“Democracy has been under a sustained assault for well over a year in Hong Kong,” said Luke de Pulford,a coordinator for the London-based Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China,a group of legislators from democratic countries focused on relations with China. “No democracy can function without a free press.”
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“If no critical information is able to be published about the administration in Hong Kong or in China,then what last vestiges of democracy there were,I think we have to say,have been snuffed out.”
In a string of tweets,Hong Kong activist Nathan Law called upon the world to “publish about Hong Kong ...[and] about the brave journalists who risk so much.” Law,who fled to London after the security law was implemented,said he feared “a domino effect” that would lead other outlets to close.
Little remains of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. More than 100 pro-democracy figures and others have been arrested under the security law,which penalises actions seen as separatist or subverting the Hong Kong or Chinese governments.
That includes 47 people charged with subversion in February over their roles in an unofficial primary election held in 2020 to determine the best candidates to field in planned legislative elections.
Authorities accused the activists of subversion,saying they planned to win a majority and use it to paralyse the government and eventually force Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to step down.
The government postponed the 2020 elections,citing public health risks from COVID-19. Then,the central government in Beijing announced new election laws earlier this year that reduced the proportion of directly elected seats to less than a quarter and required all candidates to be loyal to Beijing.
The results were predictable. Earlier this month,when the election finally was held,pro-Beijing politicians won a landslide victory. The city’s largest opposition party,the Democratic Party,fielded no candidates for the first time since the 1997 handover.
Several pro-democracy trade unions and organisations have also been dissolved this year. The city’s largest teachers’ union disbanded in August due to the political climate,followed later by the city’s largest independent trade union.
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The Civil Human Rights Front,a pro-democracy group that organised some of the biggest protests in 2019,also disbanded following a police investigation under the National Security law.
Other pro-democracy activists have also been arrested for involvement in unauthorised protests and the annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil,which has been banned for two consecutive years. Most of the city’s pro-democracy activists are behind bars or have fled abroad.
As the year drew to a close,several artworks were removed that commemorated the Tiananmen massacre.
Two days before Christmas,the University of Hong Kong cited legal risks in ordering the removal of thePillar of Shame monument,which depicts a pile of torn and twisted bodies of Tiananmen victims.Several other universities followed suit,making away with pro-democracy and Tiananmen statues.
China’s Communist Party has long sought to erase theTiananmen Square massacre from the public consciousness in the mainland,forbidding any commemorative events. Now it seems determined to do the same in Hong Kong in the name of restoring stability to the city.
AP