The new Hong Kong legislature was sworn in yesterday in a ceremony disrupted by outbursts from a radical activist who won office and shouted slogans before and after taking his oath.
"Long live democracy! Long live the people!" Leung Kwok-hung (
Pro-democracy opposition figures claimed three new seats in the Legislative Council, raising their total to 25 out of 60, although pro-Beijing and big business figures remain in control.
Leung, who is Hong Kong's top activist and popularly known as "Longhair," scored a stunning victory with tens of thousands of anti-government protest votes in the Sept. 12 election.
Leung had sought to change his oath to include pledges to fight for democracy, freedom and human rights. He had been warned -- first by legislative officials and then by a judge -- that he could not legally alter the wording.
Legislative Secretariat officials had said he could lose his seat if he refused to take the oath.
Leung, a firebrand protester since British colonial days, may have found a compromise that let him keep protesting while also following the rules.
He shouted slogans before delivering the oath in full, then raised his arm defiantly and began shouting again.
Hong Kong's political situation has been tense for months, with ordinary citizens marching by the hundreds of thousands in July to demand full democracy even though Beijing ruled in April they can't have it for now.
Just half of the lawmakers were directly elected and the rest were chosen by special interest groups, while Tung was picked by a pro-Beijing committee.
The Hong Kong lawmakers signed their names to a list after swearing their oaths, but Leung did not do so.
A leading pro-Beijing politician, Jasper Tsang (
When Leung was called to be sworn, he stood and shouted, calling on China to atone for the killings in its crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement in June 1989, to end its one-party rule and free political prisoners.
Leung said: "I declare here, loudly, I will be loyal to the Chinese people and Hong Kong citizens, oppose collusion between the government and the business sector, defend democracy and justice, fight for human rights and freedom."
Dressed in a black T-shirt emblazoned with more political statements, Leung's appearance stood in stark contrast to other legislators-elect who wore business suits and calmly uttered their oaths, some invoking the name of God as they promised to serve with integrity.
The T-shirt put Leung at odds with the legislature's dress code, but no objections were immediately raised.
Leung filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to make up his own oath, but a judge threw it out just hours before the swearing-in ceremony.
"The oath he intends to take will be unlawful and have no effect," High Court Judge Michael Hartmann said.
As soon as the lawmakers were installed, they re-elected pro-Beijing colleague Rita Fan (
Fan easily survived a challenge from pro-democracy opposition figures who charged that she should have to give up her seat in China's parliament, the National People's Congress, because it gave her a conflict of interest.
DISPUTED WATERS: The Philippines accused China of building an artificial island on Sabina Shoal, while Beijing said Manila was trying to mislead the global community The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is committed to sustaining a presence in a disputed area of the South China Sea to ensure Beijing does not carry out reclamation activities at Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Reef), its spokesperson said yesterday. The PCG on Saturday said it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal, where it accused China of building an artificial island, amid an escalating maritime row, adding two other vessels were in rotational deployment in the area. Since the ship’s deployment in the middle of last month, the PCG said it had discovered piles of dead and crushed coral that had been dumped
The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to the UK — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend. The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun — came just after 4pm GMT, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged
Experts have long warned about the threat posed by artificial intelligence (AI) going rogue, but a new research paper suggests it is already happening. AI systems, designed to be honest, have developed a troubling skill for deception, from tricking human players in online games of world conquest to hiring humans to solve “prove-you’re-not-a-robot” tests, a team of researchers said in the journal Patterns on Friday. While such examples might appear trivial, the underlying issues they expose could soon carry serious real-world consequences, said first author Peter Park, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in AI existential safety. “These
Using virtual-reality (VR) headsets, students at a Hong Kong university travel to a pavilion above the clouds to watch an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated Albert Einstein explain game theory. The students are part of a course at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) that is testing the use of “AI lecturers” as the AI revolution hits campuses around the world. The mass availability of tools such as ChatGPT has sparked optimism about new leaps in productivity and teaching, but also fears over cheating, plagiarism and the replacement of human instructors. Pan Hui (許彬), a professor of computer science who is leading