The Hong Kong national security police have seized a sculpture created to commemorate the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in connection with a subversion investigation. The sculpture, known as the “Pillar of Shame,” was confiscated from the Kadoorie Centre in Yuen Long, an agricultural research facility run by the University of Hong Kong (HKU), on Friday.
The seizure of the “Pillar of Shame” has sparked outrage from human rights groups and the artistic community. The sculpture was created by Danish artist Jens Galschiot and erected on the campus of HKU in 1997 as a symbol of democracy and human rights, and as a tribute to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The sculpture has since become an important landmark for activists and pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong.
According to a source familiar with the case, the police used a subversion investigation as a pretext to seize the sculpture, raising serious questions about the state of artistic freedom in Hong Kong. The seizure of the sculpture has been condemned by NGO DEI (我地), which has called for the immediate return of the “Pillar of Shame” and for the Hong Kong authorities to respect artistic freedom….
“If I can do something small to help Hong Kong people and Indonesians to put the truth in front of them to see, then it’s worth it.”
Yuli Riswati worked in Hong Kong as a domestic helper and on her days off covered news and events for Indonesians in Hong Kong on Migran Pos – a website she launched with her friends.
“Suddenly, not only was my connection with the outside world severed the connection between my name and myself was gone. My existence as a human instantly turned into a string of numbers. 1672.”
After a month in detention, Yuli was deported by Hong Kong Immigration in 2019 – even though she had a valid work visa and her employers were happy with her work.
Deported lawyer Samuel Bickett has published an article about what he witnessed and photographed when the Hong Kong Police attacked a peaceful anti-extradition law protest on 12 June, 2019.
June 12, 2019: What I witnessed on the Hong Kong protest movement’s first violent day
Hong Kong’s protest movement is often referred to abroad as a democracy movement. It is true that universal suffrage was, and is, one of Hongkongers’ goals. But democracy was never the primary focus of the 2019 protests. After initial protests against an onerous bill that would have allowed Hongkongers to be extradited to the Chinese Mainland, attention shifted to police brutality and justice for its victims. Of the five demands made by the protesters, three were related to police and prosecutorial abuses, and all three initially stemmed from a single day of violence: June 12, 2019.
Sunday is the third anniversary of that day. Known in Hong Kong simply as 612 (luk-yat-yi in Cantonese), that afternoon the Beijing-controlled Legislative Council (or LegCo) was planning to force through the deeply unpopular extradition bill. In response, Hongkongers staged a general strike and organized a protest in front of the LegCo Building. The demonstration was authorized and largely peaceful, but police soon rushed in with batons and shields, and shot tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds into the crowd. Protesters were arrested, and countless people were injured. The police declared the event a riot, despite the fact that they instigated the violence themselves.
I was at the demonstration that day. This is what I witnessed…
American lawyer Samuel Bickett recently deported from Hong Kong at the completion of his prison sentence, has written about life in Hong Kong’s prisons during Covid.
“The Black Box: My Experience in Hong Kong’s Prisons During the Pandemic Lockdown
Prisoners have been harmed more by pandemic lockdown measures than by Covid
My intention is for this to be the first in a series of articles about my second stint in Hong Kong’s prisons earlier this year. In truth, I’ve found it more traumatic than expected to recall and write about these events, so I’ll make no guarantees about future articles. But there is a lot to tell, and I promise I will do my best to share it with you.
A cancer-stricken 75 year-old political detainee housed in the same cell as me at Lai Chi Kok Prison had his court hearing cancelled and was forced to remain locked up without bail, and without any indication of when he’d be able to seek release.
Hundreds of prisoners at Stanley Prison were locked alone in tiny cells for six weeks, only permitted out briefly every other day for a shower.
A dead prisoner’s corpse was left in a shared cell for hours, as other prisoners bunched together on the furthest wall in the small room to avoid getting too close… ”
An informative VICE News video on Hong Kong’s Organized Crime Societies (often known as triads) and the 721 Yuen Long attack that was uploaded to YouTube on 26 March 2022 is now geo-blocked.
It’s an informative video about Hong Kong’s triads – how they originated and have evolved from community support groups to the profit-driven enterprises of today.
Today however the link appears to be geo-blocked – whether this is by Vice or the HK Government is not clear. We have asked Vice why the video is no longer available in Hong Kong and will update this article when/if we receive a reply.
At the moment to watch the video in Hong Kong will need a vpn or similar. The simplest way is to do this is to download and use a browser called Opera and turn on the built-in VPN.
American lawyer Samuel Bickett who was convicted of ‘assaulting’ an undercover policeman who denied he was a cop – has been released from jail and deported.
Two years ago today… 721, as police turned their backs, hundreds of armed white-shirted men (alleged triads) attacked MTR passengers in Yuen Long station.
The police narrative of what happened in Yuen Long on the evening of 21 July, 2019 has morphed from an attack by white-clad men on ordinary people into a violent confrontation between men in white T-shirts and men wearing black.
HKCNews have a graphic with links and explanations of the attack.
The RTHK programme Hong Kong Connection: 721 Yuen Long Nightmare investigating the attack has been deleted as the censorship and coverup continues… The programme and a second collected CCTV footage dated 21 July from different cameras and interviewed several people there that night to reconstruct the attack’s timeline and take a closer look at the police’s action during Yuen Long’s ‘nightmare’.
“I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Cannes. It is our honour to have the world premiere of Revolution of our Times Hong Kong has been losing far more than anyone has expected. This good news will be a comfort to many HongKongers who live in fear; it also shows that whoever fights for justice and freedom around the world, are with us! And HongKongers are staying strong!” said Chow in an email statement about the film’s inclusion in the festival.
This is how the film’s trailer is introduced on YouTube…
//“Hong Kong is on the frontlines of a global battle for freedom.” TIME Magazine
Over the past fifty years, Hongkongers have fought for freedom and democracy but have yet to succeed. In 2019, the “Extradition Bill” to China opened a Pandora’s box, turning Hong Kong into a battlefield against the Chinese authoritarian rule.
The award-winning director of “Ten Years: Self Immolator,” Kiwi Chow, made this documentary to tell the story of the movement, both with a macro view of its historical context and up close and personal on the front lines.
The 2019 movement is always labelled with the characteristics of “decentralized leadership”, “be water” (flexible tactics), “do not split” (unity but in different ways) and “blossoming everywhere” (protest all over the territory). The film covers seven teams of protestors with different stories which are put together as a comprehensive picture of the versatile movement.
Democracy and freedom are now facing an unprecedented crisis over the world. The film Revolution of Our Times is not only about the battle of Hongkongers but is about a war between all freedom lovers and dictatorships of our globe.//
Coverage of the documentary’s addition to the festival by Variety
//Cannes this year is chock full of issue-led programming about climate change, crises in Africa, diversity and equality. Few topics are as pressing or complex as the ideological clash between the liberal West and China’s modern brand of Communist-badged totalitarianism…
…Cannes is taking a significant gamble in giving the film the red carpet treatment. At a minimum, the festival risks a diplomatic complaint from mainland Chinese and Hong Kong authorities. China was previously so enraged by the Academy of Motion Pictures’ nomination of “Do Not Split” that the Chinese broadcast of the Oscars ceremony was cancelled and media were ordered to downplay the event.
It is likely that Cannes organizers have anticipated a negative reaction.
They’ve chosen to play “Revolution of Our Times” at the end of the festival, when the trio of mainland Chinese films have already played and can’t be withdrawn in protest. But there’s now a risk that China will boycott future editions of Cannes, just as it is punishing the Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan for the island’s go-it-alone tendencies.
One explanation for the inclusion of the film may lie in Cannes programmers Thierry Fremaux and Christian Jeune’s visit to Hong Kong during the protests. Walking through the battlefield of the streets, they became eye-witnesses to a painful but cinematic civil war.//
//Cannes has frequently stood with filmmakers facing political persecution in their home countries, such as Iranian director Jafar Panahi (This Is Not a Film) and Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov (Petrov’s Flu), both of whom were under house arrest and unable to attend the festival when their films were screened.
But Hong Kong’s protest movement has found precious few allies over the past two years, as Beijing has leveraged China’s outsize economic clout to attempt to punish any companies or individuals who dare throw their support behind democracy in Hong Kong…
…Hong Kong politics also are believed to have resulted in the 2021 Oscars ceremony being totally blocked from broadcast in mainland China and Hong Kong earlier this year. Broadcasters and regulators never supplied a reason for the mysterious suspension of the awards show in Greater China, but many connected to the industry believe it was intended as retribution for the Academy’s nomination of the Hong Kong protest film Do Not Split in the best short documentary category (past critical comments made by Oscar best director winner Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) about her home country also irked the authorities).//
