My handwriting is better than this. Really. I like to think I would take the trouble to put it in Hangul, and phrase it more delicately. Stop looking at me like that.
And on to the latest instalment of our series, Links Documenting the Increasingly Depressing and Never-Ending Communist-Imposed Mainlandizing and Decline of Hong Kong, or Look on the Bright Side, At Least We’re Not in Xinjiang…
An academic mega-epic by Johannes Chan – A storm of unprecedented ferocity: The shrinking space of the right to political participation, peaceful demonstration, and judicial independence in Hong Kong, courtesy of the International Journal of Constitutional Law.
On a more-digestible level if you’re pushed for time, Kong Tsung-gan’s latest HK Free Press update and analysis following the Mongkok riot/’riot’ trials. (This is the essential series for anyone trying to keep up with the increasingly frantic, just-getting-started, phasing-in of ‘rule by law’ in Hong Kong.)
Asia Sentinel joins in the coverage of the sentencing of Edward Leung, and, in keeping with its regional franchise, likens Hong Kong to the unfortunate Indonesian woman recently devoured by a python. The article includes a list of examples of Beijing’s intervention and repression in Hong Kong. Most people familiar with the Chinese Communist Party’s growing grip on the city will immediately see that the list is incomplete. This is not a reflection on the author, but a reminder of how widespread, repetitive and wearing the process has become. You are being numbed and exhausted into submission.
A Letter to Hong Kong from Ronny Tong
RTHK 17 June 2018
This is the letter we received from Ronny Tong,
Paraphrased in verse. I think I’ve done it fairly.
Geoffrey Ma, Chief Justice, has declared, rightly:
We have the Rule of Law; the courts are independent.
I regret that people do not want to listen.
Riot, at the Chinese New Year, 2016.
Imprisonment for Edward Leung, six years.
Lord Patten says at once the law has been abused.
However, he forgets it is an English law
Enacted in Hong Kong in 1967,
Drawn from well-established English Common Law.
[Ronnie: Being English doesn’t make it right;
What matters is, how the law is being used.]
Patten, I hope, is not suggesting that the judge
And jury have been bought; I hope he’s not suggesting
The videos shown in court were fake; or suggesting
The law should turn a blind eye to this breach of peace.
[Of course he’s not suggesting any of those things,
But you’re implicitly suggesting that he is.]
He may believe that this is only a backwater,
Our courts are kangaroo, and so he can defame them.
Who will stand up and defend them when they’re wronged?
[He believes the opposite about Hong Kong:
No backwater – it was the world’s most fragrant harbour.
Why this feeling of inferiority?]
Politics is ugly, it is everything,
Even more important than the Rule of Law –
Or so the opposition think. And they belittle
Judges, juries, and the whole judicial system.
But if they run our Rule of Law into the ground,
What is there to gain? What will they achieve?
In a place where Rule of Law does not exist,
Can democracy take root? You tell me.
[Who is damaging the Rule of Law? Tell me.]
– – – – –
Barrister and Exco member,
His wisdom is displayed,
I wanted to reply, Dear Ronny . . .
It’s useless, I’m afraid.