The NatSec week, so far

Owen Chow, who faces possible life imprisonment as part of the Hong Kong 47 case, and his lawyer are found guilty of removing an ‘unauthorized article’ from Lai Chi Kok, where he is currently in jail. The item was a…

…complaint, intended for the government watchdog the Ombudsman, related to officers allegedly intercepting two books that were meant to be delivered to Chow.

Damon Wong, senior editor at InMedia (the last pro-dem media outlet still going), describes (in Chinese) how he was delayed and searched by immigration and customs at Hong Kong airport after returning from a vacation in Japan with his family. They experienced long delays for baggage retrieval, close inspection of the baggage, and a search of his body, leaving his children in tears.

Article 19 looks at the Hong Kong government’s ‘Proposed Legislative Framework to Enhance Protection of the Computer Systems of Critical Infrastructure’…

Cybersecurity provisions to compel critical infrastructure operators to boost cyber resilience and hold them accountable for non-compliance are important to securing essential services. However, the same legislation imposed to protect national security or cybersecurity can also supercharge violations of international human rights law and the right to freedom of speech and expression online.

Among the problems identified are loose definitions of critical infrastructure and excessive information disclosure and investigative powers.

The UK-China Transparency organization releases a report on the Lau Institute at King’s College, London. Among the findings…

99.9% of the Institute’s funding comes from a single donor from Hong Kong in the People’s Republic of China, Mr Lau Ming-wai. Lau has given at least £11 million to King’s to date in support of the Institute. In 2017, Lau was made a fellow of King’s…

Lau has served as an advisor to the government of Hong Kong … on … “integration” with China and … United Front work targeting young people from Hong Kong. He was also given a formal role at a body overseen by the CCP’s United Front Work Department…

…The Institute’s director, Professor Kerry Brown, in 2020 received an award from a Chinese government think-tank for “telling a good story about China and disseminating China’s voice well”. Brown has been a frequent contributor to Chinese state media outlets.

The organization has made a freedom of information request to find out what conditions are attached to Lau’s funding.  (Lau Ming-wai is son of developer-tycoon and, let’s say, character Joseph Lau.)

The answer to yesterday’s little quiz (inspired by a juxtaposition on RTHK’s news page): the two stories were the death of Edna O’Brien and Hong Kong swimmer Siobhan Haughey’s progress at the Olympics. The Irish justice minister (later PM) Charles Haughey was responsible for banning O’Brien’s The Country Girls in the early 1960s and was Siobhan’s great uncle. There was a winner.