Day: September 3, 2021

Police in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City have fined a local Facebook user for saying that local government has neglected city residents and let them go hungry amid lockdowns aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19, sources said.

Nguyen Thuy Duong was fined VND 5 million (around $210) on Thursday after saying in a July 22 posting that lockdown measures enforced by authorities in the Binh Truong ward of Thu Duc City, an area under Ho Chi Minh City’s jurisdiction, had left residents unable to receive relief packages.

State media said the fine was imposed by Ho Chi Minh City police and the city’s Department of Information and Communications for violations of Government Decree 15, governing the use of postal services, telecommunications, and other information technologies.

Challenging her fine on Thursday, Duong said in a statement online that authorities told her in a meeting by phone that they had produced four witnesses who said people living in the area had not been left to starve.

“I told them that I had 40 witnesses who could prove that people had been forced to beg for food. And to prove my goodwill, and so as not to argue with them, I suggested they speak to people in the lockdown area in person,” she said.

At the same time, people in the affected area were still calling her to report their problems, she said.

“I turned on my phone speaker, and they agreed to go to the checkpoint to testify, but the police told me to turn off my phone and refused to say anything more,” Duong said. “The minutes of our meeting show that I denied doing anything wrong.”

The fourth wave of Vietnam’s COVID-19 pandemic beginning on April 27 has hit the country hard, as cities and provinces implement strict social distancing measures, restrict people from leaving their homes, and shut down factories and other businesses, leaving many out of work.

Photos and videos posted on Facebook and TikTok show widespread anger at food shortages, unemployment, and lack of government support, and authorities have imposed penalties on people posting allegedly “false information” on social networks about the pandemic’s spread.

When running stories on the penalties imposed for spreading false information, state media sometimes fail to point out which regulations have been violated, though, sources said.

Protecting each other, blaming others

Ordinary people are often left at a disadvantage, Ngoc Binh—a resident of Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Tan district—told RFA, adding that in any dispute involving government officials and ordinary citizens, it is the citizens who are first to be punished.

“Government officials often protect each other and blame others,” she said.

Authorities sometimes also issue documents and then recall them without explanation, said lawyer Dang Dinh Manh, also speaking to RFA.

“Obviously there is inequality between the government sector and the private sector,” he said. “People are immediately sanctioned and fined when allegedly violating the regulations. However, when making mistakes in the public sector, the authorities can withdraw their decisions, and no sanctions are announced.”

The inspection of travel permits and other documents at checkpoints in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and other locations has at the same time turned those places into congested areas, violating regulations that require social distancing, sources say.

COVID-19 could easily spread among the thousands of people waiting for their permits to be issued, said Vietnam-based journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, adding, “In communist countries in general, and in Vietnam in particular, governments never admit to being wrong, even if their policies have a lot of errors and shortcomings.”

If their policies show flaws, the authorities simply replace them with new ones and don’t admit their mistakes, he said. “When people violate those policies, they are treated harshly. But for the authorities and cadres, if they make mistakes, they only have to draw the lessons learned.”

“Things have always been this way,” he said.

As of 5:48 p.m. on Friday, Vietnam had recorded 501,649 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection in the country, according to data tallied by the CDC, WHO, and other sources. The total number of deaths now stands at 12,446.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

North Korea’s rejection of nearly three million doses of a Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine this week might be an attempt by leader Kim Jong Un to use the pandemic to consolidate power, experts told RFA.

UNICEF on Wednesday said that Pyongyang conveyed that the doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine offered under the COVAX program should be given to countries more in need, maintaining the widely doubted claim that  North Korea is virus-free.

“With North Korea needing something like 60 million or more doses of a two-shot regiment to inoculate its population, the DPRK should take any shots it can get,” Harry Kazianis, senior director of the Washington-based Center for National Interest think tank told RFA’s Korean Service.

“So, this move, to be very frank, makes zero sense. The only logical explanation is that the Kim regime truly does have doubts about the current vaccines, or he likes the amount of control locking the country down gives him and, for the time being, is leveraging the crisis to gain even more power over the population and the [ruling] Korean Workers Party,” he said.

North Korea has not reported a single confirmed case of coronavirus among its population of 25.6 million, but according to previous RFA reports, it keeps unofficial records of “suspected cases,” and if these patients die, they are quickly cremated before COVID-19 can be confirmed as the cause of death.

Pyongyang outwardly maintains it is untouched by the virus due to its extensive measures against COVID-19’s spread, including the closure of the Sino-Korean border and suspension of all trade with China since Jan. 2020.

However, it has admitted to citizens in public lectures that the virus was spreading in geographically distant areas of the country as early as mid-2020.

Reuters news agency reported that the Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy attributed the refusal of the three million Sinovac doses, to Pyongyang’s concern over their efficacy, saying that it is more interested in vaccines made in Russia.

Impending health crisis

Kazianis said North Korea would become a ticking timebomb if it did not vaccinate its population as soon as possible.

“Unless they have a cure for COVID they are hiding, they need vaccines. Otherwise, they are only welcoming disaster sometime in the future,” he said.

The reallocation of the vaccines might be a foreign policy gesture by North Korea, Gilbert Burnham, founder of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins University told RFA.

“Sealing the borders has been stated as a measure to prevent entry of the COVID-19 virus, but it is unlikely that this will be successful in the long term. The DPRK health system is unlikely to be strong enough to handle a large number of people with COVID-19 if an epidemic breaks out,” said Gilbert.

Gilbert said the reallocation could have been done “with the intention of showing the world that DPRK COVID-19 containment strategies were successful in containing the virus, so the people of the DPRK do not need immunization.”

Gilbert acknowledged that there were concerns about the Sinovac vaccines but said that North Korea definitely needs to immunize its population.

“Eventually the virus will make it to the DPRK and with a poorly nourished population having many other health problems—the outlook for the people of the DPRK could be catastrophic. It is in everyone’s interest to see and help the DPRK population get immunized with whatever effective vaccine is on hand, and not argue which vaccine has a bit more efficacy than another,” he said.

Dr. Edwin Salvador of the World Health Organization (WHO) country office for North Korea told RFA that North Korea was “looking at future opportunities through COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX,” but did not discuss the reallocation.

A UNICEF spokesperson acknowledged the reallocation to RFA, saying that partner agencies were continuing to work with North Korean health authorities “to ensure that the necessary support is provided to the Government to prepare for such an opportunity,” to receive vaccines later.

The spokesperson added that although essential health supplies have been shipped to North Korea in recent weeks, but the international community should “accelerate access for supplies and for international personnel to return to the country at the earliest opportunity,” because much more is needed there.

RFA has reported that citizens in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar were also reluctant to use Chinese-made vaccines for reasons ranging from high levels of anti-Chinese sentiment to distrust of their own government.

Reported by Jeongeun Ji for RFA’s Korean Service.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call for ethnic minority groups to put the interests of the nation first has fueled concerns that the government will double down on up its repressive policies against them, analysts said.

Xi’s speech at the two-day Central Conference on Ethnic Affairs in Beijing late last month focused on guiding ethnic groups to put the interests of China above all else and to share a sense of community with the Chinese nation.

China has 56 ethnic groups, with the majority Han comprising more than 91 percent of the country’s population of 1.4 billion people.

Xi told assembled officials they must to prevent risks and hidden dangers in ethnic affairs.

“[We] should hold the ground of ideology. [We] should actively and steadily address the ideological issues that involve ethnic factors, and continue to eradicate poisonous thoughts of ethnic separatism and religious extremism,” Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

“International anti-terrorism cooperation should be also intensified, working with major countries, regions, international organizations and overseas Chinese ethnic minorities,” added Xi, who is general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee.

The conference was held amid intensifying criticism and sanctions from Western countries over Beijing’s increasingly repressive policies in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia. Beijing vehemently rejects the criticism.

There are 12 million Uyghurs in Xinjiang, up to seven million Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and nearly six million Mongols, mainly concentrated in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on China’s northern border with Mongolia and Russia.

Previous RFA reports have documented Chinese government policies to reduce or eliminate culture and language education in schools in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, causing friction with local communities and prompting protests against the moves.

In some cases, government censors also have shut down ethnic-language websites and social media platforms and censored comments on their policies on the WeChat messaging app.

Chinese authorities have banned the Uyghur language from being used in schools in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous Region (XUAR) in favor of Mandarin Chinese, a reversal of a bilingual education policy introduced in 2010 for schools in all minority areas in China.

Likewise, authorities in Tibet have forced primary, middle schools, and kindergartens to offer instruction and courses in Chinese, reducing ethnic students’ competency in the Tibetan language.

The Chinese government also has implemented a policy that banned Mongolian-language education in schools in Inner Mongolia starting in September 2020, a move that sparked calls by ethnic Mongolian rights activists for independence from China.

Forced assimilation

U.S. and EU lawmakers have called for boycotts of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics unless China stops its repression of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, where Beijing maintains that firm measures are necessary to prevent religious extremism and terrorism.

China has held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention camps since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has subjected Muslims living in Xinjiang to severe rights abuses.

China’s other heavy-handed policies targeting the Uyghurs includes the demolition of mosques; the imprisonment of Uyghur intellectuals, artists and business leaders; the replacement of Uyghur with Chinese as the main language in schools; the use of a pervasive and intrusive surveillance system to monitor Uyghurs’ move; forced labor at factories and farms; and forced birth control and the sterilization of Uyghur women.

The U.S. and other countries and legislatures have deemed the measures as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity.

Xi’s speech expressed China’s intention to try to create a “Zhonghua Minzu” through what minorities see as forced assimilation, Uyghur political analyst Asiye Uyghur said, using a Chinese term for the notion of a Chinese nationality transcending ethnicity.

“China’s current goal is to create a Chinese nation state under the pretext of socialism with Chinese characteristics through forceful means,” she told RFA.

“If there is not any force to stop China, then it may achieve its goal to forcefully assimilate other ethnic groups in China, including Uyghurs,” she added.

Inner Mongolian scholar Yang Haiying, a professor at Japan’s Shizuoka University, said the “so-called modernization is to cover up the cultural destruction in Xinjiang–genocidal policies in Xinjiang.

“To cover up the assimilation policy, [Beijing] unilaterally emphasizes unity and does not emphasize equality,” added Yang.

“The authorities have lowered the banner of multi-ethnicity in an all-around way and even ignored the provisions of their own constitution,” he said, in a reference to the 1982 charter’s stipulation that all ethnic minorities in China are equal and that the state is responsible for protecting their rights and interests.

Xi’s speech shows China aims to “use the concept of the Chinese nation community to replace individual nationalities and to accelerate the process of assimilation,” said ethnic Mongolian scholar Khubis.

By way of example, he cited the campus of Zhenglan Banner Mongolian Middle School in Xilin Gol League, where poems in Mongolian praising the Mongolian language and culture were erased and written over with a slogan in Chinese and Mongolian that read: “Building a strong sense of community of the Chinese nation.”

‘Policies implemented under tyranny’

Jianglin Li, an independent writer and researcher who is an expert in Tibetan history and the Tibetan diaspora, said that Xi speech repeated a  message in a talk he gave at the last such conference seven years ago, emphasizing the forging of all China’s ethnic groups to support a Chinese nation community.

Xi’s most recent speech emphasized the implementation of the Communist Party’s policies, though the policies do not correspond to the reality of ethnic peoples, he said.

Forcing nomadic populations to relocate to cities, for example, went against their wishes and resulted in protests, Li said.

“These policies are implemented under tyranny, and the result of such tyranny is that we see ethnic issues in China persisting,” he said.

Li said that while Xi discussed the preservation of ethnic languages in his speech, his actions belied his words in order to present a “picture-perfect image to the outside world and combat the flood of criticism that China is facing.”

“Except for a few changes in the use of terms, Xi’s speech depicts the same meaning and wants to meld the nation’s dozens of ethnic groups into a singular national identity,” he said. “The aggressive approach to ethnic assimilation remains intact.”

Xi’s speech and his policies are keeping China on the path of “genocide and crimes against humanity,” said Gordon Chang, a columnist, author and lawyer.

“The reality is that Xi Jinping wants to eliminate all ethnic consciousness,” he said. “He wants a purified Han consciousness, and that is ethnic cleansing in its purest form.”

If the policy he discussed is implemented, it would mean the elimination of Uyghur consciousness and the Uyghur people, Chang added.

Chang said the international community should respond to China’s maltreatment of the Uyghurs by honoring their obligations under the Genocide Convention of 1948 to prevent and punish acts of genocide.

Reported by Jilil Kashgary for RFA’s Uyghur Service, Dorjee Tso for RFA’s Tibetan Service, and Qiao Long for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Myanmar’s military junta has killed five doctors, arrested dozens of others, and driven hundreds more into hiding since it overthrew the elected government seven months ago, undermining the fight against a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, doctors in the country told RFA.

Doctors not already detained by the junta are on the run to avoid arrest warrants, even as the country struggles with increasing numbers of new COVID-19 cases.

According to RFA records complied since the Feb. 1 coup, four doctors — Phyo Thant Wai, Thiha Tun Tin, Sai Kwan Saing and Nyein Thu Aung — have died as a direct result of violence committed by the junta’s security forces during anti-coup protests.

A fifth doctor, Maung Maung Nyein Tun, a surgeon at Mandalay Medical University who had joined the anti-coup Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and provided free surgery to poor patients, was arrested by junta troops on June 13 and died Aug. 8 after contracting COVID-19 in prison.

The safety of detained doctors has been a major concern, according to their colleagues who remain free.

The junta’s violent repression of anti-coup protests and professionals who walked off their jobs to support the CDM has killed at least 1,044 people and arresting 6,197 others, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

The AAPP has released a list of 45 arrested doctors and 416 doctors for whom arrest warrants had been issued through Aug. 30.  Most were arrested and charged under Section 505 (a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code, which punishes acts that “hinder, disturb, damage the motivation, discipline, health and conduct” of military personnel and government employees, but there have been no court sentences yet. 

Three doctors from Mandalay — Kyaw Kyaw Thet, Thet Htay, and the widow of Maung Maung Nyein Tun, Swe Zin Oo — were arrested in June and July. Sources told RFA that they are in prison and at least two of them have been infected with COVID-19.

“We only know that Dr. Kyaw Kyaw Thet and Dr. Thet Htay have contracted COVID-19. There is no word yet on where they are being held or what the charges are,” a CDM doctor in Mandalay told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

Kyaw Kyaw Thet, who was beaten and arrested by the military in Mandalay on July 13, was giving lessons to medical students on YouTube after the coup and sharing medical knowledge with the public.

Thet Htay had been working in charity clinics and hospitals. He was arrested on July 16 while returning home from seeing a patient at a hospital.

“There are very few hematologists like Dr. Swe Zin Oo in our country. Imprisonment of such doctors is therefore very detrimental,” said the doctor, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

Another Mandalay doctor who joined the CDM told RFA that being sent to prison during a pandemic is essentially the junta’s way of imposing a death sentence.

“In other words, they are being tortured and persecuted and killed indirectly. If people die in prison, the military can just put the blame on COVID. These are people that just have to die for opposing the junta. There is no proper treatment in the prisons,” said the second doctor, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

“Dr. Maung Maung Nyein Tun lost his life because he couldn’t get enough oxygen. He didn’t get proper treatment when he contracted the virus in his cell and he was not hospitalized until it was too late. It’s like he was deliberately sent to his death.”

According to a survey conducted by Medical Family Mandalay, a local anti-junta rights group made up of medical industry professionals, 85 health workers in the city, including doctors and nurses, were arrested during protests after the coup and repeatedly subjected to psychological threats and physical abuse.

Some said they were arrested in their homes for getting involved in nonviolent anti-coup protests or supporting the protesters.

During the third wave of the pandemic, Myanmar’s cultural center and largest city Yangon has had a high mortality rate, but doctors there were not spared from arrests by the junta.

Members of the military disguised as COVID-19 patients on July 19 entered the temporary headquarters of the COVID-19 Prevention and Public Benefit Office in the city’s North Dagon township and arrested five doctors.

“They opened free clinics to treat patients and were arrested for it. Look at the case of North Dagon. We have had so much concern for these comrades. We are wondering whether they are doing well, whether they are getting enough food and water or if they are in life threatening situations,” a CDM doctor in Yangon told RFA.

“Those doctors who escaped arrest and are in hiding, like me, are also living in fear. We don’t know when we too might be arrested, so we are living with anxiety every day. It’s not only me, but all doctors like me are dealing with this,” the physician said.

The junta announced days after the coup that people could get treatment for coronavirus at military hospitals, but when the third wave hit n July, civilians were denied military care unless they were part of a military family, sources told RFA. 

The military has also arrested key people in Myanmar’s health sector, including Htar Htar Lin, the leader of the country’s COVID Vaccination Team, and Maw Maw Oo, chairman of the Myanmar Emergency Medical Association. Their whereabouts remain unknown. 

According to statistics from Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, Myanmar has confirmed 406,099 cases of the virus and 15,600 deaths as of Friday.

Doctors in Myanmar told RFA that deaths peaked when more than 1,000 people died on a single day in July, but the rate of infection has not dropped yet.

An AAPP researcher blames the high infection rate and death toll on the coup.

“If the intellectuals, professionals and health workers and our young philanthropists were not in prison, if the young people did not flee to the jungles, we would certainly have survived the third wave of Covid,” the researcher told RFA. 

“The main culprit was the military regime that seized power on Feb. 1,” the official said.

The New York-based PHR Physicians for Human Rights and CPHHR Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health and Human Rights have reported at least 252 attacks on health workers by the junta since the Feb. 1 coup.

More than 190 health workers had been arrested in at least 86 hospital raids since the coup. Hospitals have been seized and occupied by the military at least 55 times, the two groups said in a report.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Tibetans living in Nepal observed Tibet’s Democracy Day under close watch by local police who kept Tibetan gatherings out of the public eye for fear of offending Nepal’s powerful northern neighbor China, an important source of foreign investment in the Himalayan country.

Thursday marked the 61^st anniversary of the seating of Tibet’s first India-based parliament-in-exile, a first step in the political development of the Tibetan diaspora community that now includes the election by popular vote of their political leader, or Sikyong.

Nepalese authorities concerned that Tibetan residents might stage protests outside Nepal’s Chinese consulate deployed large numbers of police to guard the building, Sangpo Lama—program coordinator for the Human Rights Organization of Nepal (HURON)—told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“One could also see many police officers both in uniform and in plain clothes stationed around the Boudhanath Stupa and other Tibetan settlements,” Lama said, referring to a large religious structure central to the social and commercial life of the Tibetan community in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.

Around 20 officers were also deployed, and a police truck stationed, outside the Jawalakhel Tibetan settlement, also in Kathmandu, he said.

“The Jawalakhel Handicraft Center office hosted the [Democracy Day] observance within its own premises, offering prayers and reading a statement from the Kashag,” the cabinet of the Central Tibetan Administration, Tibet’s India-based exile government, Lama said.

“It has been hard for Tibetans to do anything freely [in Nepal],” Lama said. No arrests or disruptions by police of community events on Thursday were reported, though, he added.

Courage, determination

In its Sept. 2 statement, Tibet’s India-based Kashag sent greetings and messages of support to Tibetans still living in the formerly independent Tibet, which was invaded and forcibly annexed by China in 1950.

“Tibetans inside Tibet have maintained indomitable courage and determination in the face of China’s continued policy to exterminate the Tibetan identity, and they have been making all-round efforts to protect Tibet’s religion, culture, language and tradition, for which we remain deeply grateful,” the Kashag said.

“It is this strength that unites the Tibetans in exile and keeps alive the freedom struggle. It is the common wish in our heart to reunite in Tibet, and we would like to appeal to our brethren in Tibet not to lose their determination.”

Nepal, which shares a long border with Tibet, is home to at least 20,000 exiles who began arriving in 1959 when a failed uprising against Chinese rule forced Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to take refuge in India’s Himalayan foothills.

Nepal is seen by China as a partner in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to boost global trade through infrastructure investment, and Nepal’s government has cited promises of millions of dollars of Chinese investment in restricting Tibetan activities in the country.

Nepal’s close political ties with China have left Tibetan refugees in the Himalayan country uncertain of their status, vulnerable to abuses of their rights, and restricted in their freedoms of movement and expression, rights groups say.

Reported by Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Immigration authorities in the United States say they will publish details of an 18-month work permit to be offered to “eligible” residents of Hong Kong under a visa extension scheme by the end of the month.

U.S. President Joe Biden issued a memorandum on Aug. 5 allowing Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for “certain Hong Kong residents,” along with the right to work for 18 months.

“Although DED is not a specific immigration status, individuals covered by DED are not subject to removal from the United States, usually for a designated period of time,” the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service told RFA in an emailed comment.

“There is no application for DED; however, to obtain employment authorization applicants will need to submit proof of identity and eligibility for DED,” it said, adding that details of the scheme would be published by the end of September.

While the move has been largely welcomed, an immigration law expert told RFA that more could be done to extend the lifeline amid a crackdown on dissent back home.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School, said the move was a good first step, but that more is needed.

“There are many things that could be done to help Hongkongers in the U.S.,” Yale-Loehr said. “First, the president can extend the initial 18-month period.”

“Second, Congress can pass a law giving them the avenue to obtain green cards in the United States,” he said, adding that a similar law was passed to aid Chinese students and former members of the 1989 pro-democracy movement on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in China.

Biden’s memorandum said DED was being offered to Hong Kong residents due to “the significant erosion of … rights and freedoms in Hong Kong by the People’s Republic of China.”

It said the imposition of a draconian national security law on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party had “undermined the enjoyment of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.”

Politically motivated arrests

Hong Kong police have continued a campaign of politically motivated arrests, taking into custody at least 100 opposition politicians, activists, and protesters on national security law-related charges including secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or external elements, it said.

More than 10,000 people have also been arrested in connection with the 2019 protest movement, which Beijing has claimed was an attempt by “hostile foreign powers” to foment a color revolution in the city.

“[China] has continued its assault on Hong Kong’s autonomy, undermining its remaining democratic processes and institutions, imposing limits on academic freedom, and cracking down on freedom of the press,” Biden’s memorandum said.

Under the law, Hong Kong has seen the forced closure of its pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper on June 17 and the arrests of senior journalists as well as founder Jimmy Lai for “collusion with foreign powers, along with the arrest of a journalist for searching a public database for car license plates for a documentary.

Plans also emerged for a law banning “fake news” and for tightening government controls over content broadcast by public broadcaster RTHK.

The right to work

A Hongkonger surnamed Chan currently in the U.S. said he is hoping to apply for a “green card,” giving him the right to live there permanently, and the DED has been a huge help towards achieving that goal.

“My tourist visa expires at the end of October, so the DED scheme is going to be very helpful to me,” Chan said. “I will be able to stay on here, even if I haven’t managed to switch to a different visa.”

“It makes a huge difference. Not only can I stay here; I’ll be allowed to work, too,” he said.

The 2019 protest movement began as a mass popular resistance movement to plans by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to change the city’s extradition law, thereby enabling the extradition of alleged “criminal suspects” to face trial in mainland China.

After Lam refused to listen to the movement’s demands, protesters surrounded and broke into the Legislative Council (LegCo) in a bid to defer a crucial vote on the legal amendments, before broadening the movement’s demands to include full official accountability for widespread police violence, fully democratic elections and an end to the description of protests as “rioters.”

Lam eventually withdrew the amendments, but later postponed the 2020 LegCo elections, citing coronavirus concerns, and presided over a city-wide crackdown on dissent under the national security law, including a “national security law education” program in schools starting with kindergarteners, a move which was cited by many families as a reason for their decision to emigrate.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.