Lingnan University Students Union – founded in 1967 – decides to dissolve. The only student unions still active are at City U and HKUST, plus a couple of Chinese U’s colleges.
One of the few remaining prominent and critical civil-society bodies that stubbornly refuses to go away is the HK Journalists Association. But the authorities are doubling down on the pressure, with the Security Secretary blasting the Association’s current leadership election…
Secretary for Security Chris Tang said on Friday that the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) had not publicised its list of candidates who are running in the election at Saturday’s AGM.
He said it had been reported that all of the candidates were from foreign media outlets, “so-called free media,” or online outlets.
“There’s not a single person from a mainstream Hong Kong outlet,” Tang said in Cantonese. “How can it be called the [Hong Kong] Journalists Association?”
“Not only is the HKJA hiding its candidate list, it also will not publicise its list of candidates after they are elected. With black-box operations like this, how can there be any credibility at all?” he added.
The HKJA says it keeps candidates’ names internal for fear that individuals will face harassment. But why should the Security Secretary – responsible for police, fire, prisons, immigration and customs services – be so concerned about it? (And are government officials in a position to criticize the credibility of elections now Hong Kong has barred all but approved ‘patriots’ from district and legislative bodies?)
After several years, the government gives up trying to find something incriminating about Next Digital, which a court ordered shut down in late 2021. CFHK notes…
Even the Hong Kong regime has finally admitted the Kafka-esque futility of investigating a company that no longer exists while its founder [Jimmy Lai] and senior executives sit behind bars…
…Mark Clifford, CFHK Foundation president and one of those questioned during the probe, summed it. up: “This entire exercise was an expensive, taxpayer-funded harassment operation. [The regime] tried to blame directors for the company’s shutdown and wouldn’t even look at government’s freezing of our bank accounts.”
The reason there are no “mainstream” media organisations in the Hong Kong Journalists Association is right there in the title.
It’s an association for journalists.
“Not only is the HKJA hiding its candidate list, it also will not publicise its list of candidates after they are elected. With black-box operations like this, how can there be any credibility at all?” he added.
Given that the HKJA is a society, not publicly funded, its duty is to its members. There is a duty as a registered society to report to the police the change of office bearers with ID etc but no obligation to report whomsoever might be a candidate for office nor to make those names public. If anyone wants to know, they can pay the police for it.
Any question of credibility lies elsewhere, not with the HKJA
“But why should the Security Secretary … be so concerned about it?”
It’s almost as though we no longer enjoy freedom of the press in HK.
Some light relief – our Leggers have to spend the summer break learning Mando speak.
https://global.hk01.com/%E6%94%BF%E6%83%85/60378052/%E5%A4%8F%E5%AE%9D%E9%BE%99%E5%90%AC%E8%AE%AE%E5%91%98-%E6%B8%AF%E5%BC%8F%E6%99%AE%E9%80%9A%E8%AF%9D-%E5%8F%91%E8%A8%80-%E5%BF%8D%E4%BF%8A%E4%B8%8D%E7%A6%81%E9%BC%93%E5%8A%B1%E6%81%B6%E8%A1%A5-%E6%94%BF%E5%9C%88%E9%A3%8E%E5%A3%B0
During a closed-door meeting in July 2026, Beijing’s top Hong Kong and Macao affairs official Xia Baolong lightheartedly urged Hong Kong lawmakers to improve their Putonghua (Mandarin) skills ……………………………………….
Many rarely practise Putonghua day to day, and some deliveries sounded little better than Cantonese slightly misread. Xia encouraged them to learn the national language properly, joking that having come all the way to Beijing there was no reason he should be the one learning Cantonese.
THAT PUTS THE TWO SYSTEMS IN ITS PLACE
Xi Jinping speaks Mandarin with a thick country bumpkin accent. Nobody complains about that, certainly not Xia Bao-bao.
Something else: It’s 36C today. Jimmy Lai will spend the night in a jailcell without aircon. Spare a thought.
And now the withered husk of the Hong Kong Bar Association wants “a court to overturn its own disciplinary board’s decision clearing pro-democracy figure Margaret Ng of misconduct linked to her 2019 protest conviction.”
She’s 78 and hasn’t practiced law in years.
https://hongkongfp.com/2026/08/10/barrister-group-asks-court-to-overturn-decision-clearing-democrat-margaret-ng-of-misconduct-linked-to-2019-protest-conviction/?fbclid=IwY2xjawTmskNwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMU9JRkpMR3BQblMzeWR0bTBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe66L7ckSWH3FoluR454oxQMS00mttPWShQPfwB9jdUKjLnX4Ohy7dB4AWiDg_aem_JIO2l-a60khjLzD-D4m3Mg
How comfortable do you think Vagina Ip, Anus Ho and Christine Loh will feel tonight?
Surely Winnie’s “bumpkin” accent is purely affected so the masses can feel “at one with” the newest emperor.