For Hong Kong, it’s a holiday season in which ‘police and protesters roam shopping malls’ and the government complains that marauding masked rioters have ‘affected the festive mood’ and wrings its hands about the dreaded pro-independence flag menace.
A genteel SCMP columnist portrays this as Hong Kong’s worst Christmas since 1941 (actually, the Christmases of ’42, ’43 and ’44 were by all accounts not much fun). Like many, she is perplexed as to why – after over six months of unrest – the local administration is doing nothing.
It is sometimes hard to tell whether the Hong Kong government is failing dismally because of its peculiar innate incompetence, or because Beijing is imposing its own malicious stupidity upon it. The confusion arises because people mistake the Chinese Communist Party’s inability to comprehend Hong Kong for ancient inscrutable Oriental long-term strategic wisdom.
Long story short: Beijing has ordered its Hong Kong puppets to sit immobile and act dumb – which by happy coincidence they are good at – while China’s leaders try to come up with some ideas.
The best they can manage so far: order the Hong Kong Police to simply crush, arrest, tear-gas and pepper-spray the city into renewed harmony.
Thanks to a discontented member of the ranks, the Washington Post has obtained the cops’ official procedures on the use of force and found they are frequently breaking their own rules. Intro with link from one of the journalists…
Policing experts point out that everywhere in the world, a lack of accountability leads to radicalization. They were all really disturbed at how hard it is to identify HKPF officers at the protests, and how their face coverings seem to have morphed steadily since June.
From former PSNI officer Gary White: “If the police can get away with excessive and inappropriate use of force, and they are never held to account for it, what do you think is going to be the response from the people who are subject to that force by the police?”.
The predictable whiny petulant stroppy response from the administration prompts another WaPo journalist to say…
The government’s “refutation” of our report issued today is essentially a copy-and-paste job of their “refutation” of HK Watch from yesterday. Unfortunately, they chose not to address any of the many incidents we catalogued and explain how they adhere to use of force guidelines.
Here’s the government’s refutation #1, and, indeed very similar, refutation #2. The police are meanwhile pleading with you not to believe ‘fake’ news, but to trust them instead.
“Hong Kong Police accidentally apprehend undercover officers
during Boxing Day mall protest”
– Hong Kong Free Press December 27
– – – –
Jason
The policeman who had never arrested anyone
Jason had a hero’s name
But other po-po weren’t impressed.
He couldn’t play the “gotcha” game:
Although he tried his very best,
He’d made not even one arrest.
One evening in a noisy mall
He saw a cockroach all in black
Doing nothing much at all.
Creeping soft behind his back,
Jason launched a bold attack.
How he glowed with joy and pride
Thinking what a catch he’d got!
But then his prisoner turned and cried,
“I’m in your team, you stupid twat!”
Jason a hero? No, he’s not!
At least the body centre target zone example is smiling eagerly to receive the projectile…
You can tell that a newspaper is on its last legs by the quality of its ‘columnists’: when all you have to offer is a motley collection of has-beens, lightweights and nobodies like Mike Rowse, Yonden LaTooToo, Christine Who? and Regina Ip while respected writers like Jake vdK and Tom of Holland take a dignified step back, you know it’s time to pull the shutters.
Have you read about the shopping mall protests having been called for and organized by undercover police?
https://twitter.com/rhokilpatrick/status/1211132874260283393
https://twitter.com/postmodern3/status/1211075441378942976
It seems that the police have been changing/adding tactics in recent weeks. I hope the protestors will respond accordingly.
Please cancel previous and post this instead – thanks!
Joe Blow – don’t forget Shirley Yam, another respected writer. She contributes occasionally to Hong Kong Free Press:
https://www.hongkongfp.com/author/shirleyyam/
“…..spent 11 years writing Money Matters, an award-winning weekly column at the South China Morning Post. Shirley is now the Senior Editor of REDD Intelligence.”
Apparently much too intelligent for Allibaba’s SCMP
Also, don’t forget the Canada based wunderkind Alex Lo. His gift for getting so close to the point, and yet missing it, is the stuff of legend. In his most recent article he manages to claim that Hong Kongers have never had it so good, and that the district council elections prove that Hong Kong now has a greater level of democracy than it did with the British. This would be the opposite of the truth; a lie, if you will. Having got so close to the crux of the issue, yet still missing it takes a “special” kind of genius!
Sellouts (A. Low, all “tycoons”, Vagina, etc) that enjoy unfettered freedoms whilst advocating further repression on the same stock from which they came are an especially insidious breed of scum.