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The murky sunny legal system | Ng Man-yuen

蘋果日報 2020/12/13 09:26


As I was writing this, four people from the League of Social Democrats (LSD) have already been arrested concerning the demonstration in Jul. 1. On Tuesday, just after 6 a.m., the telephone rang and woke me. Immediately I knew something was wrong. During the call, I was told of the brief conversation between Tang Sai-lai and the police officer from Crime Squad. He said the police have a search warrant, went to his home, and arrested him because of the Jul. 1 demonstration. At the same time, more news came from the LSD group that Leung Kwok-hung (Long Hair) and Tsang Kin-shing (The Bull) have also been arrested, and Figo Chan has live-streamed what happened with the police in his home. Another round of mass arrests has begun.
Suddenly, everyone in the LSD has gone into a state of emergency. Within half an hour, lawyers were already waiting in different police stations; the press release has been sent to the media, the statement has been drafted in response to the arrests, at the same time, breakfasts were being sent to those who have been arrested. If this had happened several years ago, we would have been in a mess, not knowing what to do. But now, we are already so familiar with the process: dealing with mass arrests has become part of our lives. Writing this article today about police abuse of power and making arbitrary arrests has filled me with sadness.
Since the anti-ELAB movement, the collusion of the police force and Secretary for Justice has been ongoing. It has got to a point recently that they have become impudent, and the judicial system has been severely hit. The citizens seriously distrust the Secretary for Justice. In the past few consecutive months, from “Fast Beat” Tam Tak-chi being repeatedly denied bail and must be retained in custody, Joshua Wong, Ivan Lam, and Agnes Chow received a heavy jail sentence, to Jimmy Lai being refused bail, then the mass arrests of eight people in relation to the Jul. 1 demonstration last year, which includes Figo Chan, Leung Kwok-hung, Tsang Kin-shing from the LSD, Wu Chi-wai, Eddie Chu from the Democratic Party and two Eastern District Councilors Lancelot Chan and Andy Chiu. All the above cases were to create a chilling effect. The regime no longer cares to tear down its facade and blatantly uses the law to suppress all the dissidents.
While the police making high-profile mass arrests on political leaders, numerous peculiar tactics have also been used within the judicial system when dealing with protesters. For example, in the case of Agnes Chow and Joshua Wong surrounding Police HQ, why didn’t the Secretary for Justice charge them with unlawful assembly or nuisances committed in public places which are more serious, but instead, unauthorized assembly? The reason is simple. By using a less serious charge, there is more chance for them to be proven guilty. Then through the judgment, their penalty can be significantly increased. This would make an extremely negative impact on the people participating in protests in the future, and the standard of sentencing would also be higher as this case has been set as an example. Regardless of whether the charge is serious or not, the penalty will be very high.
On the other hand, in addition to charging the rebels with the usual protesting and assembling offenses, the police and the Department of Justice (DoJ) have cooperated closely together to stigmatize the movement’s opinion leaders with commercial crimes and money laundering. Among them, Jimmy Lai, Ted Hui and others have given selflessly to the movement but were discredited by the police on these charges. In addition to achieving the effect of smearing the movement, it also aims to freeze the funds that can support it. The move is not only to target political leaders or any organizations for crowdfunding campaigns but, more importantly, to suppress the general public who are not able to participate in the movement but wish to support it through donations. The regime’s goal is to make the movement lack the resources to operate on all fronts, making the resistance even more difficult to run.
In the professional sector, the police have from time to time been “perfected” by the government through policies and laws that facilitated the suppression of all dissidents. The media has been the first to bear the brunt, and the online media has shared a lot of the pressure of the traditional media in this movement. Rapid information updates, more comprehensive visuals, and three-dimensional realism are important elements to keep this movement sustainable. Today, online media are excluded from the media sector by the police, greatly reducing their role and monitoring capabilities.
During the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic, the police “rightfully” suppressed all mass movements and even small demonstrations in the name of fighting the epidemic. The LSD, for example, received dozens of tickets for violating the public group gathering restriction during the epidemic, and the fixed penalty was HK$2,000 (US$258) per ticket, which caused tremendous financial pressure on the LSD. Apart from the LSD, many civil groups or political parties maybe even more financially restricted, such that they are under great constraints in staging any small demonstrations or expressing their views.
Many people in Hong Kong used to point out that the judicial system left behind by the British is something we should safeguard, otherwise we will lose the city’s characteristics and core values and be further sinicized. This subjective wish has been completely burned out. The regime’s power and control over society have reached the point where it can govern by a culture of glorification of discourse and legal provisions, and this so-called sunny legal system is now in the hands of totalitarianism.
The long-established belief that the rule of law is civilized has been uncovered by this movement. The people of Hong Kong will no longer have illusions. The control of society by those in power is a naked suppression and trampling of Hong Kong people, packaged in seemingly civilized legal provisions and judicial system. The Hong Kong judicial system is no longer a bastion of justice but a weapon used by totalitarian rulers to slaughter freedom.
(Ng Man-yuen, Secretary-General of the League of Social Democrats.)
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