downloading the mobile app “Reversed Front: Bonfire” on the grounds that the game is “advocating armed revolution and the overthrow of the fundamental system of the People’s Republic of China.”

The police force’s National Security Department, or NSD, said in a statement Tuesday that any person who shares or recommends the app, or makes in-app purchases, may be violating articles of the city’s draconian national security law that punish incitement to secession and subversion. A person who downloads the app would be in possession of a publication with a “seditious intention.”

The statement concluded that such acts are “extremely serious offences” and that police would strictly enforce the law.

“Members of the public should not download the application or provide funding by any means to the relevant developer. Those who have downloaded the application should uninstall it immediately and must not attempt to defy the law,” it said.

Welcome to Hong Kong in 2025, where even gaming apps are in the cross-hairs of authorities.

Until a few years ago, the city was famed for its vibrant civic society and freedoms which had persisted since the territory came under Chinese control in 1997.

“It’s absurd that the government fears this game, especially when players are free to choose any faction—including the Red Army,” one gamer who goes by the alias Fu Tong told Radio Free Asia. “Their reaction just reflects an authoritarian regime’s deep fear of freedom and how brittle the system really is.”

Widening crackdown

The warning, apparently the first issued in Hong Kong against a gaming app, was the latest sign of a widening crackdown on basic freedoms that has ensued since massive anti-government protests that broke out six years ago. That movement was followed by the passage of the 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing and a law enacted by the Hong Kong legislature 2024.

The app’s developer, ESC Taiwan, did not immediately respond to an RFA request for comment on Tuesday’s police statement.

ESC has described itself as a civilian volunteer group that was set up in 2017 to “coordinate with overseas anti-Communist organizations and assist foreign allies with outreach and organizing efforts.” It doesn’t disclose who its members are but says they are mostly Taiwanese, with a few Hongkongers and Mongolians.

The game’s first online version was released in 2020, and a board game version launched in the same year. At the time, China’s state-run Global Times published a critical editorial accusing the game of promoting “Taiwanese independence” and “Hong Kong separatism.”

According to a person familiar with the operations of ESC, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, the developers had raised over HK$6 million (US$760,000) via crowdfunding in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2019 to develop the game, and a portion of the game’s revenue is donated to anti-China Communist Party organizations abroad.

Players of “Reversed Front: Bonfire” can assume the role of rebels from places such as Hong Kong, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, Taiwan and the Uyghur region trying to overthrow the communist regime.

“Or you can choose to lead the Communists to defeat all enemies and resume the century-long march of the Communist revolution to the other side of the land and sea!” ESC says in its promo for the app.

For the Hong Kong option, numerous game characters are inspired by the city’s past protest culture. For example, one character, “Ka Yan,” hails from Yuen Long - a town in Hong Kong’s western territories - and wears blue-and-white striped tape often used by Hong Kong police. Another, “Sylvia,” wears a gas mask and a uniform printed with the slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.”

The game’s dialogue is also steeped in Hong Kong culture and includes an instrumental version of “Glory to Hong Kong,” a banned anthem that was popular during 2019 pro-democracy protests.

While the police statement on Tuesday appeared to boost interest in the game, The Associated Press in Hong Kong reported that the app was not available in Apple app story by Wednesday morning. It remains available in the United States.

One gamer, Andy, said that after the statement was issued Hong Kong-themed player groups within the game quickly cleared their chat logs fearing they could be trawled by authorities.

He praised the game as reflecting current geopolitical realities, including China’s approach to Taiwan - the self-ruling island that Beijing claims as part of China.

Supporting this game, Andy added, also allows players to symbolically “defend Hong Kong territory.”

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Cantonese.

But it seems like whichever side you choose, it could get you into trouble in Hong Kong.

This week, the city’s police issued a stark warning against downloading the mobile app “Reversed Front: Bonfire” on the grounds that the game is “advocating armed revolution and the overthrow of the fundamental system of the People’s Republic of China.”

The police force’s National Security Department, or NSD, said in a statement Tuesday that any person who shares or recommends the app, or makes in-app purchases, may be violating articles of the city’s draconian national security law that punish incitement to secession and subversion. A person who downloads the app would be in possession of a publication with a “seditious intention.”

The statement concluded that such acts are “extremely serious offences” and that police would strictly enforce the law.

“Members of the public should not download the application or provide funding by any means to the relevant developer. Those who have downloaded the application should uninstall it immediately and must not attempt to defy the law,” it said.

Welcome to Hong Kong in 2025, where even gaming apps are in the cross-hairs of authorities.

Until a few years ago, the city was famed for its vibrant civic society and freedoms which had persisted since the territory came under Chinese control in 1997.

“It’s absurd that the government fears this game, especially when players are free to choose any faction—including the Red Army,” one gamer who goes by the alias Fu Tong told Radio Free Asia. “Their reaction just reflects an authoritarian regime’s deep fear of freedom and how brittle the system really is.”

Widening crackdown

The warning, apparently the first issued in Hong Kong against a gaming app, was the latest sign of a widening crackdown on basic freedoms that has ensued since massive anti-government protests that broke out six years ago. That movement was followed by the passage of the 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing and a law enacted by the Hong Kong legislature 2024.

The app’s developer, ESC Taiwan, did not immediately respond to an RFA request for comment on Tuesday’s police statement.

ESC has described itself as a civilian volunteer group that was set up in 2017 to “coordinate with overseas anti-Communist organizations and assist foreign allies with outreach and organizing efforts.” It doesn’t disclose who its members are but says they are mostly Taiwanese, with a few Hongkongers and Mongolians.

The game’s first online version was released in 2020, and a board game version launched in the same year. At the time, China’s state-run Global Times published a critical editorial accusing the game of promoting “Taiwanese independence” and “Hong Kong separatism.”

According to a person familiar with the operations of ESC, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, the developers had raised over HK$6 million (US$760,000) via crowdfunding in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2019 to develop the game, and a portion of the game’s revenue is donated to anti-China Communist Party organizations abroad.

Players of “Reversed Front: Bonfire” can assume the role of rebels from places such as Hong Kong, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, Taiwan and the Uyghur region trying to overthrow the communist regime.

“Or you can choose to lead the Communists to defeat all enemies and resume the century-long march of the Communist revolution to the other side of the land and sea!” ESC says in its promo for the app.

For the Hong Kong option, numerous game characters are inspired by the city’s past protest culture. For example, one character, “Ka Yan,” hails from Yuen Long - a town in Hong Kong’s western territories - and wears blue-and-white striped tape often used by Hong Kong police. Another, “Sylvia,” wears a gas mask and a uniform printed with the slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.”

The game’s dialogue is also steeped in Hong Kong culture and includes an instrumental version of “Glory to Hong Kong,” a banned anthem that was popular during 2019 pro-democracy protests.

While the police statement on Tuesday appeared to boost interest in the game, The Associated Press in Hong Kong reported that the app was not available in Apple app story by Wednesday morning. It remains available in the United States.

One gamer, Andy, said that after the statement was issued Hong Kong-themed player groups within the game quickly cleared their chat logs fearing they could be trawled by authorities.

He praised the game as reflecting current geopolitical realities, including China’s approach to Taiwan - the self-ruling island that Beijing claims as part of China.

Supporting this game, Andy added, also allows players to symbolically “defend Hong Kong territory.”

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Cantonese.

But it seems like whichever side you choose, it could get you into trouble in Hong Kong.

This week, the city’s police issued a stark warning against downloading the mobile app “Reversed Front: Bonfire” on the grounds that the game is “advocating armed revolution and the overthrow of the fundamental system of the People’s Republic of China.”

The police force’s National Security Department, or NSD, said in a statement Tuesday that any person who shares or recommends the app, or makes in-app purchases, may be violating articles of the city’s draconian national security law that punish incitement to secession and subversion. A person who downloads the app would be in possession of a publication with a “seditious intention.”

The statement concluded that such acts are “extremely serious offences” and that police would strictly enforce the law.

“Members of the public should not download the application or provide funding by any means to the relevant developer. Those who have downloaded the application should uninstall it immediately and must not attempt to defy the law,” it said.

Welcome to Hong Kong in 2025, where even gaming apps are in the cross-hairs of authorities.

Until a few years ago, the city was famed for its vibrant civic society and freedoms which had persisted since the territory came under Chinese control in 1997.

“It’s absurd that the government fears this game, especially when players are free to choose any faction—including the Red Army,” one gamer who goes by the alias Fu Tong told Radio Free Asia. “Their reaction just reflects an authoritarian regime’s deep fear of freedom and how brittle the system really is.”

Widening crackdown

The warning, apparently the first issued in Hong Kong against a gaming app, was the latest sign of a widening crackdown on basic freedoms that has ensued since massive anti-government protests that broke out six years ago. That movement was followed by the passage of the 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing and a law enacted by the Hong Kong legislature 2024.

The app’s developer, ESC Taiwan, did not immediately respond to an RFA request for comment on Tuesday’s police statement.

ESC has described itself as a civilian volunteer group that was set up in 2017 to “coordinate with overseas anti-Communist organizations and assist foreign allies with outreach and organizing efforts.” It doesn’t disclose who its members are but says they are mostly Taiwanese, with a few Hongkongers and Mongolians.

The game’s first online version was released in 2020, and a board game version launched in the same year. At the time, China’s state-run Global Times published a critical editorial accusing the game of promoting “Taiwanese independence” and “Hong Kong separatism.”

According to a person familiar with the operations of ESC, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, the developers had raised over HK$6 million (US$760,000) via crowdfunding in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2019 to develop the game, and a portion of the game’s revenue is donated to anti-China Communist Party organizations abroad.

Players of “Reversed Front: Bonfire” can assume the role of rebels from places such as Hong Kong, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, Taiwan and the Uyghur region trying to overthrow the communist regime.

“Or you can choose to lead the Communists to defeat all enemies and resume the century-long march of the Communist revolution to the other side of the land and sea!” ESC says in its promo for the app.

For the Hong Kong option, numerous game characters are inspired by the city’s past protest culture. For example, one character, “Ka Yan,” hails from Yuen Long - a town in Hong Kong’s western territories - and wears blue-and-white striped tape often used by Hong Kong police. Another, “Sylvia,” wears a gas mask and a uniform printed with the slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.”

The game’s dialogue is also steeped in Hong Kong culture and includes an instrumental version of “Glory to Hong Kong,” a banned anthem that was popular during 2019 pro-democracy protests.

While the police statement on Tuesday appeared to boost interest in the game, The Associated Press in Hong Kong reported that the app was not available in Apple app story by Wednesday morning. It remains available in the United States.

One gamer, Andy, said that after the statement was issued Hong Kong-themed player groups within the game quickly cleared their chat logs fearing they could be trawled by authorities.

He praised the game as reflecting current geopolitical realities, including China’s approach to Taiwan - the self-ruling island that Beijing claims as part of China.

Supporting this game, Andy added, also allows players to symbolically “defend Hong Kong territory.”

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Cantonese.

“The Lennon Wall is an important collective memory for us (Hong Kongers),” said Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong, who moved to Taiwan’s Taichung city in 2021. “From 2014 to 2019, it was the place where we spread our democratic demands. Now the Lennon Wall and democracy and freedom in Hong Kong are gone.”

Hong Kong’s Lennon Walls – named after musician John Lennon’s peaceful activism and inspired by Prague’s Velvet Revolution of the 1980s – became iconic features of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, transforming public spaces into canvases for democratic expression.

Filled with colorful displays of sticky notes, posters, artwork, and messages such as “We Hong Kongers never give up”, Hong Kong’s Lennon Walls allowed ordinary citizens to express their political views and demonstrate their solidarity.

Lennon Walls sprouted on available public spaces across Hong Kong, including underground tunnels and on pillars outside railway stations, during the 2014 Umbrella Movement and again in 2019, during the anti-extradition movement when millions took to the streets to protest a proposed legislation that would allow criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

In Taiwan, the Lennon Wall in Taichung’s pedestrian underpass is the only such publicly accessible wall in the region, and Hong Kong exiles in the democratic island are keen to preserve it, even as they look to establish more such walls, including one in capital Taipei.

Among them is Wong, who with his friends on Thursday marked the anniversary of the anti-extradition movement with a visit to the Lennon Wall in Taichung and sang before it the protest anthem of the 2019 pro-democracy protests, “Glory to Hong Kong.”

Earlier this year, part of the Lennon Wall in Taichung was reportedly cleared during a regular cleanup and maintenance of the underpass by volunteers. This prompted a statement from city officials who said they respect the wall as a symbol of public expression and that any future cleaning must be reported in advance.

Wong now leads efforts to preserve and refresh the display on the Lennon Wall in Taichung, particularly in the cleared sections, viewing it as both an act of commemoration and resistance.

“Crisis brings opportunity. As a curator, I want to turn the cleaned sections into art spaces,” said Wong, who comes to the Lennon Wall in Taichung every week and pays out of pocket to reprint and post high-quality artworks.

“If someone tears it down again, I’ll repost it — just like we did during the 2019 protests. That persistence is the resilience of resistance,” he said.

(Credit: AFP)

Another Hong Kong exile Fu Tang is currently looking for a location in Taipei to establish a permanent Lennon Wall in the city. He believes that protecting these spaces represents core Taiwanese values too.

“The Lennon Wall represents the right to freedom of expression of diversity and tolerance,” Fu said. “Protecting the Lennon Wall is not only about protecting the freedom of expression of Hong Kong people in Taiwan, but also about protecting the important values of peace and tolerance in Taiwan.”

Fu believes the establishment of a permanent Lennon Walls in Taiwan will also serve as reminders for the Taiwanese people to cherish their existing freedoms. “It also tells the world that Taiwan is not part of China, because there is no room for Lennon Walls in China,” added Fu.

Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, has welcomed Hong Kong refugees through various humanitarian programs, and many Hong Kongers who participated in the 2019 anti-extradition protests have now made the democratic island their home.

Among them is Tsai Chih-hao, who was one of the protestors who stormed Hong Kong’s Legislative Council in 2019.

“As a protester, I am very happy that I can still see the Lennon Wall in Taiwan,” Tsai said. “There are still people willing to maintain it and allow people who come to Taiwan to visit it. This means that there are still people who remember the 2019 anti-extradition movement and the efforts made by the people of Hong Kong for democracy.”

Translated by Rachel C. Edited by Tenzin Pema.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

One of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy activists, Joshua Wong, was transported from prison to court Friday and charged with colluding with foreign forces, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Wong, 28, is already serving a four-year-and-eight-month sentence for subversion. He is currently due for release about one-and-a-half years from now. If found guilty on the new charge it could prolong his imprisonment.

Wong is one of the most internationally recognizable faces of the now-quashed democracy movement in the city. He was among 45 Hong Kong opposition politicians and pro-democracy activists who were convicted with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the city’s 2020 National Security Law for taking part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.

Wong appeared at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Friday afternoon wearing a navy blue shirt. He appeared in good spirits. After the court clerk read out the charge, Wong responded, “Understood,” and waved and nodded to supporters as he left. The entire hearing lasted about three minutes.

He was charged with one count of “conspiring to collude with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.” He was specifically accused of conspiring with exiled activist Nathan Law and others in 2020.

The case was adjourned until Aug. 8 to allow for further investigation, and Wong did not apply for bail and will remain in custody. He was not required to enter a plea.

(Kin Cheung/AP)

Dozens of uniformed officers were stationed outside the courthouse. Police set up barricades and vehicle-stoppers at nearby intersections, and police dogs were deployed for searches.

Sarah Brooks, China director at Amnesty International, said: “This new charge underscores the authorities’ fear of prominent dissenters and their willingness to do whatever it takes to keep them locked up for as long as possible.”

The nongovernment Hong Kong Human Rights Information Centre condemned what it called strategic abuse of the National Security Law to launch politically motivated prosecutions of pro-democracy leaders.

The group said the timing of the new charge—nearly five years after the alleged events—as clearly designed to avoid any overlap in sentencing, thereby maximizing Wong’s time in prison.

Wong rose to prominence during student-led protests more than a decade ago. He also joined massive democracy rallies in 2019 that triggered the imposition of the national security law.

China maintains the law is required to maintain order. It has cracked down on political dissent and squelched a once vibrant civil society in the territory.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

China announced Friday it was replacing its top official in Hong Kong who was regarded as a symbol of Beijing’s hardline approach toward the territory since 2019 pro-democracy protests.

China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said it was removing Zheng Yanxiong from several key positions including as director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Zheng was viewed as the Chinese Communist Party’s top envoy in Hong Kong and a key liaison with Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee, who was appointed by China’s State Council as the head of the Hong Kong government.

No reason was given Friday for removing Zheng and if he was being appointed to another position.

Zheng was dispatched by Beijing to Hong Kong in 2019 to oversee the crackdown on the protests, before his appointment in 2020 as the first head of the Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong. In 2023, he was promoted to director of the Liaison Office - the position he’s now vacating.

Throughout his tenure, he aggressively promoted the enforcement of Hong Kong’s National Security Law as Beijing looked to curtail the freedoms that had set the city apart from the mainland since the 1997 handover from British control. His tenure saw tighter controls over the press, academia, and civil society — drawing widespread international criticism.

In 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Zheng under the Hong Kong Autonomy Act for undermining the city’s autonomy, banning him from entering the United States.

In 2023, Zheng took the unprecedented step of reviewing a Hong Kong police graduation ceremony, warning new officers of “hostile foreign forces” trying to make a comeback. Analysts said that was intended to assert Beijing’s firm control over security in the territory.

Friday’s announcement said China’s State Council has now appointed Zhou Ji to succeed Zheng as director of the Liaison Office and national security adviser in Hong Kong.

Zhou previously served as executive deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

Hong Kong police have questioned two relatives of actor and journalist Joe Tay in the latest case of authorities targeting the family of wanted overseas pro-democracy activists.

Tay, who lives in Canada, is among six pro-democracy campaigners that the Hong Kong government in December accused of violating a national security law, offering rewards of HK$1 million (US$130,000) for help in arresting them. The six were accused of crimes including incitement to secession, subversion of state power, and collusion with foreign forces.

Tay has lived in Canada since 2020. In 2021, he set up a YouTube channel, HongKongerStation, focusing on Chinese government repression in Hong Kong. He recently ran, unsuccessfully, as a Conservative Party candidate in Canada’s federal election.

On Thursday, officers from Hong Kong’s National Security Department brought in Tay’s cousin and the cousin’s spouse for questioning, Hong Kong media reported. After several hours, they were released and escorted out by police.

In response to media inquiries, Hong Kong police confirmed that two individuals had been summoned on Thursday to assist in an investigation. They added that the case remains under investigation and no arrests have been made.

Earlier this month, a 57-year-old male cousin of Tay and that cousin’s spouse were also taken from their home by national security police for questioning and later released.

Authorities allege that Tay, 62, violated the National Security Law by publishing videos and posts promoting Hong Kong independence and calling for foreign sanctions on China and Hong Kong, including invoking the Magnitsky Act – U.S. legislation to sanction human rights abusers - to target Hong Kong officials.

Hong Kong authorities in recent weeks have questioned the relatives of other accused activists, including the parents of Frances Hui, a pro-democracy advocate based in the United States.

Earlier this month, Hong Kong police made the first formal prosecution of a relative of a wanted individual. They charged Anna Kwok’s father, Kwok Yin-sang, with “attempting to handle the assets of an absconder,” making him the first family member prosecuted under the National Security Law passed last year. Kwok, 68, was granted bail last week.

Anna Kwok is executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

The Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), InMedia, The Witness, ReNews, and Boomhead are among the outlets that have received backdated tax demands from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) since November 2023, according to the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), the city’s main press union. The HKJA said it is also under audit.

“Hong Kong is taking a page out of the playbook of authoritarian regimes elsewhere that are using similar intimidation tactics,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Targeting journalists with tax audits without sufficient evidence not only rings alarm bells for press freedom but also raises concerns more broadly about Hong Kong as a safe and reliable location to do business.”

Tax authorities claimed that the news outlets, journalists and some of their family members had not reported their full income from 2017 to 2019, according to HKJA chairperson Selina Cheng, who said the audits contained errors and were “unreasonable.” Cheng and her parents are among those under tax probes.

The HKJA said the IRD sent separate back tax demands to each media outlet and to the association itself, with a combined total of around HK$700,000 (US$89,450), based on the union’s calculations. It added that more than 20 individuals — including journalists, former board members, and some of their family members — also received tax demands, with the total amount requested reaching up to HK$1 million (US$127,900).

In a statement, the HKFP said that it is undergoing a seven-year audit after being “randomly selected” by the IRD.

Hong Kong has seen a dramatic decline in press freedom since the enactment of the Beijing-imposed national security law in 2020. Several independent media outlets, including Apple Daily and Stand News, have been forced to shut down, while journalists have been assaulted, arrested and imprisoned. 

In response to CPJ’s request for comment on the audits, an IRD spokesperson said the department follows “established procedures” and the industry or background of a taxpayer “has no bearing” on such audits.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The Hong Kong Journalists Association said that at least eight independent media outlets and about 20 journalists and their family members have been subjected to tax audits by the Inland Revenue Department for tax claims dating back seven years.

The association expressed concern that this could further reduce the operating space for small-scale and independent news outlets in a city once known for its freewheeling media. It called for the revenue department to stop audits without clear justification and to publicly explain the rationale for what it sees as a potentially coordinated crackdown on independent journalism.

“For small outlets like ours, this is a serious reputational attack. Being accused of tax evasion is defamation. The authorities’ frequent scrutiny of journalists and media organizations creates anxiety and casts a shadow over press freedom in Hong Kong,” Selina Cheng, the association’s chair, told a news conference.

The affected organizations include the association itself, Independent Media, The Witness, Hong Kong Free Press, DB Channel and ReNews. The targeted individuals are primarily current or former directors of news outlets, shareholders, journalists and their relatives.

(AP)

Cheng said audits are riddled with errors and irregularities. Examples include demands to pay profit tax for years before a company was established; assigning business registration numbers to individuals without any registered business; and incorrectly treating all bank deposits as taxable income. In some cases, people were audited as spouses although they were not married at the time, or as dependents despite not claiming any allowances.

Cheng said the revenue department was imposing “preemptive penalties without due process.” She said many journalists have limited incomes and resources to defend themselves.

In response, the Inland Revenue Department told The Associated Press in an email that it has established procedures to review the information provided by taxpayers and that it will follow up on cases in which information shows a possible breach of rules.

“The industry or background of a taxpayer has no bearing on such reviews,” it said, declining to comment on any particular case.

Hong Kong has seen a shrinking in the space for independent media, particularly in the wake of mass protests for democratic freedoms in 2019 as Beijing tightened its grip on the territory. Hong Kong had been permitted more liberties than mainland China, including media freedoms, after the U.K. ceded control of the city in 1997.

Several major independent outlets in Hong Kong have been shuttered and had staff arrested since Beijing-backed security legislation was passed in 2020 and then beefed up in 2024. Radio Free Asia closed its bureau in Hong Kong in March 2024.

In the global press freedom ranking issued annually by Reporters Without Borders, Hong Kong stood at 18th out of 180 countries and territories in 2002, but fell to 148th in 2022. The city’s ranking now stands at 140, between Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

The opposition-free Legislative Council on Wednesday passed an amendment to an ordinance that was enacted in 1997 to protect the harbor as a “special public asset and a natural heritage of the Hong Kong people.”

The amendment eases stringent restrictions on land reclamation and a presumption against such projects without court approval that they satisfy an “overriding public need.” Environmentalists say the amendment will allow the city’s leader to have the final say instead.

During the debate on the amendment, lawmakers from the pro-Beijng Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, including Regina Ip and Edward Leung, argued that the previous restrictions and thresholds were “too high” and hindered harbor development.

Tik Chi-yuen of the centrist party Third Side, who abstained from voting, questioned whether the amendment undermines the original intent of checks and balances by stripping the judiciary of its oversight role.

The 1997 ordinance - adopted in the year that Hong Kong shifted from the control of Britain to China - has been used to stop past major reclamation efforts. Most notably, in 2004, the city’s top court ruled against a plan to reclaim land off Wan Chai district.

Winston Chu of the non-governmental advocacy group, Society for Protection of the Harbour, which was established in the 1990s, has said that the amendment would allow the government to “act as judge over its own proposals,” and then become the owner of the reclaimed land.

Victoria Harbor is a natural feature that separates Hong Kong Island from the Kowloon Peninsula. It covers an area of about 16 square miles (40 square kilometers) and serves as a major conduit for trade and as a tourist attraction. The high rises near the harborside are a distinctive feature of the city’s skyline.

In the past five years, Beijing has tightened control of Hong Kong, squelching a protest movement and diminishing the semi-autonomous status the city enjoyed after colonial rule by Britain ended in 1997. Opposition lawmakers have quit from the legislature or been ousted.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

Hong Kong police have arrested the father and brother of wanted U.S.-based activist Anna Kwok, local media reported on Friday.

The police said they arrested two men aged 35 and 68 on Wednesday, suspecting them of violating the national security and crimes ordinances by “attempting to directly or indirectly handle the funds of fugitives.” They didn’t identify the men.

Local media said the police discovered that Kwok’s father, Kwok Yin-sang, traveled overseas to meet her. After returning to Hong Kong he tried to withdraw nearly US$14,000 from his daughter’s life and accident insurance policies, police said.

Kwok’s brother worked at an insurance company, according to the Sing Tao Daily, and may have used his knowledge of the industry to help manage his sister’s finances.

Kwok’s father was denied bail while her brother was released, Reuters reported. The family’s lawyer could not be reached for comment, the news agency said.

Anna Kwok is the executive director of the Washington-based political lobbying group the Hong Kong Democracy Council. Hong Kong authorities offered a HK$1 million (US$128,000) bounty for her capture, accusing her of “colluding with foreign forces” under the national security law, which bans criticism of the authorities.

Kwok’s parents and two brothers were detained in August last year and questioned over whether they had any contact or financial dealings with her.

Kwok wrote on Facebook at the time that her family had never helped her and were probably unaware of the nature of her work. She said the Hong Kong government wanted to silence her by harassing her family, but she would not give up trying to pave the way for Hong Kong’s freedom and self-determination.

Edited by Mike Firn and Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

Claudia Mo, Jeremy Tam, Kwok Ka-ki and Gary Fan were among 47 activists arrested for the election activities. Only two of the 47 were acquitted after a grueling 118-day trial that ended in November 2024 with prison sentences of four to 10 years.

Vehicles carrying the freed activists left three prisons early on Tuesday amid tight security, The Associated Press reported.

Reporters outside Mo’s home were told by husband Philip Bowring that she was resting and didn’t want to speak to them, according to the AFP news agency.

“She’s well and she’s in good spirits,” he said. “We look forward to being together again.”

Mo, Tam, Kwok and Fan – who received the shortest sentences of the 47 – had their prison time reduced after pleading guilty.

(Louise Delmotte/AP)

The group organized the 2020 primary to find the best pro-democracy candidates for Hong Kong’s September 2020 Legislative Council election at a time when Beijing was aggressively eroding the territory’s autonomy. More than 600,000 people cast their votes in the preliminary poll.

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s governor at the time, postponed the 2020 election, citing health concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government then rewrote the electoral rulebook to prevent pro-democracy candidates from running, eventually holding a fresh election in December 2021 in which only “patriots” approved by a Beijing-backed committee were allowed to stand.

On Jan. 6, 2021, the newly formed national security police arrested 55 people. They brought formal charges against 47 of them, then denied bail to the majority.

The 47 pro-democracy activists were charged with subversion under the city’s 2020 National Security Law, a charge which carries a maximum life sentence.

The prosecution argued that their bid to win a majority was “a conspiracy” to undermine the city’s government and take control of the Legislative Council.

The long-running case sparked international outrage, with protests from the U.S., U.K. and Australian governments, and the United Nations. Hong Kong’s last British colonial governor, Lord Patten of Barnes, called the case “an affront to the people of Hong Kong.”

Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Mike Firn for RFA.

Zen, 93, departed for Vatican City on Wednesday evening after a court granted the temporary return of his passport, which was confiscated after his arrest in 2022 for allegedly colluding with foreign forces and endangering national security, two sources told Radio Free Asia.

Cardinal Zen, who is currently on bail after his 2022 arrest, is traveling with a member of the Salesian religious congregation, one of the largest groups in the church, the sources said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

World leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Italian Prime Minister Giogia Meloni, are expected to attend the funeral of Pope Francis, who died Monday at the age of 88.

The papal funeral is scheduled to take place on Saturday.

Cardinal Stephen Chow, the current bishop of Hong Kong, has also arrived in Rome to attend Pope Francis’s funeral and participate in the secret conclave to vote for the new pope, according to the city’s Catholic Social Communications Office.

(PETER PARKS/AFP)

In Italy, Zen will be received by Father John Paul Cheung, a priest from the Salesian order, who will help coordinate his schedule there, the sources said.

The Associated Press on Thursday quoted Cardinal Zen’s secretary as confirming that the retired bishop had recently applied to the court for his passport to be released.

The cardinal intends to return to Hong Kong after attending the funeral, though the exact date of his return is yet to be confirmed, the AP reported, citing his secretary.

Earlier in the week, Zen criticized the Vatican for providing only a day’s notice before convening the first General Congregation, prior to the papal conclave, saying the short notice made it difficult for elderly cardinals from peripheral regions to arrive on time.

Conditions for travel

This is not the first time Cardinal Zen has been permitted to retrieve his passport. In January 2023, he was allowed to attend the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

During that visit, Zen met privately with Pope Francis — their first meeting since Zen’s 2022 arrest. In a later interview, Francis had described Zen as “a gentle soul,” while Zen, in turn, said Pope Francis made him feel very warm and comforted.

The conditions for Zen’s travel are expected to be similar to those in the past, including a ban on media interviews and surrender of his passport to the police upon his return, in accordance with bail conditions for those arrested under the national security law.

In May 2022, Zen’s arrest by Hong Kong’s national security police along with other pro-democracy figures sparked international outrage from governments and rights activists.

Later that year, he and his co-defendants were fined after being found guilty of failing to properly register their 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which offered financial, legal and psychological help to people arrested during the city’s 2019 protest movement.

They are scheduled to appear in court for an appeal hearing on Dec. 3, 2025.

Zen has been critical of the Vatican’s controversial agreement with China to allow the Chinese government to propose candidates for bishop.

In particular, he has accused Cardinal Pietro Parolin – the Vatican’s secretary of state and a frontrunner to become the new pontiff – of being “a man of little faith,” for his role in architecting the deal that many say undermines the church’s mission in China.

The next pope will be elected by the College of Cardinals in a secret conclave. Zen, like other cardinals aged over 80, does not have voting rights but can participate in the discussions.

Of the three cardinals in the Hong Kong diocese, only Chow, 65, is eligible to vote. Ascending to the papacy requires the votes of 90 out of 135 cardinals eligible to participate in the Vatican conclave.

Several prominent cardinals who oversee dioceses in Asia are regarded by the region’s faithful as worthy candidates to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. An Asian pope would be a first for the church.

Edited by Tenzin Pema and Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas (AIHKO), will be led by Hong Kong diaspora activists operating from key international hubs including Australia, Canada, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States, Amnesty said in a statement.

“The gutting of Hong Kong’s civil society has been a tragedy for the city with more than 100 non-profits and media outlets shut down or forced to flee,” the statement said. “We are now ready to intensify our efforts by building new communities of support driven by the Hong Kong diaspora.”

Amnesty said that since pro-democracy protests in 2019, more than 10,000 people, many of them students, have been arrested for protest-related activities. Over 300 people have been arrested for alleged acts of “endangering national security.”

It said that AIHKO is Amnesty International’s first-ever section founded and operated entirely “in exile.”

“Being overseas provides us with a degree of protection, allowing us to speak more freely and engage in advocacy work. We have a responsibility to do more to support those who remain in Hong Kong and continue their vital efforts,” Fernando Cheung, AIHKO board member and former Hong Kong legislator, was quoted as saying.

The U.K.-based human rights group was founded in 1961 with particular focus on the plight of political prisoners. Amnesty International’s local office in Hong Kong ceased operations on Oct. 31, 2021.

AIHKO, which is officially registered in Switzerland, will focus on advocating for human rights of Hong Kongers, within Hong Kong and abroad, the statement said.

Hong Kong was once a bastion of free media and expression in Asia, qualities that helped make it an international financial center and a regional hub for journalism and civil society groups.

But demonstrations in 2019 against Beijing’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s freedoms led to the passage of a national security law in 2020 that stifled dissent, making life increasingly precarious for independent groups that criticized China.

Radio Free Asia closed in its Hong Kong bureau in March 2024, saying the city’s recently amended national security law, also known as “Article 23,” had raised safety concerns for its reporters and staff members.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Jackie Chen was one of several social workers who tried to mediate between police and demonstrators. She carried a loudspeaker and urged police to use restraint and to refrain from firing non-lethal bullets during a protest that took place on Aug. 31, 2019.

At Wednesday’s hearing in the Hong Kong district court, three co-defendants were sentenced to two years and five months in prison after entering a guilty plea. Chen, who pleaded guilty and got the stiffer sentence, had faced up to seven years in prison.

Police made more than 10,000 arrests during and after the 2019 protests, which began as a show of mass public anger at plans to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China.

They broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.

Chen was acquitted in 2020, but prosecutors appealed and won a retrial in another example of the harsh stance that Hong Kong authorities have taken with political cases.

When Chen was convicted last month, Judge May Chung wrote in her verdict that Chen used her position as a social worker to support the protesters and used the loudspeaker to shout unfounded accusations against the police.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

BlackRock and CK Hutchison, which is controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Lee Ka-shing, announced earlier this month that they had reached an agreement in principle for BlackRock to acquire CK Hutchison’s 90% interests in Panama Ports, which owns and operates the Panama terminals Balboa and Cristobal.

BlackRock will also buy CK Hutchison’s 80% controlling interest in a further 43 ports in 23 other countries, the companies said in a joint statement dated March 4.

(Bobby Yip/Reuters)

The sale came amid growing calls in Washington for action to loosen Beijing’s influence stemming from Chinese and Hong Kong companies' control over key infrastructure on the Panama Canal and other port facilities in the Western hemisphere.

On Feb. 3, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened Panamanian leader José Raúl Mulino with potential American retaliation if his country didn’t immediately reduce Chinese influence over the canal.

Lee said concerns about the deal “deserve serious attention,” possibly hinting at some form of legal action.

“We oppose the abusive use of coercion or bullying tactics in international, economic and trade relations,” Lee told journalists in Hong Kong on Tuesday, adding that Hong Kong would handle any commercial transaction “according to the law.”

“The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government urges foreign governments to provide a fair and just environment for enterprises, including enterprises from Hong Kong,” he told journalists at a regular briefing on Tuesday.

(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

The ruling Chinese Communist Party responded by sending a delegation to Panama led by Ma Hui, vice-minister of the Central Committee’s International Department, state news agency Xinhua reported.

“China is willing to strengthen exchanges with Panamanian political parties and think tanks, enhance mutual understanding and trust, and solidify public support for friendly relations between China and Panama,” it quoted Ma as saying on March 17.

The visit came as Communist Party-backed media criticized the CK Hutchison port sale, citing a “close personal relationship” between BlackRock and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hong Kong’s Ta Kung Pao newspaper said the Trump administration had “directly and blatantly intervened and manipulated the deal without scruple, using it as a way to promote their global hegemony.”

“Now that the Panama Canal has been Americanized and politicized, the United States will definitely be using it to promote its own political agenda,” the paper said, citing “huge risks” for Chinese companies' shipping costs and supply chains.

It said plans to charge Chinese ships bigger docking fees could affect China’s shipping industry, foreign trade and President Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road” global supply chain, infrastructure and influence program.

(Enea Lebrun/Reuters)

“This is power politics packaged as commercial behavior,” the paper said in an editorial that was posted to the official website of Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (in Chinese).

It said accusations on social media that CK Hutchison had engaged in “spineless grovelling and profit-seeking while disregard the national interest” were “completely understandable.”

“The company concerned should think twice ... and think carefully about what side it’s on,” the paper said.

Neither China’s State Administration for Market Regulation nor the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council had responded to requests for comment by the time of publication.

Financial analyst Simon Lee said Lee Ka-shing was caught between a rock and a hard place.

“If he sells, he’s done for. If he doesn’t sell, he’s done for,” Lee said. “It seems that it’s no longer possible to be just a business, whether in China or the United States.”

“Now you have to pick a side -- you can’t just do business like you could before.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Dawn Yu for RFA Cantonese.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Paul Eckert.

Fu Tong, who now lives in democratic Taiwan, said police back home seem to be targeting online speech since the passing of a second national security law that includes a broader “sedition” offense than earlier legislation.

“It’s pretty serious now,” Fu told RFA in an interview on Monday. “Before, they would just read my posts. But since Article 23, they have even been monitoring my interactions with my friends.”

A friend of his was hauled in for questioning by national security police after Fu left a comment on their Facebook account, he said.

“Now, I daren’t leave comments on my friends' Facebook [posts],” he said.

(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

The Safeguarding National Security bill, commonly known as Article 23, was passed on March 23, 2024.

It came amid a crackdown on dissent that has used both the 2020 National Security Law and colonial-era sedition laws to prosecute and jail people for protest and political opposition in unprecedented numbers.

Chilling effect

The government said the legislation was needed to plug “loopholes” left by the 2020 National Security Law and claims it is needed to deal with clandestine activity by “foreign forces" in the city, which the ruling Communist Party blames for the 2019 mass protest movement that was sparked by plans to allow extradition to mainland China.

The law proposes sentences of up to life imprisonment for “treason,” “insurrection,” “sabotage” and “mutiny,” 20 years for espionage and 10 years for crimes linked to “state secrets” and “sedition.”

It also allows the authorities to revoke the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passports of anyone who flees overseas, and to target overseas activists with financial sanctions.

(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

The concept of “collusion with foreign forces ” runs throughout the draft bill, and sentences are harsher where “foreign forces” are deemed to be involved.

Fu said Article 23 has had a chilling effect on Hong Kong-related activism, even overseas, with fewer exiled Hong Kongers turning out for protests and other events in Taiwan.

He said activists still plan to go ahead with a protest marking the first anniversary of the Article 23 legislation in Taipei on Sunday, however.

Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Center for Asian Law, Georgetown University, said there are other examples of the law being used to censor social media.

In May 2024, Hong Kong police arrested jailed human rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung and five other people — the first arrests to be made under the recently passed Article 23 security law — for making social media posts with “seditious intent” ahead of the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre.

Being watched

He said the government is using the legislation to bolster the feeling that ordinary people are being watched.

“Over the past year, the most common charge used to prosecute people under Article 23 has been sedition,” Lai said. “Sedition is kind of a catch-all offense, and the government is using it to target more ordinary Hong Kongers.”

“The point is to warn Hong Kongers that they’re not immune just because they’re not a political figure ... and that ordinary people are also being monitored when they go online,” he said.

(Tang Zheng/RFA)

The government hasn’t made public details of the number of prosecutions under the law to date, but Lai said that the cases that make the news may only be the tip of the iceberg.

He said the recent confiscation of exiled pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui’s assets only came to light because Hui himself spoke out about it.

He said the law grants sweeping powers of surveillance to the authorities, increasing the size of the police dragnet to include everyday comments and activities.

“The biggest difference between Article 23 and the 2020 National Security Law is that Article 23 provides more powers for the Hong Kong government to chip away at the system,” Lai said.

“The government can decide not to parole people if it judges them to be a threat to national security, and it can prevent defendants from seeing a lawyer, and hold them in police stations for longer than before,” he said.

He said it was significant that the Court of Appeal allowed an injunction against the banned 2019 protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” after the Article 23 legislation was passed.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

Such trips to the mainland are increasing seen as compulsory by the city government, but the standards regarding access to information in mainland China are far lower than in Hong Kong.

St. Paul’s College, a HK$44,000 (US$5,700)-a-year Christian secondary school, was informed on Feb. 28 that one of its Form 5 students had “passed away,” the school said in a press release dated March 1.

“Our teachers and students are very much saddened by the news,” the statement said, adding that the incident is “currently under investigation and it is inappropriate to speculate.”

The school has deployed a School Crisis Management Team, with educational psychologists, school social workers and guidance personnel offering emotional support to students and teachers, it said.

(St. Paul's College/Facebook via Facebook)

The Hong Kong government’s Education Bureau said the boy’s death was an “unfortunate accident,” but denied it was linked to the study trip activities, which had gone smoothly.

An online petition calling for more information about the incident was deleted after a day, a former education official told RFA Cantonese.

No photos of the trip had been uploaded to the school’s Facebook page as of March 11.

Shift to patriotic education

Mainland study trips are increasingly seen as compulsory by Hong Kong’s Education Bureau as part of the shift from the former Liberal Studies civic education program to the patriotic Moral, Civic and National Education program in primary and secondary schools favored by Beijing, a former government examinations official told RFA Cantonese.

The Liberal Studies critical thinking program, rolled out in Hong Kong schools in 2009, was blamed by Chinese officials and media for several mass protests in recent years against national security legislation, patriotic education and extradition to mainland China.

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While the government has sent a delegation to Hangzhou following the incident, it hasn’t commented publicly on how the boy died, prompting concerns among parents.

“As for the unfortunate accident in Hangzhou earlier, we are very sad and extend our deepest condolences to the family,” Secretary for Education Christine Choi told reporters on March 7.

“At present, the investigation has come to an end, and we clearly understand that the incident has nothing to do with the exchange activities or the inspection trip,” she said. “We respect the family’s wishes ... and will not disclose the details of the case.”

‘Everything is compulsory’

The lack of transparency around the boy’s death has prompted widespread speculation on social media over the reason for it, including unconfirmed reports that he died in a “schoolyard bullying” incident.

But the government and school have declined to comment.

Hans Yeung, a former government examinations official who runs the Edulancet Instagram account, said the boy’s death comes as the government is urging Hong Kong schools to send students on more and more study trips to mainland China as part of its “sister schools” initiative.

St. Paul’s has sister schools in Xi’an and Shenzhen, with another possible connection to a school in Wuhan, according to its Facebook page.

Under the new approach, a Beijing-backed subject titled “Citizenship and Social Development” has been made a compulsory part of the high school diploma.

Yeung said Hong Kong -- once a target for the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s United Front outreach and influence program -- is now expected to engage in compulsory patriotic education.

“When it’s United Front, they show you the fun stuff, give you some nice food to make you feel good [about China], but now they are under its rule, so everything is compulsory,” he said.

“Now, the food they get will be very ordinary, and everything will be rushed,” Yeung said, adding that the Education Bureau has made attendance on a mainland China study trip a prerequisite for applicants to take the social studies paper in the high school diploma.

That in turn will affect their eligibility to go to college, he said.

“Citizenship and Social Development ... is a compulsory subject, and a small thing like a study trip can affect eligibility to sit the exam,” Yeung said. “If they are ineligible for this exam ... they can’t apply to university.”

He said there is little parents can do about this.

“Parents will kick up more of a fuss and ask more questions but ... there is no room for protest in the education sector any more,” Yeung said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.

There are concerns that much of the online footage of those protests, most of which is banned in the city amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent, will no longer be available to the general public.

That will make it easier for the authorities to impose their own narrative on events in the city’s recent history.

Facebook notified users last month that it will be deleting archived live video streams from June 5, while newly streamed live video will be deleted after 30 days from Feb. 19, 2025.

“Since the Hong Kong news media have relied heavily on Facebook Live for reporting in the past, the Journalists Association now calls on the heads of mainstream, independent and citizen media and online editors to back up their videos as soon as possible,” the Hong Kong Journalists Association said.

“If necessary, you can follow the platform’s instructions to apply for an extension to up to six months before deletion,” it said.

Capturing history

In one livestream still available on YouTube from Oct. 1, 2019, an out-of-breath protester collates video feeds from several sources on the ground, commenting on what is unfolding while sounding out of breath from “running” at a protest a minute earlier.

(Meta)

In a Facebook Live video from the same day, a professional reporter from government broadcaster RTHK, which has since been forced to toe the ruling Chinese Communist Party line in its reporting, follows protests in Wong Tai Sin, explaining what is going on to live viewers.

While one feed is run by protesters and the other by a professional journalist, both offer a sense of boots-on-the-ground immediacy that would be crucial for anyone seeking to learn what the protests were about many years later.

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EXPLAINED: What is the Article 23 security law in Hong Kong?

A reporter for an online media outlet who gave only the pseudonym Ken for fear of reprisals said a very large proportion of the public record of the 2019 protests was streamed live on Facebook, with more than 100 videos stored there.

While current media organizations have made backups, the footage will no longer be there for anyone to browse, making the record of that year less publicly available, Ken said.

“It’s like we’ve lost an online library,” he said. “Unless someone is willing to back it up and put it all online, there’ll be no way of finding that history any more, should you want to.”

Ken and his colleagues are concerned that online records of the 2019 could disappear entirely in a few years' time, especially as republishing them from Hong Kong could render the user vulnerable to accusations of “glorifying” the protests, and prosecution under two national security laws.

(VIncent Yu/AP)

“This is a very serious problem, because certain events or people may be completely forgotten about in a few years, maybe 10 years,” Ken said.

But there are risks attached to republishing video content -- especially for residents of Hong Kong.

“You don’t know whether you will be accused of incitement if you post it again,” Ken said. “You never know what your live broadcast captured and whether there was issue ... under the two national security laws.”

Permanent loss of historical material

A fellow journalist who gave only the pseudonym Mr. G for fear of reprisals said his media organization still has access to its own live streamed footage of the 2019 protests from both Facebook and YouTube.

But he said the planned deletions could lead to “the permanent loss of some historical material.”

Facebook said that the owners of the videos will receive an email or notification in advance “and can choose to download the videos, transfer them to the cloud, or convert them into reels short videos within 90 days.”

“If users need more time to process old videos, they can apply to postpone the deadline by 6 months,” it said, adding that most live video is viewed in the first few weeks after being uploaded.

Veteran media commentator To Yiu-ming said social media platforms aren’t suited for use as a historical archive.

“There’s no point criticizing them,” To said. “Users may well encounter similar practices even ... if they move to another social media platform.”

“If you want to preserve the historical record, you have to use less convenient methods, and spend a bit of time and money,” he said.

The concerns over the deletion of live video come after a report claimed that Meta was willing to go to “extreme lengths” to censor content and shut down political dissent in a failed attempt to win the approval of the Chinese Communist Party and bring Facebook to millions of internet users in China.

Citing a whistleblower complaint by Sarah Wynn-Williams from the company’s China policy team, the Washington Post reported that Meta “so desperately wanted to enter the lucrative China market that it was willing to allow the ruling party to oversee all social media content appearing in the country and quash dissenting opinions.”

(Meta)

So it developed a censorship system for China in 2015 and planned to install a “chief editor” who would decide what content to remove and could shut down the entire site during times of “social unrest,” according to a copy of the 78-page complaint exclusively seen by The Washington Post.

Meta executives also “stonewalled and provided nonresponsive or misleading information” to investors and American regulators, the complaint said.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone told the paper that it was “no secret” the company was interested in operating in China.

“This was widely reported beginning a decade ago,” Stone was quoted as saying. “We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we’d explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.

Jackie Chen was one of several social workers who tried to mediate between police and demonstrators. She carried a loudspeaker and urged police to use restraint and to refrain from firing non-lethal bullets during a protest that took place on Aug. 31, 2019.

Police made more than 10,000 arrests during and after the 2019 protests, which began as a show of mass public anger at plans to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China.

They broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.

Chen was acquitted in 2020, but prosecutors appealed and won a retrial in another example of the harsh stance that Hong Kong authorities have taken with political cases.

Before heading to Hong Kong district court for the verdict, Chen told Radio Free Asia that she felt “peaceful.”

“As long as my body is healthy, there are still a lot of things I can do,” she said. “So why not face it calmly?”

Later, she gathered with supporters in front of the court building while wearing a backpack, a sweatshirt with colorful drawings and a cheerful expression.

Judge May Chung wrote in her verdict that Chen used her position as a social worker to support the protesters and used the loudspeaker to shout unfounded accusations against the police.

Chen was taken into custody and is scheduled to be sentenced next month. She could face up to seven years in prison.

Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

The ruling was a rare legal upset for the government’s ongoing crackdown on dissent.

The court ruled unanimously that Chow, a former leader of the now-dissolved Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, and former alliance members Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong, hadn’t received a fair trial.

The ruling relates to charges of failing to hand over alliance documents to national security police, a requirement that only applies to “foreign agents.”

Chow, Tang and Tsui were jailed in 2023 for four-and-a-half months each for refusing to comply with the request.

The Court of Final Appeal cited the use of documents by the prosecution that were “heavily redacted” as a key plank in its decision.

(AP)

“The Court held that in such circumstances the redactions were not only self-defeating by removing from evidence the only material relied upon for establishing that the [Alliance] were foreign agents, but also made it impossible for the Appellants to have a fair trial as they were deprived of all knowledge as to the nature of the prosecution’s case on an essential element of the offense,” the judgment said.

“Accordingly, the Court unanimously allowed the appeals, and quashed the convictions and sentences.”

‘Convincing reasons’

Chow made a V sign for “victory” in court after hearing the decision.

Former Alliance member Tang Ngok-kwan told reporters outside the court on Thursday that the ruling had proved that the Alliance was never a “foreign agent” as accused by police.

“Chow Hang-tung ... played a leading role in the process and put forward very convincing reasons to explain why the police’s request was an abuse of power, which made us more confident,” Tang said. “She was hugely important in bringing this about.”

“If we hadn’t persisted, we would have been forced to give in, and in the end, the Court of Final Appeal also checked and prevented this abuse of power,” he said.

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Overseas-based lawyer Kevin Yam said the police had acted “outrageously” in demanding the Alliance’s documents.

“The Hong Kong police went too far,” he said. “They were deliberately testing how far the National Security Law would allow them to go.”

He said the police actions hadn’t even met the standards of courts in mainland China, which are tasked with doing the bidding of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

‘Crime’ of organizing a vigil

Chow remains behind bars pending a separate trial for “incitement to subversion” under the 2020 National Security Law, alongside two other former Alliance leaders, rights lawyer Albert Ho and labor unionist Lee Cheuk-yan.

“Their ‘crime’ is being the organisers of the large public annual vigil which was held in Hong Kong every year on 4 June from 1990 to 2020, to commemorate the victims of the Beijing Massacre on 4 June 1989,” former Hong Kong Bar Association Chairman Paul Harris wrote in a March 6 op-ed piece for the British legal paper The Counsel.

Harris criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for not stopping to listen when he tried to raise Chow’s case with him in 2024.

“This was a bad omen for the attitude of a new Labour government towards Hong Kong,” Harris wrote. “Since then my fears have been realised as I watched Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ trade promotion visit to Beijing in which Hong Kong seems to have been studiously ignored.”

Chow has been behind bars since 2021, when she was a recently engaged 36-year-old, with most of that time served in pretrial detention, he said.

“Like her co-defendants, she is detained simply for exercising the rights of free speech and freedom of assembly which were guaranteed to them by Britain and China in 1984, and which are exercised by everyone in the U.K. all the time,” he said.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has stated that her detention is arbitrary, and Amnesty International has recognized her as a prisoner of conscience, he added.

Setback for free speech

The Court of Final Appeal also ruled on Thursday in the sedition case of talk-show host and People Power activist Tam Tak-chi, the first Hong Kong person tried on a sedition charge since the city’s handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

Tam had appealed on the basis that free speech must be protected, and that incitement to violence must be proven in sedition cases, but the court rejected that argument on Thursday, upholding his conviction.

Tam, also known by his nickname Fast Beat, was found guilty on eight counts of sedition linked to slogans he either spoke or wrote between January and July 2020.

(Kin Cheung/AP)

He is also being tried for “inciting an illegal assembly” and “disorderly conduct,” after he gave a number of public speeches calling for the “liberation” of Hong Kong, some of which were peppered with Cantonese swear-words.

Tam also stands accused of using the now-banned slogan of the 2019 protest movement -- “Free Hong Kong, revolution now!” -- and of saying that the authorities should “delay no more” in disbanding the police force, using a homonym for a Cantonese epithet involving the target’s mother.

Tam allegedly also shouted: “Down with the [ruling] Chinese Communist Party (CCP)!”

1938 law

In the sweeping colonial-era legislation under which Tam’s charges were brought, sedition is defined as any words that generate “hatred, contempt or dissatisfaction” with the government, or “encourage disaffection.”

The law was passed under British rule in 1938, and is widely regarded as illiberal and anti-free speech. However, by the turn of the century, it had lain dormant on the statute books for decades, until being resurrected for use against opposition politicians, activists, and participants in the 2019 protest movement.

The Court rejected Tam’s appeal on Thursday, in a move that the overseas-based Hong Kong Democracy Council said would have “wide-ranging implications” for future sedition cases in Hong Kong.

“It’ll allow the regime to continue to easily convict for sedition,” the Council said via its X account. “Up to now it has a 100% conviction rate ... The regime’s used sedition to throttle political speech.”

Kevin Yam said the decision had “set human rights protections in Hong Kong back 70 years, to the 1950s.”

“The chances of being found guilty ... are now much greater,” he said, in a reference to “sedition” charges.

Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who is himself wanted by national security police, said the use of “sedition” charges was tantamount to a “literary inquisition” in Hong Kong.

“The door is wide open for the government to use sedition as political retaliation against anyone who says some embarrassing to the government, for example criticizing the budget for cutting bus concessions for the elderly,” Hui told RFA Mandarin.

“The court has made the threshold for sedition convictions very low indeed,” he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

Lam Cheuk-ting’s footage, which appeared on Facebook, showed attacks by white-clad pro-China thugs on passengers at the Yuen Long Mass Transit Railway station on July 21 of that year.

It depicted panicked passengers and bystanders calling for police help that took nearly 40 minutes to arrive.

Lam, 47, who was himself attacked for his pains, was sent to the hospital with head and arm injuries that required about 18 stitches.

Yet he was arrested for “rioting” on Aug. 26, 2020, sparking a public outcry, as part of an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in Hong Kong.

Lam is currently serving a prison sentence of nearly seven years for “subversion” as one of the 47 pro-democracy activists prosecuted for organizing a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.

He can expect to serve 34 months of his rioting sentence after that term finishes.

Courts have skewed toward Beijing

Since the imposition of the 2020 National Security Law, Hong Kong’s once-independent courts have tended to issue rulings along pro-Beijing lines, particularly in politically sensitive cases, according to a 2024 report by law experts at Georgetown University.

Lam, a former Legislative Council member, was sentenced on Thursday alongside six other people convicted of the same charge, despite not being among the white-clad mob.

District Judge Stanley Chan said the defendants had taken part in “another riot” inside the station that was triggered by the attacks from the men wielding sticks and clubs.

He handed down sentences ranging between two years, one month to three years, one month.

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Referring to 2019 as “the year when the Pearl of the Orient lost its luster,” Chan said that the defendants had “responded to provocation” from around 100 men in white, about a dozen of whom have since been jailed for “rioting” and “conspiring to wound with intent.”

Chan said Lam hadn’t tried to calm people down, but had rather added “fuel to the flames” by providing a gathering point for people trying to resist the attacks.

6 others sentenced

The six other defendants -- Yu Ka Ho, Jason Chan, Yip Kam Sing, Kwong Ho Lam, Wan Chung Ming and Marco Yeung -- were sentenced to between 25-31 months.

They had tried to form a defensive line against the attackers, using fire extinguishers and water bottles, and pleaded self-defense during their trial.

But Chan said their actions were “unlawful assembly” and “breach of the peace,” saying that some of them had yelled at the attackers in white to come and fight them, as well as throwing objects at them.

“It is clear that at the time in question ... the defendants became the rioters,” he told the sentencing hearing.

During the attack--carried out by dozens of unidentified thugs in white T-shirts carrying wooden and metal poles--police were inundated with emergency calls, but didn’t move in until 39 minutes after it began.

(Anthony Wallace/AFP)

In a recent book about the protests, former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin wrote that the Hong Kong authorities knew about the attacks in advance.

Members of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld “triad” organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book said.

The weeks and months after the incident saw a massive wave of public anger at the police, who were later seen as legitimate targets for doxxing and even violent attacks.

But instead of investigating, then Chief Executive Carrie Lam rejected any allegations of collusion, and later quashed a full report from the city’s police supervisory body on the handling of the protests.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party insists that the 2019 protests were an attempt by "hostile foreign forces" to foment an uprising against the government in Hong Kong.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

Hong Kong’s deficit for the fiscal year ending in March 2025 stands at an estimated HK$87.2 billion (US$11.2 billion), following deficits of HK$122 billion in 2022/23 and HK$101.6 billion the previous year.

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan outlined in his 2025 budget speech on Wednesday measures to address the financial challenges, including a 7% reduction in government spending over the next three years.

As part of the initiative, the government will cut 10,000 civil service positions by April 2027, representing a 2% workforce reduction per year over the next two years, said Chan.

“The spending cut will establish a sustainable fiscal foundation for future development,” said Chan. “It provides a clear pathway toward restoring fiscal balance in the operating account in a planned and progressive manner.”

Chan added he had also instructed all government bureaus and departments to reassess resource allocation and work priorities. He emphasized the need for streamlining procedures, consolidating resources and leveraging technology to deliver public services more effectively.

Challenges after National Security Law

Since the introduction of a National Security Law in 2020, in response to sometimes violent pro-democracy protests the year before, Hong Kong’s economy has faced mounting challenges, including U.S. and Western sanctions, capital outflows, and shifts in investor confidence.

Gross domestic product contracted by 6.1% in 2020 before rebounding to 6.4% in 2021, but growth has since slowed to 3.2% in 2023 and 2.5% in 2024.

The real estate sector has been hit hard, with property prices dropping nearly 30%, significantly reducing government revenue from land sales, which once contributed over 20% but now make up only about 5%.

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The city’s financial sector has remained a cornerstone of its economy, attracting Chinese company listings.

In 2024, funds raised through initial public offerings, or IPOs, in Hong Kong more than doubled in the first three quarters, despite a global downturn in IPO activity. This surge is attributed to market efficiency improvements and enhanced access to mainland financial markets.

However, the landscape has shifted, with multinationals increasingly reconsidering their presence in the city. Western banks play a diminished role in major IPOs, leading to layoffs and a strategic pivot towards wealth management over investment banking – a trend reflecting Hong Kong’s closer alignment with Beijing and a retreat of Western financial players.

The retail and tourism sectors, once vital to the city’s economy, have faced significant challenges due to pandemic restrictions and a decline in mainland Chinese visitors.

In November 2024, retail sales fell by 7.3% year-on-year, marking the ninth consecutive month of decline. Notably, 53% of mainland visitors were day-trippers, spending about HK$1,400 each – 42% less than in 2018.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

Hui’s assets--funds totaling more than US$300,000--were frozen by court order on Feb. 17 after an application by the city’s Department of Justice, the government said in a statement on Tuesday.

Hui had transferred this amount to his wife and mother prior to leaving the country in 2020, while he was out on bail.

The move comes amid an ongoing crackdown by Beijing on public dissent in Hong Kong under two security laws.

The statement said Hui had committed “numerous heinous crimes,” including “conspiring with foreign politicians in 2020 to forge documents and deceive the court with false information in order to obtain the court’s permission to leave Hong Kong while he was on bail,” and added that he had “jumped bail and absconded overseas.”

But Hui is also accused of committing offenses “endangering national security” overseas, the statement said, adding that he stands accused of “inciting secession” and “inciting subversion of state power,” as well as “colluding with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.”

Hui said the confiscation order was “absurd and a blatant violation of my human rights,” and a form of political retaliation amid the crackdown.

According to the government, Hui had transferred nearly $2.5 million Hong Kong dollars (US$321,500) in personal assets as gifts to his mother and wife before he skipped bail.

Under Hong Kong law, if a defendant benefits from committing an offense endangering national security and makes a gift at any time from six years before the date of prosecution onwards, the property held by the recipient of the gift may be regarded as the defendant’s property and confiscated, the spokesman said.

Laws against dissent

Since Beijing imposed the two national security laws banning public opposition and dissent in the city and blamed “hostile foreign forces” for the resulting protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools.

Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa program. Others have made their homes anew in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Many are continuing their activism and lobbying activists, yet they struggle with exile in some way, worrying about loved ones back home while facing threats to their personal safety from supporters of Beijing overseas

Hong Kong’s leaders have vowed to pursue activists in exile for life.

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Hui said in a post to his Facebook page that the money he had given to his mother and wife had been intended as living expenses in his absence.

“That works out at 10,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$1,286) a month over the six years since I left Hong Kong,” Hui said. “Some people might not even think that’s very much.”

“The people of Hong Kong can see all too clearly what is happening, and they’ll be sure to take their money overseas.”

He told RFA Mandarin in a later interview: “Luckily, my parents sold their home in Hong Kong a few years ago and transferred the proceeds elsewhere.”

‘No Money left in Hong Kong is safe.’

He said the authorities had already frozen his bank accounts in Hong Kong after he fled the city amid a crackdown on dissent and political opposition.

“What they confiscated on this occasion was our only asset left in Hong Kong,” he said. “This has shown us that our concerns were reasonable.”

“A regime that violates human rights will do anything, and no money left in Hong Kong is safe,” Hui said.

The government has also hit back at criticisms of the move.

“The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has noted the unfounded smear and malicious attacks online regarding the actions taken by the Court in accordance with the law,” the statement said. “The HKSAR Government strongly condemned and opposed this.”

The authorities “will do everything possible and use all legal means to pursue and combat criminals who endanger national security,” he said.

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the authorities' claim that Hui’s writings on Patreon had somehow paid for the money given to his wife and mother were ridiculous.

“Now this precedent has been set, as long as they can attach a ‘national security’ label to it, everyone’s assets and personal freedom are under threat,” Sang said.

Taiwan-based Hong Kong activist Fu Tong said the move on Hui’s assets is very worrying for Hong Kongers in exile.

“I’m worried because their methods are escalating,” Fu said. “Anyone who continues to speak out overseas will find they can go after people you care about back in Hong Kong, to silence you.”

But he said he would continue to protest and advocate for the return of Hong Kong’s former freedoms.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

But after its premises were searched and the family members of a former director were questioned by police, it has decided to halt all research activities and review its situation.

The decision is the latest fallout from a crackdown by Beijing on public dissent in Hong Kong under two security laws.

“HKPORI will suspend all its self-funded research activities indefinitely, including its regular tracking surveys conducted since 1992, and all feature studies recently introduced,” the institute said in a statement on its website.

The pollster said it will “undergo a transformation or even close down.”

“HKPORI has always been law-abiding, but in the current environment, it has to pause its promotion of scientific polling,” the statement said.

The announcement came a few weeks after police took away and questioned the wife and son of U.K.-based pollster and outspoken political commentator Chung Kim-wah, who has a HK$1 million (US$128,500) bounty on his head.

(RFA)

President and CEO Robert Chung said “interested parties” are welcome to take over the institute, adding that he plans to “promote professional development around the world” until his current term ends after 2026.

“The research team hopes there will be another opportunity to resume its work,” the statement said, adding that the Institute will “announce its final decision when the time is right.”

Accused of incitement

Chung, 64, a former researcher for the HKPORI and co-host of the weekly talk show “Voices Like Bells” for RFA Cantonese, left for the United Kingdom in April 2022 after being questioned amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

He is accused -- alongside Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung -- of “incitement to secession” after he “advocated independence” on social media and repeatedly called on foreign governments to impose sanctions on Beijing over the crackdown, according to a police announcement.

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U.K.-based Hong Kong political scholar Benson Wong said the move was a huge loss to the people of Hong Kong.

“The biggest loss for the people of Hong Kong that of a professional, neutral and scientific polling organization that once played the role of doctor to the political, economic and social aspects of life in Hong Kong,” Wong told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.

“If all of that is going to disappear, I think it will do catastrophic damage to Hong Kong’s ... political development,” he said.

Public opinion research viewed as a threat

Wong said the move is likely linked to the authorities' view of public opinion research as a threat.

He said Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Xia Baolong and Beijing’s Central Liaison Office director Zheng Yanxiong don’t seem to want to know what Hong Kong public opinion is.

Police announced a warrant for Chung Kim-wah’s arrest and a HK$1 million (US$128,400) bounty on his head in December, making him one of 19 overseas activists wanted by the Hong Kong government.

Since Beijing imposed two national security laws banning public opposition and dissent in the city, blaming “hostile foreign forces” for the protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools.

Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa program. Others have made their homes anew in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the move would have a “chilling” effect on the rest of society.

“Public opinion surveys are ... are a very important weather-vane,” Sang said. “If those can’t even be done any more, then it blurs the boundaries between what is regarded as political and non-political, or what are seen as sensitive and non-sensitive [topics].”

“I think this is going to have a chilling effect on a lot more people, and that nobody will dare to do public opinion surveys any more,” he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Yam Chi Yau for RFA Cantonese.

“Products of China and Hong Kong [other than exempted categories] and other than products for personal use included in accompanied baggage of persons arriving in the United States, shall be subject to an additional 10% ad valorem rate of duty,” according to Department of Homeland Security implementation guidelines for Trump’s Feb. 1, 2025 Executive Order.

The order imposes duties on imported goods “to address the synthetic opioid supply chain in the People’s Republic of China.”

The document cites a July 17, 2020, Executive Order from the previous Trump administration, which states that China’s ongoing political crackdown in the city represents “an unusual and extraordinary threat” because it “fundamentally undermine[s] Hong Kong’s autonomy.”

“It shall be the policy of the United States to suspend or eliminate different and preferential treatment for Hong Kong to the extent permitted by law and in the national security, foreign policy, and economic interest of the United States,” the order states, citing Hong Kong’s 2020 National Security Law.

(AFP)

“Under this law, the people of Hong Kong may face life in prison for what China considers to be acts of secession or subversion of state power—which may include acts like last year’s widespread anti-government protests,” the Order said, citing the lack of trial by jury and the possibility of secret prosecutions.

The new tariffs apply to all goods, even those with a value of less than US$800, but with exemptions for humanitarian and aid supplies.

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Experts said the move is likely a bid by the U.S. government to stop Chinese companies from evading tariffs by sending goods to Hong Kong and claiming that they originated there.

“The message is very clear,” Sunny Cheung, fellow for China studies at the Jamestown Foundation, told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “Hong Kong has always been China’s main transshipment port and unaffected by tariffs on Chinese goods.”

“Now, Hong Kong is being included [in those tariffs], which can be seen as an attempt to plug a loophole and send a tougher message,” Cheung said. “It will have a greater deterrent effect on China.”

(DALE DE LA REY, Dale de la Rey/AFP)

He said the Trump administration is keenly aware of indirect ways in which China gets what it wants, citing the recent concern in Washington over the acquisition of key strategic port facilities along the Panama Canal by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison.

Cheung said currently the tariffs only apply to goods produced in China or Hong Kong, and had stopped short of applying to goods shipped through Hong Kong.

“That would be a more nuclear-level attack,” Cheung said.

While the balance of trade has fluctuated over the years, the United States has always been in the top 10 markets for goods exported from Hong Kong, which topped US$5.9 billion for the whole of last year.

Meanwhile the Hong Kong Post said packages and parcels to the United States were suspended with effect from Feb. 5, although services for postal items containing documents only will be unaffected.

“As advised by the postal administration of the United States, Hongkong Post shall not dispatch any postal items containing goods destined to the United States with immediate effect, unless a “formal entry” has been completely and accurately filed with the United States Customs and Border Protection in accordance with United States law,” the postal service said in a statement.

It said postal items containing goods which entered into the United States on or after Feb. 4, 2025, will be returned to Hong Kong.

A “formal entry” must be made via a customs broker, and requires necessary import documents and payment of duties, it said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.

“A Hong Kong resident, who had been detained for illegal work in Myanmar and was recently rescued, has departed Thailand for Hong Kong this afternoon with members of the [government’s] dedicated task force,” the city’s Security Bureau said in a statement on Feb. 4.

Soon after the rescue, authorities in Thailand cut power to five locations along its border with Myanmar, in its most decisive action ever against transnational crime syndicates accused of massive fraud and forced labor.

The areas all host online scam centers that have proliferated in lawless corners of Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, when many casinos turned to online fraud operations, often staffed by unsuspecting job seekers lured by false offers of work, to make up for lost gamblers.

Last month, Hong Kong authorities sent a task force to Thailand in a bid to rescue scam park victims, citing a “resurgence” in criminal activity targeting the city’s residents.

The move followed the high-profile rescue of Chinese TV actor Wang Xing from the notorious KK Park scam facility in Myawaddy, near the border with Thailand.

(Channel C HK)

Local media showed photos of the 31-year-old woman being taken across the river from Myawaddy and having her passport and other details checked by Thai officials.

According to Thai media reports, the woman was rescued after the Thai Narcotics Control Bureau dispatched the Royal Thai Army and Police to get her across the border from Myawaddy to Phop Phra county in Thailand’s Tak Province.

Hong Kong’s news site HK01.com reported that no ransom had been paid.

In good condition

Hong Kong security officials “met with the Hong Kong resident in Bangkok this morning and [were] delighted to find that she was in good mental and physical condition,” the Security Bureau said.

“She expressed gratitude for the active coordination and liaison of the dedicated task force with relevant units of the Thai authorities, as well as for the assistance of different parties that enabled her to return to Hong Kong shortly after her rescue to reunite with her family as soon as possible,” it said.

The woman arrived in Hong Kong on Feb. 4 despite concerns that her passport had a triangular section cut out of it, possibly rendering it invalid.

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The statement thanked Chinese Foreign Ministry officials based in Hong Kong, Chinese diplomatic missions in Myanmar and Thailand, as well as the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Hong Kong, for their help with the rescue operation.

“The dedicated task force is continuing to actively follow up on the remaining nine request-for-assistance cases of Hong Kong residents who have yet to return, striving for their return to Hong Kong as soon as possible,” it said.

Former district councilor Andy Yu told RFA Cantonese that he and other campaigners visited the Thai consulate in Hong Kong on Monday to petition for help with the rescue of seven Hong Kongers whose family members have sought his help in recent months.

Yu, who said he didn’t represent the 31-year-old woman rescued on Sunday, said the Thai Vice-Consul had promised that his government would “do its best” to ensure the remaining Hong Kongers are rescued too.

“The deputy consul came to meet with us,” Yu said. “We told him the contents of the letter, including the latest situation of the seven people seeking help and about a new case.”

“He said ... that they are maintaining contact with the Hong Kong police, that they will ... do their best to rescue the remaining people, and that ... they can play a coordinating role,” he said. “If necessary, they can get in contact with the Myanmar Consulate in Hong Kong, and can act as an intermediary.”

Currently, there are eight Hong Kongers trapped in scam parks in Myanmar, and one in a similar facility in Cambodia, Yu said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.

“A Hong Kong resident, who had been detained for illegal work in Myanmar and was recently rescued, has departed Thailand for Hong Kong this afternoon with members of the [government’s] dedicated task force,” the city’s Security Bureau said in a statement on Feb. 4.

Soon after the rescue, authorities in Thailand cut power to five locations along its border with Myanmar, in its most decisive action ever against transnational crime syndicates accused of massive fraud and forced labor.

The areas all host online scam centers that have proliferated in lawless corners of Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, when many casinos turned to online fraud operations, often staffed by unsuspecting job seekers lured by false offers of work, to make up for lost gamblers.

Last month, Hong Kong authorities sent a task force to Thailand in a bid to rescue scam park victims, citing a “resurgence” in criminal activity targeting the city’s residents.

The move followed the high-profile rescue of Chinese TV actor Wang Xing from the notorious KK Park scam facility in Myawaddy, near the border with Thailand.

(Channel C HK)

Local media showed photos of the 31-year-old woman being taken across the river from Myawaddy and having her passport and other details checked by Thai officials.

According to Thai media reports, the woman was rescued after the Thai Narcotics Control Bureau dispatched the Royal Thai Army and Police to get her across the border from Myawaddy to Phop Phra county in Thailand’s Tak Province.

Hong Kong’s news site HK01.com reported that no ransom had been paid.

In good condition

Hong Kong security officials “met with the Hong Kong resident in Bangkok this morning and [were] delighted to find that she was in good mental and physical condition,” the Security Bureau said.

“She expressed gratitude for the active coordination and liaison of the dedicated task force with relevant units of the Thai authorities, as well as for the assistance of different parties that enabled her to return to Hong Kong shortly after her rescue to reunite with her family as soon as possible,” it said.

The woman arrived in Hong Kong on Feb. 4 despite concerns that her passport had a triangular section cut out of it, possibly rendering it invalid.

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The statement thanked Chinese Foreign Ministry officials based in Hong Kong, Chinese diplomatic missions in Myanmar and Thailand, as well as the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Hong Kong, for their help with the rescue operation.

“The dedicated task force is continuing to actively follow up on the remaining nine request-for-assistance cases of Hong Kong residents who have yet to return, striving for their return to Hong Kong as soon as possible,” it said.

Former district councilor Andy Yu told RFA Cantonese that he and other campaigners visited the Thai consulate in Hong Kong on Monday to petition for help with the rescue of seven Hong Kongers whose family members have sought his help in recent months.

Yu, who said he didn’t represent the 31-year-old woman rescued on Sunday, said the Thai Vice-Consul had promised that his government would “do its best” to ensure the remaining Hong Kongers are rescued too.

“The deputy consul came to meet with us,” Yu said. “We told him the contents of the letter, including the latest situation of the seven people seeking help and about a new case.”

“He said ... that they are maintaining contact with the Hong Kong police, that they will ... do their best to rescue the remaining people, and that ... they can play a coordinating role,” he said. “If necessary, they can get in contact with the Myanmar Consulate in Hong Kong, and can act as an intermediary.”

Currently, there are eight Hong Kongers trapped in scam parks in Myanmar, and one in a similar facility in Cambodia, Yu said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.

Hong Kong’s bookstores once drew Chinese-language bibliophiles from far and wide in pursuit of some of the city’s most off-beat, salacious and politically radical writings, coupled with cute or alternative takes on art and culture.

But even before the 2020 National Security Law ushered in a crackdown on public criticism of the authorities, the Chinese government had been positioning itself to take control of the city’s main publishing imprints and bookstore chains, squeezing out dozens of independent stores as it did so.

As the political crackdown gathered momentum, libraries also made lists of books likely to run afoul of the new law, and pulled them from the shelves.

But Taiwan’s libraries now stock tens of thousands of banned books, possibly driven in part by demand from Hong Kongers living in exile there.

A recent search of the library catalog by RFA Cantonese, and interviews with experts, suggest that democratic Taiwan continues to act as a protective outlet for Hong Kong’s Cantonese culture, despite the ongoing crackdown.

A catalog search of the National Taiwan Library, Taipei City Library and Academia Sinica Library for 144 books that have been removed from libraries in Hong Kong, according to local media reports, found that 107 of the titles is now available in one of these libraries.

Among the banned titles on offer are We Were Chosen by the Times and Every Umbrella, compilations of interviews with non-prominent participants in the 2014 Umbrella Movement for fully democratic elections, now removed from the Hong Kong Central Library.

Farewell to Cynicism: the Crisis of Liberalism in Hong Kong, Parallel Space and Time I : An International Perspective Based on Locality, and Hong Kong, a Restless Homeland, a history of the city from a local perspective, once-lauded titles freely available in Hong Kong, have also found new homes in Taiwan, the catalog showed.

Readers can also choose among 17 business-related titles penned by jailed pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, now stocked at the National Taiwan Library, Taipei City Library and Academia Sinica Library.

The Taipei City Library also houses the most extensive collection of books about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the 2019 Hong Kong protests and the Umbrella Movement.

Public demand

Hong Kong historian Eric Tsui told RFA Cantonese he was surprised to see some of his banned books on the shelves of libraries in Taiwan.

“The fact that you can find these books in public libraries in Taiwan, suggests that the Taiwanese public cares about Hong Kong, and that public libraries are stocking these books due to public demand,” Tsui said.

Taipei City Library Director Hung Shih-chang said the library has added an average of 1,500 to 2,000 Hong Kong publications a year in recent years.

(RFA)

“Hong Kong books are mainly obtained through exchange and donations, particularly donations,” Hung told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.

Public demand and purchases are definitely also a factor.

“If the public requests Hong Kong publications that aren’t available in Taiwan, we will purchase them,” Hung said. “There may be people who have moved from Hong Kong to Taipei in recent years who want to read some books published in Hong Kong, so they may make some recommendations, and then the numbers go up a bit.”

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“One of the most important purposes of a public library is to provide information to our readers freely and to ensure fair access to all kinds of information,” he said, adding that censorship in democratic Taiwan is “very unlikely” to happen.

“We will try our best to meet the needs of diverse interests in the collection and provision of library materials.”

In this case, a service that was once provided to Hong Kongers in their own city has effectively moved offshore.

Promoting national thought

“The mission of every national public library should be to collect all the works of local citizens and become a resource for national thought, so that citizens of a place can share [ideas] with each other,” Tsui said.

“Now, because of the China factor, you are afraid of offending China and deprive Hong Kongers of their public property,” he said.

Taiwanese sociologist Jieh-min Wu said Taiwan still has memories of its recent, authoritarian past.

“A lot of books were banned during the authoritarian period [here], just as they are in Hong Kong today,” Wu said.

“Libraries removed books from the shelves, but they didn’t have a list of banned books. They just quietly removed them.”

“From my research perspective, Hong Kong is going through a similar period to martial law [in Taiwan, which ended in July 1987]; a time where there are very strict controls on political topics,” Wu told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.

He said pro-democracy organizations in exile played an important role in “preserving information and then transmitting it back” home during the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo.

Taiwan began a transition to democracy following the death of President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of the island’s president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996.

While China insists on eventual “unification” with Taiwan -- by armed invasion if necessary -- the majority of Taiwan’s 23 million people have no wish to give up their democratic way of life to submit to Communist Party rule.

China has threatened the death penalty for supporters of Taiwan independence, while Taipei says Beijing has no jurisdiction over the actions of its citizens.

A recent public opinion poll from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research showed that 67.8% of respondents were willing to fight to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.

Chung, 64, is a former deputy head of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute and co-host of the weekly talk show “Voices Like Bells” for RFA Cantonese.

He left for the United Kingdom in April 2022 after being questioned amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Officers took two of Chung’s brothers and a sister from their homes on Wednesday morning.

Chung’s second brother was taken to Tsuen Wan Police Station for questioning, his third sister to Central Police Station, and his fourth brother to Castle Peak Police station.

Chung is accused — alongside Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung — of “incitement to secession” after he “advocated independence” on social media and repeatedly called on foreign governments to impose sanctions on Beijing over the crackdown, according to a police announcement.

He told Radio Free Asia that the questioning of his family members came as “no surprise,” but said they had nothing to do with his professional activities.

“My brothers and sisters are all adults, so why should they be held responsible for what I do?” Chung told RFA Cantonese in an interview on Jan. 22. “They live in Hong Kong, and I’m in the U.K., so I never tell them anything.”

(RFA)

Chung said the move was likely an attempt to intimidate people carrying out independent public opinion research, which often involves negative views of the government.

“It seems that they don’t want to face up to public opinion, so they’re doing this to scare us, and ‘deal with’ the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute,” he said. “It’s kind of tedious.”

‘Long-arm’ law enforcement

Exiled Hong Kong democracy activists have called for an international effort to combat the threat of Beijing’s “long-arm” law enforcement beyond its borders, saying recent bounties on the heads of 19 people are deliberately intended to create a “chilling effect” on activists everywhere.

The move came after police questioned Chung’s wife and son and former colleague Robert Chung earlier this month, as part of a “national security police investigation.”

Chung announced he had left the city on April 24, 2022, to “live for a while in the U.K.”

In a Facebook post announcing his departure, Chung said he didn’t want to “desert” his home city, but “had no other option.”

He ran afoul of the authorities early in December 2021, ahead of the first-ever elections for the Legislative Council to exclude pro-democracy candidates in a system that ensures only “patriots” loyal to Beijing can stand.

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Chung was hauled in for questioning after pro-Beijing figures criticized him for including a question in a survey about whether voters intended to cast blank ballots in the election, which critics said could amount to “incitement” to subvert the voting system under the national security law.

Nineteen people now have HK$1 million (US$130,000) bounties on their heads following two previous announcements in July and December 2023.

‘Seditious intention’

Meanwhile, national security police said they had also arrested a 36-year-old man in Eastern District on Jan. 21 on suspicion of “knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intent,” a charge under the Safeguarding National Security Law, known as Article 23.

The content of the publications had “provoked hatred towards the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Hong Kong Police Force and the Judiciary, as well as called for sanctions against government officials and inciting violence,” police said in a statement dated Jan. 22.

“Police remind members of the public that “knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intention” is a serious crime,” the statement said, warning that offenders could face jail terms of seven years on their first conviction.

“Members of the public are urged not to defy the law,” it said.

More than 10,000 people have been arrested and at least 2,800 prosecuted in a citywide crackdown in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, mostly under public order charges.

Nearly 300 have been arrested under 2020 National Security Law, according to the online magazine ChinaFile.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Lee Heung Yeung and Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.

Police took away Chung’s wife and son from their home on Tuesday morning “to assist in a national security police investigation,” according to multiple local media reports.

Chung, 64, a former researcher for the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute left for the U.K. in April 2022 after being questioned amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

He is accused -- alongside Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung -- of “incitement to secession” after he “advocated independence” on social media and repeatedly called on foreign governments to impose sanctions on Beijing over the crackdown, according to a police announcement.

“I don’t really know how to explain this -- I can’t read their minds,” he told RFA Cantonese in an interview on Tuesday, after his wife and son were questioned.

“Some say that maybe they’re sending some kind of a signal to intimidate us,” he said. “I don’t want to speculate on that.”

But he said a “capable and responsible” government should also be able to deal with public opinion research.

“[They] should understand that public opinion actually exists, regardless of how you deal with it,” he said. “A capable government should be able to face up that, and deal with it.”

The Institute has published a number of politically sensitive reports in recent years, including poor popularity scores for the city’s leaders, and people’s perceptions of disappearing press freedom.

Police announced a warrant for Chung Kim-wah’s arrest and a HK$1 million (US$128,400) bounty on his head in December, making him one of 19 overseas activists wanted by the Hong Kong government.

Since Beijing imposed two national security laws banning public opposition and dissent in the city, blaming “hostile foreign forces” for the protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools.

Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa program. Others have made their homes anew in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Many are continuing their activism and lobbying activists, yet they struggle with exile in some way, worrying about loved ones back home while facing threats to their personal safety from supporters of Beijing overseas.

‘Intimidation’ tactics

The questioning of Chung’s family members came after national security police raided the home of the current head of the Institute, Robert Chung, to investigate whether he or the organization had provided any kind of assistance to Chung Kim-wah.

Chung Kim-wah told RFA Cantonese by text message that he hadn’t had any contact of any kind with Robert Chung since he left Hong Kong, other than a holiday greeting message.

He said the move could be a bid to intimidate the Institute ahead of its current research project on public opinion among Hong Kongers both in Hong Kong and overseas.

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National security police also said they had “conducted a surprise search on Jan. 13 based on a court warrant at a residential building and a commercial building unit on Hong Kong Island.”

While police declined to identify the person, he is widely assumed to have been the Institute’s current CEO, Robert Chung.

“The investigation believes that someone is suspected of using his organization to assist a wanted person who has fled overseas to continue to engage in acts endangering national security,” they said in a statement on the Hong Kong government website.

Police seized a batch of evidence, including computers, tablet devices, mobile phones and bank documents, and also “invited” a director and two staff members of the Institute to the police station to assist in the investigation, the statement said.

No arrests have yet been made in the investigation.

Ongoing investigation

Secretary for Security Chris Tang told journalists on Tuesday: “Whether or not this person or his organization assisted absconders has nothing to do with the research conducted by that organization.”

“We will only discover the truth through investigation,” he said.

Asked if public opinion researchers should now be worried about prosecution under the city’s national security legislation, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee warned people not to “contact, help or support” anyone who commits “crimes endangering national security.”

“As long as they do their work professionally and realistically and do not have any intention of endangering national security, I believe they can carry on their daily activities with peace of mind,” he told journalists on Tuesday.

Robert Chung told journalists on Jan. 9 that he had considered shutting down the Institute, but decided that it was better to continue for as long as it was allowed.

“I think, as a scientist and an intellectual, that I should speak the truth ... so we should do that because we are allowed to continue to search for such truth as we can find,” he said.

He said he had had “little contact” with Chung Kim-wah since he left Hong Kong.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Chen Zifei, Yam Chi Yau.

The endangered animals, a local variant of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, a species also known as the Chinese white dolphin, were once chosen as the mascot for Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to Chinese rule, Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Project researcher Viena Mak said in a recent interview.

But their numbers have plummeted in the past decade, researchers say, despite a brief rebound during the COVID-19 travel restrictions that started in 2020.

Before the construction of the airport at Chek Lap Kok, the waters around Hong Kong’s outlying Lantau Island were teeming with marine life, with 188 pink dolphins counted in 2003, 102 of which were off North Lantau, where the airport now lies.

(Peter Parks/AFP)

Now, researchers estimate that just three or four pink dolphins still live in the area.

Even more worryingly, just 10 days after the city’s US$18.5 billion third runway became operational, a pink dolphin was found beached and dead nearby, Mak said.

“It was a mother who had just given birth,” she said. “We had been observing it at sea in October and were able to take pictures of the mother and the baby.”

Mak said she feared the infant wouldn’t survive, as they usually need a mother’s care until they are one or two years old, and can forage independently for food.

Vulnerable species

The Chinese white dolphin is on the Red List of Endangered Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, where it is listed as vulnerable.

Their habitat was greatly disturbed by the massive land reclamation that took place in the waters off northern Lantau Island to build Hong Kong’s International Airport at Chek Lap Kok, and sightings of the dolphins have become extremely rare in that part of the city’s coastal waters, according to the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Project, which has been monitoring them since before the handover.

In the first year of the airport’s expansion in 2016, just 11 dolphins were recorded north of Lantau. By the time the third runway was completed in 2020, researchers could only find three, although four were spotted last year, Mak said.

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One of them has been named “Snowy,” although she’s known in official records simply as NL104.

“That means she’s the 104th pink dolphin to be identified in the waters off Lantau,” Mak said. “She has had three births, one of which was in October 2011. We also saw her with her baby in 2015.”

Government figures back up the Conservation Project’s findings.

(May James/AFP)

Hong Kong was home to just 34 pink dolphins in 2023, down from 47 in 2017, according to a survey by the city’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation.

“Large declines in dolphin abundance were detected over the past two decades in both Northeast Lantau and Northwest Lantau survey areas, and noticeable decline was also detected in West Lantau waters but has stabilized in recent years,” the report said.

Increase in casualties

Dolphins are increasingly showing up as casualties following increased activity in the area, Mak said, although the reason isn’t entirely clear.

Five dolphins were beached in 2016, rising to eight in 2018, and 11 in 2020, although there has been a slight fall since then.

“We’re not exactly sure what happened to these dolphins, and why they were found beached in Hong Kong, but it is a cause for concern,” Mak said. “Numbers at sea fell during the same period that the numbers found beached increased.”

(ANTHONY WALLACE, Anthony Wallace/AFP)

Some of the dolphins have moved elsewhere, she said.

“We found that shortly after the third runway project started, they moved to different places, from the waters of North Lantau to West Lantau and Southwest Lantau,” Mak told RFA Mandarin. “Now that the project is completed, they don’t go back there often.”

“It’s no longer the paradise it used to be ... and some of the older dolphins know this very well,” she said.

Move brings risks

The move to unfamiliar waters brings with it greater survival pressures, as the animals come into contact with other human activities like shipping, high-speed ferries and fishing. Once in their new habitat, they then compete with the other dolphins for food.

Part of the problem is that the runway was built around 1 kilometer (.6 miles) from marine coastal protection areas where the dolphins used to raise their young, and in between two conservation areas, effectively cutting off the route for animals that “commuted” between them, Mak said.

(May James/AFP)

Mak also cites the building of the massive Hong Kong-Zhuai-Macau Bridge as an example of a land reclamation project that has impinged on the dolphins' ability to survive.

She said researchers haven’t seen a dolphin in the area of that project in nine years, despite the creation of a marine “reserve” for them, in the form of the North Lantau Coastal Park, once the project was completed.

“You can see from their website how big the reserve is, and what conservation measures have been put in place,” Mak said. “But none of it has worked ... because the dolphins just don’t go there.”

Mak suspects that the marine reserve is just cosmetic; a bid by the government to convince people that the dolphins will return after the damage has been done.

“It’s too late now,” she said. “The damage is too severe.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Mai Xiaotian for RFA Mandarin.

Xi’an police caught up with Fei, 55, on Tuesday, and are now holding him the Beilin Detention Center, according to associates who knew him as part of the Songzhuang Artists' Village scene of dissident and fringe artists in Beijing.

His detention comes as the ruling Communist Party continues to crack down on artists and other creative workers whose work or views are seen as potentially subversive.

Authorities are also holding Gao Zhen, one of the Gao Brothers artistic duo, on suspicion of ‘insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs,’ after seizing satirical artworks depicting Chairman Mao from his home studio.

“I was shocked to hear that Songzhuang musician and artist Fei Xiaosheng has been detained,” fellow artist Du Yinghong, who now lives in Thailand, said in a social media post on Wednesday.

“Two years ago, we contacted each other a number of times, and he said he envied me [living outside of China],” he wrote. “A few days ago, we had a video call, and I found out he had applied for a passport, gone to Serbia, yet somehow returned to the cage that is our country.”

“He said he planned to leave again soon, and told me to add his European number, but then we heard the bad news that he’d been arrested,” Du wrote.

Devout Christian

Du later told RFA Mandarin that Fei is being held in Xi’an’s Beilin Detention Center, but that the authorities have yet to issue any official notification of his detention.

“This is part of their cultural cleansing operation, and a settling of scores,” he said, adding that Fei had likely been targeted for his public support for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

“Fei Xiaosheng is a devout Christian who once expressed solidarity and support for Hong Kong, and was detained for more than 40 days for this,” Du said.

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Du said the artist had a strong sense of social justice, and followed current affairs closely. He was expelled by state security police from Songzhuang Artists' Village in 2020.

“He used to organize music festivals and performance art festivals in Songzhuang,” Du said, adding that police had burned Fei’s old passport.

“He had returned to China [from Serbia] for work, and was just about to leave China again,” he said.

‘China is finished’

Writer He Sanpo, who like many Chinese writers now lives in Thailand, said he was saddened to hear of Fei’s detention, but not surprised.

“But people who are really engaged in making art know that China is finished,” He said. “In today’s China, if you have a conscience and dare to speak a few truths, you will have committed some crime.”

“The only thing you can do is to escape from it.”

Fei’s detention came as Gao Zhen’s trial is expected to start.

Gao’s friends told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews that his case will be heard at the Xianghe County People’s Court in the northern province of Hebei next week, possibly Monday.

Gao’s lawyer has been warned not to make public any details of the case, they said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.

Away from the headlines, an equally insidious form of repression is playing out: the problem of more than 120,000 recent Hong Kong exiles who have been cut off from their retirement savings since 2021.

Hong Kong Watch has found that Hong Kongers were being denied access to over £3 billion (US$3.8 billion) of money they paid into the city’s retirement scheme, known as the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF).

On Dec. 19 in London, Hong Kong Watch joined the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and Stand with Hong Kong in a hearing on the withholding of Hong Kongers’ MPF savings in the British Parliament.

The MPF is a compulsory retirement savings scheme for the people of Hong Kong. Under the legal guidelines which govern MPF savings, Hong Kongers are entitled to withdraw their money in full once they complete a declaration form stating that they have permanently departed from Hong Kong.

However, after Hong Kong authorities announced in in January 2021 that they no longer recognized the British National (Overseas) (BNO) passport as a valid form of identity , an estimated 126,500 Hong Kongers have been blocked from accessing their MPF savings.

(Kin Cheung/AP)

The British Parliament heard that this number is likely higher, as the mere awareness of an overwhelming number of cases being rejected discourages Hong Kongers from applying for withdrawal.

The three Hong Kongers who testified this month also emphasized that the Hong Kong government’s non-recognition of the BNO passport has no basis in law, as there have been no legal changes made to the MPF Trust Deed.

As of the end of June, the total value of all MPF schemes was a little over £122 billion.

Taking the average MPF account size of £26,000, and multiplying it by the number of BNO visa holders at 127,000, there is over £3.25 billion worth of MPF assets that Hong Kongers are currently being denied access to as of Sept. 30.

Bank no-shows

The London-headquartered MPF trustee banks, HSBC and Standard Chartered, which manage £37 billion and £758 million worth of MPF savings respectively, were invited to testify at the hearing.

However, despite a personal request from Blair McDougall, the chair of the APPG on Hong Kong and host of the hearing, HSBC rejected the request to appear before Parliament and Standard Chartered failed to respond.

Their refusal and silence speaks louder than words.

Specifically, in their response to the APPG on Hong Kong and to 13 Parliamentarians who inquired about how the HSBC restructure will affect MPF claimants, HSBC claims that they are legally bound by Hong Kong legislation in their non-recognition of the BNO passport as proof of identity.

Yet the non-recognition of the BNO passport is not legally binding but a tactic of transnational repression against those who have fled from the quickly deteriorating human rights environment in Hong Kong.

The BNO passport is also a UK government-issued identity document, which the UK government should immediately make clear to the UK-headquartered MPF trustees.

In addition to the non-recognition of the BNO passport, MPF trustees have denied access to MPF savings for accounts which are “under investigation” by the Hong Kong government.

This is applicable for accounts connected to the Hong Kongers who were issued arrest warrants with HK$1 million bounties for participating in pro-democracy activities in 2023.

This further demonstrates that the blocking of MPF savings is a form of financial transnational repression.

Suffering, lost opportunities

The Hong Kongers who testified at the hearing included Chloe Lo, a single mother who shared, “Last winter, I could barely pay my heating bill and my child and I experienced the coldest winter of our lives.”

This could have been avoided if she had access to the £57,000 in her MPF account.

The other Hong Kongers said that accessing their MPF savings would allow them to pursue further education in the UK and to invest in British businesses.

Their testimonies coincided with a letter sent directly to HSBC last week from nearly 400 Hong Kongers in the UK, urging the financial institution to immediately release the savings that rightfully belong to them.

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HSBC is mistaken in refusing to appear before Parliament, as their refusal only demonstrates HSBC’s complicity in the financial transnational repression of the Hong Kong government.

One Hong Konger who testified and whose MPF account has depreciated by 5% in 2024 alone said, “It is obvious that HSBC is arbitrarily holding our savings to roll up the assets and squeeze the administration cost and capital gains from the investment.”

Following the hearing, the Parliament is keen to continue raising this issue, and to press the UK government to issue guidance to and have conversations with HSBC and Standard Chartered about the validity of the BNO passport.

This is not just a matter for the Hong Kong authorities but also for the UK ones who issue BNO passports and are responsible for the more than 180,000 Hong Kongers who now call Britain home.

To conclude the hearing, chair McDougall said that we often talk about the cost of human rights violations against individuals around the world but how in this case, there is an actual number on that cost.

He also said that both HSBC and Standard Chartered “still have questions to answer, even if they are not willing to open themselves to scrutiny.”

This could not be more spot on, and this is not the end of HSBC and Standard Chartered being invited to appear before Parliament.

Megan Khoo is policy director at the international NGO Hong Kong Watch. Khoo, based in London, has served in communications roles at foreign policy non-profit organizations in London and Washington, D.C.. The views expressed here do not reflect the position of Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Megan Khoo.

Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Chung Kim-wah, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung were accused of incitement to secession in a notice posted on the Hong Kong Police Force website.

The police also accused journalist Victor Ho, 69, of subversion for calling a referendum over the proposed formation of a parliament-in-exile to push for Hong Kong’s independence from China.

All of the six live abroad.

“Today was the last working day before our year-end holiday at HKDC and I just learned that I am now a wanted Hong Konger with a HK$1 million bounty for national security offences,” former Hong Kong district councillor and current Hong Kong Democracy Council member Carmen Lau, 29, posted on social media platform X.

“I have always considered serving Hong Kongers and fighting for our freedom and democracy my lifelong obligation since the day I was elected as a district councillor,” she added. “I swear to put our fight for Hong Kong before anything else, even before myself.”

Lau called on governments including the U.K., where she lives, the U.S. and the E.U. to impose sanctions on Hong Kong “human rights perpetrators” without naming anyone.

Hong Kong Security Secretary Chris Tang said the six had endangered national security through their speeches and social media posts and by lobbying foreign governments to sanction Hong Kong officials. He told a news conference the six “had little conscience.”

“Illegal acts will be prosecuted and punished no matter how far away they are,” Tang said.

Nineteen people now have HK$1 million bounties on their heads following two previous announcements in July and December 2023. Authorities plan to cancel the passports of seven of the activists on the wanted list, including ex-lawmakers Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok, Hong Kong media reported.

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Hong Kong was a British colony from 1841 to 1997, when it was returned to Chinese rule under a “one country, two systems” agreement. The Sino-British Joint Declaration said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region would maintain a degree of autonomy from China for 50 years, maintaining the rights and freedoms set out in the Basic Law.

In 2019, thousands of Hong Kong people took to the streets to protest against what they saw as the erosion of democracy, prompting a crackdown by the government. The following year Beijing imposed a national security legislation that included new crimes like “collusion with foreign forces” and subversion.

In April, the city passed its own version of China’s national security law, known as Article 23, adding several new offenses, including treason, sabotage, and espionage and allowing police to hold suspects for up to 16 days without charge. Sedition was also added and its scope expanded to include “inciting hatred” against the Chinese Communist Party.

The United States and Britain have condemned what they see as the erosion of the freedoms and rights that Hong Kong was promised when it returned to Chinese rule.

The city government and Beijing reject the accusations saying stability is needed to safeguard the Asian financial hub’s economic success.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

The police are currently installing an additional 2,000 surveillance cameras in public places including the controversial smart lampposts targeted by protesters in 2019, Senior Superintendent of Police for Operations Leung Ming-leung told a meeting of the Independent Police Complaints Council on Dec. 17.

By 2027, an additional 7,000 cameras will be installed to monitor “crime black-spots,” with a pilot scheme already rolled out in Mong Kok, which saw mass pro-democracy protests and gatherings in 2014 and 2019, as well as the “Fishball Revolution” of 2016.

The move comes amid an ongoing crackdown on public protest, peaceful activism and freedom of speech in Hong Kong in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

Thousands have been arrested on public order charges and hundreds under two national security laws, which ban criticism of the authorities or references to the protests.

(Wei Sze/RFA)

“At places where there is a higher footfall, we would install the CCTV with a view to preserving public order and public safety,” Leung said.

Police will also install “public address systems” to boost communication with the public, he added.

Facial recognition

As early as 2019, protesters were damaging and toppling controversial “smart lampposts” that had been newly installed in the city, saying their specification included facial recognition functions, although officials said at the time they hadn’t been activated.

Police Commissioner Raymond Siu said in February that use of facial recognition technology to track people caught by the cameras was likely in future.

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Leung told the Council that footage captured by CCTV has helped solve 97 cases so far this year, including assaults and murders, but it is currently not intended for use in traffic violations like running a red light.

He said the authorities used surveillance cameras to estimate the size of crowds in the Lan Kwai Fong bar district at Halloween, “to help with manpower deployment.”

Automated drone patrols

Secretary for Security Chris Tang told lawmakers police are currently looking at bringing in automated drone patrols along default routes across Hong Kong, with images analyzed by AI for policing purposes.

“This can lead to greater operational effectiveness and higher work quality,” Tang said, adding that the program would comply with current safety and privacy laws.

Hong Kong’s police force is already equipped with a range of different drones and monitoring instruments, and are already increasingly being used by police, customs and immigration for investigation purposes, Tang told the Legislative Council on Dec. 11.

Police also use drones to conduct high-rise patrols at crime black spots, he said.

“For instance, mounted thermography and infrared detection systems are used to detect the presence of suspicious persons lingering or hiding at remotely located places or at difficult terrains,” Tang told lawmakers.

(Wei Sze/RFA)

Meanwhile, the Transport Advisory Committee has said it plans to amend the law to mandate in-vehicle and dashboard cameras and GPS systems in all taxis.

“The camera system proposal ... will better safeguard the interests of taxi drivers and passengers in cases of disputes and enhance driving safety for taxis,” Committee Chairman Stephen Cheung said in a statement on Dec. 17.

“These two measures will be conducive to enhancing the overall quality and image of taxi services,” he said.

‘It’s overkill’

Not everyone thought the additional cameras would make them safer, however.

“I don’t think it will,” a passerby who gave only the surname Lai for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. “On the contrary, if the streets are being monitored, there will be no privacy.”

“I really think it’s overkill.”

A taxi driver who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said: “I don’t really agree with it, because of the privacy issues.”

“Who gets to see it? It could be misused, or used as a political tool by the government,” he said. “I’m very worried about that.”

A passerby who gave only the surname Chan told RFA in an earlier interview that he had doubts about the true purpose of the surveillance cameras because there isn’t much street crime in Hong Kong.

“There really aren’t that many thieves,” he said. “But it’ll mean that if we have something we want to speak out about in future, or to oppose, we won’t be able to.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze, Luk Nam Choi and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.

Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who like Lam is a member of the Democratic Party, accusing authorities of “rewriting history.”

“It’s a false accusation and part of a totally fabricated version of history that Hong Kong people don’t recognize,” Hui told RFA Cantonese after the verdict was announced on Dec. 12.

“How does the court see the people of Hong Kong?” he asked. “How can they act like they live in two separate worlds?”

The District Court found Lam and six others guilty of “taking part in a riot” by as dozens of thugs in white T-shirts rained blows down on the heads of unarmed passengers -- including their own -- using rattan canes and wooden poles at Yuen Long station on July 21, 2019.

Lam, one of the defendants in the subversion trial of 47 activists for holding a democratic primary, is also currently serving a 6-years-and-9-month prison sentence for “conspiracy to subvert state power.”

While the defense argued that the men were defending themselves against the thugs, the prosecution said they had “provoked” the attacks and used social media to incite people to turn up and defend against the men.

Letters of thanks

The verdict came despite Lam and former District Councilor Sin Cheuk-lam having received letters from the Hong Kong Police thanking them for their role in the incident.

Sentencing in the trial, which began in October 2023, is expected on Feb. 27, with mitigation hearings set for Jan. 22.

A conviction for rioting carries a maximum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment, although the District Court is limited to handing out sentences of no more than seven years.

Issuing his verdict on Dec. 12, Judge Stanley Chan said he didn’t believe that Lam had using his standing as a Legislative Councilor to mediate the conflict or monitor the police response, and accused him of trying to take advantage of the situation for his own political benefit.

Felt numb

A victim of the attacks who is now overseas and gave only the pseudonym Galileo for fear of reprisals said he felt numb when he heard Thursday’s verdict, as he had felt the result to be inevitable amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in Hong Kong.

“I used a fire extinguisher and sprayed water [during the attacks],” Galileo said, adding that he and journalist Gwyneth Ho were “beaten several times.”

“I was panicky and scared, and my instinct was to protect myself and others,” he said.

According to Galileo, Lam’s actions likely protected others from also being attacked.

“I felt that his presence made everyone feel calmer, because he was a member of the Legislative Council at the time,” he said of Lam’s role in the incident. “He kept saying the police were coming, and everyone believed him, so they waited, but the police never came.”

Police were inundated with emergency calls from the start of the attacks, according to multiple contemporary reports, but didn’t move in until 39 minutes after the attacks began.

In a recent book about the protests, former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin wrote that the Hong Kong authorities knew about the attacks in advance.

Members of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld “triad” organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book said.

Chased and beaten

According to multiple accounts from the time, Lam first went to Mei Foo MTR station to warn people not to travel north to Yuen Long, after dozens of white-clad thugs were spotted assembling at a nearby chicken market.

When live footage of beatings started to emerge, Lam called the local community police sergeant and asked him to dispatch officers to the scene as soon as possible, before setting off himself for Yuen Long to monitor the situation in person.

On arrival, he warned some of the attackers not to “do anything,” and told people he had called the police. Eventually, the attackers charged, and Lam and others were chased and beaten all the way onto a train.

One of the people shown in that early social media footage was chef Calvin So, who displayed red welts across his back following beatings by the white-clad attackers.

So told RFA Cantonese on Friday: “The guys in white were really beating people, and injured some people ... I don’t understand because Lam Cheuk-ting’s side were spraying water at them and telling people to leave.”

He described the verdict as “ridiculous,” adding: “But ridiculous things happen every day in Hong Kong nowadays.”

Erosion of judicial independence

In a recent report on the erosion of Hong Kong judicial independence amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent that followed the 2019 protests, law experts at Georgetown University said the city’s courts now have to “tread carefully” now that the ruling Chinese Communist Party has explicitly rejected the liberal values the legal system was built on.

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Nowadays, Hong Kong’s once-independent courts tend to find along pro-Beijing lines, particularly in politically sensitive cases, according to the December 2024 report, which focused on the impact of a High Court injunction against the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong.”

“In our view, at least some judges are issuing pro-regime verdicts in order to advance their careers,” said the report, authored by Eric Lai, Lokman Tsui and Thomas Kellogg.

“The government’s aggressive implementation of the National Security Law has sent a clear signal to individual judges that their professional advancement depends on toeing the government’s ideological line, and delivering a steady stream of guilty verdicts.”

Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Luk Nam Choi and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.

But the claim is misleading. The reports cited an EU resolution that is a non-binding request designed to draw attention to the latest issues in Hong Kong. As of Dec. 13, the bloc had not revoked the city’s favorable customs treatment.

The claim was shared in a report published by the Taiwanese media outlet NewTalk News on Dec. 5, 2024.

“The European Parliament has recently passed a resolution to revoke the EU’s special tariff treatment for Hong Kong,” the report reads in part.

The report cited a post on X uploaded by “News Investigation” that reads: “The European Parliament has recently passed a resolution requesting the European Union to revoke favorable tariff treatment for Hong Kong. The US$500 billion in annual Chinese exports to the EU which pass through Hong Kong will no longer enjoy ultra-low tariffs.”

The EU has historically granted Hong Kong favorable customs treatment, recognizing its status as a separate customs territory distinct from mainland China. This arrangement facilitated trade by simplifying customs procedures and reducing tariffs, thereby promoting economic exchange between the EU and Hong Kong.

The claim about the EU revoking Hong Kong’s favorable customs treatment is false.

EU resolution on Hong Kong

Keyword searches found a resolution regarding Hong Kong passed by the EU on Nov. 28, 2024 here.

“Calls on the EEAS [European External Action Service] and the Member States to warn China that its actions in HK will have consequences for EU-China relations; calls on the Council … to revoke HK’s favourable customs treatment and review the status of the HK Economic Trade Office in Brussels,” the resolution reads in part.

The European Parliament adopts three types of resolutions, including non-legislative ones, which offer greater flexibility by allowing the parliament to address any topic it deems relevant. These resolutions are non-binding. The recent resolution on Hong Kong falls under this category.

While such resolutions express the parliament’s views, they do not impose any obligation on other EU institutions to act on their calls. Instead, the primary purpose of these resolutions is to draw the attention of other European institutions to specific issues.

The EU’s resolution was in response to a Hong Kong court jailing 45 democracy supporters for up to 10 years.

In all, 47 Hong Kong opposition politicians and pro-democracy activists were charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the city’s 2020 National Security Law for taking part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020. Two were acquitted.

Amid growing calls for further sanctions on Hong Kong and the expansion of lifeboat visa schemes for those fleeing the ongoing political crackdown in the city, the governments of the U.S., U.K. and Australia, and the United Nations slammed the sentencing.

The EU resolution on Hong Kong, passed with 473 votes in favor, 23 against and 98 abstentions, calls on the city to immediately release the jailed activists as well as pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.

The city, which recently fired its top tourism and travel officials without giving a reason, now ranks 21st in the Euromonitor Top 100 City Destinations Index 2024, compared with 17th in 2023.

Like the rest of China, Hong Kong’s economy has struggled to bounce back in the wake of the three years of zero-COVID restrictions and travel bans.

The city even handed out free plane tickets in a bid to boost visitor numbers after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.

Yet all is clearly not well in the city that was once known for its vibrant night-life, iconic harbor, packed restaurants and bustling malls and markets.

Chief Executive John Lee last week fired Culture, Sports and Tourism Secretary Kevin Yeung and Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung.

Now, he seems to be hoping that giant pandas An An and Ke Ke will attract both patriotic visitors from mainland China and international tourists to spend their cash and boost the local economy.

Lee attended a lavish “Giant Panda Greeting Ceremony” at the HK$498- (US$64-) per-person Ocean Park theme park panda attraction alongside Zhou Ji, a top ruling Chinese Communist Party official in charge of Hong Kong, on Saturday.

“Hong Kong is honored to be keeping the largest number of giant pandas outside of mainland China,” Lee told the gathering. “These giant pandas ... demonstrate the Central Government’s support and care for Hong Kong.”

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With Rosanna Law now in the driving seat as Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, the government has also scattered 2,500 sculptures of pandas in different poses across the city in a series of “exhibitions” it terms the Panda Go! Fest.

It will auction special editions of the pandas off for charity with musician Pharrell Williams, actor Huang Bo, and supermodel Du Juan as guest stars, according to the official website.

Law told reporters that 145,000 people visited Hong Kong on Saturday from mainland China, 28.5% more than that daily average for November.

Yet government statistics show that overnight visits didn’t also spike, suggesting that those visitors were mostly day-trippers, and didn’t stay long.

Mainland Chinese visitors typically spent around HK$5,100 (US$656) a head on trips to Hong Kong in the first half of this year -- slightly less than the HK$5,800 (US$746) they spent in the second half of 2023, and far below the HK$7,000 (US$900) they spent in 2018.

But day-trippers consume far less than that, spending an average of HK$1,300 (US$167) a head in the first half of 2024, compared with HK$2,400 (US$308) in 2018.

Fewer mainland shoppers

Store owners in the New Territories town of Sheung Shui, close to the border with mainland China, said there are still some mainland shoppers -- who stand out because they typically bring trolleys to cart their hauls back over the border -- on the streets these days thanks to a multiple-entry permit rolled out by the authorities that saw 30,000 people cross into Hong Kong last week.

But they’re coming in far fewer numbers than before the pandemic, and they’re spending far less, business owners said.

“I mainly come her to buy infant formula for my kids, because the quality control is probably better here,” a shopper from Shenzhen who gave the surname Li told RFA Cantonese on Sunday.

Two other shoppers said they came for lip balms and other skincare products, which are slightly cheaper in Hong Kong.

But shoppers told RFA Cantonese that they don’t come that often. “This is my first time since the pandemic,” a shopper from Shenzhen said. Two others said they come about once a month.

It’s a far cry from the days when bulk traders thronged the streets with their trolleys, buying up jade and gold. The jewelry store in the same street remained empty on Sunday afternoon.

“It’s not really helping our industry,” a gold store owner surnamed Cheung told Radio Free Asia.

Pharmacy owners said their turnover has also plummeted, with one estimating it at one-tenth of pre-pandemic levels.

Tourism chief’s departure

Meanwhile, in the absence of official comment on the sacking of former tourism chief Kevin Yeung, Hong Kongers were left speculating on the reasons for his early departure.

A college student who gave only the surname Kwun for fear of reprisals said many believe the authorities were unimpressed by the last-minute cancelation of a drone show planned for Victoria Harbor in September to mark Mid-Autumn Festival.

“Kevin Yeung didn’t do a good job with the drone show, which got canceled for no reason on the day it was supposed to happen,” Kwun said.

Authorities said at the time that intense solar activity had interfered with the navigational equipment controlling the drones.

A student nurse who gave only the surname Lee for fear of reprisals said Yeung’s attempts to boost Hong Kong’s nightlife had also fallen flat.

“He didn’t do much to promote local events or nightlife, and he didn’t succeed in boosting Hong Kong’s economy, which has actually gotten worse,” Lee said.

“I don’t think anyone in government is doing much about it,” Lee said, adding that he has scant hope that Yeung’s replacement will be any better.

During Yeung’s tenure, Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Cruise Terminal remained largely empty of ships, while Inter Miami soccer legend Lionel Messi failed to turn out to play in a much-vaunted exhibition match in February.

Yeung was also held to account for failing to roll out a government “blueprint” to revitalize the arts, culture and creative industries in time for the Chief Executive’s policy address in October.

Yeung eventually launched the measures, which he said aimed to “enhance the appeal of Hong Kong’s culture ... and further consolidate Hong Kong’s position as an East-meets-West center for international cultural exchanges” on Nov. 26.

While Lee declined to say why Yeung and Lam were fired, he did praise their successors Rosanna Law and Mable Chan for their “leadership, articulation skills, and also their proactiveness.”

“This is exactly what I need in the years to come, to ensure that we will reap the best results,” Lee told journalists on Dec. 5, adding that he wanted to regain time lost due to the pandemic and the 2019 protests.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Luk Nam Choi, Wei Sze, Edward Li and Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.

China’s “red armband” brigade of state-sanctioned busybodies have been dubbed the biggest intelligence network on the planet by social media users, and have supplied information that has also led police to crack major organized crime, according to state media.

Neighborhood committees in China have long been tasked with monitoring the activities of ordinary people in urban areas, while its grid management system turbo-charges the capacity of officials even in rural areas to monitor what local people are doing, saying and thinking.

These local forms of surveillance and social control are known in Chinese political jargon as the “Fengqiao Experience.”

Now, it looks as if Hong Kong will be adopting similar measures, according to the city’s Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, Alice Mak, who confirmed that 18 local officials had already been to the eastern province of Zhejiang to study the system.

“Through classroom study and on-the-spot understanding of the practical methods of the Fengqiao Experience ... district councilors understand that regional governance requires strengthening communication with citizens, understanding their emergencies, difficulties and worries, as well as the early detection and resolution of citizens’ problems,” Mak told the Legislative Council on Wednesday.

She said the Fengqiao Experience will be implemented in Hong Kong by newly introduced “care teams,” and that further training is in the pipeline.

In July 2021, China empowered local officials at township, village and neighborhood level to enforce the law, as well as operating a vastly extended “grid management” system of social control in rural and urban areas alike.

According to directives sent out in 2018, the grid system carves up neighborhoods into a grid pattern with 15-20 households per square, with each grid given a dedicated monitor who reports back on residents' affairs to local committees.

Hong Kong’s care teams are also expected to help the authorities inform the public, as well as reporting the views of the public to the government, according to a 2022 document announcing their deployment.

Detecting grievances

Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the ongoing crackdown on public dissent under two national security laws isn’t enough for the authorities, who want to nip any signs of potential unrest in the bud.

“The authorities are taking the big-picture view that there will be a lot of public grievances given the current economic problems,” Lau told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “It’s clear that more grassroots work will have to be done to prevent any outbreak of such grievances.”

He said the District Councils, which now contain only members judged “patriotic” following recent changes in the electoral system, will be the mainstay of the new approach, with the care teams staying in touch with local residents in neighborhoods.

But he said there are also plenty of technological options for keeping an eye on what people are up to.

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Former pro-democracy District Councilor Cheung Man-lung said the care teams won’t necessarily be effective if people don’t trust them, however.

“Community work is always based on public trust in those in positions of responsibility,” Cheung said. “If people don’t trust them, then there’ll be a lot of problems [with this approach].”

Cheung said he hasn’t seen much of his local care team, despite the bursting of a water main in his neighborhood recently.

Chief Executive John Lee, who was “elected” unopposed following changes to the electoral rules in 2022, first announced the establishment of care teams in his October policy address of that year, saying they would “take part in community-building” across Hong Kong’s 18 districts.

The government would carve up districts into sub-districts, and seek to engage local organizations and groups, including young people and ethnic minorities to take part in community building, he said.

The first care teams, chosen for their patriotism and willingness to follow the government’s lead, were deployed in Tsuen Wan and Southern districts in 2023.

The government changed the rules governing District Council election after the 2019 poll resulted in a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates that was widely seen as a ringing public endorsement for the pro-democracy movement despite months of disruption and clashes.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Dawn Yu for RFA Cantonese.

They’re buying up large quantities of sanitary towels and other feminine care items, spurred by reports of contaminated and discolored cotton filling in similar products made just across the border in mainland China and sold in Chinese stores.

“The quality’s more acceptable,” a resident of neighboring Guangzhou city shopping for sanitary products at one store in Hong Kong told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. “I’m not so worried about using them because there are guaranteed standards.”

“I wish Chinese state-owned enterprises and regulatory authorities would follow up on safety issues around Chinese sanitary towels,” said the woman, who gave only the surname Zhang for fear of reprisals.

“I don’t buy them there anymore,” a woman who gave only the pseudonym Chen told RFA. “I only buy them here.”

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More than 340 million women aged 15 to 49 use sanitary napkins in China, with sales of such products worth around 98 billion yuan, or US$13.4 billion.

Yet many mainland Chinese women don’t trust feminine care products that are made in China.

Chinese companies have been embroiled in a string of public health scandals affecting foodstuffs in recent years, including other incidents involving Sudan Red in foods, melamine-tainted milk, used “gutter” cooking oil and cadmium-tainted rice.

Skimping on quality

Women have been taking to social media in recent weeks to report quality issues in sanitary products made in mainland China, including reports of substandard cotton filling that has been recycled from questionable sources, is discolored or contaminated.

A social media video last month showed one raw material supplier telling a blogger that the recycled material being sold as filling for sanitary towel manufacturers “came from diapers.”

Another blogger cut open a Sanwu brand product on camera, finding “inexplicable black blobs and foreign objects” in the filling, including a human hair.

Chinese manufacturers have also been accused of skimping on quality, including supplying sanitary towels that are several centimeters shorter than their advertised length.

“It’s a hot topic on Douyin right now that some sanitary towels just aren’t long enough,” a Shenzhen resident who gave only the surname Shen for fear of reprisals told RFA in a recent interview. “Some have been said to be unhygienic, with filling that looks black when you shine a light on it.”

Following social media complaints on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, government-backed media The Paper tested 24 different brands, finding that 88% of them were at least a centimeter (0.4 inches) shorter than advertised.

Chinese industry standards allow a discrepancy of up to 4%, which would equate to about 10-15 millimeters, suggesting that the discrepancies may not be illegal.

A worrying situation

More worryingly, social media users carried out their own private laboratory tests on Chinese-made feminine care products, finding that many products currently on the market have excessive levels of bacteria, harmful chemicals or the wrong pH, and could be harmful to women, leading to health problems, including bacterial vaginitis and pelvic inflammatory disease.

The reports prompted many women to take to social media in the hope of locating “safe” brands of sanitary products, spawning a wave of sellers on the social media platform claiming to have goods made in Hong Kong and Japan.

Sanitary products sold in personal products stores like Hong Kong’s Watson’s are often made in Hong Kong or Japan, to far more stringent safety standards.

In one social media video, a customer service representative of feminine products manufacturer ABC told a customer who complained: “If you don’t think this is acceptable, you don’t have to buy them.”

The company’s products were later removed from the shelves of its Tmall flagship store following a social media outcry.

A number of Chinese companies have made public apologies, while ABC has said that it is “deeply sorry” for its “inappropriate” customer service response, according to multiple media reports.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze for RFA Cantonese.

Lai, 76, is facing charges under the 2020 National Security Law that Beijing imposed on the former British colony a year after it was rocked by anti-government protests. He faces life imprisonment.

“We were always in support of movements for freedom,” Lai, wearing a gray blazer and glasses, told the West Kowloon Magistrates Court, the Reuters news agency reported.

Scores of Lai’s supporters lined up outside the court in the rain early on Wednesday, hoping to get in to show their support, media reported.

The founder of the now-closed Apple Daily, a Chinese-language tabloid renowned for its pro-democracy views and criticism of Beijing, pleaded not guilty on Jan. 2 to “sedition” and “collusion” under the security law.

The United States, Britain and other Western countries have denounced Lai’s prosecution and called for his release.

Human rights groups say Lai’s trial is a “sham” and part of a broad crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong that has all but destroyed its reputation as the only place in Greater China where the rule of law and freedoms of speech and assembly were preserved.

The hearing comes a day after a Hong Kong court jailed 45 democracy supporters for up to 10 years for subversion at the end of the city’s biggest national security trial.

Those sentences drew international condemnation and calls for further sanctions on Hong Kong and the expansion of lifeboat visa schemes for those fleeing the political crackdown in the city.

Trump vow

Lai is a British citizen who, despite being born in the southern province of Guangdong, has never held Chinese citizenship. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer raised concerns about Lai’s health when he met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday at a G20 meeting in Brazil.

Beijing said the 2020 security law was necessary to safeguard the Asian financial hub’s economic success.

But critics say crackdowns on dissent and press freedom that followed its introduction sounded the death knell for the “one country, two systems” formula under which Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, that was meant to safeguard freedoms not enjoyed elsewhere in China for 50 years.

Lai has been in prison for nearly four years. He was jailed for nearly six years in 2022 on a fraud conviction linked to his media business.

Lai has long advocated for the U.S. government, especially during the first term of President Donald Trump, to take a strong stance in supporting Hong Kong’s civil liberties, which he viewed as essential to the city’s role as a gateway between China and global markets.

Prosecutors, however, allege that Lai’s activities and his newspaper’s articles constituted lobbying for sanctions against Beijing and Hong Kong, a violation of the national security law. Lai’s lawyers argue that he ceased such actions after the law took effect on June 30, 2020.

Trump has vowed to secure Lai’s release, media reported.

During Trump’s first term, the U.S. revoked Hong Kong’s special trade status and enacted legislation allowing sanctions on the city’s officials in response to China’s crackdown on the city.

During the peak of the 2019 protests, Lai visited Washington and met then-Vice President Mike Pence and other U.S. politicians to discuss Hong Kong’s political crisis.

“Mr President, you’re the only one who can save us,” Lai said in an interview with CNN in 2020 weeks before his arrest.

“If you save us, you can stop China’s aggressions. You can also save the world.”

Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Rights activists, relatives and Hong Kong’s former colonial governor on Tuesday slammed the sentencing of 45 democracy activists and former lawmakers for up to 10 years for “subversion,” amid growing calls for further sanctions on Hong Kong and the expansion of lifeboat visa schemes for those fleeing the ongoing political crackdown in the city.

Britain’s last colonial governor of Hong Kong, Lord Patten of Barnes, said the sentences, handed down to pro-democracy activists for organising a primary in July 2020, were “an affront to the people of Hong Kong.”

“I absolutely condemn these sham sentences, which resulted from a non-jury trial and point to the destruction of freedoms of assembly, expression, and the press in Hong Kong,” Patten said in a statement.

“The U.K. government must not allow the results of this case to go unnoticed or uncondemned,” he said.

British Foreign Office minister Catherine West said the sentencing was a clear demonstration of Hong Kong authorities‘ use of the 2020 National Security Law to criminalize political dissent.

“Those sentenced today were exercising their right to freedom of speech, of assembly and of political participation,” West said in a statement.

Canadian Senator Leo Housakos, Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, described the sentences as a “grave injustice.”

“The National Security Law and the prosecution of these freedom fighters undermine the principles of freedom, human rights, and rule of law,” Housakos said in a statement posted by the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch.

Call for sanctions

Former politics lecturer Chan Kin-man, who founded the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement along with key defendant Benny Tai, said none of those jailed, many of whom have been behind bars for more than three years, should have spent a single day in prison.

“Benny worked hard as a constitutional scholar to expand the scope of the pro-democracy movement through peaceful means,” Chan said of Tai, who was handed a 10-year jail term by the Hong Kong High Court on Tuesday.

He said all of those who took part in the 2020 democratic primary - which the prosecution argued was an attempt to subvert the government - had been exercising their rights under the city’s constitution, the Basic Law.

“This makes me both sad and angry,” Chan said in a written reaction to RFA Cantonese.

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U.S.-based activist Anna Kwok, who heads the Hong Kong Democracy Council, condemned the Hong Kong government for “launching an all-out assault” against the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

“The international community must respond to the intensifying political repression with proportionate actions,” Kwok said via her X account. “We continue to call on the U.S. government to impose targeted sanctions on Hong Kong and [Chinese] officials responsible for the crackdown on these pro-democracy leaders.”

She also called for the status of Hong Kong’s Economic and Trade Offices to be revoked by Congress, saying there are now around 1,900 political prisoners in the city.

‘Distortion of the facts’

Journalist-turned-activist Gwyneth Ho, who was handed a seven-year jail term on Tuesday, said the prosecution’s claim that the democratic primary was an attempt to undermine the government was a “distortion of the facts.”

“They forced the accused to deny their own lived experience, to see genuine solidarity as just a delusion,” Ho wrote in a post to her Facebook page. “That the bonds, the togetherness, the honest conversations among people so different yet so connected ... were just a utopian dream.”

Ho warned that what happened in Hong Kong could happen in any democracy.

“Today, no democracy is immune to the crisis of legitimacy that results from a deficit of public trust,” she said. “Defend and repair your own democracy. Push back against the corruption of power, restore faith in democratic values through action.”

But she said she had no regrets about her involvement in the pro-democracy movement, and the 2019 protests that many saw as a last-ditch attempt to defend the city’s vanishing freedoms.

“Even if what happened today was always inevitable for Hong Kong, then at least back in 2019 we chose to face up to it, rather than ... dumping the problem onto the next generation,” Ho wrote.

League of Social Democrats leader Chan Po-ying, said the sentencing of her husband and fellow activist Leung Kwok-hung to six years and nine months’ imprisonment for taking part in the primary was “unjust.”

“My only thought is that this is an unjust sentence; he shouldn’t have to spend a day in prison,” Chan told RFA Cantonese. She said she would be focusing on how best to support Leung during his weekly prison visits.

Maya Wang, senior China researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said: “Running in an election and trying to win it is now a crime that can lead to a decade in prison in Hong Kong.”

A promise broken

In Taiwan, presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said democracy isn’t a crime.

“This was a serious violation of the Hong Kong people’s pursuit of freedom and democracy,” Kuo said. “It shows us that the promise that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for 50 years has been broken.”

She said China’s promise to allow the city to run under different principles from the rest of China - the “one country, two systems” formula that Beijing also wants to use in Taiwan - wasn’t viable.

“Taiwan will continue to work with the international community to jointly resist the expansion of authoritarian power,” Kuo said.

Hong Kong Watch called on the British government to expand the British National Overseas visa scheme to include those born before the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, if they had one parent who was eligible for the scheme.

It also called on Washington to renew Deferred Enforced Departure, or DED, status for Hong Kongers in the United States, “to prevent them from being forced to return to Hong Kong where the human rights environment continues to worsen.”

Hong Kong Watch said Ottawa, meanwhile, should “clear the backlog of Hong Kong Pathway applications to prevent the expiration of temporary status for Hong Kongers in Canada.”

Group Patron Ambassador Derek Mitchell said the sentences were “another dark milestone” for Hong Kong.

“The international community must strongly condemn this crime and stand with these brave former legislators, activists, journalists, and trade unionists who fought resolutely for democracy, rights and freedom against the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party,” Mitchell said.

Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

In all, 47 Hong Kong opposition politicians and pro-democracy activists were charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the city’s 2020 National Security Law for taking part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020. Two were acquitted

China imposed the law on the former British colony a year after it was rocked by anti-government riots.

Beijing said the law was necessary to safeguard the Asian financial hub’s economic success but critics denounced it as meaning the end of a “one country, two systems” formula under which Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, that was meant to safeguard freedoms not enjoyed elsewhere in China for 50 years.

Prominent democracy activist Benny Tai, who was accused of being the organizer of the 2020 primary election, was jailed for 10 years, while Joshua Wong, another leading activist, was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison.

Activist Owen Chow was sentenced to seven years and nine months and former journalist-turned-activist Gwyneth Ho, was jailed for seven years.

The charge of “conspiracy to commit subversion” carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Security was tight outside the West Kowloon Magistrates Court where the sentences were handed down, with a heavy police presence on the streets.

The embassies of many countries, including the U.S., Britain, Germany and Australia, sent representatives to the hearing.

Repeated delays to the 118-day trial have meant that the majority of the defendants have been behind bars for more than three-and-a-half years, something that would have been previously unheard of in the Hong Kong judicial system.

Thirty-one of the defendants pleaded guilty and 16 denied the charges.

The 47 former pro-democracy lawmakers and opposition activists helped to organize a primary election in July 2020, in a bid to find the best candidates for a pan-democratic slate in the city’s September 2020 Legislative Council elections.

The prosecution argued that their bid to win a majority was “a conspiracy” to undermine the city government and take control of the Legislative Council.

Article 22 of China’s National Security Law for Hong Kong bans anyone from “seriously interfering in, disrupting or undermining the performance of duties and functions in accordance with the law by the body of central power of the People’s Republic of China or the body of power of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by force or threat of force or other unlawful means.”

More than 600,000 voters took part in the primary, which was part of a bid to win enough votes for pro-democracy candidates to veto the government’s budget, which would have offered the opposition camp valuable political leverage when negotiating with the government.

‘Devastating blow’

As Beijing-backed media claimed the primary was a bid to overthrow the city government, the administration of then-Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced an investigation into it.

Lam also postponed the September 2020 election, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, while the government rewrote the electoral rulebook to prevent pro-democracy candidates from running, eventually holding an election in December 2021 in which only “patriots” approved by a Beijing-backed committee were allowed to stand.

On Jan. 6, 2021, newly formed national security police dispatched more than 1,000 officers to 72 locations across Hong Kong, arresting 55 people on suspicion of subversion under the National Security Law in a crackdown that pro-democracy activists said struck a “devastating blow” to the city’s political life.

They brought formal charges against 47 of them, then denied bail to the majority following a grueling arraignment hearing lasting more than four days, including a first-day session of 15 hours, during which defendants were unable to eat, shower or get a change of clothes.

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The charges were the first clear indication that the ruling Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong officials would be using the National Security Law to crack down on peaceful opposition and public dissent, rather than to restore public order in the wake of the 2019 protests, and sparked an international outcry.

The last British colonial governor of Hong Kong, Lord Patten of Barnes, said the trial was part of a political “purge” by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Washington condemned the detention and charging of democrats, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for their immediate release.

Then-British foreign secretary Dominic Raab called the charges “deeply disturbing” and said it showed how the security law was being used to eliminate political dissent rather than restoring order following the 2019 protest movement, as the government had claimed.

Then-Australian foreign minister Marise Payne said the 47 defendants “were peacefully exercising their rights,” while the German foreign ministry called on the Hong Kong authorities to release the defendants and schedule postponed elections to the Legislative Council “in a fair and democratic manner.”

Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Sentencing is expected on Tuesday following the trial of 47 Hong Kong opposition politicians and pro-democracy activists charged with subversion under the city’s 2020 National Security Law for taking part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.

Police on Monday cordoned off the area outside the city’s High Court with traffic barriers and high fences, with armored vehicles standing by.

The charge of “conspiracy to commit subversion” carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, but a range of custodial sentences looks likely following three months of mitigation hearings that concluded on Sept. 3.

Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui said the security measures were “a symbol of iron curtain suppression.”

“The use of high fencing to enclose the court ... sends the message that the government is in total control, and that people had better not even dream of putting up any resistance,” Hui said. “The aim is to make the people of Hong Kong give up.”

The Hong Kong High Court found 14 democrats guilty of “conspiracy to commit subversion,” more than three years after their initial arrests in January 2021, including former pro-democracy lawmaker and veteran social activist Leung Kwok-hung and union leader Carol Ng.

Two defendants were acquitted.

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Jailed pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, Occupy Central founder Benny Tai and journalist-turned-lawmaker Claudia Mo were among 31 defendants who pleaded guilty in a political climate where acquittals have become rare, but where a guilty plea could mean a much lighter sentence.

Former journalist Gwyneth Ho, a 2019 protest movement activist, former nursing student Owen Chow and labor unionist Winnie Yu were among those who pleaded not guilty, and stood trial between Feb. 6 and Dec. 4, 2023 before a panel of three government-picked national security judges and no jury.

Repeated delays to the 118-day trial have meant that the majority have been behind bars for more than three-and-a-half years already, something that would have been previously unheard of in the Hong Kong judicial system.

What did the activists do?

The 47 former pro-democracy lawmakers and opposition activists had helped to organize a primary election in July 2020, in a bid to find the best candidates for a pan-democratic slate in the September 2020 Legislative Council elections.

The prosecution argued that their bid to win a majority was “a conspiracy” to undermine the city’s government and take control of the Legislative Council.

Article 22 of China’s National Security Law for Hong Kong bans anyone from “seriously interfering in, disrupting or undermining the performance of duties and functions in accordance with the law by the body of central power of the People’s Republic of China or the body of power of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by force or threat of force or other unlawful means.”

More than 600,000 voters took part in the primary, which was part of a bid to win enough votes for pro-democracy candidates to veto the government’s budget, which would have offered the opposition camp valuable political leverage when negotiating with the government.

How did the authorities react?

As Beijing-backed media claimed the primary was a bid to overthrow the city government, the administration of then-Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced an investigation into the event.

Lam also postponed the September 2020 election, while the government rewrote the electoral rulebook to prevent pro-democracy candidates from running, eventually holding a fresh election in December 2021 in which only “patriots” approved by a Beijing-backed committee were allowed to stand.

On Jan. 6, 2021, the newly formed national security police dispatched more than 1,000 officers to 72 locations across Hong Kong, arresting 55 people on suspicion of subversion under the National Security Law in a move that pro-democracy activists said struck a “devastating blow” to the city’s political life.

They brought formal charges against 47 of them, then denied bail to the majority following a grueling arraignment hearing lasting more than four days, including a first-day session of 15 hours, during which defendants were unable to eat, shower or get a change of clothes.

How did the rest of the world react?

The charges were the first clear indication that the ruling Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong officials would be using the National Security Law to crack down on peaceful opposition and public dissent, rather than to restore public order in the wake of the 2019 protests, and sparked an international outcry.

The last British colonial governor of Hong Kong, Lord Patten of Barnes, said the trial was part of a political “purge” by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Washington condemned the detention and charging of democrats, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for their immediate release.

Then-British foreign secretary Dominic Raab called the charges “deeply disturbing” and said it showed how the National Security Law was being used to eliminate political dissent rather than restoring order following the 2019 protest movement, as the government had claimed.

Then-Australian foreign minister Marise Payne said the 47 defendants “were peacefully exercising their rights,” while the German foreign ministry called on the Hong Kong authorities to release the defendants and schedule postponed elections to the Legislative Council “in a fair and democratic manner.”

What are the implications for Hong Kong?

Exiled Hong Kong democracy activist Fu Tong, who now lives in democratic Taiwan, said it wasn’t just the 47 defendants who had been criminalized by the process.

“It wasn’t just them on trial, but all 600,000 of us who voted [in the primary],” Fu told RFA on Nov. 18. “We have become criminals too.”

The case normalized the use of a three-judge panel and no jury, as well as restrictions on meetings with lawyers for defendants in national security trials, observers said.

Described by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a “sham trial,” the case was an early indicator that political trials would likely become far more common in Hong Kong following the imposition of the 2020 National Security Law.

In December 2023, Hong Kong plummeted in Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index, with the annual rights report describing China’s crackdown in the city as a “descent into tyranny.”

The city – once ranked in the top 10 freest territories in the world – dropped from 3rd place in 2010 to 46th place in 2021 out of 165 countries, the Cato Institute said in its 2023 report. It fell 17 spots from 2020.

The report found “notable deterioration” in nearly every kind of freedom, but particularly in its rule of law, freedom of expression, and freedom of association and assembly ratings.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Joshua Lipes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

Sebastien, who leads the #FreeJimmyLai campaign, last saw his father in August 2020 — weeks after Beijing imposed a national security law that led to a massive crackdown on pro-democracy advocates and journalists. Among them Lai, founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

After nearly four years in Hong Kong’s maximum-security Stanley Prison and multiple delays to his trial, the aging British citizen was due to take the stand for the first time on November 20 on charges of sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces, which he denies.

Lai, who has diabetes, routinely spends over 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, with only 50 minutes for restricted exercise and limited access to daylight, according to his international lawyers.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called for his release.

Responding to CPJ’s request for comment, a Hong Kong government spokesperson referred to a November 17 statement in which it said that Lai was “receiving appropriate treatment and care in prison” and that Hong Kong authorities “strongly deplore any form of interference.”

In an interview with CPJ, Sebastien spoke about Britain’s bilateral ties with China, as well as Hong Kong — a former British colony where his father arrived as a stowaway on a fishing boat at age 12, before finding jobs in a garment factory and eventually launched a clothing retail chain and his media empire.

What do you anticipate when your father takes the stand for the first time?

To be honest, I do not know. My father is a strong person, but the Hong Kong government has spent four years trying to break him. I don’t think they can break his spirit but with his treatment they are in the process of breaking his body. We will see the extent of that on the stand.

Your father turned 77 recently. How is he doing in solitary confinement?

The last time I saw my father was in August of 2020. I haven’t been able to return to my hometown since and therefore have been unable to visit him in prison. His health has declined significantly. He is now 77, and, having spent nearly four years in a maximum-security prison in solitary confinement, his treatment is inhumane. For his dedication to freedom, they have taken his away.

For his bravery in standing in defense of others, they have denied him human contact. For his strong faith in God, they have denied him Holy Communion.

We have seen governments across the political spectrum call for Jimmy Lai’s release —the U.S., the European Parliament, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Ireland, among others. What does that mean to you?

We are incredibly grateful for all the support from multiple states in calling for my father’s release. The charges against my father are sham charges. The Hong Kong government has weaponized their legal system to crack down on all who criticize them.

You met with the U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently, who said Jimmy Lai’s case remains a priority and the government will press for consular access. What would you like to see Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government do?

They have publicly stated that they want to normalize relationships with China and to increase trade. I don’t see how that can be achieved if there is a British citizen in Hong Kong in the process of being killed for standing up for the values that underpin a free nation and the rights and dignity of its citizens.

Any normalization of the relationship with China needs to be conditional on my father’s immediate release and his return to the United Kingdom.

Your father’s life story in many ways embodies Hong Kong’s ‘never-give-up’ attitude. Do you think Hong Kong journalists and pro-democracy activists will keep on fighting? What is your message to Beijing and the Hong Kong government?

I think most of the world shares his spirit. Hong Kong is unique because it’s a city of refugees. It’s a city where we were given many of the freedoms of the free world. And as a result, it flourished. We knew what we had and what we escaped from.

My message is to release my father immediately. A Hong Kong that has 1,900 political prisoners for democracy campaigning, is a Hong Kong that has no rule of law, no free press, one that disregards the welfare of its citizens. This is not a Hong Kong that will flourish.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Beh Lih Yi.

“This show trial must end before it is too late,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg on Monday. “The case of Jimmy Lai is not an outlier, it’s a symptom of Hong Kong’s democratic decline. Hong Kong’s treatment of Jimmy Lai — and more broadly of independent media and journalists — shows that this administration is no longer interested in even a semblance of democratic norms.”

Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, has spent nearly four years in a maximum-security prison and solitary confinement since December 2020. He has faced multiple postponements to his trial, in which he has been charged with sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told parliament in October that the case of Lai, who is a British citizen, was a “priority” and called for his release. Similarly, United Nations experts in January urged Hong Kong authorities to drop all charges against the publisher and free him.

The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained in Hong Kong, expressed alarm over his prolonged solitary confinement, and called for immediate remedy. Lai suffers from a long-standing health issue of diabetes.

Lai won a press freedom award from CPJ and the organization continues to advocate for his freedom.

Responding to CPJ’s request for comment, a Hong Kong government spokesperson referred to a November 17 statement in which it said that Lai was “receiving appropriate treatment and care in prison” and that Hong Kong authorities “strongly deplore any form of interference.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Selina Cheng, who says she was let go as part of “restructuring” in July after being warned against seeking election as chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, is filing a case with the tribunal after her request for reinstatement was unsuccessful.

“I was fired by the Wall Street Journal because of my position as chairman of the Journalists Association,” Cheng told reporters, accompanied by her lawyer, on Tuesday. “I have tried to communicate with and seek mediation with the company’s U.S. representatives via my lawyer but this was ineffective.”

“The other party continues to insist that my dismissal was part of layoffs, and reject my request for reinstatement,” she said.

Cheng won the election to replace Ronson Chan, who stepped down from the union leadership citing threats and pressure from pro-China sources.

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Officials in China and Hong Kong have repeatedly claimed that journalists are safe to carry out “legitimate” reporting activities under both the 2020 National Security Law and the Article 23 Safeguarding National Security Law, which was passed on March 23.

But pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai is currently on trial for “collusion with foreign forces” for printing articles in his now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper.

Ready to testify

Cheng said she had already filed some evidence for her claim to the Labor Department, and would be filing a formal complaint on Tuesday, under Section 21b of the city‘s Employment Ordinance, which protects employees’ right to join a labor union.

“Any employer, or any person acting on behalf of an employer, who prevents or deters ... an employee from exercising that right shall be guilty of an offense,” and could be fined up to HK$100,000 (US$12,855), according to the law.

“I have told the staff at the Labor Department that I am very willing to testify in court, and provide all the necessary information,” she said. “Since there is more than enough evidence to show they are in violation of the law, I think the government should actively prosecute them.”

Cheng, a Hong Kong correspondent for the Journal who had survived earlier rounds of layoffs, was approached by senior editors in June after they heard she was running in elections for the chair of the union, warned off running for the top job and told to leave the board, despite approving her position at the union when she was hired in 2021.

Cheng has quoted her editor as saying that Journal employees shouldn’t be seen as advocates for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong, although there was no problem with similar behaviors in Western countries where press freedom is greater. She has said she was fired in person by U.K.-based Foreign Editor Gordon Fairclough, who was on a visit to Hong Kong, with “restructuring” given as the reason for her sacking.

She said none of her colleagues believed that this was the real reason for her dismissal.

“I learned from former colleagues at Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal that they were all very disappointed, mainly because of the claim I was laid off,” Cheng said. “Everyone knows that this wasn’t the the truth, but the company continues to insist that this was the reason they fired me.”

Cheng said the incident had damaged her professional reputation, but that she was still open to discussions about her reinstatement.

State of press freedom

Journalists and media watchdog groups say press freedom has gone sharply downhill in Hong Kong in recent years, as Beijing ramps up its mission to protect “national security” with a constant expansion of forbidden topics and “red lines” in recent years.

Foreign journalists have also been targeted, with the city refusing to renew a work visa for the Financial Times' Victor Mallet in 2018 after he hosted pro-independence politician Andy Chan as a speaker at the Foreign Correspondents' Club where he was an official at the time.

The Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees, a union run by and for the employees of Dow Jones, has previously said that if Cheng was fired as what she claimed, the behavior was “unconscionable,” the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, adding that the association has called on the publication to restore her job and provide a full explanation of their decision to dismiss her.

Hong Kong ranked 135th out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index, down from 80 in 2021.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.

Officials have changed the name of a lamppost whose official number contained an inadvertent reference to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

The move suggests local officials are keen to avoid getting into trouble with the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which bans public references to the bloodshed that ended weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, and would prefer to keep the public in the dark.

The lamppost is located next to a footbridge between Yu Wing Path and Ma Tin Road in Hong Kong’s Yuen Long district, close to the internal border with mainland China, and was once labeled “FA8964,” which could be read as code for “June 4, 1989,” a politically sensitive keyword that is banned on the Chinese internet.

The old number was clearly visible on Google Streetview on Nov. 8, but RFA Cantonese found that the actual number had been changed to “DG8332” in an on-the-ground investigation on the same day, while the lamppost had been repainted with a sign warning of “wet paint.”

A government database of lamppost locations that is used to help residents report the precise location of crimes showed that lampposts numbered “FA8963” and “FA8966” were still listed, but a query on Nov. 8 for lamppost “FA8964” resulted in the message “data not found.”

The city’s Highways Department told Radio Free Asia in response to a query about the disappeared number that lampposts are sometimes given new numbers when new streetlights are installed, their position changed, or the equipment renovated.

While Hong Kong isn’t yet subject to China’s Great Firewall of blanket internet censorship, some websites linked to the pro-democracy movement are blocked by internet service providers in the city. The website of the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch is also blocked.

The city has used a High Court injunction to force YouTube and other providers to remove references to the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong,” and arrested local residents for “seditious” posts on Facebook.

While the city’s 7 million residents are able to search Google and other sites for information on the People’s Liberation Army’s 1989 killing of civilians in Beijing, authorities have removed hundreds of books from public libraries in recent years, including those referencing the massacre.

Local residents said they thought the lamppost’s “upgrade” was pretty pointless.

“Changing the number is just going to draw more attention to it,” former Yuen Long district councilor Kisslan Chan told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “But there are always people who want to get promoted.”

He said he didn’t think the order had come from higher up, but suggested that local officials were trying to demonstrate zeal amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in the city.

Former district councilor Leslie Chan said the move showed just how sensitive the authorities were, however, citing the High Court injunction on “Glory to Hong Kong.”

“It’s the same reason ... that such a powerful ruling party is afraid of a song,” Leslie Chan said. “Beijing fears the number 8964 more than anything.”

A local resident who gave only the surname Chan for fear of reprisals said the move was a waste of public funds.

“They could have used that money to help people,” she said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam and Wei Sze for RFA Cantonese.

“Next year is the 80th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression,” Lee told lawmakers during his 2024 Policy Address at the Legislative Council on Wednesday. “The government will hold commemorative activities to enhance patriotism.”

The government would also launch a new program of “patriotic education” in primary and secondary schools, stepping up the teaching of Chinese history and geography “increasing patriotic historical elements in exchanges with mainland China,” Lee said.

Lee’s second-in-command, Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki, added in a later comment: “Patriotic education is the foundation for safeguarding national security.”

He said the activities were intended “to enhance patriotic spirit.”

Commentators said the announcements pave the way for further indoctrination of the city’s residents, particularly its children, along the lines of patriotic education programs that already exist in mainland China.

In June, the city’s Education Bureau criticized some schoolchildren for their “weak” singing of China’s national anthem, the “March of the Volunteers,” at flag-raising ceremonies that are now compulsory as part of patriotic “national security” education from kindergartens to universities.

The announcements come amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent under two security laws, the second of which was passed in March, leading to the convictions of three people over the use of banned slogans in graffiti, a T-shirt and social media.

‘Control people’s thoughts’

Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui said Lee’s policy address was the first time a Hong Kong leader has mentioned World War II in a policy address, which he said should have focused more on economic prosperity and social welfare.

“They want to implement the same system they have in mainland China, promoting patriotism and nationalism to control people’s thoughts,” Hui told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

“They want to wash away multiculturalism in Hong Kong with xenophobic sentiments used to resist foreign oppression,” he said. “I worry that the next generation of Hong Kongers will be xenophobic and hate the West, further decoupling Hong Kong from the international community.”

Political commentator Sang Pu said anti-Japanese sentiment may not take root in Hong Kong, whose people have a long-running love affair with Japanese culture.

Hong Kongers spent HK$7.8 billion (around US$1 billion) in Japan in the first quarter of this year, according to figures from the Japanese National Tourism Organization, compared with around HK$17.6 billion (US$2.25 billion) spent by tourists from mainland China in the same period, as bargain-hunters flocked to the country to stock up on household necessities.

“This isn’t just about celebrating the 80th anniversary,” Sang said. “He wants to use it as a way to spread Chinese nationalism, patriotic discourse and distorted views of history to Hong Kong.”

“They want to totally change people’s perceptions of Japan, because people ... can only unite under the banner of the Chinese Communist Party if there's an imaginary enemy to fight,” he said.

He said us-vs-them thinking would change the whole atmosphere of Hong Kong.

“They want to integrate it to use the same patriotic teaching materials as China,” Sang said, calling the move “political warfare.”

Local people expressed varying degrees of indifference toward Lee’s annual policy address when interviewed by RFA Cantonese on Wednesday.

“Didn’t read it,” one said, while another said they “had no interest at all.”

“Didn’t pay attention to it,” commented another person.

A retiree who gave only the surname Sun for fear of reprisals said he thought the policy address lacked measures to boost the flagging economy.

“The economy is jet-lagged, and a lot of shops have been closing down lately,” he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin, Wei Sze and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.

Despite a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition in recent years, Hong Kong has so far remained outside of the Great Firewall of Chinese internet censorship.

But there are signs that the city’s internet isn’t as free as it once was.

Restrictions on Facebook content have skyrocketed from 402 instances in 2019, a year before the first security law was passed, to 2,181 instances in 2023, according to publicly available information published by Facebook's parent company Meta, and viewed by RFA Cantonese on Oct. 9.

Most restrictions targeted personal Facebook accounts, pages and groups, although some involved restricting individual posts and comments on posts, the data showed.

Meta said in a response to RFA Cantonese that it "responds to government data requests in accordance with applicable laws and our terms of service." 

It said every request is "carefully reviewed for legal adequacy," while any request that appeared "too broad or vague" would be carefully scrutinized.

It also stated that "every request we receive will be carefully reviewed for legal adequacy, and any request that appears to be too broad or vague will be reviewed carefully." request, we may deny or request more specific details."

The owner of the EduLancet account on Facebook, Yeung Wing Yu, said Facebook had blocked users in Hong Kong from viewing a Sept. 1 post he wrote about the widely criticized police response to July 21, 2019, attacks on passengers and passers-by in Yuen Long MTR station.

"We've received a legal request from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, to restrict access to your post for going against local law," Facebook told Yeung in a notice he posted to his Instagram account. "We complied with the request after conducting a legal and human rights assessment."

"Your content can still be seen by people in other locations," the notice said.

However, the URL to the post provided by Yeung returned an error message when viewed from the United Kingdom on Oct. 14.

Yuen Long attacks

The Yuen Long police attacks came at the height of the 2019 protests against plans to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China, that later broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.

According to a book about the democracy movement published in September 2023, Hong Kong police knew in advance that white-clad mobsters planned to attack protesters and passers-by at the Yuen Long train station on July 21, 2019.

When dozens of unidentified thugs in white T-shirts attacked train passengers and passers-by with wooden and metal poles that day, police were inundated with emergency calls, but didn't move in until 39 minutes after the attacks began, drawing widespread public criticism that has largely been quashed or ignored by the city authorities.

Yeung's post had identified one officer involved in the incident.

The authorities have also pursued overseas internet service providers over content published by Hong Kongers overseas, Radio Free Asia has learned.

Overseas activist Sunny Cheung, who edits the online protest magazine "Be Water," said the magazine's internet service provider had received a letter from Hong Kong's national security police, who implement the 2020 National Security Law and the 2024 Law to Safeguard National Security, last month.

U.S.-based Cheung, who is among more than a dozen overseas activists wanted by the Hong Kong authorities, said police had claimed that "Be Water" was in violation of the National Security Law, which applies to anyone, anywhere in the world, and called on the provider to block it.

"This whole thing is about the Hong Kong government trying to exercise extraterritorial power to order network service providers in the United States to implement Hong Kong's National Security Law," Cheung told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.

"The letter didn't mention any evidence, but accused us of crimes including 'secession' and 'incitement'."

Cheung described the measures as "extreme" and "ridiculous."

"Our U.S. service providers had the guts to stand up to the Hong Kong government and reject this request," he said.

The Facebook and Instagram pages of "Be Water" were still displaying normally in Hong Kong on Oct. 9.

However, some pro-democracy websites were blocked in the city, including the website of the U.S.-base Hong Kong Democracy Council, the London-based rights website Hong Kong Watch and an online museum commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Luk Nam Choi and Kwong Wing for RFA Cantonese.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has called on Hong Kong's leader to mobilize the city's wealthiest families into kick-starting economic growth, although signs that any are answering the call have been thin on the ground.

Xia Baolong, who heads the ruling party's Hong Kong and Macao Work Office, "expressed the hope that all sectors of Hong Kong society, especially the business community and entrepreneurs, will unite as one and seize the opportunity to strive for economic development," the city's Chief Executive John Lee told reporters following a Sept. 20 meeting with Xia, as he attended an investment cooperation conference in Beijing.

Hong Kong's business community should "transform their love for their country and for Hong Kong into concrete and practical action, and work together to promote Hong Kong's ... prosperity," Xia told Lee during the meeting.

Xia's call to action echoes recent policy moves from Beijing to find a role for the private sector in boosting flagging economic growth, under Chinese President Xi Jinping's concept of "public-private partnerships," which analysts have warned could be a disguised asset grab by the government.

It also comes after Xi wrote to the descendants of the “Ningbo Gang” – wealthy Hong Kong families with roots in the eastern port city of Ningbo – in July, calling on them to "contribute to the dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," state media reported.

They included Anna Pao, eldest daughter of the late shipping magnate Sir Pao Yue-kong, and Ronald Chao, eldest son of the late industrialist Chao Kuang-piu, families whose business operations formed the backbone of much of Hong Kong’s growth under British colonial rule.

Lee said the private sector in Hong Kong "are not bystanders, but participants, contributors and beneficiaries" of the city's economic rewards.

'Serve the country'

But commentators said there hasn't exactly been a big rush to respond to Beijing's call for investments on the part of Hong Kong's entrepreneurs.

The city's richest man, Li Ka-shing, has instead been stepping up his investments in the United Kingdom, with his CK Infrastructure Holdings acquiring a wind farm portfolio in from Aviva Investors for £350 million (US$450 million) in August, renewable power generator UU Solar for £90.8 million (US$122 million) in May, and natural gas distributor Phoenix Energy in April.

Exiled Hong Kong businessman Elmer Yuen, whose family hails from Ningbo, said Beijing has repeatedly called on Hong Kong's tycoons to "serve the country."

But he said there is unlikely to be much response, given that few business families from Ningbo and Shanghai trust the Chinese Communist Party.

"You can lump all of us together, us Shanghainese, most of whom are from Ningbo, and say that we have absolutely zero trust in the Chinese Communist Party," Yuen said. 

"Maybe a small number of people will invest, but the rest already know who they're dealing with."

According to Xia Ming, professor of political science at the City University of New York, Lee is being tasked by Beijing to step up integration with neighboring Guangdong province and Macau, and provide a much-needed shot in the arm for the sluggish Chinese economy.

"Policy in today's Hong Kong is clearly about how to perfectly integrate Hong Kong into what Xi Jinping calls the China rejuvenation strategy, which is basically about controlling the economy," Xia told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. "[Lee's aim] is to more perfectly integrate Hong Kong into China's accelerated regression."

Xia said the overall aim is to integrate Hong Kong into the mainland Chinese economy and "ultimately sell Hong Kong off to Beijing and to Xi Jinping."

"The goal of Xi Jinping's reforms is not that mainland China will become more like Hong Kong, but that Hong Kong will become more like Yan'an," he said in a reference to the revolutionary wartime base of Mao Zedong's communists.

Stimulus measures

The call for investments came as Chinese leaders announced a slew of stimulus measures to boost demand for real estate, including lower mortgage rates, fewer restrictions on buyers and tax cuts as part of "a new model" for real estate development.

On Tuesday, China's central bank, top securities regulator and financial regulator announced a raft of monetary stimulus, property market support and capital market strengthening measures to boost "high-quality economic development," state news agency Xinhua reported.

The top economic meeting, attended by Xi, also called on officials to "foster a favorable environment for the development of the non-public sector," with efforts made to boost consumption among low- and middle-income groups.

China has also extended a helping hand to Hong Kong in the form of pandas, with a ceremony at the Hong Kong International Airport on Thursday to welcome An An and Ke Ke, described by Lee as "just entering adulthood and full of energy” and likely to be a successful draw for tourists.

The giant pandas will live in a newly refurbished suite at the Ocean Park theme park complete with climbing frames and more plants.

"Citizens will join in welcoming the two giant pandas to Hong Kong, and the whole city is looking forward to it," Lee told reporters on Tuesday, adding that images of the pandas will be added to the Oct. 1 National Day drone and light show over Victoria Harbour.

Hong Kong is expecting an influx of up to 1.2 million mainland Chinese tourists to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Lee said.

"We hope that everyone can celebrate the 75th anniversary of National Day together, and also bring in many business activities to increase business and tourism revenues," he said.

Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Chi Ping for RFA Cantonese.

Chung Pui-kuen received one year and nine months in prison, and Patrick Lam, who received 11 months, was released after the hearing as he had already served 10 months and nine days in pretrial detention, and a judge reduced his sentence by 21 days due to his health condition. Chung served 11 months, which will be credited against his sentence.

“Hong Kong’s conviction and sentencing of former Stand News editors Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam demonstrate that the government has no intention of upholding press freedom in the city,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “We are pleased that Lam is no longer behind bars, but authorities must also immediately release Chung and stop putting pressure on journalists doing their jobs.”

Hong Kong’s security bureau told CPJ by email in August that “the ideology of Stand News was localism which excluded China, and that it even became a tool to smear and vilify the Central Authorities and the HKSAR Government during the ‘anti-extradition amendment bill incidents.’”   

China was the world’s worst jailer of journalists, with 44 behind bars  at the time of CPJ’s 2023 prison census. Those held include CPJ’s 2021 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award winner Jimmy Lai, founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, who has been behind bars since 2020 and is facing life imprisonment if convicted of foreign collusion under Hong Kong’s national security law. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

To protect themselves, protesters held up umbrellas – which became an iconic image of the protests that went viral in local and international media. Yellow became the protest umbrella color for its contrast against the dark clothing of many demonstrators, and the protests became known as the "Umbrella Movement."

It was the largest show of civil disobedience since control of the former British colony was handed over to China in 1997. Tens of thousands of people, many of them students, camped in the streets and for 11 weeks occupied much of the business district of the city of 7 million people.

What sparked the protests?

The protesters’ main demand was the right to elect the chief executive of Hong Kong, which was promised in the Basic Law, the constitution for post-handover Hong Kong as a “special autonomous region” of China under the "one country, two systems” formula that gave the city some autonomy and the right to retain its system for 50 years.

Small protests over the lack of movement on candidate selection had been increasing when, on Aug. 31, 2014, China’s parliament decreed that elections in Hong Kong in 2017 would be permitted -- from a list of candidates pre-approved by Beijing and nominated by a body of business elites and pro-Beijing groups.

The ruling sent people out into the streets banging pots and pans and chanting, and prompted waves of university campus strikes and protests.

Pro-democracy leaders formed plans for a civil disobedience campaign against the decision, releasing a manifesto called “Occupy Central with Love and Peace” and calling for the takeover of streets outside the city’s financial district on Oct. 1, China’s national day.

A fast-moving series of campus protests and actions by student groups to take over city streets led “Occupy Central” to be moved up several days.

People built a protest city of tents and stages that rang out with protest songs while students did homework in camps. Activists and ordinary citizens demonstrated outside government headquarters and occupied city intersections and thoroughfares.

How did umbrellas get involved?

Hong Kong authorities declared the protests illegal and a “violation of the rule of law,” and tensions began to mount.

On the night of Sept. 26 and into the next day, riot police clashed with protesters on the streets, firing pepper spray at them and arresting some. Over subsequent days, protesters began using umbrellas to protect themselves. 

“The image is a poignant one, and emphasizes the asymmetry of force: an innocuous household object held up against helmeted police officers wielding poisonous substances for crowd control,” the U.S. publication Quartz wrote.

The first known appearance of the term "umbrella revolution” was in the hashtag #UmbrellaRevolution generated by a news aggregator and circulated with a Sept. 28, 2014, report on the protests in the online edition of the British daily, The Independent. 

Use of the hashtag along with eye-catching umbrella photographs spread among Hong Kong journalists and activists. The outpouring of umbrella memes included clever Cantonese puns and word play – and even a meme featuring Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping holding a yellow umbrella.

Was the Umbrella Movement an example of a “revolution?”

Despite the worldwide sympathy for Hong Kong protesters, campaign leaders were quick to disavow the term “revolution.”

They flatly rejected comparisons to the color revolutions that had seen authoritarian governments in former Soviet republics and elsewhere overthrown, stressing their focus on practical reforms.

"We are not seeking revolution. We just want democracy!” Joshua Wong, a leading figure of the student movement, was quoted by The Washington Post.

"This is not a color revolution," Lester Shum, the deputy leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, told the Post.

Protest leaders warned that talk of revolution would alienate the broader Hong Kong public and give ammunition to Chinese Communist Party leaders who viewed the protests as rebellion and wanted to crush them.

The mainstream Occupy Central campaign agreed on “Umbrella Movement,” but some groups that advocated more aggressive tactics continued to use “Umbrella Revolution.”

The occupation and protests that began on Sept. 26 lasted in pockets of Hong Kong for 79 days, until Dec. 15. 

They did not achieve their goal of universal suffrage and Wong, Shum and many protest leaders are in jail, while others have gone into exile to avoid arrest under draconian security and sedition laws.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Paul Eckert for RFA.

Chung Pui-kuen, former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Stand News, was sentenced to 21 months. Judge Kwok Wai-kin considered an initial 14-month sentence for former acting-editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, but reduced it by three months because he has a serious illness, allowing him to be released immediately, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported

The two are the first journalists to be found guilty of sedition since Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997.  

Both defendants pleaded not guilty, with Chung denying the newspaper was politically motivated. Lam declined to testify and did not appear in court to hear the verdict due to health issues.

The two arrived at the district court in Hong Kong’s Wanchai district on Thursday morning but the hearing began late and went on for longer than expected after the judge called for a break to consider mitigating statements from their lawyer, according to the AP news agency.

The two faced a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$642) each. Both spent almost 12 months in jail following their arrests in December 2021.

On Aug. 29, after a 54-day trial, a Hong Kong court found the two guilty under laws introduced during British colonial rule. Hong Kong authorities used them for the first time in 2020 when China imposed strict national security laws following huge pro-democracy protests the previous year.

During the trial, lawyers for the Hong Kong government accused Stand News of promoting “illegal ideologies” and smearing the security law and the police who enforced it.

They cited 11 articles, including an interview with democracy activist Nathan Law, which they said were written with seditious intent.

Stand News was founded in 2014 and made a name by live-streaming the 2019 protests and criticizing Hong Kong authorities.

On Dec. 29, 2021, police raided its office, arresting senior staff, including Chung and Lam, and freezing its assets, forcing it out of business.

Months earlier, police raided the pro-democracy Apple Daily, also freezing its assets and forcing it to close.

Its founder Jimmy Lai is on trial, accused of “conspiring to collude with foreign forces” and “conspiring to publish seditious materials.”

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Some foreign news organizations have closed their offices, or moved staff out of Hong Kong amid increasing scrutiny by the authorities.

In March this year, Radio Free Asia said it was closing its Hong Kong bureau, citing concerns for the safety of its staff and actions by Hong Kong authorities, including referring to RFA as a "foreign force."

The city’s press freedom ranking fell from 73 out of 180 territories and countries in Reporters Without Borders’ annual World Press Freedom Index to 135 last year, just above South Sudan.

“Media freedom has been a central factor for Hong Kong’s success in the past and is an essential foundation of a free and inclusive society,” the Media Freedom Coalition – a partnership of more than 50 countries – said on Sept. 9, in response to the convictions of Chung and Lam. 

“To enable media workers to safely fulfill their legitimate role in scrutinizing government policy and actions, journalism should not be prosecuted under the guise of national security.”

Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed government rejects accusations from its domestic critics and Western countries, including the United States and Britain, that it is smothering freedoms in a once-vibrant society.

The city government and Beijing say stability must be ensured and what they see as foreign interference must be stopped to protect the city’s economic success. 

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

In 2013, former politics lecturer Chan Kin-man, law professor Benny Tai and Rev. Chu Yiu-ming called a news conference to urge people to occupy Hong Kong's Central business district in a peaceful civil disobedience campaign for fully democratic elections.

Many feared Beijing would not allow it despite promises made during the negotiations for the 1997 handover from Britain.

The following year, the ruling Chinese Communist Party issued a plan on Aug. 31 setting out Beijing's plan for reforms of the electoral system that would give everyone a vote – but would also ensure that only candidates approved by the government would be allowed to run in elections.

The public backlash amid growing calls for genuine democratic reform took the form of a student strike, camps on major roads, sit-ins, mass rallies of hundreds of thousands of people and an unofficial referendum that came out overwhelmingly in favor of open nominations for electoral candidates.

While the authorities refused to back down, saying there was 'no room' for discussion on the electoral rules, police fired tear gas and beat protesters in clashes that began this week 10 years ago.

To protect themselves, demonstrators used umbrellas, and the “Umbrella Movement” was born.

‘Watershed’ moment

Ten years on, Chan, now 65 and living in Taiwan, told RFA Mandarin that the movement -- and the authorities' response -- served as a wake-up call to many in Hong Kong who may not previously have considered themselves political at all.

Describing the 2014 movement as a "watershed" for Hong Kong, Chan said it turned his home city from a money-oriented former colony to a society that was willing to take radical action to protect its promised rights and freedoms.

"The Umbrella Movement of 2014 was a watershed," he said. "It was the first time we had used a so-called illegal method -- that of occupation.”

“It was a citizens’ resistance movement, fighting for democracy on a huge scale,” Chan said, adding that an estimated 1.2 million people were involved at some point during the movement.

“People who took part were willing to pay the price of legal action,” he told Radio Free Asia.

“The biggest impact of the pro-democracy movement was on people’s political awakening – people who hadn’t paid much attention to the issue in the past ended up joining in and caring what was happening,” he said. 

“The fact that many more people just watched from the sidelines doesn’t mean it didn’t have an impact on them.”

Deeply etched memories

Ten years on, the scenes he witnessed on Hong Kong's streets remained deeply etched into Chan's memory.

"I remember seeing one lady at the Occupy site who was very conventionally dressed,” he said. “She didn’t look at all like the protesters.”

“She ran a business near Admiralty, and I started to apologize to her, saying our occupation was likely affecting her business, but she told me never to apologize, and that she wanted to thank me,” Chan recalled.

The woman told Chan that she hadn’t been remotely interested in politics before this happened, but since then she’d started reading more news reports, and she had come to understand why the occupation was happening.

"She started to feel that she had been in the wrong all these years, for not paying much attention to Hong Kong's political development, and just being focused on making money,” he said. “She felt she was letting the next generation down.”

While the Umbrella Movement did have its critics among those who blamed it for accelerating China's meddling in the city's political affairs, Chan said Beijing had left young Hong Kongers with little option but to take to the streets.

“It’s simplistic to look at whether the movement succeeded in changing the system overnight – it managed to mobilize 1.2 million people and continue an occupation for 79 days,” Chan said.

“Not many movements in the history of the world have managed that.”

More militant

And when the movement failed to pressure the authorities into allowing properly democratic elections, it was inevitable that the next round of protests in 2019 would become much more militant, he said.

"When even civil disobedience fails, and there is no way to fight for democracy [under Chinese rule] using peaceful means, there is going to be a move towards localism and militancy," Chan said. "We warned people about this at the time."

"Young people were very dissatisfied and impatient, and they were already starting to agitate [for a more radical approach]," he said. "This was a critical movement, but the root cause of it all was the authoritarian approach of the Chinese Communist Party."

"It was they who forced the people of Hong Kong, bit by bit, down the road to civil disobedience," Chan said. "The whole thing stems from the fact that the Chinese Communist Party rejects and resists democracy at every turn."

When protests against plans to allow extradition to mainland China erupted in 2019, Chan was still in prison. By the time he got out in 2020, the National Security Law had already been imposed on the city, ushering in a crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political opposition.

Fleeing to Taiwan

When Benny Tai was arrested alongside dozens of former pro-democracy lawmakers in 2021, Chan fled the city for Taiwan.

He still keeps a close eye on developments there, but is unclear whether resistance of the kind he proposed in 2013 is even an option these days, now that the authorities have two national security laws to use against dissenting voices.

"Overt resistance hasn't been possible since the National Security Law came out [in 2020], but it's too early to say whether Hong Kong is dead or not," he said, citing plummeting turnout figures in recent elections under Beijing’s new, highly restrictive rules.

"A lot of people may still be holding onto their beliefs -- the authorities say that this is a form of soft confrontation," he said of the recent lack of interest in voting.

"But that would mean people haven't died inside,” Chan said. “And that means there's still hope.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

“Denying Louise Delmotte’s entry is a petty act of retaliation against her journalistic work,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “This pattern of denying journalists entry has become a way for government authorities to pressure and harass the media.”

Associated Press photojournalist Louise Delmotte was denied entry into Hong Kong on September 14, following a refusal by authorities to renew her work visa, and repatriated back to France after her arrival to the city’s airport as a tourist. Delmotte’s work visa expired in the first half of this year, and the immigration department denied her visa extension application without any stated reason, according to media reports.

In August 2023, the Associated Press published Delmotte’s photographs of Jimmy Lai, founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, walking in and out of solitary confinement at the maximum-security Stanley prison. Lai faces charges of conspiracy to print seditious publications and collusion with foreign forces under a Beijing-imposed national security law. The media mogul faces life imprisonment if found guilty. 

The Hong Kong Immigration Department did not immediately respond to CPJ’s email requesting comment. During a media session on Tuesday, Hong Kong chief executive John Lee was asked about Delmotte’s entry denial and said, “the Immigration Department is doing the same as all other immigration authorities are doing in other jurisdictions; that is, they will look at the entries’ characteristics and examine the entries in accordance with the policies and the laws.” 

The Associated Press told CPJ in an email that immigration authorities did not provide a reason for Delmotte’s denial. “Louise Delmotte is a talented journalist, and we are proud of the important work she has done in Hong Kong for The Associated Press,” the outlet wrote. “AP continues to have a presence in Hong Kong and is working with Louise on next steps.”

China was the world’s largest jailer of journalists, with at least 44 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Authorities in Hong Kong have jailed three people for wearing a 'seditious' T-shirt and making protest-related graffiti and social media posts, the first imprisonments under the Article 23 security law.

The West Kowloon Magistrate's Court handed down a 14-month jail term to Chu Kai-pong, 27, the first person to be sentenced under the new law, on Sept. 19.

Chu was found guilty of wearing a T-shirt and a mask emblazoned with a banned slogan of the 2019 protest movement, "Free Hong Kong, Revolution now!" and "Five Demands, Not One Less," a reference to the five demands of the protest movement that included calls for fully democratic elections.

The court jailed a second defendant, 29-year-old Chung Man-kit, for 10 months after he pleaded guilty to three charges of sedition. Chung had repeatedly scrawled slogans in support of independence for Hong Kong, as well as the "Free Hong Kong" protest slogan, on the back of bus seats in March and April, the court found.

A day later, the same court handed a 14-month jail term to defendant Au Kin-wai, after finding him guilty of "knowingly publishing publications with seditious intent,” based on posts he made to YouTube, Facebook and X calling on ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee to step down.

What is the Article 23 legislation?

The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance was passed on March 23, 2024, fulfilling the Hong Kong government's obligations under Article 23 of the city's constitution, the Basic Law, which gives the law its nickname.

The law covers many of the same offenses as the 2020 National Security Law, but with expanded definitions, new crimes and penalties.

It adds the crime of "treason," "theft of state secrets" and "external interference" to the statute book, while expanding maximum sentences for "sedition" from to 7 years' imprisonment, 10 if the person is found guilty of "collusion with external forces."

Previously, the charge of "sedition" under colonial-era laws carried a maximum penalty of just 3 years in jail.

Suspects can be detained for up to 16 days before being charged, and be prevented from seeing a lawyer in some circumstances.

In May 2024, police arrested six people under the law for making “seditious” Facebook posts mentioning the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, including vigil organizer Chow Hang-tung.

Rights activists have warned that the law gives officials too much power, especially when it comes to defining what is meant by "collusion with foreign forces" or "state secrets," or what constitutes subversion.

It is the second national security law to be passed in the city since 2020, and, like its predecessor, applies to speech and acts committed by anyone, of any nationality, anywhere in the world.

Why the need for a second security law?

The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, also known as Article 23, has been described by Hong Kong-based former Straits Times reporter Ching Cheong, who served a five-year prison sentence in China for "espionage" for doing his job, as a “sword of Damocles” over Hong Kongers' heads.

According to Ching: "Essentially this law is the culmination of a long-running attempt to graft the ideology, political ideas, and behavioral patterns of the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian system onto a pro-Western capitalist society that respects ​​universal values."

While the 2020 National Security Law was an emergency response from Beijing to what it saw as chaos and instability during the 2019 protests, the Article 23 law was always inevitable, dating back as it did to Sino-British negotiations ahead of the 1997 handover, in which the people of Hong Kong had no say or control.

But the process faced mass popular anger and opposition.

The Hong Kong government was supposed to have passed national security legislation decades ago, but officials shelved the bill following a mass protest in 2003 that took leaders by surprise.

What was the point of the first security law?

The Article 23 legislation remained on ice throughout the mass pro-democracy movements of 2014 and 2019. 

But when protesters started defacing the emblems of Chinese rule in 2019, both in the Legislative Council and outside Beijing's Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, Chinese officials started calling for a crackdown on dissent to prevent “hostile foreign forces” from destabilizing Hong Kong.

At 11.00 p.m. local time on June 30, 2020, the National People's Congress Standing Committee imposed the Hong Kong National Security Law on the city by inserting it into one of the annexes of its constitution, bypassing the Legislative Council, or LegCo.

More than 10,000 people have been arrested and at least 2,800 prosecuted in a citywide crackdown in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, mostly under public order charges.

Nearly 300 have been arrested under 2020 National Security Law, according to the online magazine ChinaFile.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Joshua Lipes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jasmine Man for RFA Mandarin, Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.

Falling revenue from land auctions -- once a mainstay of the city's fiscal strength -- has hit Hong Kong government coffers hard in recent months, resulting in a spike in the fiscal deficit and dwindling fiscal reserves.

Government expenditure between April and July topped HK$242.6 billion (US$31 billion), with revenue at just HK$90.1 billion (US$11.5 billion) over the same period, resulting in a cumulative year-to-date deficit of HK$135.4 billion (US$17.4 billion), the government said.

The government reported a budget deficit of about HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion) for the fiscal year that ended in March 2024, almost double its earlier estimate.

The latest figures from April through July suggest it could be on track for an even larger hole in public finances in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.

Hong Kong reported a budget deficit of HK$257.6 billion for the 2020-21 fiscal year, the largest deficit in 20 years, reflecting huge government expenditures during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the deficit, which analysts say is mostly the result of reduced revenues from land auctions and recently cut stamp duties, hasn’t disappeared since then, largely due to a flagging property market and a post-lockdown economic slump.

Fiscal reserves stood at HK$599.2 billion (US$76.8 billion) as of July 31, their lowest level in 14 years. However, the figures have taken into account proceeds and payouts on recent government bond transactions, the government said in an Aug. 30 statement.

Fiscal obligations

Hong Kong is obliged under its constitution, the Basic Law, to avoid deficits by keeping spending within revenue limits, yet the city has reported four deficits in the past five years.

“The government has slowed down the supply of land to give the market time, but the Hong Kong property market is facing structural changes,” Joseph Ngan, former finance channel chief at i-CABLE News, wrote in a recent commentary for RFA Cantonese.

“The effect of the stimulating measures at the beginning of this year has now worn off, and real estate prices have seen further downward pressure in recent months,” Ngan wrote.

“This has impacted developers' willingness to invest in land, and will eventually mean a huge fiscal deficit.”

The situation has left some government departments charged with managing affordable housing and cultural assets in dire financial straits, including the Housing Authority, which runs the city's public housing estates, and the Urban Renewal Authority, which spearheads urban redevelopment and refurbishment projects.

Such departments are now in need of fresh injections of capital, analysts said.

The Housing Authority, which relies on public housing rentals and the sale of premium-free Home Ownership Scheme housing as its main income, is in a similar situation. 

Revenue in recent years has been lower than expected, leaving the body with an operating surplus that shrank from HK$12.6 billion (US$1.6 billion) in 2023 to HK$2.6 billion (US$330 million).

Public rental housing revenue is expected to move into the red this fiscal year, with a projected deficit of around HK$2.143 billion (US$276 million) next year. 

Housing construction promised

At the same time, the Hong Kong government has pledged to speed up construction of more than 10,000 subsidized housing units within the next five years, boosting annual construction expenditure by HK$10 billion (US$1.2 billion) to HK$40 billion (US$5 billion). 

The authority has tried to staunch the losses by slashing discounts to its affordable Home Ownership Scheme private sector apartments from 62% last year to just 30% this year, but the move has made it harder to sell the apartments in what was already a difficult market.

Financial commentator Simon Lee said the authority was forced to sell off some of its public housing assets in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997.

"The Housing Authority was the first to be affected when the real estate market froze during the 1997 financial crisis," Lee said. "Public housing rentals can carry on when the market is strong, but Hong Kong is tied into the public policy model of real estate subsidies."

He said the government also holds a stake in train and subway operator MTRC, and subsidizes it to build housing and other developments on its land, and around stations.

Meanwhile, the Urban Renewal Authority has been issuing bonds in a bid to raise enough funds.

"Exorbitantly high construction costs and high interest rates, coupled with high prices for previously acquired land ... have put considerable pressure on the [Urban Renewal] Authority," Joseph Ngan told RFA Cantonese’s Free to Talk Finance show.

"The reversal in the real estate market has left a lot of property-related public bodies under tremendous pressure," he said.

Bond sale

The Urban Renewal Authority's recent triple-tranche HK$12 billion (US$1.5 billion) senior bonds offering under its US$3 billion Medium Term Note Programme will help to fund its capital expenditure on urban renewal projects and for general corporate purposes, the authority said in an Aug. 21 statement.

The offering was well-received by a diverse group of high-quality local and overseas investors, including banks, asset managers, corporations, insurance companies, hedge funds, central banks, official institutions, family offices and private banks. 

It had a peak combined orderbook of over HK$22.8 billion (US$2.9 billion), representing an oversubscription rate of around 2 times, the statement said.

The bond sale came after the authority suffered its first loss in nine years in 2022/23, totaling more than HK$3.9 billion last year. Projected construction costs this year will run to HK$64.3 billion (US$8.2 billion), but current cash reserves are only HK$18 billion (US$2.3 billion).

The authority has also been allowed to borrow up to HK$25 billion (US$3.2 billion) under government guarantees.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.

Authorities in Hong Kong have interrogated and denied entry to a German rights activist amid warnings from the United States of growing personal and business risks for those traveling to the city.

Immigration officers turned away rights activist David Missal, deputy managing director & press officer for the Berlin-based Tibet Initiative Germany, after he arrived at Hong Kong International Airport on Sept. 7 from Beijing's Daxing International Airport, according to a copy of an official "Refusal Notice" he shared to his X account on Sunday.

"I was just refused entry to Hong Kong," Missal, who is also the co-founder of a group called Freedom for Hong Kong, wrote in his X post. 

"After 13 sleepless hours under immigration examination in the middle of the night, I was told that I could not enter the city and was eventually allowed to take a plane to Vietnam."

Missal, who isn't the first foreign rights activist to be denied entry to Hong Kong, described being "questioned several times and held in a room without any daylight," adding that immigration officers also searched his luggage.                   

"The police did not provide any reason for the entry refusal. In the end, I was accompanied by plainclothes police officers to the plane to Vietnam," Missal wrote, adding that he had been allowed to enter mainland China for two weeks on a visa waiver program with no issues.

"I hope Hong Kong will be free – one day," he said.

Eroding freedoms

Ray Wong, who heads Freedom for Hong Kong, said the erosion of the city's freedoms was clear to all, including foreign passport-holders.

"That Hong Kong has become less free is something not only we, who come from Hong Kong, notice," Wong said in a statement. "Foreigners are also not safe from the regime's arbitrariness. The National Security Police has become an instrument of repression."

Tenzyn Zöchbauer, executive director of Tibet Initiative Germany, strongly condemned the treatment of Missal.

"It is unacceptable that even private travelers with critical voices are denied entry," Zöchbauer said. "These measures are not only an alarming sign of the ongoing loss of Hong Kong's autonomy but also a clear violation of international human rights standards."

Missal told RFA Mandarin in a later interview from Vietnam that the move was an example of China's "transnational repression."

"The Hong Kong government and a lot of authoritarian countries are doing this now; I think it's very common," he said. "It's pretty scary."

Yet Missal was allowed to enter China, spending time in Beijing and southwestern Sichuan province in a private capacity before boarding the plane to Hong Kong. 

This suggests the city's officials are now even more zealous than their mainland Chinese counterparts when it comes to turning away "undesirables."

"I feel like Hong Kong is the same as mainland China now, or it may be more strict, which is a real shame," Missal said, adding that he didn't know if the incident would affect his ability to go back to mainland China in future.

Personal details probed

From Sept. 3, anyone traveling to Hong Kong will have their personal details sent to the city authorities before they board their flight, making it easier for officials to turn away foreign journalists, members of international organizations, and anyone else they see as "undesirable" before they travel.

Missal's denial of entry came as the U.S. government issued risk advisories to American citizens and businesses, warning them of "personal safety and legal risks" when traveling to Hong Kong or doing business there.

Five government departments issued a statement to "highlight new and heightened risks" to U.S. companies operating in Hong Kong in the wake of the latest national security legislation, known as “Article 23.”

"Hong Kong’s diminishing autonomy from the central government of the People's Republic of China, creates new risks for businesses and individuals in Hong Kong that were previously limited to mainland China," the departments said in a joint statement dated Sept. 6.

The warnings were aimed at individuals, businesses, academic institutions, media organizations, research service providers and investors operating in Hong Kong, it said.

“The vaguely defined nature of the law and previous government statements and actions raise questions about risks associated with routine activities,” it said, in a reference to the "Article 23" legislation passed in March.

The U.S. State Department has warned Americans to "exercise increased caution when traveling to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws" since April 2024, when its advisory was updated following the implementation of Article 23.

‘I don’t think this ploy will succeed’

The Hong Kong government rejected the advisory as "misleading and untruthful," accusing Washington of "trying to create panic."

The city's second-in-command, Chief Secretary for the Administration Eric Chan said the U.S. advisory was an attempt to suppress China’s rise.

“The National Security Law has been enacted for a long time and we can all see that we have never groundlessly arrested any business people,” Chan told reporters on Saturday.

The warnings “involve an element of intimidation, to scare away business people hoping to invest in Hong Kong. I don’t think this ploy will succeed,” Chan said.

Anouk Wear, U.S. Research and Policy Advisor for the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, welcomed the U.S. advisory, however.

“This advisory ... rightly highlights the new and increased risks of operating in Hong Kong," Wear said in a statement, which called for further sanctions on Hong Kong officials responsible for ongoing human rights violations

"We urge American businesses and citizens in Hong Kong to take this seriously and reconsider the risks of remaining in the city, in addition to the decreasing rights and freedoms on the ground."

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by .

The protests, which began as an outpouring of anger over plans to allow the extradition of criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China, were a key milestone in Hong Kong’s transformation from one of the most free-wheeling cities in Asia to the restrictive semi-police state it is today.

The filmmaker, who gave only the nickname Alan for fear of reprisals, will screen his film "Rather be Ashes Than Dust" in Canada this month to mark the fifth anniversary of the protest movement this year.

Built from thousands of hours of handheld footage from Hong Kong's streets, much of the action takes place amid pitched street battles between frontline protesters wielding umbrellas, bricks and Molotov cocktails confronting fully-equipped riot police with non-lethal bullets, water cannons and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of tear gas.

For Alan, editing his film involved reliving the chaos, terror and heartache of those months, as well as facing up to his own traumatized response.

"I knew all of the scenes inside out," he told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. "Every location, exactly what happened there -- where shots were fired, where people were arrested, where blood was spilled."

PTSD

Alan, who like many Hong Kongers has suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing so much violence and anguish on Hong Kong's streets, had to take the edit slowly.

"There were some scenes where I really couldn't stop crying," he said. "I would cut for maybe one or two minutes, then I wouldn't be able to carry on."

Only some protesters took on police at the barricades, however. The film also portrays peaceful protesters in their thousands and millions coming out in support of the "Five Demands": the withdrawal of amendments to extradition laws; fully democratic elections; an amnesty for all arrested protesters; accountability for police brutality and the withdrawal of the use of the word "rioters" to describe them.

While the extradition amendments were withdrawn after crowds of masked activists stormed the Legislative Council on July 1, 2019, the government continued to describe the protests as "riots" instigated by "hostile foreign forces," and eventually quashed an independent report into police violence.

Tens of thousands of people were arrested and packed into overcrowded jails amid  reports of abuse in custody, while electoral rules were rewritten to ensure that only "patriotic" candidates loyal to the ruling Chinese Communist Party could stand.

Inner conflict

At times, Alan found that his role as a supposedly impartial observer was at odds with his desire to help those he was filming.

"One time, the police pinned down a couple," he said of one incident, which happened as protesters occupied the Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok. "I was some distance away at the time, but I could see them going after people."

"I really, really wanted to warn them to get out of there fast," he said. "But I was a coward and kept quiet – I just kept on filming the whole thing."

That decision haunts Alan to this day, leading him to feel that the film could encourage similar "soul-searching" in others.

"The couple got arrested in the end," he said.

Later, he was to act as a witness for protesters who were being arrested.

"Everyone who got arrested started saying their names and ID card numbers in front of a video camera," Alan said. "Because there were rumors going around that anyone who got arrested would likely just disappear, never to be heard of again."

"So we recorded all of their images and their voices, as evidence," he said.

Sold-out theaters

"Rather be Ashes Than Dust" has already been screened at film festivals in South Korea, New Zealand and Sweden.

At the Busan International Film Festival last October, it played to three sold-out theaters that were packed with young Koreans.

"Hong Kong's government is actually quite similar to that of South Korea: there's a lot of conflict and disputes," he said. "That atmosphere was the reason why so many young South Koreans came to watch my film."

Alan thinks his film, which is scheduled to screen in Toronto on Sept. 28 and 29, will encourage others to face up to Hong Kong's recent history, even if the wounds are very far from healed.

"It's been five years now, and regardless of how you see things, I think we have to face up to what happened with courage and fortitude, because it's our history," he said.

"Then, maybe we can reflect on it, maybe do some soul-searching, ask if we did the right thing, and if it was enough?"

Even from exile, the film has a role to play, he believes, adding: "The media should never abandon its duty to speak out on behalf of the powerless, the vulnerable and the oppressed."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sze Tsz Shan for RFA Cantonese.

By weaponizing the legal system against journalists, China has ruthlessly reneged on guarantees given to Hong Kong, which should enjoy a high degree of autonomy after the former British colony was handed back to Beijing in 1997, the groups said in a joint statement.

Former Stand News editors Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-kuen are due to be sentenced on September 26 and could be jailed for two years.

“We now await with trepidation the outcome of trials targeting senior staff from the defunct Apple Daily newspaper, especially its founder Jimmy Lai who faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars,” they added.

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The publication’s former editor-in-chief, Chung Pui-kuen, and former acting editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, could face a maximum prison term of two years. 

The journalists were charged with conspiracy to publish seditious material under a colonial-era law that has been increasingly used to target dissent as part of a crackdown that followed huge anti-government protests in the Asian financial hub in 2019.

Sedition laws were introduced during British colonial rule but had not been used until 2020 when China imposed new national security laws in response to the protests, which it blamed on outside interference.

Along with new crimes like “collusion with foreign forces” and subversion, prosecutors began charging Hong Kong people with sedition for the first time in more than 50 years.

The trial was initially expected to last 20 days but ran over to 56.

Hong Kong government lawyers said some of the articles published by Stand News helped promote “illegal ideologies,” and smeared the security law and law enforcement officers.

During the trial, Chung, who pleaded not guilty, denied that Stand News was a political platform, and stressed the importance of freedom of speech, while Lam, who also pleaded not guilty, chose not to give testimony.

Stand News, founded in 2014, was one of the last openly critical media outlets in Hong Kong following the closure of the Apple Daily newspaper in June 2021.

During the 2019 protests, Stand News gained prominence for its live-streaming from the streets and for its critical reporting of the city authorities, who dubbed the publication “misleading.”

In 2021, dozens of civil society groups shut in the city after China imposed a national security law, with many activists arrested. 

Stand News was among the publications that shut down under the shadow of the law. On Dec. 29, 2021, police raided its office, arresting senior staff. Its assets were also frozen, forcing Stand News to cease its operations. 

The pro-democracy Apple Daily was also forced to close following police raids on its newsroom and the freezing of its assets in the same year. 

Jimmy Lai, the Apple Daily’s founder, is on trial, accused of “conspiring to collude with foreign forces” and “conspiring to publish seditious materials.”

The crackdown on Hong Kong’s media has drawn criticism from rights groups and some Western governments. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Stand News as “one of the few remaining bastions of free and independent media” in Hong Kong.

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City leaders deny that the media has been targeted and stress the importance of preserving stability to protect Hong Kong’s economic success. 

Days after Stand News shut down, another Hong Kong-based independent news outlet, Citizen News, announced it would cease operations, citing the deteriorating media environment and risks to its staff.

The closure of the Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News within months of each other dealt a blow to the city’s once vibrant press scene.

Some foreign news organizations have closed their offices, or moved out staff amid increasing scrutiny by the authorities.

The city’s press freedom ranking fell from 73 out of 180 territories and countries in Reporters Without Borders’ annual World Press Freedom Index to 135 last year, just above South Sudan.

“Once a bastion of press freedom, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China has suffered an unprecedented series of setbacks since 2020, when Beijing adopted a national security law aimed at silencing independent voices,” the media watchdog said.

The Hong Kong government, while insisting that civil liberties are guaranteed in the city, has further tightened the sedition laws, which they say are necessary to ensure the media does not “endanger” national security.

In April, the city passed its own version of the national security law, known as Article 23, adding several new offenses, including treason, sabotage, and espionage, and allowing police to hold suspects for up to 16 days without charge. Sedition has also been added, and its scope expanded to include “inciting hatred” against the Chinese Communist Party.

The government says the provisions were similar to laws in places like the United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore to tackle covert and overt foreign influence over political systems.

Edited by Mike Firn. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

“Hong Kong authorities should not normalize the practice of refusing foreign or mainland Chinese journalists visa applications or renewals,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “The government must recognize that the city’s economic vitality heavily depends on the work of these journalists.”

On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s independent news site Hong Kong Free Press reported that Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait announced in a staff notice Fan’s visa denial and her subsequent transfer to the outlet’s London office.

Fan was first detained in Beijing by plainclothes security officials in December 2020 on suspicion of participating in activities that endangered national security. She was released on bail in January 2022, according to a statement by Chinese authorities dated May 2022. However, the journalist was unable to be located for more than a month, according to her employer.

On Tuesday, a Hong Kong Journalists Association reported in its annual survey that the city’s press freedom is currently at its lowest point in 11 years. The survey, which gathered responses from 1,000 public members and 251 journalists, revealed journalists’ significant concerns about the impact of Article 23 national security legislation, which can be used to criminalize journalistic practice under the guise of national security, on Hong Kong’s media.

A Bloomberg News spokesperson declined to comment on Fan’s visa application in an emailed request for comment sent by CPJ. 

The Hong Kong immigration department did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

"Distribution companies in the U.K., United States and Canada are kneeling down [to China]," DGX Music, the creative team behind "Glory to Hong Kong.” wrote on their Instagram account on Tuesday. "It has completely disappeared from all streaming platforms.” 

"We couldn't find the original version of 'Glory to Hong Kong' released by DGX Music on Apple Music or Spotify in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Kingdom or Canada," the songwriters said.

"Glory to Hong Kong," which sparked a police investigation after organizers played it in error at recent overseas sports events, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protests, which ranged from peaceful mass demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between protesters and armed riot police.

Public live performances of the song are already banned in Hong Kong, as its lyrics are deemed illegal under stringent national security legislation.

But the Court of Appeal on May 8 granted the government a temporary injunction to address its continued availability online, calling it a "weapon" that could be used to bring down the government, and an "rfainsult" to China's national anthem.

‘Separatist intent’?

The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its "separatist" intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.

A survey of Spotify and Apple Music in Taiwan, the U.K. and Canada yielded no results for the original version of the song during a search by RFA Cantonese on Wednesday. However, some remixes and cover versions were still available.

Multiple versions of the song were still visible following a search of YouTube in several locations.

The song's disappearance comes after YouTube blocked access to dozens of videos containing the song to viewers in the city in May, following a court injunction that said it could be used as a "weapon" to bring down the government.

The company, which is owned by Google's parent Alphabet, said 32 videos featuring the banned song had been geoblocked and are now unavailable in the city.

DGX Music reported in June that a newly released a capella version of the song was suddenly deleted by U.S. publisher Distrokid, with no reason given, while Scotland's Emubands made it clear that it had removed the song due to the injunction. 

Threat to freedom of speech

But the songwriters said the injunction only applies to Hong Kong, and should have no overseas effect at all.

"Some Western media organizations have complied with the Hong Kong government's political injunction unnecessarily, resulting in the violation of basic human rights," DGX Music wrote.

"This has a fundamental impact on Western democratic societies, and poses a serious threat to the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of artistic expression," they said.

Hong Kong lawyer-turned-musician Adrian Chow said even big multinational platforms will adopt unnecessarily conservative attitudes "in order not to alarm senior management or the legal department."

"They just give in, saying it's just one song, not Taylor Swift's entire back catalog," Chow said. "Maybe when their legal departments found out how little income it makes, they felt it wasn't worth the risk ... as the legal fees [in case of a lawsuit] would far exceed any income from the song."

He said independent creators have very little bargaining power with the online streaming platforms, and there is scant opportunity for negotiation.

The Hong Kong authorities can also step up pressure on overseas corporations through any business operations they have in the city, he said.

The song's labeling as "Hong Kong's national anthem" on YouTube has been "highly embarrassing and hurtful to many people of Hong Kong, not to mention its serious damage to national interests," the Court of Appeal judges said when they granted the injunction on May 8.

Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China's national anthem on pain of up to three years' imprisonment, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem in the stadium.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Luk Nam Choi for RFA Cantonese.

More than half of journalists who responded to the latest Hong Kong Journalists' Association survey said press freedom had declined over the past year, with more than 90% of respondents saying that press freedom had declined overall for the fifth year in a row.

The Press Freedom Index, carried out with the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, received completed survey questionnaires from 251 working journalists between March and May 2024, polling their opinions about the level of press freedom. 

A poll of 1,000 randomly selected members of the public showed little perceived change from the previous year, however.

"Journalist respondents were highly concerned about the potential impact of Article 23 national security legislation — introduced in March 2024 — on the media in Hong Kong, with more than 90% saying this would significantly impact press freedom in the city," the association said in a statement on its website.

Jimmy Lai

Press groups have expressed concern that the language in the law around sedition and state secrets is too vague, and could be interpreted to cover actions or speech by journalists.

Many cited the case of Next Digital media mogul Jimmy Lai, who is currently standing trial on two counts of "conspiracy to collude with foreign forces," one count of "collusion with foreign forces" under the 2020 National Security Law, which ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent in the wake of the 2019 protests.

Much of the prosecution's evidence centers on opinion articles published in Lai's now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper. 

Lai has been an outspoken supporter of the pro-democracy movement, and several editors at his former paper are also awaiting sentencing for calling for international sanctions in columns and opinion pieces.

The 2020 National Security Law and the Article 23 legislation were also in the top five factors affecting journalists in Hong Kong, the survey found, while respondents also cited the disappearance of South China Morning Post journalist Minnie Chan on assignment in Beijing and the sacking of the political cartoonist Zunzi by the Ming Pao newspaper.

Association chairperson Selina Cheng, who was fired from her job at the Wall Street Journal for running in elections to lead the union, said there was a gap between the public perception of press freedom and journalists' experience of it when doing their jobs.

"The public mostly notices the finished product ... and may not consider self-censorship," Cheng said. "And if journalists have concerns while reporting, writing or editing, the public may not know about it, but the journalists do."

Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the process had been one of "gradual compression" on journalists.

"The general public wouldn't notice that as a sudden thing like a needle prick, but instead gradually adapts to the pain," Lau said. "The government's approach is subtle, and reduces the public's demand for information, which is actually a way to hide things from the people."

Cheng said she isn't optimistic that things will change any time soon.

Vague wording

The "Article 23" Safeguarding National Security law passed in March includes sentences of up to life imprisonment for "treason," "insurrection," "sabotage" and "mutiny," 20 years for espionage and 10 years for crimes linked to "state secrets" and "sedition." It also allows authorities to revoke the passports of anyone who flees overseas.

Officials in China and Hong Kong say that journalists are safe to carry out "legitimate" reporting activities under both the 2020 National Security Law and the Article 23 Safeguarding National Security Law, which was passed on March 23.

Yet the wording of the laws is vague, leaving journalists trying to read between the lines of official denunciations and legal rulings to figure out where the boundaries lie.

Getting it wrong can get a journalist censored, fired, or sent to jail.

Since the Press Freedom Index was founded in 2013, there has been a clear downward trend in the ratings of both the public and journalists, the Association said, adding that the journalists' score has plummeted from 42 to 25 in the past decade, while the public score fell from 49.4 to 42.2. 

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ray Chung for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

“It is impossible to reconcile Lord Neuberger’s judicial authority as part of a system that is politicized and repressive with his role overseeing a panel that advises governments to defend and promote media freedom. The Media Freedom Coalition should immediately review his role as chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom,” said CPJ Advocacy and Communications Director Gypsy Guillen Kaiser.

Lai, the 76-year-old founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, has been behind bars since 2020. On August 12, Hong Kong’s top court rejected his appeal against a conviction for taking part in unauthorized anti-government protests. Lai, whose trial on national security charges was adjourned again last month to late November, faces possible life imprisonment if convicted. He was honored by CPJ and the organization continues to advocate for his immediate, unconditional release.

The MFC is a group of 50 countries that pledge to promote press freedom at home and abroad. CPJ is a longstanding member of the MFC’s consultative network of nongovernmental organizations.

CPJ believes the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, which serves as the secretariat for the MFC’s panel of media freedom experts, should also review Neuberger’s role.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

“There is no journalism without press freedom,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Hong Kong journalists must be allowed to defend their right to report independently without the fear of reprisal or losing their livelihood. If Hong Kong is serious about reviving its slowing economy, then it must improve the media climate swiftly to shake off a reputation as a place with ever-increasing repression.” 

In recent months, officials and pro-Beijing news outlets have heaped pressure on the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), the city’s largest trade union for journalists.

In June, Hong Kong’s security chief Chris Tang accused the HKJA of lacking legitimacy and siding with demonstrators in 2019, while China’s state-backed Global Times in a July report described the group as “disingenuous and dangerous.”

In July, HKJA’s chair Selina Cheng said she was fired from her role at The Wall Street Journal after she was elected to lead the journalists’ union. She had been the sole candidate for the position amid a growing climate of self-censorship in Hong Kong, once a beacon of press freedom in Asia.

Asked for comment, a WSJ spokesperson told CPJ in an email that the outlet made “personnel changes” but could not comment on specific individuals. The spokesperson added that the WSJ advocates for press freedom in Hong Kong, the city which had been WSJ’s Asia headquarters before they were moved to Singapore in May. 

Another foreign correspondent and a local nonprofit adviser resigned immediately after they were elected to the HKJA’s executive committee in the group’s election following Tang’s criticism of the union.

Between May 2023 and March this year, Tang wrote eight letters to various international news outlets over their editorials or opinion articles about Hong Kong, some of which he labeled “extremely misleading,” “scaremongering,” and “lies.” Four of the eight letters were sent to WSJ.

A Hong Kong government spokesman said the city’s media landscape was “as vibrant as ever” with over 200 media organizations registered with local authorities, and that press freedom and the right to join trade unions were both protected under the law.

“As always, the media can exercise their freedom of the press in accordance with the law. Their freedom of commenting on and criticizing government policies remains uninhibited as long as this is not in violation of the law,” the spokesman told CPJ in an email.

Lengthy trials

The HKJA is the main journalists’ union in Hong Kong and has been advocating for press freedom since it was founded in 1968, but has been battling dwindling membership and funds after Beijing imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020 that saw journalists arrested, jailed, and threatened. 

Among them, the then-HKJA chair Ronson Chan was sentenced to five days in jail in 2023 for obstructing a police officer while reporting.

Hong Kong passed its own homegrown national security law in March, and the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia shut its Hong Kong bureau days later over safety concerns for its reporters – joining an exodus of media and journalists who left the city since the 2020 crackdown began.

Journalists who remain point to a rising culture of self-censorship in local newsrooms and an increasing hesitation to criticize the government as Hong Kong loses its shine as a leading global financial hub. The city, once the world’s largest IPO market by value for years, saw proceeds raised from new share listings in the first half of 2024 plunge to a two-decade low.

Journalists also face lengthy delays and repeated postponements in their trials.

This includes the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily’s founder Jimmy Lai, whose trial on national security charges was adjourned again last month to late November. A representative for advocacy group Reporters Without Borders who went to Hong Kong to monitor Lai’s trial was detained and deported upon arrival.

The 76-year-old has been behind bars since 2020. On August 12, Lai lost an appeal against his conviction for taking part in unauthorized anti-government protests.

Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-kuen, former editors of the now-defunct independent news outlet Stand News are expected to hear the verdict in their sedition trial in late August, after a court in April postponed the long-awaited decision. The duo were granted bail in late 2022 after being remanded in custody for nearly a year.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The 3,000-ton De Yi, owned by HK Yilin Shipping, took coal from a North Korean vessel, Tok Song, in March off the North’s coast in a ship-to-ship transfer in violation of two Security Council resolutions imposed over Pyongyang’s illegal weapons programs, the ministry said.

Maritime transshipment with North Korean vessels and the export of North Korean coal are prohibited under U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Financial transactions with sanctioned individuals and institutions require the approval of South Korea’s Financial Services Commission or the Governor of the Bank of Korea, respectively, and unauthorized transactions may be punishable under applicable laws.

Sanctioned vessels may enter South Korea only with the permission of the relevant authorities.

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The ministry said its sanctions demonstrated the government’s “strong will to end North Korea’s illegal nuclear and missile development by blocking its illegal maritime activities.”

“Going forward, the government will continue to take strong and consistent law enforcement action against vessels and operators engaged in the transportation of contraband and violations of Security Council sanctions, and will work closely with our allies in this process,” the ministry added. 

RFA was not immediately able to contact HK Yilin Shipping for comment.

In March, the South Korean government detained the De Yi en route to Vladivostok, Russia, at the request of the United States, off the South Korean city of Yeosu, to investigate its alleged involvement in violating Security Council sanctions against North Korea.

At that time, South Korea also imposed sanctions on the Russian ships Angara and Lady R, which have been implicated in suspected arms transfers between North Korea and Russia, as well as Russian individuals and companies.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

Hong Kongers spent HK$7.8 billion (around US$1 billion) in Japan in the first quarter of this year, according to figures from the Japanese National Tourism Organization, compared with around HK$17.6 billion (US$2.25 billion) spent by tourists from mainland China in the same period.

And instead of searching out cool, high-end tech and bargain prices for luxury brands, Hong Kongers are stocking up on essentials in bulk during their trips to Japan, searching out the best deals at supermarkets, pharmacy chains, department stores and 100-yen stores.

The trend, which comes as the city's government struggles to woo investors and global talent, has become so marked that people in Hong Kong jokingly talk about "going back home" when referring to such visits.

For shoppers like Ah B, who asked not to be identified by their real name, Japan is starting to feel like a second home because she and her boyfriend travel there so often.

"Hong Kongers have been going back and forth to Japan for many years now," she said. "It's more than just tourism; it's a feeling of being in residence there. I think it's that way for a lot of people."

Ah B and her boyfriend like to browse second-hand bookstores, picking up rare or out-of-print finds of the kind that have all but disappeared in heavily-censored Hong Kong.

"I'd like to support our local economy, but I don't have that much money to spend," she said. 

Suitcases full

A shopper who gave only the surname Tang said she travels to Japan at least three times a year, and had just gotten home from Saitama prefecture when she spoke to RFA Cantonese.

Tang likes to travel with her mother, dropping around HK$25,000 (US$3,200) on four suitcase-loads of bargain items on each trip, signing up for the 10-20% discounts that are widely available through apps and loyalty cards, and stocking up on foodstuffs that will last a long time on her return to Hong Kong.

"You can become a member [of loyalty and discount schemes] after you have been there a few times, at which point you can save points or get coupons," she said. "There are also discounts on your birthday."

A Hong Kong travel journalist who gave only the pseudonym France for fear of reprisals said he has noticed similar changes in the shopping habits of Hong Kongers in Japan.

"The prices are so attractive, because the yen is so weak," he said. "There is also a much wider choice, and ... everyone in Hong Kong is familiar with Japanese products, and think they are higher quality or safer [than those made elsewhere]."

"So they stock up on daily necessities in supermarkets or local stores when they go to Japan," France said, adding that the 100-yen store Daiso and Shimamura are both hugely popular, along with wholesale supermarkets, which ship bulk orders straight to Hong Kong addresses. 

Even after shipping is added, people still stand to save 20-30% on the prices they would have had to pay in Hong Kong for the same goods, he said.

Slumping Hong Kong sales

Simon Lee, an honorary teaching and research fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School, said Hong Kong tourists spend around HK$2 billion (US$256 million) in Japan every month, taking money away from the local retail industry.

"Recent [retail industry figures] have been very poor," Lee said. The city’s retail sales last month were HK$30.5 billion, and in April they were HK$29.6 billion, down from around HK$40 billion.

Lee said he also makes several shopping trips to Japan every year, adding that Taiwan is also cheap by comparison.

"Even if you go to eat one or two meals, it will still be cheaper," he said. "You can achieve the same effect in Taiwan."

"It's cheaper to have a meal or two in these places than it is in Hong Kong," Lee said, adding that Hong Kong's streets are becoming less of a draw with the demise of its distinctive neon signs.

Hong Kongers told RFA Mandarin in a series of interviews in May that many shops and restaurants in the city have visibly closed down, and that lines are much shorter when it comes to waiting for a table since the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in late 2022.

"In Times Square [a flagship mall in Causeway Bay], there are restaurants on several floors ... and you used to have to stand in line at dinner time, around 7.00 or 8.00 p.m.," a Hong Kong resident who gave only the nickname Siu Ying told RFA Mandarin.

"Now there's no line, and it feels like there are fewer people," she said.

Meanwhile, even formerly bustling areas like Causeway Bay are looking woebegone, with a growing number of shuttered storefronts, according to a Hong Kong Island resident who gave only the pseudonym David for fear of reprisals.

"I've noticed that a lot of shops in previously prosperous areas like Causeway Bay and Wanchai have closed, and haven't been rented out in a long time," he said. "This has become a common sight on the streets ... nowadays it's news if a new one opens."

At the same time, prices for would-be diners are rising sharply, David said.

"When I first got back to Hong Kong [two decades ago], a meal out would cost HK30-40, but nowadays it's normal to spend more than HK$70-80," he said. "Personally, I can afford that, but some of my friends are struggling."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Chi Ping for RFA Cantonese, Sun Cheng for RFA Mandarin.

The city's Bureau of Education estimates, based on August 2023 population data from the Census and Statistics Department, that the number of 6-year-olds will fall by 31% from 49,600 in 2024 to 34,100 in 2030.

Many who have left the city did so citing political repression under a draconian security law, along with what they regard as the brainwashing of children in the form of "patriotic" and "national security" classes that are now mandatory from kindergarten to university, as the government encourages people to inform on each other.

Birth rates in Hong Kong began declining in 2014, but plummeted sharply in the wake of a 2019 pro-democracy protest movement and subsequent political crackdown, reaching their lowest level since 1960. 

While the population showed a slight uptick following the scrapping of COVID-19 travel curbs, birth rates in the city haven't caught up, with the number of newborns falling by 38% between 2019 and 2022, according to government data.

Lawmakers called on Secretary for Education Christine Choi on July 5 to do something to reverse the trend and stave off what they termed the "decline" of Hong Kong, media reported.

Choi, who is seeking to promote smaller class sizes as school-age populations fall, said her department would be brokering mergers between schools in a bid to engineer a "soft landing" for the city's education over the next few years.

She said the government was hoping to attract 100,000 migrants to Hong Kong under talent and labor schemes, in a bid to fuel population growth over the next two decades.

By 2046, 50 years after the 1997 handover of the then British colony to Chinese rule, Hong Kong is hoping to attract a net inflow of permanent residents numbering almost 900,000, with just over half a million non-permanent residents.

To that end, the government has been handing out free plane tickets to visitors and offering work visas to attract professionals, many from mainland China, to replace those who have left.

 Net departures of permanent residents from Hong Kong totaled 113,000 for the whole of 2022, prompting calls from media backed by the Communist Party for the government to act to stem the brain drain.

Education blogger Yeung Wing Yu, who runs the @edulancet Instagram account, said Hong Kong's allure for expat families, even those relocating from mainland China, was on the wane.

Meanwhile, school numbers have been hit hard by the wave of emigration. "Primary years five and six are the hardest hit," Yeung said. "Many students have left Hong Kong schools and emigrated overseas."

Those who do come in on talent schemes will likely send their children to high-profile schools with a strong reputation for "patriotic education," while other schools will be left to flounder and eventually close, Yeung said.

"The situation in Hong Kong's education system has been created by the Education Bureau since 2020," Yeung said, in a reference to the passing of Hong Kong's first National Security Law and its imposition of a China-inspired patriotic education program in schools.

Letter from Xi

Last month, the Education Bureau sparked a public backlash when it criticized Hong Kong's schoolchildren for their "weak" singing of China's national anthem, the "March of the Volunteers," at flag-raising ceremonies that are now compulsory as part of patriotic "national security" education from kindergarten through to universities.

"Our education system is no longer very different from the system in mainland China," Yeung said. "Patriotic education here is even more exaggerated than in the mainland."

"If you are caught making faces while singing the national anthem at a football game in Hong Kong, you will be arrested, then it becomes a negative news story about Hong Kong," he said.

Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China's national anthem on pain of prison for up to three years, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem.

Meanwhile, city officials are holding events to encourage praise for ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

The Education Bureau on Monday held an event at Pui Kiu Middle School to mark the first anniversary of the school's receipt of a letter from Xi.

"Over the year, the Bureau has been striving to live up to the spirit of President Xi's reply letter and nurture young people's affection for and sense of belonging to the country," Choi told the gathering, promising a wider variety of school trips to mainland China, including exchange programs and study tours.

Secondary school students now take part in military-style activities at a national defense education facility in the southern province of Guangdong and "cultivate patriotism and enhance national security awareness," the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper reported in September 2023, citing a circular sent to schools by the Hong Kong Education Bureau.

More than 930 government schools in Hong Kong have been twinned with schools in mainland China, Choi said.

Yeung said the session at the Pui Kiu Middle School resembled the "songs of praise" for late supreme leader Mao Zedong during China's Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, adding that commemorative books were handed out to students.

"Last year, Xi Jinping wrote a letter ... and one year later, Pui Kiu Middle School already has a special status within the Hong Kong education system," he said. "I expect we'll see more pilgrims visiting the school in future."

Yeung said some Hong Kong schools, which mostly teach in the city's lingua franca, Cantonese, will likely need to switch to Mandarin as a medium of instruction to cater to mainland Chinese students.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by RFA staff.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Luk Nam Choi and Ray Chung for RFA Cantonese.

As many as 30 applicants to the University of Hong Kong Business School have been found to have used fake documents supplied by a higher education agency, some of them for American universities, Business School Dean Cai Hongbin told the financial news site Caixin in a recent interview.

The revelations come amid growing concern that official willingness to encourage inward migration from mainland China to boost the city's economy could be having a negative impact on the reputation of its colleges and universities, which has already been hit by a compulsory patriotic education program.

"As fraudulent academic qualifications seriously affect student admission by local higher education institutions and Hong Kong's hard-earned international reputation, the [government] and all sectors of the Hong Kong community deeply resent such acts and have zero tolerance towards the matter," Hong Kong's Secretary for Education Christine Choi told the city's legislature in a recent statement.

While police arrested a man and a woman on June 26 and July 3 on suspicion of using fake documents, the university is now asking students to resubmit their academic qualifications, as HKU Business School Dean Cai warned that the fake degrees were mostly found in applications that used a "guaranteed admission" service from an academic agency.

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At least 30 students are believed to have used fake documents as part of the "guaranteed admission" service that costs applicants 500,000 yuan apiece, Cai told Caixin.

"Their ability to make fake academic qualifications is astonishing," the July 4 article quoted Cai as saying. "The University of Hong Kong has carried out spot checks as part of this review of academic qualifications."

Cai said many of the fake documents weren't distinguishable from the genuine article, right down to letterhead, envelope, paper quality and other details.

An online search for the keyword "guaranteed admission" in Chinese found several companies offering such services, including a website called Gabroad, which offers "Guaranteed admissions to Top 20 schools" including Harvard, claiming a 100% success rate.

The same site also offers such services for universities in Hong Kong, including the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Full refunds are offered to anyone who isn't offered a place, regardless of grades and test scores.

Falsifying or supplying fraudulent academic qualifications carries a maximum jail term of 14 years in Hong Kong.

Any violations will result in "decisive disciplinary action" against the students concerned, including expulsion, while offenders will also likely be prosecuted, Choi said in a June 26 written reply to the Legislative Council.

Education and immigration

The HKU Business School is a highly competitive school, receiving more than 24,000 for taught postgraduate programs in 2023, and only awarding places to 2,600 of them, according to Caixin.

All masters students at the school are now being required to resubmit undergraduate degree certificates, transcripts and other materials, the article said.

Year-long taught masters are particularly sought after by mainland students, because they are a quick way to secure the right to remain in the city for at least a year and look for work, offering a pathway to permanent residency.

Hong Kong's Chuhai College of Higher Education, which once struggled to recruit enough bachelor's degree students to balance the books, had more than 1,500 students in September 2023 after launching a range of taught, one-year masters courses and promoting them aggressively on mainland social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, according to an investigation by RFA Cantonese.

"Chuhai College in Hong Kong is known as a master's mill, because a lot of middle-class people from mainland China come here to take a one-year master's ... during which they can get a Hong Kong ID card for their kids," according to one video circulating on Xiaohongshu in recent weeks.

"A lot of influencers and agents promote the college as a one-stop shop for education and immigration," the video says.

While Chuhai College once had close ties with the government of Taiwan, it has recently repackaged itself as a "red" school, setting up a research institute to study ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's influence and infrastructure program known as the Belt and Road.

Taiwanese national security researcher Shih Chien-yu said he once worked as a lecturer at Chuhai College for many years, and confirmed that it has a reputation for not being too picky about who gets admitted.

"Chuhai College doesn't check very carefully whether applicants meet admission criteria," Shih told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. "There is strict training and guidelines regarding assessment of student performance, but I don't think it gets implemented in accordance with those standards."

Chuhai College is now on track to upgrade to university status, if it can attract similar numbers of students next academic year. 

The College hadn't responded to inquiries about its strategy or admissions policies by the time of writing.

However, a statement on its website says the school "has always followed the principles of fair selection, transparent procedures and merit-based admissions when recruiting for both undergraduate and master's courses."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alice Yam and Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.

"Human rights lawyers defend the full spectrum of civil society," the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group said in a statement that was also signed by more than 60 other rights organizations.

"They accompany and empower the most vulnerable against land evictions, discrimination, health scandals, or extralegal detention," it said. "They embody the promise of rule of law and hold the government accountable."

"They ensure that no one is left behind," the statement said, marking the arrests, detention and harassment of more than 300 rights lawyers, public interest law firm staff and rights activists across China starting on July 9, 2015.

Since that operation, the authorities haven't let up, and have now extended the crackdown to Hong Kong, despite promising to maintain the city's traditional freedoms and judicial independence, the groups said.

"We are ... concerned that the Hong Kong authorities are following a similar path," the rights groups, which included the New York-based Human Rights Watch and PEN America, said, citing the cases of rights lawyers Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho and Margaret Ng, who are all behind bars awaiting trial on "national security" charges.