LATEST NEWS & VIEWS
HK 2020 Interview: Ousted lawmaker says security law a ‘fait accompli’ but should not be used to persecute opponents
In Kenneth Leung’s own words, 2020 was “a bad year for many people.” For Leung himself, it saw the end of his eight-year stint as a Hong Kong legislator. The 58-year-old, who had represented the accountancy constituency since 2012, was ousted from the Legislative Council (LegCo) in mid-November alongside three fellow democrats following a decision […]
Explainer: Hong Kong’s national security crackdown – month 5
Five months after Beijing imposed its controversial security law on Hong Kong, the city’s legislature has been emptied of all pan-democrats while police have made further arrests of opposition figures and journalists. The Department of Justice launched appeals against court decisions in November to acquit alleged protesters and Chief Executive Carrie Lam stressed national security […]
COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS
Given China’s politicised, draconian justice system, will Hong Kong lawmakers pass the extradition bill?
Can the majority hold? Perhaps not. It’s still an open question. The majority, in this case, refers to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (LegCo) pro-business establishment and pro-Beijing loyalist councillors. Together they occupy more than half the council’s 70 seats. A majority of those present will be necessary to pass the Hong Kong government’s controversial fugitive […]
Seeing the forest for the trees: Why a lawyers’ group published Hong Kong’s first Rule of Law Report
By Jason Y. Ng, Progressive Lawyers Group A lot can happen in a single year. A foreign journalist was expelled for hosting a lunch talk. A civil servant lost a symbolically significant legal battle for equal treatment of his same-sex partner. Trials began for leaders of the Occupy Movement for crimes that nobody knew existed. […]
FEATURES
Interview: Can ousted lawmaker Lau Siu-lai win back her seat in a time of ‘absurd’ politics?
Lau Siu-lai had just turned 40 when she won her first ever election. A university lecturer, she went onto the streets during the Umbrella Movement to teach politics and public policy – and she emerged from it a rising self-determination advocate who, along with other post-occupy darlings, went on to win a seat at the […]
From electoral triumph to prison: ex-aide of ousted lawmaker Yau Wai-ching says movement tried to go too far, too fast
To Terry Yeung, the 25-year-old former assistant of disqualified lawmaker Yau Wai-ching, if their party did not commit that mistake in 2016, their lives could have turned out completely different. In October of that year, Youngspiration’s Yau and Baggio Leung took their oaths of office as lawmakers in controversial ways – which some considered derogatory to […]
Hong Kong photographer sets out to capture city’s ‘funeral portrait’ and localists’ fight for survival
Hanging on the wood-panelled walls of Art and Culture Outreach – where the afternoon sun has illuminated the bookstore and event space – are grainy photographs depicting a series of ominous scenes: a police officer pointing a gun in the dark of the night, a sea of helmets and shields, and localist Edward Leung’s solemn […]