After renewed violence in the legislature, in fancy shopping malls and on the streets, Hong Kong is bracing for a summer of activism. Yet, after almost a year of Beijing’s escalating anger, a growing sense of impunity among police, and under the threat of COVID-19, the rules of engagement are being redrawn.
On Friday last week, the Legislative Council hosted alarming scenes as pro-Beijing legislators took control of a committee chair, sparking a standoff which escalated to violence. They were seeking to pass a controversial law that would criminalize disrespect of the Chinese national anthem. A weekend of flash mobs followed.
The scenes were reminiscent of last year when legislators fought over a controversial extradition bill, which went on to spark massive demonstrations that roiled the territory for months. The bill was eventually withdrawn, but it was too late to stop the protests evolving into a broader pro-democracy movement.
With Legislative Council elections coming up in September, much is at stake and pro-democracy candidates are hoping to win the majority.
In the past few weeks, Beijing’s senior regional representatives have made extraordinary interventions into Hong Kong’s affairs, claiming a constitutional bar on Chinese interference did not apply to them. Mainland Chinese authorities labeled protesters as a virus that must be eradicated, and demanded the urgent enactment of Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law.
MIXED RESPONSES
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) has failed to bring reconciliation to the territory, and has prioritized the national anthem bill and an overhaul of the education system, which is similarly unpopular with pro-democracy protesters.
“I think on every front we’re going to see a stronger battle on both sides,” Human Rights Watch China researcher Maya Wang (王松蓮) said. “I think the stakes are higher and the government is more prepared, both in terms of the police force and that Beijing has already set a foundation for intervention in recent weeks by saying [its offices] have the right to intervene in Hong Kong affairs, even though legally speaking they don’t. The police force is also using increasingly excessive force on citizens and journalists and I think the amount of pressure is increasing on Hong Kong’s civil service.”
“On the other hand, I think Hong Kong people have also upped the game by becoming better not only at fighting for rights in the streets, but calling for international solidarity, and Hong Kong’s society as a whole has become stronger through 2019. Every citizen supporting democracy now thinks it’s their duty to support it,” she said.
On Sunday, social media were awash with footage of riot police deployed to the territory’s famous and fancy shopping malls to break up groups of protesters singing Glory To Hong Kong, a protest song popular with the pro-democracy camp.
Keith Richburg, journalism and media studies director at the University of Hong Kong, said the behavior of Beijing and its allied Hong Kong legislators angered the pro-democracy movement and energized them to go back out in force.
“I don’t think the protest over the weekend would have been as large or as angry or as vociferous if it had not been for all these events going on,” he said.
Photographs of the police crackdown showed families and children cowering in restaurants, the detainment and intimidation of a 12-year-old student reporter, and the apparent shooting of pepper spray projectiles. During protests in Mongkok, a legislator was thrown to the ground and pinned down, while pepper sprayed reporters were confined in a blocked-off section of a footpath where they were ordered to stop filming and kneel.
The treatment of journalists prompted outrage from media organizations who demanded the immediate suspension of all officers who “lost control”.
Pro-establishment legislator Regina Ip (葉劉淑儀) said the injuries to journalists were “regrettable,” and so was the presence of child reporters.
“The police had been outnumbered by reporters,” the legislator said. “To protect the reporters from further clashes with the police, the government should work out an accreditation system for reporters covering public order incidents.”
On Tuesday, Hong Kong Police Force Commissioner Chris Tang (鄧炳強) acknowledged that the treatment of journalists on Sunday was “undesirable” and that his officers “should have been more professional.”
However, it was not the first time journalists had apparently been targeted by police officers during protests, with countless reports of clearly identified journalists mistreated, or even shot at with rubber bullets and other projectiles.
Keith Richburg of the University of Hong Kong said the police behavior is “part and parcel of what we’ve seen in eight months of protest, which only abated during the virus. Until Tang agrees with that and we see police officers being disciplined or even facing trial, it’s just words. This is exactly the reason people have demanded as one of the five demands [of the protest movement] that there be an independent investigation into the police.”
Hong Kong Free Press editor-in-chief Tom Grundy said there is not one member of his staff who has not been injured while covering the protests.
“I remember about halfway through the protests last year, the tide really turned and the police began to quite deliberately target journalists,” he said. “Hong Kong is meant to be a bastion of press freedom in the region.”
PROTESTS AND COVID-19
On Monday, the Hong Kong Journalist Association released the results of a survey on press freedom in Hong Kong, finding more than 65 percent of the 222 interviewed journalists claimed to have been subjected to verbal and/or physical violence during their work.
Grundy said another long summer of protests is expected, but this time with police using pandemic measures “as a political weapon” to break up crowds.
”The anger never dissipated, and if anything it increased,” he said. “Has the right to protest, to speak out, been suspended?”
Wang said it is hard to predict what the summer will look like, especially given that the pandemic is still causing concern to a lot of people and police are still having the related emergency measures to keep people from gathering. There might not be the 1 million and 2 million strong marches of last year, which Wang said anchored the broader protest movement and helped build momentum.
“Now the police have been denying small protests, despite organizers having promised to take social distancing measures,” she said. A Tiananmen Square Massacre vigil on June 4 is likely to be rejected, she said. “If that is the case, it would be a significant development, because the vigil has not been banned in the past,” she said.
Foreign governments have to show their support, Wang said, singling out the UK, which signed a 50-year bilateral agreement with China to return Hong Kong to Chinese rule.
“To do so requires not just empty words over many years, especially on the UK’s part, but concrete action which involves escalating consequences for Hong Kong and Chinese officials,” she said.
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