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A week in Hong Kong

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If most of the action in 2019 Hong Kong was to be found on the streets, most of the action today is happening in its courts, as the government continues its crackdown against opposition politicians, activists and dissidents. This past week presented that mixture of the terrifying and the absurd that characterises life in Hong Kong since Beijing imposed its national security law last July.

On Friday, the government issued an order freezing an estimated HK$500million (US$64.5million) in assets belonging to pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Lai is currently in prison serving a 14-month sentence for taking part in protests in 2019. He is still awaiting trial on additional charges including several related to the national security law, under which the asset freezing order was made. Among the frozen assets are Lai’s controlling stake in Next Digital, which publishes his pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily. Apple Daily has long been a thorn in the authorities’ side, and it seems likely that the closure of the paper and the collapse of Lai’s media empire is the intended outcome of these latest moves.

Wan Yiu-sing, an online radio host and anti-government activist who goes by the nickname Giggs, is being prosecuted for committing ‘an act with a seditious intention.’ Last week, the Hong Kong High Court published their reasons as to why he was denied bail while awaiting trial. Alarmingly, the court found evidence of Giggs’ ‘seditious intent’ in what many in Hong Kong might have regarded as commonplace statements, noting that he suggested the Hong Kong people were a distinct ethnic group, told his audience to disregard Chinese nationalism, and accused the PRC government of ‘depriving its nationals of all human rights.’

Meanwhile, the government is proposing a new anti-doxxing law that will see offenders facing imprisonment of up to five years for disclosing personal data with the intention to ‘threaten, intimidate, harass or cause psychological harm.’ The unfortunate practice of doxxing has been a feature on both sides of the political divide in Hong Kong, with protester websites revealing the names, addresses and phone numbers of police and their families, and pro-Beijing websites targeting opposition politicians, activists and even members of the media. But once this law sails through the now entirely-pro-Beijing legislature, one wonders whether the authorities will pursue cases against both sides with equal vigour.

Finally, it emerged this week that the Hong Kong Police Force’s top national security officer, Frederic Choi, had been caught in a raid on what is being delicately referred to as an ‘unlicensed massage parlour.’ Choi has been placed on leave while the force’s anti-triad squad investigates. In the meantime, Hong Kong’s meme-makers have been having a field day, modifying images of Choi receiving an award from Chief Executive Carrie Lam earlier this year to suit the circumstances in which he was recently found.
 

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Our lost year

By Pauline Fan

An unsettled wind accompanied us that late morning as we set out on our eight-hour drive from Kelantan to Kuala Lumpur. There was a sense of something unfinished, as if we had left a part of ourselves behind, as if something was soon to be lost forever.

We had spent the last five days along the Kelantan-Terengganu border, documenting a healing ritual of the mak yong folk theatre. Already at dawn our skin is dusted with salt from a sea too rough for swimming. In the evenings, we watch darkness creep over the paddy fields like a reptile returning to its lair. We wait for the hour when night becomes night—in Kelantan night arrives after Isyak prayers.

Then the music begins—the tumult of gendang drummers, the cry of the rebab spike fiddle, the incantations of the tok puteri shaman. Dancers, actors and comedians soon appear and play out the story of a prince banished from his kingdom. As undulating rhythms give way to throbbing intensity, some of the women fall into trance, dancing in wild abandon. We watch and know without saying: now is the time for healing.

Read the full essay here.
 

See it:

Art4Food is selling photographs on a suggested donation basis—with all proceeds used to buy food for vulnerable Cambodians. With the local economy severely curtailed by recent lockdowns, many people are still facing food shortages. All donations from the photo sale go to Local4Local, a youth-run food drive that hires market vendors, local cooks and cyclo drivers to make and deliver meals. See the full gallery here.

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