As the times of 2021 dwindled, so did any remaining traces of democracy in Hong Kong.
On Wednesday, a vocal pro-democracy media outlet – one of many final brazenly important voices within the metropolis – closed after a police raid. Earlier in December, the opposition was shut out from elections below a brand new regulation that places all candidates to a loyalty check. And monuments commemorating the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 have been taken down.
Again and once more, all year long, the town’s authorities and the central authorities in Beijing stamped out practically all the pieces the pro-democracy motion had stood for. Activists both fled overseas or have been locked up below the draconian National Security Law, imposed on the town 18 months in the past. Unions and different impartial organisations closed down.
Where as soon as Hong Kong allowed “open opposition and questioning of the government’s core policies and legitimacy, any meaningful policy debates will now take place among a small circle of government loyalists,” mentioned Kurt Tong, associate at The Asia Group, and former U.S. consul normal in Hong Kong and Macao.
The days when the previous British colony was thought of a bastion of freedom, fade in reminiscence. Returned to China in 1997, Hong Kong has endured an overhaul of its political system and a crackdown on political dissent. Authorities sought to suppress anti-government sentiment that led to months of political strife in 2019.
The most up-to-date instance was Wednesday’s raid by Hong Kong police on the net pro-democracy information outlet Stand News. Seven folks have been arrested – amongst them two present and former editors and 4 former board members, together with a preferred singer, Denise Ho – for alleged sedition below a colonial-era ordinance.
The “Pillar of Shame” statue, a memorial for these killed within the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown was faraway from the University of Hong Kong. (Photo: AP)
The outlet introduced that afternoon that it could halt operations.
Stand News is the second media outlet to close down after being focused by Hong Kong authorities. The Apple Daily newspaper closed earlier in 2021, after authorities raided its workplaces for a second time and froze thousands and thousands in belongings.
“Democracy has been under a sustained assault for well over a year in Hong Kong,” mentioned Luke de Pulford, a coordinator for the London-based Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a gaggle of legislators from democratic nations centered on relations with China. “No democracy can function without a free press.”
“If no critical information is able to be published about the administration in Hong Kong or in China, then what last vestiges of democracy there were, I think we have to say, have been snuffed out,” he mentioned.
In a string of tweets, Hong Kong activist Nathan Law referred to as upon the world to “publish about Hong Kong, (and) about the brave journalists who risk so much.” Law, who fled to London after the safety regulation was applied, mentioned he feared “a domino effect” that might lead different shops to shut.
Little stays of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy motion. More than 100 pro-democracy figures and others have been arrested below the safety regulation, which penalises actions seen as separatist or subverting the Hong Kong or Chinese governments.
That contains 47 folks charged with subversion in February over their roles in an unofficial main election held in 2020, to find out one of the best candidates to subject in deliberate legislative elections.
Authorities accused the activists of subversion, saying they deliberate to win a majority after which use it to paralyse the federal government, and ultimately forcing Hong Kong chief Carrie Lam to step down.
The authorities postponed the 2020 elections, citing public well being dangers from COVID-19. Then, the central authorities in Beijing introduced new election legal guidelines earlier this 12 months, that decreased the proportion of immediately elected seats to lower than 1 / 4 and required all candidates to be loyal to Beijing.
The outcomes have been predictable: Earlier this month, when the election lastly was held, pro-Beijing lawmakers received a landslide victory. The metropolis’s largest opposition celebration, the Democratic Party, fielded no candidates for the primary time because the 1997 handover.
Several pro-democracy commerce unions and organisations have additionally been dissolved this 12 months. The metropolis’s largest lecturers’ union disbanded in August because of the political local weather, adopted later by the town’s largest impartial commerce union.
The Civil Human Rights Front, a pro-democracy group that organised a number of the largest protests in 2019, additionally disbanded following a police investigation below the National Security regulation.
Other pro-democracy activists have additionally been arrested for involvement in unauthorised protests and the annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil, which has been banned for 2 consecutive years.
As the 12 months drew to an in depth, a number of artworks that commemorated the Tiananmen bloodbath have been eliminated.
Two days earlier than Christmas, the University of Hong Kong, citing authorized dangers, ordered the elimination of the Pillar of Shame monument, which depicts a pile of torn and twisted our bodies of Tiananmen victims. Several different universities adopted swimsuit, making away with pro-democracy and Tiananmen statues.
China’s Communist Party has lengthy sought to erase Tiananmen from the general public consciousness within the mainland, forbidding any commemorative occasions. Now it appears decided to do the identical in Hong Kong within the title of restoring stability to the town.
