‘Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’. Except in Hong Kong. Yet another day when the whole city shuts down because a passing cyclone is technically a ‘Number 8’, even though most districts experience only unremarkable wind and precipitation.
Thankfully, the Election Committee Subsector By-elections went ahead smoothly yesterday. Full results were being posted live over at the government’s press releases. A couple of things stand out. Turnouts were all 90%-plus (perhaps electorates are so small that your absence will be noticed). And looking through the results (Tech and Innovation, for example), it seems that in most of these polls every candidate but one wins. Strange.
Someone isn’t going to like this – the Committee for Freedom in HK Foundation report on ‘systematic abuse and control in HK prisons’, which…
…reveals a prison system that has normalized abuse and neglect, suppressed dissent, and violated both international and local legal standards.
Hong Kong’s prisons have become a hidden front in the city’s broader assault on civil liberties, where unchecked power and secrecy prevent accountability.
…. Compulsory political indoctrination through “Project PATH.” The Correctional Services Department (CSD)—with direction from the Beijing controlled Committee for Safeguarding National Security—uses political “rehabilitation” programs to indoctrinate prisoners with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) views and dissuade them from pro-democracy advocacy … Assaults by CSD staff. Prisoners described specific locations in the prison system where CSD staff regularly take prisoners to beat or pepper spray them … Solitary confinement as a routine form of punishment and control … Chronic medical neglect. Former inmates report widespread difficulties obtaining proper medical care, including untreated seizures, broken bones, and full-body rashes. We document the case of a prisoner who died due to official neglect after showing severe signs of psychological distress … Weaponized psychiatric detention … Squalid infrastructure and hygiene…
Co-author (and former guest at Lai Chi Kok) Samuel Bickett also does an op-ed in the NY Post…
Arrested in 2019 — purportedly for stepping in to stop two men beating a teen in a metro station — and convicted in 2021 in an absurd show trial, I found myself jailed for what appeared to be retaliation against the United States for its actions against Hong Kong officials.
After two months, I was released but barred from leaving the city, after which I remained outspoken in my criticism of Hong Kong’s government and its abuses.
A few months later, an appeals court put me back in prison, which is where I found myself that evening in February 2022, witnessing the bloody beating of an inmate.
A classic case of decision makers whose lives are unaffected by their decisions inflicting the consequences of their decisions on others.
Some things never change, especially here in the Pearl of the Orient.
You did not mention Balloon Gate?
Only in Honkers would so much fuss be generated for, at most, a few hundred bucks.
But this probably because it is the only kind of scenario that allows folks to organize and vent as it was not a government managed event.
However the reason why a permit to take up the punters, the core issue, was denied should be provided.
@Mary – Reason for a denial of permit? Safety, which is as good any other. The event organiser should have realised this, scheduled accordingly and had a Plan B beyond hoodwinking people with convenient disclaimers.
Good on Mama Boton for scotching that malarkey.
Mega events capital indeed!
Who decided a hot-air balloon event in the middle of a city was a “good idea”?