HK ‘elites’ doing their thing

The ‘elite’ Correctional Services ‘Black Panthers’ riot team, plus dogs, enter Lo Wu Correctional Institute to suppress some sort of insurrection (why else deploy the riot squad and dogs?) by female prisoners armed with snacks, lipstick and hair clips. It seems by organizing and sharing these items, they were threatening to create ‘chaos’ in the facility. (At least one is being held without bail under suspicion of threatening national security by taking part in a primary election – so from a NatSec regime viewpoint, snacks and lipstick are quite possibly a mortal danger to the established order.)

The Black Panthers (who the hell picked that name?) will probably get medals for bravery after their daring raid on the snacks- and lipstick-wielding women at Lo Wu. Perhaps more deserving of a Platinum Bauhinia Award for Heroism would be Hong Kong Alliance’s Chow Hang-tung, who’s telling the NatSec police to shove their demand for data on members, donors, affiliates etc. ‘We will not help you spread fear’.

It is humiliating for the all-powerful Security Bureau and NatSec Police to be called out so bluntly. They issue frantic press releases (here and here) warning of stiff penalties for such defiance, and they will no doubt follow through with dawn raids, arrests and asset seizures.

The word ‘elite’ also crops up in this SCMP report on the 2021 Election Committee Subsector elections to be held in two weeks time – an analyst describes the process as ‘elite politics’. Gullible reporters insist that the EC is now super-powerful as it will elect the Chief Executive and select many legislators. This is absurd, as the Politburo in Beijing does not delegate personnel decisions like the choice of Hong Kong CE (even a puppet one) to anyone, and certainly not to a few hundred shoe-shiners incorporating a bunch of property tycoons’ witless kids.

The SCMP finds great meaning in the fact that these candidates mostly offer no policy ideas. The reality is simply that the candidates – in addition to (some might say) having limited intellects – mostly have no opponents, hardly any actual voters, and only a ceremonial role to play. The elite, and the politics, are a thousand miles away to the north.

On the subject of local pro-Beijing politicians, a former one has been arrested for stealing apartments (it can be done) for sale to the government’s redevelopment agency… 

…Sio was … the vice-president of the Young DAB – a youth branch of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. He ran in the 2015 District Council election but lost, after which he withdrew from the party.

During the social unrest in 2019, Sio founded a 100-member voluntary lawyer group to provide legal assistance to pro-establishment citizens injured by protesters.

An upstanding citizen! Unlike all those Hong Kong youngsters who, a Beijing education official says, are obsessed with Western ideas like freedom and democracy, and not stealing apartments.

Elsewhere in No Clampdown news – a look back, with pics, at RTHK’s City Forum – launched in 1980 to encourage free expression of views, scrapped suddenly in 2021 to shut the public up.

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12 Responses to HK ‘elites’ doing their thing

  1. donkey says:

    You’ll have to forgive me for not knowing the answer to this, but… why didn’t any of the other organizations asked by the NSL police refuse to hand over information?

    Legitimate question: do the NSL police do this without warrants or mandate from Justice? Or, are they really just sitting in an office, choosing targets and demanding information?

  2. Chinese Netizen says:

    It’s always SOP for dictatorial regimes to heap on the “elite” titles and honours and load up on medals for uniformed services like treats for dogs to keep them compliant and in need of constant positive reinforcement.

    Soon the popo, immigration, street wardens and jailers will be no different than these clowns…

    https://twitter.com/Rajeev_GoI/status/1295638420774178816

  3. Chinese Netizen says:

    Barrister Devin Sio DEFINITELY looks “elite”.

  4. reductio says:

    @donkey

    I read somewhere that only the probable suspicions of a minor functionary (dep inspector or something) is required to bust your door down in NSL cases. However, I’d like to be confirmed/stand corrected by someone who actually knows

  5. Mary Melville says:

    As previously mentioned, the real reason why the pro-dem lawyers are associated with the legal aid/pro bono cases is because t’others are far too busy in the far more lucrative property market. For sure the URA scam has been going on for years, and who knows how many empty units are ‘claimed’ during property developer compulsory sale
    acquisitions.
    Meanwhile the country cousins are milking the Small House policy.
    Note no shock horror demand for a full investigation from our legislators, but then they are far too busy Talabanising the schools.

  6. odaiwai says:

    donkey/reduction:
    ‘Under the new implementation rules, police are required to apply to a magistrate for a warrant to enter and search any premises for evidence, but “under exceptional circumstances, a police officer not below the rank of assistant commissioner of police may authorise his officers to enter the relevant place and search for evidence without a warrant”.’
    Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3092070/national-security-law-hong-kong-polices-sweeping-new-powers

  7. Venus de Smilo says:

    Re The Rebrand HK debacle
    Kudos to the genius of Venus V in the SCMP comments of an Op-Ed on the subject who came up with this honest & pithy rebrand:

    “Hermit kingdom run by sock-puppet. Like China but less efficient.”

    https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3147601/hong-kongs-relaunch-needs-more-advertising-campaign

  8. Stanley Lieber says:

    Hong Kong became lawless on July 2020.

    HK authorities now do whatever they want to whomever they want.

    The HK government is unmoored from reason, justice or the written word.

    Believing the situation to be otherwise is absurd and potentially dangerous.

    Watch out.

  9. reductio says:

    @odaiwai

    Thanks for correcting me. Will the”under exceptional circumstances” clause indeed be invoked but super rarely? I couldn’t possibly comment.

  10. Mark Bradley says:

    ‘Under the new implementation rules, police are required to apply to a magistrate for a warrant to enter and search any premises for evidence, but “under exceptional circumstances, a police officer not below the rank of assistant commissioner of police may authorise his officers to enter the relevant place and search for evidence without a warrant”.’

    I don’t think this is the same thing as making a demand for information though.

  11. Quentin Quarantino says:

    @StanleY; “We” have all gone underground since that is the only way to survive. We are out of sight, doing what we do for the betterment of Hong Kong AND China. But “we” are working everyday, in Hong Kong and in China, to achieve our goals.

  12. donkey says:

    @odaiwai

    I guess that still begs the question, why are the police going through the theatre of asking for information if all they have to do is enter the premises and take it, as they did to Apple Daily?

    Something smacks of political posturing here. I can’t quite figure out why each case is treated in subtly different ways.

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