Pro-Beijing forces established significant influence at grass-roots level in Macau back in the 1960s, so the city never had a civil society and political activism on Hong Kong’s scale. But there were some pan-dems and workers’ rights groups. No more. From AP via HKFP…
In July 2025, [teacher and former pro-democracy New Macau Association] lawmaker Au Kam San became the first person to be arrested under Macau’s national security law, with authorities alleging he had ties to foreign groups endangering China.
There has since been a lack of public information regarding the case.
On Thursday, a Macau court said in a statement that a judge determined on July 2 that Au was the “principal offender” and had committed crimes of “subversion of state power”.
Au was also suspected of “establishing links with organisations, groups or individuals outside Macau… to commit acts endangering national security” and “breach of confidentiality”, the court said.
…The Chinese casino hub expanded the scope of national security laws in May 2023, which officials said was meant to step up prevention of foreign interference.
In March a new bill was passed to allow Macau’s judges to decide whether national security cases should be heard in camera and require defence lawyers to obtain clearances before appearing in such cases.
NPR’s All Things Considered – it’s still going – looks at Hong Kong’s ‘sound of silence’…
VINCENT: …On July 1, NPR saw plainclothes men following W from a gathering, across several stops on the subway and into a busy shopping district where small groups of activists gathered to quietly mark the anniversary of the handover. W says on days like this, she feels she’s under surveillance. Hong Kong police told NPR that they take action in accordance with the law and made appropriate deployments due to the threat of public safety, public order and national security.
Do you know where the red lines are?
W: I don’t know. Yeah, because some people are still saying things that’s against the government on Facebook, but they’re – nothing happened to them. But some only have less than 100 followers in Facebook, and they got jailed. No, I don’t know the red line.
…VINCENT: Across town, we meet C. He is retired but also a longtime activist. Like W, he asks not to be named for fear of reprisal.
C: It’s not just a law. It’s like a – the weapon. They weaponized it. I think it’s more like to clamp down the political opponents. They tried to erase – not only rewrite, erase the history like nothing happened before.
Still – Hong Kong consolidates its role as Asia’s independent-bookstore-closure hub…
Elmbook, an independent bookshop that opened in 1997, has announced it will shutter its physical store in Mong Kok after being banned from the Hong Kong Book Fair.
…The announcement came a day after local media reported that Elmbook and another independent bookstore, Luck Win Bookshop, were banned from participating in the Hong Kong Book Fair, which is scheduled to run from July 15 to 21.
InMedia reported that the two bookstores had imported many books from Taiwan for the book fair, but they were suddenly notified of the ban in late June.