Life in Hong Kong’s Prisons During the Pandemic

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.

On 22 April 2022 Bickett applied to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal to appeal his 2021 assault conviction.

“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… ”

Read the full article here samuelbickett.substack.com/p/the-black-box-my-experience-in-hong

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

assault boobs

So as well as umbrellas, cling-wrap and water pistols, boobs are now an offensive weapon in Hong Kong that our burly police force, armed with, guns, carbon-graphite batons and pepper spray should fear.

“Stand-back lady, those boobs have the potential to assault me!”

It really is a sad state of affairs and shows just how desperate the Hong Kong Government is to gain convictions of protesters at any costs. Never mind that the rest of the World will scratch its head and wonder, what on Earth is going on in Hong Kong? None of this matters, for there’s only one direction the Hong Kong Government is looking for approval and that is to the north.

In reality, no one will look into the real detail of the case and find out how or why a grown man, with years of police training and carrying weapons, could be assaulted by a young woman’s boobs. Or how possibly the softest part of a woman’s body could become so dangerous as to warrant her being sent to prison? The sensational headline is enough to make Hong Kong look ridiculous. No need to delve any further. The damage is done and the biggest boob is Hong Kong’s credibility. The Onion couldn’t have made up a better headline.

But away from the absurd headlines and endless innuendoes, there’s a very real message being sent out to Hong Kong protesters and that is, there is no limit to how far the Hong Kong Government will go to try and secure prosecutions of those it feels are politically opposed to it. The agenda is to scare people off the street at any cost, even if that means making breasts dangerous weapons.

As a regular observer of protests in Hong Kong, I’ve become accustomed to seeing the police gently tap away Blue Ribbon supporters who are drinking on the street, openly provoking conflicts, jostling with protesters and wait for it, shoving and sometimes even hitting policeman. All of which are absorbed by the police force and explained away as natural, spontaneous acts of frustration towards the unreasonable protesters. However, flip over to the other side of the street and if you touch a police man it would constitute serious assault worthy of a violent arrest. On top of this, if you happen to find yourself near a violent police arrest, then everyone in the area becomes guilty by association and could be subject to violent arrest, beatings with batons or pepper sprayed without warning.

The police really act out a Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde cabaret show on every protest now or; these people here, arrest them at any cost, those people over there, do not arrest them at any cost.

So every protest, the absurd pantomime begins, scores of police escort rowdy blue ribbons, sometimes kilometres to get cabs home erstwhile, on the same street, PTU officers run down protesters and hog tie them, kneel on their heads, like they were knife wielding manics.

Sometimes I imagine that surely some of the police officers must be embarrassed by their openly biased behaviours towards one group over another, but then reality kicks in and I can see in most of their eyes that they so hate the democracy protesters on the street that if they were given a free choice of what to do, they wouldn’t address the bias, but instead would up the level of violence threefold.

Protests are increasingly becoming war zones by design, with the the lion-share of people arrested being Localists. But don’t be fooled that this is because Localists are less law abiding or more wanted. The target of the war is on protests!

The HK Government believes the best way to solve the protest problem in Hong Kong is to hit it hard and make all protests look like unreasonable radicals and increase the cost of attending. The HK Police Force is a more than willing accomplice in this dark plot.

The only way to stop this wicked plan succeeding is to get out on the streets and reclaim the city back street by street, person by person. Just like on September 28th, show the Police and Government, the more they introduce violence into society, the more people will come out to resist and say no!

Man Ho Chuen Sentenced to 7 Days Jail

1429010769_259c

Man Ho Chuen, the man who stuck his fist in the throat of a pro-Democracy supporter while verbally abusing him was sentenced to 7 days imprisonment for assault. The magistrates comments that “Man initiated attack, showed no remorse, made false accusation against the victim, and could very likely commit the same offence again” make the sentence seems nothing more than a slap on the wrist of the pro-Beijing agitator.

During sentencing a supporter of Man caused a disturbance in Court by screaming and turning on a radio in full volume. The un-identified person was evicted from Court without charge.

Photo courtesy of Apple Daily