Mainland teenagers are roughing it in Hong Kong on a zero budget. When I was in my teens, I hitchhiked across Europe (including then-Communist Hungary, Ceausescu’s Romania and Bulgaria and then-Yugoslavia) as far as Istanbul, across Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, and coast-to-coast across the US and Canada – living off about US$1 per day, and even spending a few nights in cemeteries. Sleeping in McDonald’s is relatively classy.
The second part of Samuel Bickett’s piece, which…
…aims to provide a clearer understanding of how Beijing’s handpicked national security judges blatantly manipulate the law, evidence, and rights of defendants in national security proceedings. Judge Kwok’s conduct from the bench exposes a system where judges, prosecutors, and police appear to be staging theatrical performances rather than trials, all of which are designed to reach one end: conviction and imprisonment.
HKFP reports that, although no-one seems to be acquitted in NatSec/sedition cases, the government isn’t taking any chances…
Hong Kong’s Department of Justice (DoJ) is planning to amend the law to allow appeals against not-guilty verdicts in national security cases tried at the city’s High Court, local media has reported. To date, no one tried under the national security law has been acquitted of their charges.
Nikkei on the long reach of the NatSec law…
Hong Kong student living in Japan picked up by NatSec police on visit to city to renew her ID – for a Facebook post that ‘incited secession’.
And on the exodus of educators…
A total of 3,540 teachers at public primary and secondary schools have left before retirement so far in the year that began last September, the Education Bureau reports. That is already 28% higher than the full-year tally for the preceding year, and more than double the figure for 2020-21, before which annual totals had hovered around 1,300.
A short thread on movie-banning…
At the Loose Narrative short films screening presented by independent production group Phone Make Good Film this afternoon, 3 out of 12 titles were censored.
HKFP op-ed on plans to resurrect District Councils as patriots-only talking shops…
If the government listens only to the opinion of patriots of its own choosing, organised in loud, one-dimensional echo chambers, authorities cannot understand people’s needs and concerns.
(Not that they want to. Back in the days when we had democratically elected LegCo and DC members, authorities ignored public opinion – on housing costs, large influxes of Mainlanders, wasteful infrastructure spending – and accused the pan-dems of mindless opposition.)
CY Leung says we don’t need elections.
District Councils are like blue ticks on Twitter: a feature that once had a valid purpose, now re-engineered as some sort of meaningless privilege – so no smart person wants anything to do with them.
Speaking of Twitter – DFRLab looks at the site’s recent twin boosts to Chinese and Russian state media…
Some Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media accounts which Twitter had previously labeled as “government-affiliated” were hemorrhaging followers in the months prior to this policy update, then experienced rapid gains after Twitter instituted the change. While multiple factors could contribute to these accounts’ growth trajectory … the sudden, simultaneous increase in followers per day after a period of decline indicates platform-wide algorithmic change around March 29.
OK – back to Nury Vittachi Bingo.
Ref. Para 1: When I were’t lad we used to live in’t ‘ole in’t middle o’ road
Soon Hong Kong will be once again full to bursting with rude tourists dragging their rolling luggage onto the MTR escalators and careening down the jammed sidewalks of Causeway Bay, thereby enhancing the quality of life of ordinary citizens and showering upon all the economic benefits of full hotels and rising retail shop rents.
Tell a good Hong Kong story!
“Hong Kong’s Department of Justice (DoJ) is planning to amend the law to allow appeals against not-guilty verdicts in national security cases tried at the city’s High Court, local media has reported. To date, no one tried under the national security law has been acquitted of their charges.”
That’s a LOT of “independent judicial” COSPLAYing just to show the world that Asia’s Newest Mainland China City is “open for business and everything is A-OK!”
Asia’s World City With Chinese Characteristics, please
He now works for London Transport.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sY1vLAVWVyM/UYwqz0Shb7I/AAAAAAAABVI/GrAfWAMK05w/s1600/nury-on_the_buses.jpg
CY – “He continued that consultative bodies with administrative power, like the Housing Authority and Urban Renewal Authority, are also not produced through elections”
Hmmm …………… the powers granted to both HA and URA far exceed those of DCs, particularly the URA that can take over your home.
Going through the Town Planning process at the moment, as part of its Kowloon City make over, the URA hopes to increase its revenue by relocating the wet market to, get this, the local district park. It is going where no government bureau would dare
– build a 100mt high wall tower inside a public park with a function that is not related to recreational activities
– build over more than 10% of designated Open Space
– bring a noxious and polluting facility into a public park, our wet markets and cooked food courts will never be anything but magnets for rodents and roaches, and lets not to into issues like emissions, odours, etc.
– chop down around 100 trees
– remove a popular kid’s bike track that attracts folk from a wider area and provides outdoor recreation facilities for hundreds of families
– when pushed throws out vague promises of developing an alternative bike track, on the part of the park where the kids playground, elderly exercise stations and many other facilities are currently located – conveniently no mention of how many additional trees would be chopped.
– build a wide footbridge over the park, all the better to cover over what would be left
– and all the above without posting the mandatory notices to allow park users to object
Are we to assume that CY believes that the appointed DCs will have similar muscle?
Are we to assume that CY believes that the appointed DCs will have similar muscle?
He hopes so! It is the Party style after all – and didn’t he propose to do the same sort of thing to Fanling golf course?