Major development in Hong Kong : Thousands of Hong Kong civil servants defy government warning to join protests

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Jai Sen

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Aug 3, 2019, 2:46:29 PM8/3/19
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Saturday, August 3, 2019

Hong Kong in movement…, China in movement…

[What looks like a very major development in the face-off has taken place in Hong Kong : Defying a government order, civil servants have come out in protest against what has been and is happening, and as a part of a weekend of major planned protests in the city.  This act of defiance and solidarity with protestors would have huge - and multiple - meanings in any context (imagine this happening in India, or South Africa, or Brazil, or in the UK, Europe, Canada, or the US…), but in Hong Kong, and within China ? :

“Cheng aged 39, who was speaking behind a large black mask, said the recent triad attack on protesters and slow police response had angered him and his civil service peers.

“Of the five protester demands, he said the need for an independent inquiry into the actions of the police was vital.

“ “I hope to stay in the civil service for a long time. But we have to act now.” ”

[In the meanwhile, mainland China is shutting down news of the Hong Kong protests… (second article) :

·      Refinitiv removes Reuters story on Hong Kong protests from screens in China


Thousands of Hong Kong civil servants defy government warning to join protests

Felix Tam and Greg Torode
Hong Kong
Reuters

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-hong-kong-gears-up-for-another-weekend-of-protests/

People attend a protest held by civil servants in the Central District of Hong Kong on Aug. 2 in the latest opposition to a planned extradition law that was quickly evolved into a wider movement for democratic reforms.

ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images

Thousands of civil servants joined in the anti-government protests in Hong Kong on Friday for the first time since they started two months ago, defying a warning from the authorities to remain politically neutral.

Protests against a proposed bill that would allow people to be extradited to stand trial in mainland China have grown increasingly violent, with police accused of excessive use of force and failing to protect protesters from suspected gang attacks.

Chanting encouragement, crowds turned out to support the civil servants at their rally on Friday evening which halted traffic on major roads in the heart of the city’s business district.

“I think the government should respond to the demands, instead of pushing the police to the frontline as a shield,” said Kathy Yip, a 26-year-old government worker.

The rally on Friday came after an open letter penned anonymously and published on Facebook set out a series of demands to the Hong Kong government by a group which said it represented civil servants.

“At present the people of Hong Kong are already on the verge of collapse,” the group wrote in the letter, saying it was “a pity that we have seen extreme oppression.”

The group also listed five demands: complete withdrawal of the extradition bill; a halt to descriptions of the protests as ’rioting’; a waiver of charges against those arrested; an independent inquiry and resumption of political reform.

The protests against a now suspended extradition bill have widened to demand greater democracy and the resignation of Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam, and have become one of the gravest populist challenges to Communist Party rulers in Beijing.

China’s new ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, said on Friday that Beijing supported the action taken by Hong Kong’s government to “bring back the normal order, the rule of law, the normal life of people.”

“The demonstration has gone far beyond the nature of a peaceful demonstration, it’s really turning out to be chaotic and violent and we should no longer allow them to continue this reprehensible behavior,” Zhang said. “We do not think that it’s in the long term interest of anyone.”

On Thursday the government said Hong Kong’s 180,000 civil servants must remain politically neutral as the city braced for another wave of protests over the weekend and a mass strike on Monday across sectors such as transport, schools and corporates.

“At this difficult moment, government colleagues have to stay united and work together to uphold the core values of the civil service,” the government said in a statement.

Protest organisers said over 40,000 people participated in Friday’s rally, while the police put the number at 13,000.

Police said they had arrested eight people, including a leading pro-independence leader, after seizing weapons and suspected bomb-making material in a raid.

Under Chinese rule Hong Kong has been allowed to retain extensive freedoms, such as an independent judiciary, but many residents see the extradition bill as the latest step in a relentless march towards mainland control.

Anson Chan, former chief secretary, said the rally was spontaneous and civil servants enjoyed the right to assembly and it could not be said to impair political neutrality.

Many civil servants, however, were apprehensive about identifying themselves, with many speaking anonymously or asking for only their first name to be used.

MORE PROTESTS PLANNED

Hundreds of medical workers also demonstrated on Friday to protest against the government’s handling of situation. Large-scale protests are planned for the weekend in Mong Kok, Tseung Kwan O and Western districts.

In a warning to protesters, China’s People’s Liberation Army in Hong Kong on Wednesday released a video of “anti-riot” exercises and its top brass warned violence was “absolutely impermissible”.

The PLA has remained in barracks since protests started in April, leaving Hong Kong’s police force to deal with protests.

U.S. President Donald Trump has described protests in Hong Kong as “riots” that China will have to deal with itself. .

Police said seven men and a woman, aged between 24 and 31, were arrested on Friday after a raid on a building in the New Territories district of Sha Tin, where police seized weapons and suspected petrol bombs. Making or possessing explosives illegally can carry a sentence of up to 14 years in jail.

The police may arrest more people as the investigations unfold, police officer Li Kwai Wah said, adding, “Recently we are very worried about the escalating violence.”

Andy Chan, a founder of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party that was banned last September, was among those arrested. His arrest prompted about 100 protesters to surround a police station to demand his release, television footage showed.

On Friday night, crowds of protesters surrounded a police station where Chan was being held, drawing out riot police to the street outside.

On Wednesday, 44 people were charged in a Hong Kong court with rioting over a recent protest near Beijing’s main representative office in the heart of the city.

The escalating protests, which have shut government offices, blocked roads and disrupted business, is taking a toll of the city’s economy and scaring off tourists.

Cheng aged 39, who was speaking behind a large black mask, said the recent triad attack on protesters and slow police response had angered him and his civil service peers.

Of the five protester demands, he said the need for an independent inquiry into the actions of the police was vital.

“I hope to stay in the civil service for a long time. But we have to act now.” 

Refinitiv removes Reuters story on Hong Kong protests from screens in China

Tony Munroe
Beijing
Reuters

Under pressure from Chinese regulators, financial-information provider Refinitiv has removed from its Eikon terminals in China a Reuters story detailing how an official with Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong had urged residents of a rural area to drive away anti-government protesters days before a violent clash nearby, according to Eikon users and a person with knowledge of Refinitiv’s action.

The story, which was published late last week, was not visible on the Eikon terminal’s scrolling news feed in mainland China on Friday. Eikon users outside the mainland said they could still see the story. Reuters was unable to determine precisely when the story had been removed from Eikon’s scrolling news feed for clients in the mainland or whether other stories had been blocked.

Refinitiv has a licence to provide financial information in mainland China, and a person familiar with the matter said Refinitiv’s regulator there, the Cyberspace Administration of China, or CAC, had said it would shut down the service unless it removed or blocked certain political stories.

The person, who asked not to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter, said Refinitiv had agreed to block some political news from its platform in the mainland.

“As a global business, we comply with all our local regulatory obligations, including the requirements of our [licence] to operate in China,” Refinitiv said in a written statement to Reuters.

The CAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In June, Reuters reported that Refinitiv, under pressure from China’s government, had removed from Eikon several Reuters stories related to the 30th anniversary of the violent suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Refinitiv removed the Tiananmen stories after a similar warning from the CAC, people with knowledge of the action said at the time.

“Reuters reports around the world in a fair, unbiased and independent manner, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles, and we stand by our China coverage,” a Reuters spokesman said. “We continue to provide Refinitiv with the same scope of content that we always have, including stories relating to China, and Refinitiv’s decisions will not affect the breadth or quality of our coverage.”

In June, Reuters president Michael Friedenberg and editor-in-chief Steve Adler said the news organization had spoken to Refinitiv and expressed its concern about the earlier action to block Reuters stories about the Tiananmen anniversary. They urged staff to “continue reporting as you always would: to pursue the truth, without fear or favour.”

SENSITIVE YEAR

Refinitiv was formed last year, when Reuters News’ parent company, Thomson Reuters Corp., sold a 55-per-cent stake in its financial and risk (F&R) unit to a group led by private-equity firm Blackstone Group LP.

On Thursday, the London Stock Exchange announced a US$27-billion deal to buy Refinitiv. Thomson Reuters is more than 65-per-cent owned by Toronto-based Woodbridge Co. Ltd., the Thomson family holding company that also owns The Globe and Mail.

Reuters News supplies news to Refinitiv under a 30-year agreement that pays Reuters a minimum of US$325-million each year, making Refinitiv the news organization’s largest customer.

Reuters also provides news for media and digital clients, and their access to stories was not affected.

Censorship in China has been intensifying under President Xi Jinping and businesses have come under growing pressure to block content Beijing sees as sensitive.

This is an especially sensitive year for China. In addition to the June 4 Tiananmen anniversary, the country will on Oct. 1 mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Hong Kong has been plunged into its biggest political crisis since the former British colony’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. A wave of protests has engulfed Hong Kong since the introduction of a now-suspended extradition bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial in Communist Party-controlled courts.

The Reuters story blocked by Refinitiv reported that an official from China’s representative office had used a July 11 banquet for hundreds of villagers in Hong Kong’s rural New Territories to urge residents to protect their towns in the Yuen Long district and to drive away protesters.

On July 21, after anti-government protesters marched in central Hong Kong and defaced China’s Liaison Office, more than 100 men swarmed through Yuen Long train station, attacking black-clad protesters and others with pipes and clubs. Forty-five people were injured, one critically.

In a statement released on its website last Friday, China’s Liaison Office rejected what it called false rumours linking it to the violence in Yuen Long, although the statement did not mention Reuters directly or address the speech reported by Reuters.


______________________________

Jai Sen

Independent researcher, editor

jai...@cacim.net

Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) 

Current associations : www.cacim.net / http://www.openword.net.in

CURRENT / RECENT publications :

Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press

Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?, Indian edition. New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration with OpenWord and PM Press.  Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN, MOM1Flipkart, and MOM1AUpFront

Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press.  Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press

Jai Sen, ed, 2016a  – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? and Jai Sen, ed, 2016b – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance (both then forthcoming from New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press), open access ADVANCE PREFINAL ONLINE MOVEMENT EDITIONS @ www.cacim.net

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