Protesters in Taipei yesterday said that the cross-strait peace Beijing advocates for is a ploy to annex Taiwan.
Demonstrators at the protest to commemorate the anniversary of the implementation of Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law spoke out against the Hong Kong government’s efforts to persecute Hong Kongers migrating abroad.
During a street theater performance, a person wearing a Winnie the Pooh costume — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — distributed red balloons filled with “sugar-coated lies,” which were “exposed” by Hong Kongers, Tibetans and Uighurs.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Artists at the protest spray-painted imagery of the “Hong Kong 47” democracy campaigners charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under Hong Kong’s National Security Law. Forty-five of them have been jailed. They also created images of Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai (黎智英), who was accused of colluding with foreign forces, and Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤), who was imprisoned for commemorating victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Hong Kong Outlanders chairman Sky Fung (馮紹天) said Article 23 was blocked in 2003 after 500,000 Hong Kongers protested the legislation, which allows the territory to enact laws to prohibit acts of treason, secession, sedition or subversion of the Chinese government.
However, Hong Kongers’ freedoms have been devastated since the implementation of the Beijing-imposed National Security Law in 2020, and in March last year, the Hong Kong government reintroduced and passed Article 23, which has been used to suppress freedoms, Fung said.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who was detained by Chinese authorities in late March 2017 on subversion charges and released in April 2022, said that Hong Kongers dared not reject Article 23 last year because of the National Security Law.
To control the territory, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) made “inciting subversion of state power” a crime, which led to the dissolution of many pro-democracy political parties and organizations, Lee Ming-che said.
Under Article 23, a person could be sentenced for up to 14 years in prison for failure to report suspicious activity, Lee Ming-che said, adding that the Hong Kong government can use the law to interrogate families of Hong Kongers who fled to other countries.
A person could be sentenced to prison for simply wearing a T-shirt featuring the “Revolution of Our Times” (時代革命) slogan, which was used in democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020, he said.
The Hong Kong police can arbitrarily arrest a person if they believe they would commit a crime, he added.
“In Taiwan, we are used to democracy and the freedom to criticize the government. Anyone who wants to travel to Hong Kong should think twice, because every move you take for granted here might be considered a crime,” Lee Ming-che said.
The ultimate authority to interpret Article 23 lies with the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, rather than the Hong Kong courts, he said.
“Anyone in Taiwan who wants to sign a peace treaty with China might want to look at what has transpired in Hong Kong first,” he added.
While Beijing aims to further integrate Hong Kong into its socioeconomic system and make it an example of “one country, two systems,” Hong Kong’s economy has worsened, proving that it does not work, he said.
Because of the policy, Hong Kongers’ consumption in nearby Shenzhen in China’s Guangdong Province rose 53 percent, while 300,000 Hong Kongers have migrated to other countries in the past few years, he said.
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