Umbrella Movement: Legco Clearance – 15 December, 2014

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2014/Umbrella-Movement-Legco/46380677_MMxvX5#!i=3764205892&k=2VbsjMs

A lone last tent stands defiant beneath the two flags, one system.

The Hong Kong Legislative Building includes a Designated Demonstration Area (DDA) underneath it’s ‘drum’ where anyone can legally protest about anything to the government. Yet it seems that the people elected by Hongkongers to serve and represent them are getting selective in the disputes they like to hear/see. Or rather, they’re too lazy to walk 50m and want the prestige of being driven to the door in their chauffeured transport (paid for by taxpayers of course).

The tented pro-Democracy protest site in the DDA – which was also raising awareness of recycling and objecting to the waste of public money that is the new incinerator (a topic for another day) – was cleared today 15 December, 2015 so that Chinese Premiere Xi is appeased when he visits Macau to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the Macau SAR.
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Umbrella Movement: Causeway Bay – 14 December, 2014

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Causeway Bay’s last day…

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Your Rights v Police Powers

The increasing suppression of freedom of speech, the blocking of the press by the police to prevent their actions being recorded, scrutinised and exposed when illegal is fast turning Hong Kong into a police state.

There has been nothing public from the ineffectual buffoons in Legco to instruct the police to act in this manner. So one can only assume the harassment is on the instructions of Cy Leung and his Beijing puppet masters.

With this random stop, search, arrest, assault – it’s important that you know your rights and what the police are legally allowed to do. Not that, as we have seen, the police obey the law.

It’s called the Hong Kong Civil Liberties Union Protestors Rights Handbook – but it’s worth reading by anyone as it offers a good simple explanation of your basic legal rights when dealing with the police. Download a pdf copy here

The police have extensive powers, the two most relevant sections of the Police Force Ordinance are Chapter 232, section 54 entitled ‘The Power to stop, detain and search’ and Chapter 232 section 50 entitled ‘Arrest, detention and bail of suspected persons and seizure of suspected property’.

Chapter 232, section 54 entitled 'The Power to stop, detain and search'

Several tweets have quoted police officers in Mong Kok as saying that if they see the same id card in their random stop and search harassments – then that person will be arrested.

The attraction of Mong Kok is wandering the streets full of wonderful street food and restaurants while trying to decide what’s to eat or buy… if that’s now been deemed illegal then it looks like a slow death for Mong Kok shops by police intimidation of their customers. I love the red bean pancakes and other pastries at the Kee Tsui Cake Shop 奇趣餅家, 135 Fa Yuen Street, but going there to buy them each week I now face the prospect of being arrested.

Or perhaps this is part of the bigger plan by the government, property tycoons and the Urban Renewal Authority to destroy the Mong Kok we love and replace it with more generic shopping malls targeting mainland tourist shoppers.

謝曬皮 Tse Sai Pei The Incapable – The ‘Fakeness’ of the Pan-Dem Camp

Political Cartoon

謝曬皮 Tse Sai Pei The Incapable political cartoon on the fakeness of the pan-dem camp, stealing the hard effort of the ordinary protesters

https://www.facebook.com/tsesaipei/photos/a.135262153287542.31239.134709906676100/408110466002708/?type=1

Tse Sai Pei The Incapable

Umbrella Movement: Police Destruction of Education – 11 December, 2014

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The PTU hack down the Umbrella Square study area, a place built with love for the futures of Hong Kong students.
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Umbrella Movement – 9 December, 2014

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After a very blustery night, the wind has eased, the sun is out and it’s a beautiful morning in Umbrella Square.
Click on any photo to see the full gallery of images

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Editorial – 3 December, 2014

If this is a ‘proper’ (only water, no food or supplements) hunger strike – and that will take some extreme bravery from those involved – then at some stage CY Leung and the HK Government face a massive problem. Do they arrest and force feed the three involved, or do they let them stave to death live on social media and in-front of the world’s press, creating martyrs across Hong Kong and China.

In failing to negotiate, listen and address the real and underlying causes of the protestors – which have nothing to do with the Basic Law, but centre ultimately around the erosion of hope – the government is failing its citizens. Hence the desire to be able to have a say in who’s in charge. If CY Leung and the rest of the government had been doing a good job in recent years in looking after the needs of all Hongkongers, how they’d been chosen/elected would be irrelevant.

Aspiration, hope and hard work have long been the driving force across all strata of Hong Kong. The knowledge that no matter where you were born, hard work would allow you to improve your lot and the only limit to your aspirations was your own ability and effort. Many people’s hopes are focused on simple things like having their own home (rented or bought), being able to offer their children a good education and life… others want to achieve more.

These hopes, aspirations and sheer hard work are the engine room that drive Hong Kong and make it one of the greatest places in the world to live. Sadly the nepotism, greed and incompetence of those regulating Hong Kong’s engine room – politicians and their tycoon cronies is starving it of air and fuel and hope is slowly dying.

Erecting barriers to stifle hope, helps no one – it just destroys the city. CY Leung’s arrogance, incompetence and stupidity have put himself in a lose lose situation – let’s hope that 689’s own ego won’t allow him to go down in history as the man who destroyed Hong Kong.

Miso Zo – The Spirit of the Gadfly

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2014/Umbrella-Movement-Miso-Zo/45916996_7t2NVR#!i=3736666929&k=tDFqsWQ

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Fresh from a series of large scale paintings about the Umbrella Movement, artist Miso Zo’s latest project is a mixed media installation entitled The Spirit of the Gadfly.
Take a walk down to Umbrella Square to have a look.

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