defenceforeignpolicy
A routine UK government report on Hong Kong that described the city as being on a “negative trajectory” has been met with condemnation from authorities over what they called “wanton slander and political attacks.” The latest six-monthly report, published on Monday, details political, judicial and constitutional developments in Hong Kong from July through December 2023. According to the UK government, the reports reflect a “commitment to the faithful implementation of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration,” a treaty between the UK and China that guaranteed Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy ...
Hong Kong Free Press
The US is to enact new visa restrictions upon multiple Hong Kong officials in light of what it deems a crackdown on rights and freedoms. A Friday statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that – over the past year – Beijing has “continued to take actions against Hong Kong’s promised high degree of autonomy, democratic institutions, and rights and freedoms.” It said the recently-enacted homegrown security law, Article 23, has provisions that “both be used to eliminate dissent inside Hong Kong and applied outside of its borders as part of the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] ongo...
Hong Kong Free Press
Foreign objections have not affected Hong Kong’s new domestic security legislation, justice minister Paul Lam has said, as a lawmaker questioned whether the top US diplomat in the city had endangered national security by criticising the law. Addressing lawmakers in a panel on the new national security legislation – known locally as Article 23 – on Thursday, Lam said criticism by some Western governments of the security legislation amounted to interference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs and had breached international law. Article 23 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, requires the...
Hong Kong Free Press
The “smears” by the US government on the extraterritorial effect of Hong Kong’s domestic security law were “untenable,” the city’s government has said, decrying what it called “biased and misleading remarks.” The Hong Kong government on Thursday said it “strongly disapproved” of concerns expressed by the US on the enactment of a homegrown security law required under Article 23 of the Basic Law. “It is simply unconvincing for the US Government to comment at this juncture on the HKSAR’s legislative proposals for safeguarding national security, especially those on offences relating to ‘state secr...
Hong Kong Free Press
An activist group has staged a demonstration on the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling for ceasefires in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. The demonstration by HK Anti-war Mobilization on Saturday was met with pushback from two passers-by, who told the demonstrators they “know nothing,” according to local media outlets The Collective and InMedia. The demonstration came a month after the International Court of Justice – the principal judicial body of the United Nations – ruled that Israel’s acts in Gaza could amount to genocide, and ordered Israel to take all necessary measur...
Hong Kong Free Press
In May 2023, signs indicating the location of the nearest air defence shelter popped up across Taiwan. These red arrows, many pointing to a basement or a building’s parking lot, are designed to let people know where to seek refuge in case of an air raid. Taiwan has more than 90,000 shelters, but critics say they lack sufficient ventilation, air conditioning and water. This could be dangerous over an extended period. In a notorious episode in the mainland Chinese city of Chongqing, in 1941, tens of thousands of people crowded into a tunnel to escape Japanese bombs. three hours of bombing by the...
Hong Kong Free Press
There is a scene in S. Leo Chiang’s Oscar-nominated documentary short Island in Between where two men discuss a fierce battle. One mentions a memorial for fallen soldiers on the opposite side of the strait that separates them from China. The other seems surprised something like that would exist. “Duh! They fought us. Of course they have one, too,” the first responds. ” Their civilians fought and died, too, like our side.” Their conversation – which plays out against footage of disused military facilities on the Taiwan-governed islands of Kinmen – is one of several vignettes in Chiang’s poetica...
Hong Kong Free Press
Gaza is unlike other war zones across the world and the wounded from the ongoing Israel-Hamas war – now approaching its fifth month – are mostly civilian women and children, a Hong Kong doctor who just returned from a humanitarian mission in the region has said. Over a million Palestinians are now concentrated around the southern city of Rafah which Israel bombed over the weekend after previously declaring it a “safe zone.” Israel’s military advance has killed at least 27,200 people in Gaza, according to its health ministry, with the International Court of Justice ruling last month that it is ...
Hong Kong Free Press
Among the 500,000-odd Hongkongers who took to the streets to protest against planned security legislation on July 1, 2003, was a young man in his 20s. Now 46, he told HKFP that he did not see the need for such laws as, two decades on, authorities again sought to enact them. “The government has been talking about Article 23 for 20 years, but I can’t see the urgency for it at all,” the surveyor, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said on Tuesday, the day the government launched the public consultation period for city’s homegrown security law. He was referring to Article 23 of the c...
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong is to axe visa-free travel for arrivals from Eswatini, Taiwan’s sole ally in Africa, from next week, the Immigration Department has announced. Currently, nationals of the Kingdom of Eswatini may visit Hong Kong without a visa for up to 90 days but – from next Tuesday – a visa will be required. Visas will also be required for Eswatini nationals hoping to transit at Hong Kong’s airport. “Hong Kong has all along adopted an open visa policy, under which nationals of about 170 countries and territories may visit Hong Kong visa-free for periods ranging from seven to 180 days,” an Immigrati...
Hong Kong Free Press
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