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Hong Kong’s Safety Bureau has just lately revealed, and praised, the federal government’s use of “deradicalization” packages for jailed protesters who participated within the 2019 pro-democracy motion. The bureau’s secretary outlined the character of the packages in a written clarification to the Legislative Council (LegCo), and critics have claimed the packages bear a worrisome resemblance to incarceration ways used towards ethnic teams in Xinjiang. Almond Li from the Hong Kong Free Press broke the story on the Hong Kong “deradicalization” packages final week:
Round 250 folks in custody have taken half up till February, the Bureau informed the legislature’s Finance Committee on Wednesday.
The Correctional Providers Division’s rehabilitation programmes goal to assist inmates “disengage from radical ideas and behaviours, and re-establish appropriate values,” via classes about Chinese language historical past, the Fundamental Regulation and the nationwide safety regulation, the Bureau wrote.
Different initiatives embrace workshops to assist individuals in custody improve their sense of nationwide identification and law-abidingness, in addition to remedy periods to deal with excessive anti-social and violent mindsets. [Source]
Native media in #HongKomg report that some jailed protesters from the 2019 protest will probably be present process “de-radicalization remedy” organized by #Hongkong’s correctional providers. https://t.co/yczzre3qxK
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) April 13, 2022
Final summer season, former Hong Kong Chief Govt Leung Chun-ying commissioned a examine by the One Nation Two Techniques Analysis Institute inspecting the way to deal with youth radicalization, which he described as an “alarming” development for the reason that pro-democracy protests. Kris Cheng from VOA spoke with nameless younger contributors of Hong Kong’s “deradicalization” packages who described being pressured to look at movies praising the CCP:
On Sundays, inmates had been allowed to look at a film, however earlier than the principle attraction, authorities “would play some clips made by TVB, [a Hong Kong-based television broadcaster with ties to the CCP,] mainly saying how good China is — how superior the know-how is, how handy their transportation is and the way wonderful their meals is.” The pre-movie movies had been 30 to 45 minutes lengthy.
[…] “I believe it’s brainwashing,” they informed VOA Cantonese. “Each morning throughout breakfast, we might watch these reveals about China’s superior know-how. It was on on a regular basis, time and again.”
Social employees assigned to their case questioned them in regards to the pro-democracy motion, they stated.
“They had been so gossipy, they saved asking me what precisely I had carried out, whether or not I ever had weapons, what’s my view on social motion, and if I remorse what I’ve carried out,” they stated.
“Typically I assumed they had been simply chatting, however (the conversations) all the time ended with how good life is in (China),” they continued to say. [Source]
There are very disturbing precedents in China with ‘re-education’ programmes used in the direction of perceived enemies. These oppressive programmes attempt to overturn freedoms of opinion and expression. One other indicator of CCP-ification of legal justice in HK. https://t.co/l0KO180tB4
— Nicola Macbean (@NMacbean) April 14, 2022
Hong Kong’s “deradicalization” packages, as described within the LegCo doc and in media experiences, have sure options in frequent with the Chinese language authorities’s “re-education” packages in Xinjiang, based mostly on descriptions of the latter by a Chinese language authorities White Paper, Xinjiang officers, and former instructors and detainees of the camps. Each units of packages are ostensibly voluntary; give attention to reorienting values and enhancing nationwide identification; make use of a framework of “deradicalization” and “schooling”; and embrace vocational coaching workshops, actions that reward the CCP, and programs in regards to the historical past of China.
@patrickpoon: Though the dimensions is completely different, that is getting near the de-radicalisation marketing campaign in Xinjiang’s re-education camps. The world should communicate out or this might not cease, and it will get increasingly more critical and be normalised. pic.twitter.com/M3fvllaams
— Kris Cheng (@krislc) April 14, 2022
Whereas it’s not clear whether or not elements of the Hong Kong packages had been intentionally modeled on the packages in Xinjiang, there have been different indicators that Hong Kong authorities officers have taken inspiration from safety practices employed within the area. In December 2018, a delegation from Hong Kong’s antiterrorism process pressure traveled to Xinjiang to check strategies to fight terrorism and extremism. The delegation was led by present safety bureau deputy-director Sonny Au Chi-kwong, and the duty pressure consists of officers from the correctional service division, which introduced the “deradicalization” packages this month. In January 2022, Main Common Peng Jingtang turned the new commander of Hong Kong’s PLA garrison after serving as deputy chief of employees of the Individuals’s Armed Police in Xinjiang, the place he was tasked with counterterrorism. His appointment, together with different latest management adjustments in Hong Kong, factors to a better give attention to counterterrorism and public safety.
The report on youth radicalization commissioned by Leung Chun-ying acknowledged the necessity for preserving political areas comparable to college scholar unions, because the South China Morning Publish described: “The paper proposed that to curb radicalisation, platforms should be broadened for younger folks to take part in politics and public affairs.” Regardless of this, scholar unions have been a goal of the heightened give attention to safety and deradicalization, and plenty of have now been “shackled” or pressured to disband. The Diplomat’s Thomas Chan traced the evolution of scholar unions from their important function within the metropolis’s social activism to their decline underneath the Nationwide Safety Regulation, and described how Hong Kong officers have related scholar unions with radicalization and terrorism:
Scholar unions “have wantonly instilled amongst college students improper values and disseminated false or biased messages in an try to incite their hatred towards the nation and the [government], and even advocated the resort to violence and unlawful acts for political ends,” Safety Secretary Christopher Tang stated throughout a Legislative Council listening to.
“Individuals sympathizing with violent assaults are susceptible to additional radicalization and changing into supporters, who might then simply flip into contributors of terrorist actions,” he added.
Town’s former chief, Leung Chun-Ying, additionally pulled no punches in criticizing scholar unions’ function in politics. He believed that their trigger for self-determination is at odds with Beijing’s Nationwide Safety Regulation and would solely develop if unchecked.
“A baby who steals a needle will develop as much as steal gold,” he stated in an interview with South China Morning Publish. “We have to take care of the younger. We can’t afford to underestimate the seriousness of the issue; tolerance will solely trigger extra widespread hurt.” [Source]
Simply this week, Hong Kong Polytechnic College (PolyU) turned Hong Kong’s fifth college to absolutely lower ties with its scholar union for the reason that introduction of the Nationwide Safety Regulation. The coed union refused to signal a “imprecise” compliance settlement that might have allowed the college to terminate the union’s official standing over any acts deemed to hazard the college’s popularity. Lea Mok from the Hong Kong Free Press reported on the incident and on different universities which have severed ties with their scholar unions:
PolyU turned the fifth college to ban its prime scholar physique from accessing college’s assets, after the Chinese language College of Hong Kong (CUHK), the College of Hong Kong (HKU), the Metropolis College of Hong Kong (CityU), and Lingnan College.
[…] CUHK cited nationwide safety considerations when it lower ties with its scholar physique in February. All members of the CUHK college students’ union resigned the identical day they had been elected, citing dying threats and having foreseen that the physique may not have the ability to freely categorical its political views. The 50-year-old college students’ union determined to dissolve in October 2021.
Scholar leaders from HKU’s college students’ union have been arrested by nationwide safety police over allegedly advocating terrorism. The coed physique handed a movement to mourn for a person who stabbed a police officer on July 1 earlier than killing himself. HKU barred scholar leaders from coming into its campus and going to courses.
Lingnan and CityU requested their college students’ unions to vacate campus premises in February, citing monetary causes and the necessity to launch rooms for different scholar organisations. Native media quoted sources saying that the nationwide safety division of the police had been investigating CityU’s college students’ union after scholar leaders initiated an on-campus protest to oppose the college’s move-out-order in mid-February. [Source]
Polytechnic College is the newest HK college to chop ties with its scholar union.
Ex-union chief Alan Wu informed @HKFP on Fri that PolyU had requested a full listing of union members & demanded it signal a contract giving the uni extra management. It should now depart campus by July 15. pic.twitter.com/oVRgCIy8Ma
— Tom Grundy (@tomgrundy) April 15, 2022
One other #HongKong college stops recognizing its scholar union as increased schooling establishments turns into Beijing’s sidekick in eliminating town’s scholar activism https://t.co/Ne3gcEuYaZ
— Maya Wang 王松莲 (@wang_maya) April 18, 2022
on banishing the coed unions:
“it will appear that abolishing scholar unions isn’t just about eliminating scholar union leaders, however basically to fully eliminate scholar activism as a lifestyle in Hong Kong and as a characterisation of Hong Kong universities,”
— lokman tsui (@lokmantsui) February 22, 2022
In the meantime, as AFP reported on Tuesday, two Hong Kong residents had been convicted and sentenced to 2 years in jail for sharing a Fb submit that known as for casting clean votes in final 12 months’s LegCo ballot:
Salesman Chan Kin-man, 36, and workplace assistant Alice Leung, 65, had been each sentenced to 2 months in jail with 18 months of suspension respectively by a Justice of the Peace in Hong Kong after pleading responsible to “inciting others” to not vote, or to forged invalid vote.
[…] Chan and Leung had been arrested shortly earlier than polls opened for reposting a Fb enchantment by Mr Ted Hui, a former opposition lawmaker residing abroad, who known as on Hong Kong voters to “forged a clean vote to withstand the unjust system”.
Though casting a clean vote just isn’t an offence in Hong Kong, principal Justice of the Peace Bina Chainrai stated in court docket on Tuesday that Mr Hui’s submit was unlawful as a result of “it’s extra than simply asking folks to forged clean votes, he was asking folks to… categorical dissatisfaction of the federal government”. [Source]
Inciting others to boycott a vote in Hong Kong can carry a penalty of as much as three years in jail and a most high-quality of HK$200,000 (US$25,672). On this case, the principal Justice of the Peace, citing the intense nature of the offense, denied the protection’s request to substitute jail sentences with neighborhood service. She additionally suspended the jail phrases for one and a half years and ordered Chan and Leung to pay charges in the direction of the price of the court docket proceedings. The pair had been charged final December by Hong Kong’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Unbiased Fee In opposition to Corruption, which arrested ten folks on suspicion of calling for invalid votes. A 3rd defendant, Chou Wing-tat, pleaded responsible to the identical cost final week and is scheduled to be sentenced in Could. The December LegCo election that sparked the costs was Hong Kong’s first “patriots solely” election for the reason that electoral reforms that successfully barred opposition candidates from operating. Turnout was traditionally low, with solely 30.2 % of voters taking part within the election.
in hong kong, reposting a fb submit now is sufficient to land you in jail.
there are such a lot of questions that come up, together with what counts as incitement, and what the function of the platform is.
a couple of rambling ideas under. https://t.co/rwua8nfrwX
— lokman tsui (@lokmantsui) April 19, 2022
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