LATEST NEWS & VIEWS
Hong Kong’s new loyalty oath is the final nail in democracy’s coffin
Veteran democrat Emily Lau brought their current dilemma into public view recently when she cautioned all her pro-democracy colleagues to “think twice” about contesting the next Legislative Council election. It was to have been held in September last year but was postponed, ostensibly due to the coronavirus pandemic, and has now been rescheduled for this…
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…
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
Explainer: How Hong Kong’s legislature was broken, long before protesters invaded the complex
After protesters stormed into the Legislative Council on Monday, some spray-painted slogans on the walls expressing their anger over the decline of Hong Kong freedoms. “It was you who taught me peaceful marches are useless,” read one message on the pillar right outside the legislature’s main chamber. “Abolish functional constituencies,” another read. The reasons for the…
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…