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Occupy Prince Edward – Buildings Department Eviction Protest

Occupy Prince Edward just started outside Pioneer Centre in protest at the Building Department’s eviction of Tsuen Wan families from a sub-divided industrial unit two days ago.

There’s lots of people showing up in support outside the Pioneer Centre Mall, passing sleeping mats and supplies through the cracks of locked doors to the protestors camped out on the ground floor.

The building management have blocked the lift from stopping at the Buildings Department on the 18/F essentially trapping those protesting the evictions there, and also turned off the a/c to that floor.

For some background on the same issue of sub-divided industrial units ‘converted’ into flats, see this 2012 Varsity article http://varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk/index.php/2012/05/industrial-buildings-subdivided-units/

https://www.facebook.com/socrec/videos/vb.160696287290644/1132024046824525/

Photos and video courtesy of SocRec and LostDutch

Hong Kong Heroes

A retired couple’s mission to prove 17-year-old student Ho Pak-hei innocent of assaulting a police officer during the Occupy protests…

Helbert Lau believed the happy ending was only part of the story – the case proved the truth in the allegations of abuse of power by police and he called for a review of the issue.

His wife, who is in her fifties, voiced concerns about some of the negative comments made on social media following her testimony. “Does that mean there aren’t enough people who are willing to do the same thing?” Yeung asked.

The couple hoped they will inspire more people to come forward “to tell the truth”.

Smuggling: The Process and Who’s Behind the Trade

i-Cable News video report 追縱水貨集團背後運作

This is Real Hong Kong News‘ full transcript of an exclusive story on ‪#‎smuggling‬ activities in ‪#‎HongKong ‬by 有線新聞 i-Cable News.

NOTE: Parallel good traders engage in the illegal activity of bringing goods from Hong Kong to China that are subjected to heavy tax. The correct term to address them, hence, should be smugglers. The transcript below will be using the words “smugglers” and “smuggling” despite the media based in Hong Kong, China and the Western world who have been using the term “parallel traders” and “parallel goods trade”.

From Smugglers to Organised Smuggling Group

FULI. TRANSCRIPT

Retail goods are laid out in front of this money exchange shop in Sheung Shui. The signs detailed the retail price and commission amount of each product.

Woman handling out money (HK$500): “This is your first time (to smuggle), bring more with you. It’s a good first opportunity!”

Smugglers would first pay for the products they “purchase”. Then they would bring the products and the receipt to find the “contacts” across the border in China, as listed on the receipt following address written on the receipt, to complete the transaction. After crossing the border, our undercover reporter arrived at the “collection point” near Lo Wu Station:

Undercover reporter: “Is this the “collection point?”
Smuggler ‘contact’: “Yes.”

As soon as our reporter handed over the products she brought from Hong Kong to China, the ‘contact’ immediately paid her back the total amount of the products plus ‘commission’. By bringing two tins of formula milk powder (legal limit) to China, a smuggler can make between HK$50 and HK$70. On top of this, there are many other products one can bring:

2 tins of baby formula powder: HK$50-70
12 boxes of Ferrero Rocher: HKS55
1 shampoo: HK$8
2 boxes of glucose powder: HK$15

CableTV reporter: An average smuggler crosses the border twice a day. If one brings the maximum each trip, one can make a few hundred HK dollars commission per day. But how do the organisations behind the trade make money? Let us first see where do all these products go.

The collection point of this smuggling organisation is located in Shenzhen. At least 5-6 vans travel to and from this collection point every day non-stop from early morning to late at night to transport goods. Each of these vans goes to different destinations: some go straight to logistic companies whilst some go to nearby warehouses.

CableTV reporter: We pretended to be the owner of a shop that sells Hong Kong products in China and approached the owner of the money exchange shop in Sheung Shui. We told him that we wanted to buy I-long Kong products from them, and successfully arranged to meet with him.

When we arrived at his shop in Liantang (near HK/China border), he told us that he is one of the largest smuggling groups in Sheung Shui and can provide us Hong Kong products in large scale.

Smuggling group representative: “We are open about our profession. We specialise in ‘parallel trade’. We are one of the largest four at the moment, but should be set to be the largest by the end of this year. 1500tins of formula milk powder a day, not a problem! The problem is if you buy them all.”

Smuggling groups hire individual smugglers to transport products from Hong Kong to China via land transportation bit by bit, the method is called ‘Ants moving home’. These groups will then transport these Hong Kong products to wholesalers and retailers in China. The smuggling group representative we met told us that after deducting the ‘commission’, transportation cost and warehouse rental, the net proﬁt of a tin of formula milk powder is around HK$3. This may seem like a small margin, but…

Smuggling group representative: “We do not only focus on one type of product! We make HK$5 for each pack of Yakult (5 bottles) we sell, and we make HKS3 for each box of coffee we sell. But formula powder is a must have item! We do not receive a lot of formula powder (from the individual smugglers), but we can get tens of thousands of coffee powder every day! You do the maths about how much we make.”

Recently, a large number of ‘Hong Kong products’ shops are emerging in China. Smuggling Hong Kong products to China means custom duty is completely evaded. Therefore, the business of smuggling groups becomes bigger and bigger.

The smuggling group representative we spoke to said that they have warehouses in Sheung Shui, Tuen Mun and Shenzhen. Some of the smuggled products are supplied to the ‘Hong Kong products’ shops in Dongmen, whilst the rest are distributed across China.

Undercover reporter: “You distribute across China?”
Smuggling group representative: “Yes, Peking (Beijing), Sichuan, Shanghai…”
Undercover reporter: “You have retail centres in all these places?”
Smuggling group representative: “Not retail centres, we only supply (Hong Kong) products to the local operators. We are the terminal, we don’t do retail.”

What is the background of this smuggling group? We found out the shop where we met with this representative, is a retail shop of MBL Wine Group in Shenzhen. However, this shop does not open for business on any day.

This wine group is headquartered in Hong Kong with shops in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. The representative told us that he is a shareholder of MBL Wine Group.

Smuggling group representative: “MBL is the parent company, and we open our own company to ‘do business’ in China. The parent company has its own operation, we have our own. MBL sells alcohol only!”

We contacted Candy Law, former Miss Asia, celebrity and one of the Board of Directors of MBL Wine Group, to ask her about a shareholder of MBL Wine Group who operates a smuggling business under the name of MBL Wine Group.

Candy Law: “Ha? No. This must be a joke.”

And we interviewed MBLWine Group’s spokesperson, who said:
Huang Yong (Chairman of MBL Wine Group): “He is our franchisee. His relationship with our company is contractual on wine sales.”
CableTV reporter: “Do you know about it (the smuggling operation)?”
Huang Yong: “Our company does not know about it. He owes our company some money, and we are still trying to recover the debt.”

After the interview, we wanted to seek comments from the smuggling group representative at the money exchange shop in Sheung Shui. However, his phone was not answered. The products displayed outside of his money exchange shop in Sheung Shui had all disappeared.

This transcript of the i-Cable TV report was created by Real Hong Kong News

25th Anniversary of the Basic Law – CY Leung Attempts to Rewrite History

At the ceremony for the 25th Anniversary of the Basic Law, CY Leung claims that the authors of the Basic Law never intended candidates for the city’s leadership elections to be put forward by the Hong Kong public. Martin Lee Chu-ming, one of the drafting committee members and founding chairman of the Democratic Party, said Leung was “factually wrong”.

Chief Executive, CY Leung, has since retracted part of a statement in which he said that civic nomination was never mentioned during the drafting of the Basic Law.

Mr Leung originally issued a statement on Sunday afternoon again accusing pan-democratic lawmakers of wrongly suggesting that the Basic Law allows for civic nomination for electing chief executives.

Just three hours later, Mr Leung reissued his statement, but this time paragraph two said only that two of five proposals for selecting the chief executive did not mention civic nomination, rather than all five proposals as stated in the earlier version.

On Saturday, veteran democrat Martin Lee, a member of the Basic Law drafting committee, presented documents which he said showed that the idea of civil nomination had in fact been proposed.

Mr Lee said among the five proposals raised during the drafting, proposal three stated that someone could be a chief executive candidate if they were nominated by 50 hong kong permanent residents. He said this showed that the spirit of civic nomination had been suggested.

It’s sad to see the man ‘elected’ to represent Hong Kong doing his best to destroy it, all for his personal gain.

Chief Executive’s Revised Statement on “Civic Nomination”

In response to recent allegation that the concept of “civic nomination” had been raised during the drafting of the Basic Law, the Chief Executive, Mr Leung Chun-ying, issued the following statement:

Yesterday (April 4) when I addressed the “Seminar for the 25th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Basic Law”, I pointed out that “during the drafting of the Basic Law, the ‘consultation document’ released in 1988 has listed five proposals on methods for selecting the Chief Executive. The two proposals of selecting the Chief Executive by universal suffrage have not mentioned ‘civic nomination’.”

When the Basic Law was endorsed and promulgated on April 4, 1990, Article 45 reads: “The method for selecting the Chief Executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.”

If someone said the concept of “civic nomination” had been raised during the drafting of the Basic Law, this exactly illustrates that “civic nomination” and “nomination by a nominating committee” are totally different concepts. After comprehensive consultation by the Basic Law Drafting Committee, “nomination by a nominating committee” was eventually stated in the Basic Law. Hence for those who recently said that “nomination by a nominating committee” could be interpreted as “civic nomination”, they are just “guessing and taking advantage of the literal meaning of words” and contravening the Basic Law.

Last year, some members of the Legislative Council insisted that “civic nomination” was indispensable in selecting the Chief Executive by universal suffrage. If today these members insist on such saying, they know full well that they are contravening the Basic Law and are just creating problems. The result is they would take away the rights of Hong Kong people to select the Chief Executive by “one person, one vote” in 2017.

Ends/Sunday, April 5, 2015 Issued at HKT 19:38

Read the official release here (It should be noted that this is the revised version of CY Leung original statement)

Hong Kong’s Basic Law is available in English and Chinese here

Support Your Local Shops

https://youtu.be/EC1gFKJYQYc

It’s too late to support your local shops and restaurants when they are about to close. To survive they need your long term support or before you realise it your neighbourhood will be full of 24-7 convenience stores, pharmacies and jewellery outlets. Light-hearted video about a old store that is about to close – made by 一字馬

Police Ramp Up Scare/Intimidation Tactics!

Where are HK Police getting their strategy plans from? Could it be the People's Armed Police and their Tibetan strategy? — Where are HK Police getting their strategy plans from? Could it be the People’s Armed Police and their Tibetan strategy?

The Hong Kong Police really are showing that they come from the Tibet/Xinjiang school of policing now rather than any sensible rational approach. The top brass at HKPF have met and are now sending out what they think is a ‘scary’ message that groups of just three people could be arrested for public disorder offences. Plus, if that doesn’t scare people enough, they’ll bring out the big-bad, anti-terrorist PTU teams again.

YAWN!

This new draconian approach will change nothing in Hong Kong politically other than to highlight more of the contradictions and fractures within society.

The police neither have the ability or the judgement to discern fairly who represents a public order nuisance and who doesn’t. Gangs of violent, Blue Ribbons, will still roam free while the police target people based on the assumption that they oppose the government politically. This will be their only mandate for implementing these new measures or,

Are you a young person, that sympathises with the new wave of political protest in Hong Kong? If yes, proceed to intimidation, arrest and physical violence if required.

Religious festival in Amdo, Tibet. If Andy Tsang and CY get their way, is this what protests in Hong Kong will look like?

This is political persecution at its finest. Young HongKongers are now on the same par as Tibetans or Uighurs within the Great, Chinese Motherland; unable to raise their voice without facing overwhelming intimidation from the security forces.

After all, the police don’t need this new law to stop people from kicking over carts or acting violently. They can arrest people for this type of action whenever they see it. We do have extensive criminal laws and fairly impartial Courts in Hong Kong! But alas, these really don’t function too well when you’re in the business of political persecution.

Instead, just like during Occupy, Andy Tsang is formulating police strategy based on quelling a popular, political message that is in opposition to a malign government. It never works Andy, stop masturbating over all the weapons and gear you think you need and read some real history for once. What kind of path are you walking on when you now choose the same style of policing as Lhasa or Urumqi?

The sad fact is that these types of measures are only ever enacted by the most embattled of illegitimate governments protected by deranged and out of touch police forces in order to scare people off the streets. Or, screw the lid down tighter, allow no form of dissent and let’s carry on as though everything is ok. More popular outrage can only be met with more oppression.

The reality is that Hong Kong has a goon police force that has doubled down on a goon government and the people are not scared any more. The more force the goon government orders, the more powerful Hong Kong people get.

So, bring your draconian laws and your elite PTU, it only makes the people stronger and the government weaker!

As Albert Camus said, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

Why the Secrecy?

Obfuscation and non-answers cast doubt on honesty and truthfulness. So why the secrecy? If the opinion poll is accurate and CY Leung is happy enough with it to quote the results and use it to justify his policies… Why won’t the government publish details of poll it says shows majority of public back its universal suffrage proposal?

In Legco Frederick Fung wanted to know why and asked the following questions. He received a written non-reply by the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Raymond Tam, in the Legislative Council on March 18:

Question:
It has been reported that on February 28 this year, the Chief Executive (CE) told reporters that the results of a public opinion survey recently commissioned by the Government showed that more than half of Hong Kong people were agreeable to the selection of CE by universal suffrage in 2017 to be implemented in accordance with the Decision made by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on August 31 last year on issues such as the selection of CE of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by universal suffrage. Yet, he did not provide any details of the public opinion survey. Some members of the public have complained to me that the Government has recently disseminated results of public opinion surveys to the media in a selective or incomprehensive manner from time to time, making it difficult for them to judge the credibility of such survey results. They also query that the employment of such a practice by the Government was an attempt to manipulate public opinion. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(1) of the details of the aforesaid public opinion survey regarding (i) the organisation commissioned to conduct the survey, (ii) the content of the questionnaire, (iii) the method and form of the survey, (iv) the number of respondents and the response rate, (v) the distribution of age, gender and political attitude of the respondents, (vi) the raw data, and (vii) the analytical results of the survey data;

(2) whether it has assessed the consequences of CE selectively disseminating a particular result of the aforesaid public opinion survey, including whether it has resulted in the credibility of the survey results being questioned and the Government being accused of manipulating public opinion; if it has not assessed, of the reasons for that; and

(3) whether it will consider disclosing concomitantly the relevant details when it disseminates the results of Government-commissioned public opinion surveys in future; if it will not, of the reasons for that?

Reply:
President,
In consultation with the Chief Executive’s Office and the Central Policy Unit (CPU), our reply to the questions raised by Hon Fung is as follows.

The opinion poll which the Chief Executive referred to on February 28 was conducted by a professional agency commissioned by the CPU. The CPU commissions professional research agencies to conduct opinion polls on major social, economic and political issues from time to time. Such polls are for Government’s internal reference only, and relevant details are generally not made public.

link to the official Lego release http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201503/18/P201503170712.htm

Professional Groups Publish Advert Protesting the Government’s “Abuse” of TV API’s to Push it’s Political Agenda

These five professional groups Frontline Tech Workers前線科技人員議政小組, Médecin Inspirés 杏林覺醒, Progressive Lawyers Group 法政匯思, Progressive Teachers’ Alliance 進步教師同盟, Reclaiming Social Work Movement 社工復興運動 took out and advert to protest about the government’s abuse of the television “Announcements in the Public Interest” (API’s) program to promote the governments position on political reform.

The text of the advert reads:

Joint Statement on the Government’s Misuse of Announcements of Public Interest

1. The broadcasting of political advertisements is unlawful in Hong Kong. A broadcaster was penalised for carrying advertisements advocating universal suffrage as part of the 2010 electoral reform process.

2. The Government requires radio and television broadcasters to broadcast “Announcements in the Public Interest” (“APIs”) for free. Typical APIs include messages such as those involving public health, road safety or weather information like a typhoon or rainstorm.

3. In recent months, the Government has required radio and television broadcasters to air the following advertisements without payment as if they were APIs:
(a) “有票，真係唔要” (Your Vote, Don’t Cast it Away!) from 7 August 2014;
(b) “有票，梗係要” (Your Vote, Gotta Have It!) from 2 September 2014; and
(c) “2017 機不可失” (2017, Seize the Opportunity) from 10 January 2015.

4. These advertisements are different from APIs. They carry a strong bias to advance the Government’s political position on electoral reform, to the exclusion to any other position. They are neither factual nor educational. These advertisements are no different from the unlawful political advertisements referred to above.

5. As such, these advertisements are not APIs. They are unlawful political advertisements which cannot be broadcast on radio or television. The Government’s unlawful abuse of its exclusive powers to broadcast APIs has also unjustly distorted the public debate on electoral reform.

6. We therefore condemn the Government’s broadcast of political advertisements under the guise of APIs. It must cease doing so immediately. To continue do so is not only unlawful, but also hypocritical in light of the Government’s recent repeated insistence upon “acting in accordance with the law”.

Frontline Tech Workers前線科技人員議政小組
Médecin Inspirés 杏林覺醒
Progressive Lawyers Group 法政匯思
Progressive Teachers’ Alliance 進步教師同盟
Reclaiming Social Work Movement 社工復興運動