ANARCHY IN THE HK, PART 392 (KEEP YR DISTANCE EDITION)
A clarification on my previous post regarding COVID-19 in HK, the difficulties of maintaining social distancing for long periods of time, and the role of govts in sustained social distancing:
In HK, we mitigate that with masks and hand sanitizer, etc. But it only goes so far. You need solid and consistent govt leadership setting the example and imposing limitations.
I should have added:
Not that we have that in Hong Kong.
The new social distancing regs that kicked in today are good in theory (if somewhat flawed). But a potentially bigger problem is enforcement - partly because the details are difficult to enforce consistently and fairly, and partly because consistent and fair enforcement is the responsibility of the HK police force, which is not especially renowned for being consistent or fair.
In fact, the HK police is probably the most hated organization in Hong Kong right now, and most if not all police officers hate us back. That’s not a good mix when a squad of cops walk into a restaurant and start measuring how far apart diners are and making them move if they’re less than six feet apart.
It also doesn't help that the HK police are currently obsessed with the fact that protests still happen in HK (and still receive a lot of public support), which means not every protester is in jail, and they remain convinced the way to fix this is to continue to arrest, jail, beat, pepper spray, tear gas and harass as many protesters as it takes until the protests stop.
They’ve also been going out of their way in recent months to establish a clear narrative that the protest movement is in reality a terrorist movement. Stephen Vines has a concise write-up on this, but essentially police have uncovered several stashes of bombs, weapons and ammo that they say is intended to wage a campaign of bombing and cop-killing across HK. They frequently describe this as if the campaign is already happening, even though the handful of incidents they can actually point to - though certainly illegal - have caused minor damage and injured no one.
The police have, of course, produced no evidence whatsoever that these stashes have anything to do with the protest movement or that the people arrested intended to use them to target the police. But apparently, according to Vines, that hasn't stopped Carrie Lam and other govt officials from reportedly telling foreign diplomats in HK that the protest movement is either a terrorist threat in itself or providing cover for a fringe terrorist group (funded by foreign elements! Probably!).
One aspect the Vines column doesn’t touch upon is the fact that this is happening while a number of adamantly pro-govt/pro-police legislators are calling for Article 23 legislation.
Quick history lesson: Article 23 of the Basic Law - our mini-constitution established with the 1997 handover from the UK to China - says HK must establish a ‘national security’ law by 2047 that specifically covers terrorism, sedition and treason. The HK govt tried this in 2003 and was countered with what at the time one of the biggest street protests in HK’s history, for the simple reason that we knew perfectly well that the ultimate purpose of the law sooner or later was to allow the HK govt to define terrorism, sedition and treason the same way China does: literally anything that criticizes or challenges any govt action, policy or official in any way. Simply disagreeing with the CCP could bring you up on charges of attempting to overthrow the govt.
Imagine what the HK govt would do with such a law right now.
The pro-govt people are practically drooling at the prospect. So are the police. Luckily, we’re in no immediate danger just yet - the whole protest movement started with an extradition bill that would have enabled HK anti-govt activists to be extradited to China for whatever China felt like charging them with (“soliciting prostitutes” is a classic go-to charge). It would be beyond stupid even by Carrie Lam standards to pursue an Article 23 bill now.
On the other hand, the police have just arrested a pro-Democracy district councillor for sedition using an old Colonial law that hasn’t been used for decades. The “sedition” was allegedly forwarding a Facebook post that allegedly gave details of a police officer who some people think was responsible for half-blinding Indonesian journalist Veby Indah covering the protests last September.
A doxxing charge would be understandable (flimsy and arbitrary, but understandable). Sedition? Come on.
The arrest itself is fairly obviously petty revenge by the police (who decided to arrest her at her home at 1:45am). It’s also widely believed to be a test to see if they can actually make a sedition charge stick, and if the public will go along with it, which would pave the way for more sedition arrests and maybe bolster support for Article 23. The police narrative about protesters = terrorists might also possibly being crafted for that purpose.
So anyway, THIS is the police force that will be tasked with enforcing the new social distancing rules - and arresting anyone found violating them.
To be clear, I don’t think they’re going to equate sitting five people at a restaurant table with sedition. But there’s a running bet on Twitter that the police will use the social distancing law as another thing they can arrest protesters for (wearing a surgical mask is technically still illegal, although right now enforcement is, to say the least, impractical). Or - absent any actual protests - they’ll use it as a pretense to shake down and arrest anyone they think might be connected with the protests - especially in restaurants and other businesses that have been openly supportive of the protests. And the police are widely expected to handle those situations the same way they handle anything protest-related - with lots of tear gas, pepper spray and gratuitous violence.
Or maybe they'll use common sense for once and realize that we're all in this together and if there's one thing we should be unifying over, it's this.
Ha ha. No.
So, yeah, the social distancing law might have been necessary, but enforcement is likely to be messy in more ways than one.
All this because some people decided going to LKF to drink a lot of overpriced beer was more important than flattening the curve.
Hope it was worth it.
Don’t go out there,
This is dF
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