Residents rush to erase digital footprints as law gives police powers over online activity
At midnight on Tuesday, the Great Firewall of China, the vast apparatus that limits the country’s internet, appeared to descend on Hong Kong.
Unveiling expanded police powers as part of a contentious new national security law, the Hong Kong government enabled police to censor online speech and force internet service providers to hand over user information and shut down platforms.
Continue reading...Christopher Wray condemns campaign against ex-pats and says Beijing espionage is ‘greatest threat to US economic vitality’
Chinese agents have been pursuing hundreds of Chinese nationals living in the US in an effort to force their return, as part of a global campaign against the country’s diaspora, known as Operation Fox Hunt, the FBI director has said.
Related: Apple under pressure to act after TikTok pulls out of Hong Kong
Continue reading...Joshua Wong, Lee Cheuk-yan and James To say they have no choice but to oppose draconian legislation imposed by Beijing
Hong Kong activists planning parliament in exile
For Joshua Wong, Lee Cheuk-yan and James To – three of Hong Kong’s highest profile pro-democracy activists – the possibility of going to jail in China has never been more real.
The national security law passed in Beijing and enacted in Hong Kong on 1 July appears to be tailor-made for them in many ways.
Continue reading...Officers able to conduct raids without warrants and secretly monitor suspects
Hong Kong police have been granted sweeping new powers, including the ability to conduct raids without a warrant and secretly monitor suspects, after controversial security laws were imposed on the city by the Chinese central government.
The powers allow for the confiscation of property related to national security offences, and allow senior police to order the takedown of online material they believe breaches the law. The city’s chief executive can grant police permission to intercept communications and conduct covert surveillance. Penalties include HKD$100,000 (£10,300) fines and up to two years in prison.
Continue reading...Tong Ying-kit, 23, charged with terrorism and inciting secession for allegedly driving motorbike into group of police last week
China has begun putting its new Hong Kong security law into action, as a 23-year-old man became the first person on Monday to be charged under the legislation and authorities announced a purge of literature from libraries and schools.
The law, imposed last week following anti-government protests in Hong Kong last year, classes as illegal all activities the government deems to be secessionist, subversive, or terrorist, as well as foreign intervention in the city’s internal affairs.
Continue reading...Protesters have held up blank pieces of white paper to avoid using slogans banned under a new national security law in Hong Kong on Monday.
The law, which was imposed by China after anti-government protests last year, has made it illegal to shout slogans or hold up banners and flags calling for the city's independence. Hong Kong police cleared the group of demonstrators who gathered in a shopping centre in the central business district
City at centre of coronavirus outbreak faces new crisis as China suffers weeks of flooding
People living in Wuhan, the central Chinese city that bore the brunt of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, have been told stay indoors once more after record rainfall prompted authorities to raise the city’s emergency response to the second highest-level.
A prolonged period of heavy rain is the latest disaster to strike China, where people are only just recovering from the coronavirus outbreak.
Continue reading...Professor had been under house arrest after writing an essay lambasting the president over his response to coronavirus
Chinese professor Xu Zhangrun, known for his scathing and public criticisms of China’s leader Xi Jinping, has been detained, according to friends of the legal scholar.
Two friends of Xu, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, told the Guardian that he had been detained on Monday morning. According to one, around 20 police officers and 10 vehicles arrived at his home in Beijing and took Xu away.
Continue reading...Bayan Nur has forbidden the hunting and eating of animals that could carry plague and asked the public to report fever with no clear causes
Authorities in a city in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia have issued a warning after a hospital reported a case of suspected bubonic plague.
The health committee of the city of Bayan Nur issued the third-level alert, the second lowest in a four-level system, on Sunday.
Continue reading...Beijing has imposed sweeping new national security legislation on Hong Kong, criminalising 'secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces'. Critics fear the law will enable a crackdown on protest and dissent as China seeks to exert new levels of control over the semi-autonomous territory. The Guardian's Beijing bureau chief, Lily Kuo, explains what this means for the city after a year of unrest
Residents use wordplay including repurposed Chinese Communist party dogma to express frustration
Hongkongers are finding creative ways to voice dissent after Beijing blanketed the city in a new security law and police began arresting people displaying now forbidden political slogans.
Faced with the sudden threat of prosecution for anything that might promote greater autonomy or independence for the restless city, residents are using wordplay and even subverting Chinese Communist party dogma to express their frustration.
Continue reading...Guardian readers in or from Hong Kong share their views on the new national security law
In late May, a week after Chinese officials announced a plan to impose a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong, the Guardian issued a callout to people who believed they would be affected. We wanted to hear how people felt about the law, how it might change their lives, and how they felt about the last year of protests.
The response was overwhelming. Within days we had received more than 30,000 messages from people inside and outside Hong Kong – the most for any Guardian community callout.
Continue reading...Protective measures taken and social media erased as both question how they can operate
Journalists and lawyers in Hong Kong are scrambling to adapt as Chinese authorities set up the apparatus to enforce a controversial national security law, including appointing a hardline party official to head a new security agency.
Zheng Yanxiong, who is best known for tackling protests on the mainland, is to run the office established under the law that empowers mainland security agents to operate in Hong Kong openly and unbound for the first time.
Continue reading...Campaigner Simon Cheng, granted asylum in UK, says shadow parliament would send ‘clear signal’ to Beijing
Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are discussing a plan to create an unofficial parliament-in-exile to preserve democracy and send a message to China that freedom cannot be crushed, campaigner Simon Cheng has said.
Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, was convulsed by months of often violent, pro-democracy and anti-China demonstrations last year, resisting Chinese interference in its promised freedoms and posing the biggest political crisis for Beijing since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Continue reading...China said UK will ‘bear all consequences’, raising possibility of retaliation
China has responded angrily to a UK promise to offer nearly 3 million residents of Hong Kong with British national overseas status (BNO), the right to settle in the UK.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said Britain would “bear all consequences”, and China’s ambassador to the UK later said that Beijing “reserve[d] the right to take corresponding measures”.
Continue reading...More than 370 people arrested as result of demonstrations against China’s new powers
Protesters appear to be laying low in Hong Kong the day after the introduction of sweeping draconian national security laws prompted demonstrations, violence, and mass arrests.
More than 370 people were arrested on Wednesday, including 10 under the new laws imposed directly by Beijing and without the involvement of Hong Kong’s semi autonomous legislature.
Continue reading...Demonstrators have clashed with police during protests over a national security law imposed by China, on the 23rd anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain
Continue reading...Up to 3 million people in Hong Kong could be eligible to live, work or study in the UK under a bespoke immigration system announced by Dominic Raab in response to the imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong by China. The foreign secretary accused China of a 'clear and serious violation' of the joint declaration signed with the UK, and pledged the government would 'honour' its commitment to citizens of the former British colony
Teenager waving independence flag among those held as thousands take to the streets
More than 370 protesters have been arrested as police fired teargas, pepper spray and water cannon at thousands of people protesting against a national security law imposed by Beijing.
The extent of Beijing’s mandate was made clear as full details of the law were released late on Tuesday, giving authorities sweeping powers to crack down on dissent and allowing China new levels of control over the semi-autonomous territory.
Continue reading...Hong Kong police have arrested more than 300 protesters on the first day of life under the controversial national security laws imposed by Beijing, as China confirmed that some suspects could be extradited to the mainland under the new rules. Police were said to have used water cannon and pepper spray on activists and journalists during the demonstrations.
Earlier, the city’s leader, Carrie Lam, had told a ceremony marking the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China that the security laws were 'the most important development in relations between central – HKSAR [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] since Britain handed over the territory to Beijing
Continue reading...