Hong Kong’s Correctional Services Dept shows off its hitherto unheard-of* Big Tough Riot Squad, which has the desperately unoriginal – yet even more ill-suited – name ‘The Black Panthers’.
In an ‘exclusive’, the Sycophantic Cliched Morning Predictable describes the group as an ‘elite’ unit, though they look more cosplay-wargamer than trained special forces. (In fairness, it’s difficult to look macho when you’re clustered around the world’s dorkiest-looking prisons commissioner. But hard to imagine them lasting three minutes against Huey P Newton’s anti-police militia.)
The point of all this, we are told, is to prepare Hong Kong prisons for thousands of dangerous young radicals scooped up in and around the 2019 protests. As well as sponge-tipped pepper rounds that can conveniently be fired through cell bars, such inmates will get special classes in the NatSec Law – which according to CCP penology is guaranteed to correct their thinking. Still no word about how the prisons will fit all the extra thousands in.
[*I now recall seeing them plodding up and down Lower Albert Rd at the height of the protests late last year. Guess they’re just a bit forgettable.]
Catching up on recent reading…
A load of things from HKFP: how the Mainlandization of Hong Kong government language is undermining the World City brand (not to mention just sounding stupid); the Red Guards are back; CCP-friendly ex-judge Henry Litton apparently commits contempt of court; and a good summary of the unflattering-to-China Pew poll.
Jerome Cohen on Henry Litton’s attacks on Hong Kong courts and on the Hong Kong 12.
From MERICS, a graphic timeline of the first 100 days of the NatSec Law.
And M+ offers a list of 10 Hong Kong movies that would be interesting to see but are probably impossible to track down. Found one or two trailers on YouTube.
The famous root canal. Despite the procedure’s scary reputation, totally painless from start to finish. Now I need to train myself to allow ice-cold San Mig to once again stray to that side of my mouth.
Telling little quotation from the CSD article:
“For the prison chief, control now needs to be done “quickly, resolutely, and precisely” “.
There’s that adverb again! You know, the one beginning with r that you use when you want to show the people who count that you’re fully on board with their exciting new way of doing things.
Re the recommended Hong Kong movies: I’ve viewed 8 out of 10 of them. Would agree though that a number of them are very hard to find. (If I’m not mistaken, there’s only one or two prints left in the world of “The Arch”.) Still, DVDs of “The Private Eyes” and “Dirty Ho” shouldn’t be too difficult to find.
And yeah, what a joke re the “Black Panthers”. Bet those people who came up with the name for the prison squad don’t know about the American Black Panthers. Also, weren’t there supposed to be just a few dangerous radical protestors about in Hong Kong? Guess it’s because the authorities now can’t/won’t distinguish between radical and moderate protestors.
@Red Dragon: I resolutely agree!
@YTSL – I recall the government/police assuring us last year that once 1 or 2 thousand dangerous radical extremists had been arrested, everything would calm down. We’re now at 10,000 arrests and counting. Whatever skills the government may possess, fortune-telling (like truth-telling) is clearly not among them.
Content unrelated to today’s postings, but some things which appeared over the weekend. 2 very good articles in Apple Daily about the psychology of our leader (I won’t use the language she uses to emulate her superiors “so-called”). It perhaps may go far in explaining the imperious attitude displayed now which is very different from 12 months ago during the “town hall” conducted in an attempt to defuse the situation and the Reuters interview. Contributing to this attitude may have been that she was left in the dark along with all of us common people about content of the new law.
The 2nd shows just how ill-equipped the leader’s leader is when dealing with the worldly, sophisticated, and cynical Hong Kong populace, given his prior governance experience is solely amongst those unfortunate persons in China who lack a free society which includes individual rights, and access to information and due process.
https://hk.appledaily.com/opinion/20201010/VGHENWMJSNAJLCNWWM2JQNTQMU/
https://hk.appledaily.com/opinion/20201010/MSANYVU5EZGFFHSE4BDMPFS7EQ/
Subscribe and read while you can. This media, like HKFP, could eventually be run out of town. We could still access it online but wait until the Great Firewall is deployed here
Woops, they forgot to send the Fact Sheet to the Liaison Office for a rewrite
https://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/correctional_services.pdf
“Over the years Hong Kong has developed an internationally
acclaimed correctional system, which places increasing
emphasis on correction, rehabilitation of persons in custody, as
well as community education. The Correctional Services
Department (CSD) runs a comprehensive range of
rehabilitation programmes targeting different types of persons
in custody such as young offenders, drug dependants, first-time
offenders and recidivists”…….. and lots more.
Hopefully some Human Rights groups is working on a legal challenge to the change in focus to intimidation and repression.
There are some gems in the RTHK report about the “at least one month delay” in the policy address. Her in Government House has to go to BJ o have her work revised.
Jeffrey Lam (no relation?) thinks if the SAR government keeps handing out financial assistance, six months from now it will have no money left. So, stop giving it to Wellcome and ParknShop.
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1554263-20201012.htm?spTabChangeable=0