不信

indy

1) DON’T BELIEVE Twitter reports that you will lose Facebook or YouTube or Google or Whatsapp or your newspaper. Not true.
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2) BE AWARE that literally 99.9% of Hong Kong people will be unaffected. The law is narrowly focused on terrorism, separatist activities, subversion of state power, and illegal manipulation by external forces: items which are already illegal in most countries, including many of the ones criticizing Hong Kong’s civil service.
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(Note 1: The US has more than a dozen similar national security acts, including the USA Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act and so on.)
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(Note 2: The European Union stood with Spain when it used a similar sedition law against similarly violent “separatism” campaigners last year.)
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3) REALIZE that the decision to pass a national security law in Hong Kong was partly a response to the political opposition’s plan to paralyze the city. They plan to take control of the Legislative Council in September using dozens of “instant trade unions”—and then halt every bill, bringing all activity into the city to a stop. Legco bills provide finance to basic services such as hospitals, schools, sewage works and so on.
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4) KNOW that the new law was drafted by lawyers as a response to ten incidents in which radicalized independence campaigners created or used explosives and chemical weapons in Hong Kong—including the production of a bomb big enough to destroy a building.
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(I consider China’s response to terrorism often heavy-handed and objectionable, but at least it’s not as bad the US-UK response, which is to invade the wrong country and start a war that led to a hundred-thousand-plus civilian deaths.)
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5) LISTEN TO wise old Hongkongers explain that we’ve have been through this before. Consider this:
1) Violent rioters use arson and bombs in Hong Kong.  
2) A sedition law is proposed.
3) Activist groups warn that the law will cause disaster.
4) The rulers, who live thousands of kilometers away, go ahead with the new law anyway.
5) Instead of disaster, the economy quietly begins to soar.  
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That whole process happened under the British. The riots took place in the late 1960s, the Hong Kong Sedition Law was enacted by Britain in 1970, and the boom followed.
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6) BE INFORMED that Hong Kong’s strictures against sedition/ treason/ secession are relatively limited compared to the sweeping ones elsewhere, especially in the UK, where they have numerous additional rules.
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Example: Britain’s treason law jails you for life if you “violate the wife of the heir to the throne”. (Not sure if the late Princess Diana’s five boyfriends were aware of that.)
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Northern Ireland’s one forbids any citizen describing the ruler as “heretic, tyrant or infidel”. (In Hong Kong we can freely use such words against our leaders, if anyone would want to. China’s leaders are infidels la la la! See?)  
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Scotland’s equivalent threatens dire punishment for anyone “who Counterfeits the Great Seal of Scotland”. (It doesn’t specify whether this is an emblem, a large amphibian, or Alex Salmond.)
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7) NOTE that the legal sectors in the UK and in Hong Kong specifically abjure any use of sedition laws for political purposes, and frequently produce verdicts that go against government wishes.
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In contrast, other countries use sedition laws politically—Singapore, famously, but also India, China, and the US.
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The US notoriously used its sedition laws to repeatedly target a group which campaigned for independence for Puerto Rica, for example. All hypocritical statements from Trump’s people or US media should be seen in this light.
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8) RECOGNIZE that the idea of “introducing” a national intelligence service in Hong Kong is a red herring. There are already many, many agents from Beijing in this city, just as there are agents from the United States, the UK and other places.
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The British Government had a well-financed group called Special Branch in Hong Kong until 1997, led by Caucasians. Watch how the media and activists will demonize any non-white group which attempts to fill this gap.
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9) SEE in today’s reports how the usual news-twisters (Apple Daily, BBC’s Danny Vincent, etc) will downplay or even completely omit mention of crimes which are illegal everywhere – the brutal beating of passers-by, shop destruction, the blocking of roads, the throwing of lethal objects, arson, the defying of lockdown rules, the smashing of car windows – and headline any police attempts to regain order as if it was the crime. "Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas" (BBC)
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10) TAKE COMFORT from the good news.
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News reports these days omit mention of numbers of protesters because there are relatively few. The proposed march on Friday drew so little support it was abandoned. Yesterday’s “mass gathering” was in low four figures at most.
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Many of Hong Kong’s peaceful protesters (see the marches in June last year) are good people: they are salt-of-the-earth types who oppose violence, and they were NOT there yesterday beating up passers by.
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(In fact, I watched a huge stream of ordinary citizens walking right past Tam Tak-chi’s small cluster of supporters to file at high speed into the family garments sale at Sogo.)
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CONCLUSION
The media wrongly gives the "pro-democracy" label to violent black-clad rioters from relatively small, bigoted anti-mainlander groups who are actively going against the wishes of the Hong Kong people by demanding independence.
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This process hides the truth, which is that Hong Kong people oppose independence and our community is a caring one which offers numerous social service programs for mainland families who immigrate here.
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Stand with the real Hong Kongers—and that means the vast majority of us, of all political shades, marchers and non-marchers, who oppose violence, value the truth, and believe in community and the rule of law.
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AND FINALLY...
Groups of activists suddenly became Christians yesterday—just for a couple of hours.
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Aggressive black-clad protesters told police that they could defy social distancing rules because they were having a mobile open-air religious meeting.
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Police pointed out that the exemption only applies to churchgoers who were having services IN church buildings. The activists abandoned their new-found faith and ran off to vandalize a shop.
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If they try that trick again, cops should just challenge them to quote Leviticus 19:11.
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(It’s “Thou shalt not lie.”)
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Peace.

indy

indy