The leader of Hong Kong radical protest group “Dragon Slayers” – allegedly behind a thwarted bomb plot during the 2019 demonstrations – was the only one in his team that was insisting on killing police officers, a court has heard. Prosecution witness Wong Chun-keung continued to testify against his former team members at the High Court, where seven people are standing a jury trial under the city’s anti-terrorism act. Prosecutors accuse the group of planning to carry out a bomb attack to murder police officers during a legal rally in Wan Chai on December 8, 2019, when the city was at the height...
Hong Kong Free Press
A Hong Kong appeals court has sided with the government in its attempt to ban protest song Glory to Hong Kong, overturning last year’s decision by a lower court that cited free speech concerns. Three Court of Appeal judges handed down the judgement on Wednesday, writing that the injunction sought by the authorities was “necessary” to persuade online platforms to remove the “problematic videos.” Popularised during the 2019 protests and unrest, Glory to Hong Kong has been confused with China’s anthem March of the Volunteers at international sporting events – mix-ups that have prompted investigat...
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s tourism minister has slammed a political commentator’s “fallacious” assertion that the city’s tourism policy had driven out high-value establishments and yielded weak economic returns. Citing tourism figures, Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung said more than 760,000 tourists from mainland China crossed the border in Hong Kong over the Labour Day “Golden Week,” with more than 190,000 visiting on May 2, marking a record high for single-day arrivals this year “This has brought business to the tourism sector and other related industries, and though not every business...
Hong Kong Free Press
Video-sharing app TikTok, and its Chinese parent company ByteDance, have filed a legal challenge in the US against a legislative move to force its sale, lest it face a country-wide ban. The petition said the demand violated constitutional guarantees to free speech detailed in the First Amendment, after President Joe Biden signed a bill giving the tech firm nine months to find a non-Chinese buyer. TikTok is estimated to have around a billion users worldwide and roughly 170 million users in the US. The firms argued on Sunday that “Congress has made a law curtailing massive amounts of protected s...
Hong Kong Free Press
Canada will grant work permits to Hong Kong permanent residency applicants to allow them to stay in the country while they await a decision on their applications. “Due to a high volume of applications, processing times for this pathway have grown, and many applicants are at risk of seeing their temporary status in Canada expire before their permanent residence applications are finalized,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said in a Tuesday statement. The new policy, to be launched on May 27, will grant Hong Kong applicants a new open work permit, allowing them to extend their...
Hong Kong Free Press
The verdict for Hong Kong’s largest national security case is expected to be delivered at the end of May, more than three years after the 47 democrats who were charged were brought to court. The democrats were arrested in 2021 for organising the primaries in a bid to win a majority in the 2020 Legislative Council election. They were charged with conspiring to commit subversion, a crime under the Beijing-imposed national security law that could see them jailed for life. The defendants – among them ex-lawmakers and high-profile activists – were accused of planning to indiscriminately veto govern...
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong police arrested five men after thwarting their attempt to rob a jewellery shop in the shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui. No property was stolen. Five men aged between 23 and 35 were apprehended at a jewellery store on Hankow Road at around noon on Tuesday, police sad. Officers seized two knives, three hammers and a red, white and blue plastic bag as evidence. According to the police, officers were sent to the scene to “ambush” the suspects after receiving reports of a suspected robbery attempt. The five masked suspects arrived at the scene in a white private car, with three holding ...
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong has seen performances of traditional Cantonese “operas for deities” across the territory in celebration of Tin Hau Festival, marking the birthday of the “Empress of Heaven.” This year’s festival coincided with Labour Day on May 1. It is celebrated on the 23rd day of the third lunar month. On Lamma Island, performance group Golden Dragon and Phoenix presented a traditional Cantonese opera in Yung She Wan for five consecutive nights. Kicking off last Tuesday, the show featured Cantonese Opera titan Loong Koon-tin, who took part in 11 performances. It took place at a makeshift bamboo th...
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s fire department has discovered a computer system breach that exposed the personal data of over 5,000 department personnel and hundreds of residents, marking the third data security incident involving the government in less than a week. The Fire Services Department (FSD) said in a statement on Monday evening that there was no evidence that the breach, caused by an unauthorised alteration of access rights during a data migration procedure by an outsourced contractor, led to the data being “released.” The data included the surnames and telephone numbers of approximately 480 people who...
Hong Kong Free Press
The Hong Kong government should improve accountability and ensure computer security measures are put in place to protect citizens’ privacy, a lawmaker has said after two more departments reported data breach incidents last week. It was “not ideal” that government departments and statutory bodies often “procrastinated” and reported data breach incidents to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) after “a certain period of time,” legislator Elizabeth Quat of the pro-Beijing DAB party said on Monday. Citizens’ data at riskThe remarks from Quat, who chairs the Panel on Info...
Hong Kong Free Press
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