Day: December 6, 2021

Jailed Hong Kong barrister Chow Hang-tung, who is awaiting trial under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing, has warned the international community to take the crackdown on dissent there as a warning.

In an acceptance speech from prison on being awarded the Outstanding Democrat of China award by activists in the United States, Chow said she had always felt herself to be in a place of relative safety compared with pro-democracy activists in mainland China, and that she had only become the focus of news headlines because the authorities had targeted the organizers of a now-banned candlelight vigil marking the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

“Everything happening in Hong Kong is a warning to the world, showing the speed at which totalitarianism can destroy a free and open society, and repurpose the systems and laws originating from a democratic society as the tools of political suppression,” Chow said.

“Everything that has happened in Hong Kong could happen anywhere,” Chow said. “If you don’t want the rule of terror to spread like a pandemic, you must join the democratic resistance to totalitarianism.”

She said any awards should go to the “pioneers of democracy” in mainland China, who she described as “indomitable in the face of ubiquitous surveillance, torture, isolation and silencing.”

“You’re the ones who inspired and encouraged our struggle, and taught us how to live with dignity under totalitarianism,” wrote Chow, whose award was accepted in her absence at the Liberty Sculpture Park in California by veteran journalist Ching Cheong at the weekend.

Chow’s warning came as a top Chinese official in charge of Hong Kong said the city had been “blindly pursuing Western-style democracy,” and had now turned back to the correct path of “patriots ruling Hong Kong.”

Hongkongers’ “yearning for a better life” could now be put in service of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) director Xia Baolong said in a speech published to the office’s official website.

“We are very pleased to see that the Hong Kong national security law has been successfully implemented, and some anti-China and Hong Kong elements who violate the law are being sanctioned as they should,” Xia said, lauding new electoral rules designed to ensure that no opposition candidates will likely be approved to run in Dec. 19 elections to the Legislative Council (LegCo).

“Those supporting Hong Kong independence and anti-China chaos in Hong Kong must never enter be allowed to enter public life [here],” Xia said, adding that people from a range of different backgrounds were running in the elections.

The national security law, which took effect from July 1, 2020, criminalizes speech deemed to “incite hatred” against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, and has ushered in a citywide crackdown on all forms of public dissent, peaceful protest and political opposition.

Anyone speaking ill of Hong Kong’s police force, who sparked an international outcry for widespread and disproportionate violence during the 2019 protest movement, could also face prosecution, as can anyone encouraging others to boycott forthcoming elections under new rules designed to ensure only pro-CCP candidates can stand.

Meanwhile, 47 veteran opposition figures, former lawmakers and founders of the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement are awaiting trial on subversion charges based on their participation in a non-binding primary election in 2020 to select the best candidates to run in elections to the Legislative Council (LegCo). They are accused of trying to subvert the city government by trying to win enough seats to block government legislation, including budgets.

The majority have been refused bail, and will have been behind bars for at least a year by the time of their trial, now postponed to April.

Chow’s application for bail, the sixth since her arrest in September 2021, was denied by a Hong Kong court on Monday.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Two would-be independent election candidates in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing have been forced to pull out of a bid to run in elections for their district and county-level People’s Congresses.

Tang Jingzhou, who tried to run in Chongqing’s Yuzhong district, said local authorities there failed to inform her of the progress of her application, which had garnered the requisite number of endorsements from local residents, then suddenly held the “election” without telling her on Dec. 3.

“I complained that they had skipped out the part where candidates are supposed to take questions from members of the public,” Tang told RFA in a recent interview. “Surely that’s part of their job? Why didn’t they inform me [whether my application was successful]?”

“There’s a lot of hidden money in these elections,” she said.

She said that while she was challenging officials over their running of the poll, the police showed up.

“The head of the local police station came, the community police officer and auxiliary officers — a whole bunch of people, maybe five or six of them,” Tang said. “The surrounded me and told me to come away with them.”

“They asked me why I was interfering in the elections … I asked how [trying to run as a candidate] could be regarded as interfering in elections,” she said. “I told them I had a right to ask questions … and to vote.”

“Then the police took me away.”

Tang’s treatment came as the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) published a white paper touting leader Xi Jinping’s claim that “whole process democracy” is just as democratic as any other political system.

But Tang’s experience, and that of dozens of other would-be independent candidates in districts across China this year, has been that the authorities will do everything in their power to prevent broader participation in the electoral system, leaving it open only to candidates already endorsed by the CCP.

“There was very little publicity [about the elections] in the community where I live; no banners, no announcements, nothing,” Tang told RFA.

She said officials had claimed her application had expired after delaying their acceptance of it, citing staffing problems.

Another candidate rejected

Meanwhile, fellow would-be candidate Xiao Zhenyi was rejected by officials in Chongqing’s Liangjiang New District.

“It’s kind of like a political test; they have to vet your parents and relatives, and look at whether you have done good deeds, whether you have passed or failed political tests, whether you have ever been subject to disciplinary warnings or action, or re-education,” Xiao told RFA in a recent interview.

“Anyway, they told me I didn’t make the grade.”

Tang said some of the people who endorsed her candidacy application had later received a phone call from their superiors, and that officials had refused to accept two of them.

“Someone told me … they had been called by the party secretary at the local school and asked if they had recommended a community candidate, saying that I was of ‘bad character’,” she said.

“I told [the officials] that they were the ones interfering in democracy and in the elections,” Tang said. “I said they were sabotaging not just the elections, but the fundamental political system we have in this country.”

False claims of democracy

Xia Ming, political science professor at the City University of New York, said China’s claim to run a democratic system was a spurious one.

“The most fundamental point of democracy is that it is an open and transparent system and it is run in the public interest,” Xia said. “It’s supposed to ensure that fairness and justice prevail, and that every individual can receive the protection of the law and live in peace.”

“The question is, does anyone listen to the interests of the vast majority of people in China?” Xia said. “If anyone does try to pursue the truth, they will be seen as subverting the government.”

Last month,  14 rights activists who planned to run as candidates in elections for district-level People’s Congresses said they had withdrawn their candidacy after being targeted by an intimidation campaign.

Since they went public about their candidacy, around 10 activists have been placed under round-the-clock police surveillance, while some have been summoned to their local police station for a “chat,” and others forced to leave town under police escort and wait out the election at a tourist resort, the group said in a statement.

Meanwhile, would-be independent local elections candidates in the central province of Hubei said they were unable to get hold of the form needed to record endorsements, the first step in the process to become a candidate.

Local elections will be held across the Beijing municipal area on Nov. 5 to return nearly five thousand district People’s Congress representatives and more than 10,000 township People’s Congress representatives.

But apart from a token group of “democratic parties” which never oppose or criticize the ruling Communist Party, opposition political parties are banned in China, and those who set them up are frequently handed lengthy jail terms.

Constitutional expert Yao Lifa once succeeded in being elected to the Qianjiang municipal People’s Congress in 1998, where he used his platform to criticize government policy.

But after a 10-year struggle to get elected, he was shunted aside five years later and has been subjected to official retaliation ever since, including secret detention, torture and starvation, according to his wife.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

A military court sentenced deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to four years in prison Monday over incitement and breaches of COVID-19 laws, which the junta chief reduced to two years of house arrest – a ruling condemned by the U.S. that rights groups said was aimed at ending the Nobel laureate’s political career.

Ten months after they were overthrown and arrested by the army, the 76-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint received two years for incitement against the military and two years for violating coronavirus restrictions, according to sources familiar with the closed-door court proceedings.

In a broadcast on military-run television Monday, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing cited his discretionary power to amend criminal sentences as “President of the Union”–a status that is not recognized outside military circles–to reduce the sentence of the two leaders to two years under house arrest.

“The Burmese military regime’s unjust conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi and the repression of other democratically elected officials are yet further affronts to democracy and justice in Burma,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, using the country’s former name.

We join the people of Burma in their aspirations for freedom and democracy and call on the regime to end the use of violence, respect the will of the people, and restore Burma’s democratic transition.

The details of verdicts, which also included a two-year sentence for incitement for Naypyidaw Mayor Myo Aung, remained undisclosed. All five of the former State Counselor’s lawyers have been barred since October by Myanmar’s military rulers from releasing information or speaking publicly about the two cases being tried.

“It’s no surprise the Myanmar military junta is hauling Aung San Suu Kyi and her co-defendants off to prison on these bogus charges,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“This trial was one hundred percent political from day one, and was done with clear intent to lock her away for good so she can never again contest military rule,” he said in a statement from Bangkok.

The incitement charges under Section 505 (b) of the Penal Code, stem from speeches by Aung San Suu Kyi, Min Myint, and Myo Aung denouncing the Feb. 1 military takeover.

The violations of COVID-19 containment rules under Section 25 of the Disaster Management Law against Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint COVID-19 containment rules stem from a rally with supporters last year.

“The harsh sentences handed down to Aung San Suu Kyi on these bogus charges are the latest example of the military’s determination to eliminate all opposition and suffocate freedoms in Myanmar,” said Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for campaigns.

The sentences on Monday cover just two of as many as 11 different charges against Aung San Suu Kyi, including corruption and incitement, that could carry a maximum sentence of more than 100 years in prison.

“This is just the beginning of the rights abusing landslide of even more severe criminal charges that will most likely ensure that Suu Kyi is never allowed to be a free woman again,” said Robertson.

Myanmar’s junta has also detained nearly four dozen high-ranking officials from the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) on charges of corruption since seizing power ten months ago in what legal analysts have called a bid to tarnish the party’s image after its landslide November 2020 election victory.

Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s democratically elected government on Feb. 1, claiming voter fraud had led to a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party in the country’s November 2020 election.

The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide protests calling for a return to civilian rule, killing 1,303 people and arresting nearly 7,800 over the last nine months, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

“This ridiculous ruling is a travesty of justice,” said Malaysian lawmaker Charles Santiago, a member of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, who called the arrests ”nothing more than an excuse by the junta to justify their illegal power grab.”  

“Despite this most recent attempt to demonstrate their power, the Myanmar people continue to risk their lives every day to show that they completely reject this military,” he said in a statement.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Zaw Zaw Aung. Written in English by Paul Eckert.