Category Archives: Hong Kong

The free Hong Kong that made me an overnight popstar? That city has vanished

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It’s hard to believe just how quickly the vibrant city has changed since I first arrived in 2013 to perform a song at a protest. A blanket of fear covers it now

My first experience of Hong Kong was, I must admit, unusual. It was 2013, I was 30 years old, and I’d just flown 6,000 miles to perform a song at a huge protest.

I’d written the song six years earlier. It was called This Is My Dream, and it was a defiant song about not giving up. At the time, I was a struggling singer-songwriter living in the small English retirement town of Worthing; I posted the song on a website for unsigned musicians, and then mostly forgot about it.

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Leave Hong Kong before it’s too late, say those who now call Britain home

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Former residents who have chosen to take their chances in the UK after Beijing’s clampdown speak out

Aragon starts work on Monday as an estate agent in London, focused on finding clients who want to move to Britain’s capital from his home city of Hong Kong, a move he made himself four months ago.

His job is one of the first created by a new visa scheme that opens today, giving millions of Hong Kong residents the right to move to Britain and eventually seek citizenship, in response to a Chinese government crackdown in the city.

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Britain launches new visa for millions of Hongkongers fleeing China’s crackdown

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Scheme allows Hong Kong residents with a BNO passport to live and work in the UK with a pathway to citizenship after five years

A new visa scheme offering millions of Hong Kong residents a pathway to British citizenship will go live on Sunday as the UK opens its doors to those wanting to escape China’s crackdown on dissent.

From Sunday afternoon, anyone with a British national overseas (BNO) passport and their dependents will be able to apply online for a visa allowing them to live and work in the UK. After five years they can then apply for citizenship.

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Hong Kong: China will no longer recognise British national overseas citizens

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Move comes after UK says people with status can move to Britain and eventually settle

China has announced it will no longer recognise the passports of British national overseas citizens just hours after the UK launched its scheme to give passport holders a path to residency as political freedoms decline in Hong Kong.

“From 31 January, China will no longer recognise the so-called BNO passport as a travel document and ID document, and reserves the right to take further actions,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters, according to AFP.

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HSBC denies taking political stance over China’s crackdown in Hong Kong

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Bank’s chief executive, Noel Quinn, claims business not in position to question police requests

HSBC’s chief executive has denied taking a political stance on China’s crackdown in Hong Kong, claiming the bank was not in a position to question police requests when it agreed to freeze accounts of pro-democracy activists.

Questioned by MPs on the foreign affairs committee on Tuesday, Noel Quinn ruled out exiting the Hong Kong market in light of Beijing’s controversial new security laws, saying it “would only harm” local customers.

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Life in hotel quarantine: ‘I’m on day two. It’s around day 11 things get difficult’

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Ian Samson, originally from Edinburgh, describes his experience of Hong Kong’s strict isolation rules for travellers

I have a pile of 20 bananas in my hotel room here in Hong Kong, a spin bike I’ve had delivered and some rapidly dying flowers that the hotel gave me on the first day as a morbid reminder of how little sunlight I would be getting for the next 21 days.

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Hong Kong orders thousands to stay home in city’s first Covid lockdown

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Officials plan to test everyone inside a designated zone of Kowloon Peninsula’s Jordan neighbourhood during two-day lockdown

Thousands of people in Hong Kong have been ordered to stay in their homes in the city’s first coronavirus lockdown, as authorities battle an outbreak in one of its poorest and most densely packed districts.

The order bans about 10,000 people living inside multiple housing blocks within the neighbourhood of Jordan, on the Kowloon Peninsula, from leaving their apartments unless they can show a negative test.

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Dominic Raab calls QC acting for Hong Kong government ‘mercenary’

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David Perry is giving China a PR coup by acting against pro-democracy activists, foreign secretary says

David Perry QC, the barrister acting for the Hong Kong government in its efforts to jail pro-democracy activists, is behaving in “a pretty mercenary way” and providing the Chinese government with a PR coup, the foreign secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday.

Perry has agreed to represent the Hong Kong government in prosecuting nine activists, including the media proprietor Jimmy Lai, arising from demonstrations in August 2019. The trial is due to begin next month.

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Wheelchair climber hauls himself 250 metres up Hong Kong skyscraper for charity

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Lai Chi-wai spent 10 hours pulling himself up the tower to raise money for spinal cord patients

Lai Chi-wai has become the first in Hong Kong to climb more than 250 metres of a skyscraper while strapped into a wheelchair, as he pulled himself up for more than 10 hours on Saturday to raise money for spinal cord patients.

The 37-year-old climber, who was paralysed from the waist down in a car accident 10 years ago, could not make it to the top of the 300 metre-tall Nina Tower on the Kowloon peninsula.

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British QC prosecuting activists in Hong Kong fought to be allowed to take case

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David Perry faces accusations of ‘making the wrong choice’ after applying despite local objections

David Perry, the British QC under fire for agreeing to prosecute pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, had to go to court himself to win permission to take the controversial case.

The nine activists facing a potential seven-year jail sentence for alleged unlawful assembly in 2019 include Jimmy Lai, the independently minded newspaper proprietor, and Martin Lee, the so-called father of Hong Kong democracy.

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Hong Kong: 11 more national security arrests over attempted boat escape to Taiwan

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Eleven people, aged 18 to 72, have been arrested on suspicion of helping 12 democracy activists flee Hong Kong by boat last year

Hong Kong police have arrested 11 people under the national security law for allegedly helping 12 pro-democracy activists accused of attempting to flee the city by boat for Taiwan last year, local media and activists reported on Thursday.

Police arrested eight men and three women aged 18 to 72 for “assisting offenders”, according to the South China Morning Post, which cited unnamed sources.

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China in darkest period for human rights since Tiananmen, says rights group

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Human Rights Watch lists persecutions in Xinjiang, Mongolia, Tibet and Hong Kong but notes new willingness to condemn Beijing

China is in the midst of its darkest period for human rights since the Tiananmen Square massacre, Human Rights Watch has said in its annual report.

Worsening persecutions of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet, targeting of whistleblowers, the crackdown on Hong Kong and attempts to cover up the coronavirus outbreak were all part of the deteriorating situation under President Xi Jinping, the organisation said.

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Hong Kong arrests: Carrie Lam accuses west of hypocrisy, citing US Capitol riot

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City’s leader accuses foreign critics of double standards when they condemn rioters in the US but support pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s leader has defended the unprecedented mass arrest of opposition figures last week, and accused western powers of hypocrisy for condemning the siege on the US Capitol after supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

At a weekly press briefing in Hong Kong on Tuesday, Carrie Lam was asked about the coordinated police raids last Wednesday, when 55 opposition figures were arrested on suspicion of breaching the national security law by holding unofficial primaries ahead of the since-postponed Hong Kong election. The raids were the latest use of the national security law against the pro-democracy movement.

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Hong Kong security law being used to ‘eliminate dissent’ say US, UK, Australia and Canada

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Joint statement by four foreign ministers expresses ‘serious concern’ about national security law which saw dozens of activists arrested last week

The foreign ministers of Australia, the United States, Britain and Canada have issued a joint statement expressing “serious concern” about the arrest of 55 democracy activists and supporters in Hong Kong last week.

The arrests were by far the largest such action taken under a national security law (NSL) that China imposed on the semi-autonomous territory a little more than six months ago.

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Hong Kong police release all but three of those held in crackdown

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No one has yet been charged as some pro-democracy figures say they were arrested for political reasons

Hong Kong authorities have released all but three people arrested in Wednesday’s unprecedented roundup of opposition figures.

Amid heated debate about the legal premise of the accusations against the group, police are yet to lay any charges.

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In Hong Kong it now looks like opposition is against the law

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Mass arrests raise question of what, if anything, dissenting politicians are actually allowed to do

Wednesday’s sweeping arrests of more than 50 pro-democracy activists, pollsters, politicians and fundraisers in Hong Kong seemed to all but criminalise opposition politics in the city.

Those arrested face charges of subversion for their role in unofficial primary elections held last summer that aimed to maximise the pro-democracy bloc’s performance in elections to the city’s legislative council.

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Dozens of Hong Kong pro-democracy figures arrested in sweeping crackdown

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Campaigners and politicians held in wave of arrests under the national security law

More than 50 people, including pro-democracy politicians and campaigners, have been arrested in early-morning raids across Hong Kong in a crackdown by authorities that was condemned as a “despicable” assault on freedom.

In a police operation involving more than 1,000 officers, the 53 individuals were detained under the territory’s controversial national security law (NSL), accused of “subverting state power” by holding primaries for pro-democracy candidates for the Hong Kong election.

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China moves to punish lawyers who helped Hong Kong activists

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Authorities threaten to revoke licences of pair who assisted group of 12 that tried to flee to Taiwan

Chinese authorities have threatened to end the careers of two lawyers who assisted 12 activists who tried to flee Hong Kong for Taiwan last August, 10 of whom were given jail terms by a Chinese court last week.

Ren Quanniu – who also represented the Wuhan citizen journalist Zhang Zhan – and Lu Siwei received notices from local departments of justice on Monday that authorities intended to revoke their licences and they had three days to arrange for a defence hearing.

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Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai returned to jail until at least February

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Court grants prosecutors’ request to appeal against bail order on media mogul

The Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been returned to jail after the city’s highest court ruled in favour of prosecutors’ request for leave to appeal against his already highly restrictive bail order.

The decision will keep the 76-year-old in jail until at least February, even though he has not been accused of a violent crime and is not considered a flight risk.

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Hong Kong: China jails 10 who fled by boat to Taiwan for up to three years

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Group’s trial on the mainland lasted just one day and was held with few public witnesses

Ten people who tried to flee Hong Kong for Taiwan have been sentenced in a Chinese court to up to three years in jail, while two minors will be returned home without charge.

On Wednesday the Yantian people’s court ordered the group to serve varying sentences of between seven months and three years in jail. Of the two people charged with organising the illegal border crossing, one was sentenced to three years and fined RMB20,000 (£2,260), and the other to two years and fined RMB15,000.

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