NatSec police bring in another relative of former District Council member Carmen Lau for questioning. A week ago, they brought in her uncle and aunt. She says the latest to be interviewed is a ‘distant’ relative (apparently her sister-in-law).
As an ‘absconder’, Lau is wanted for ‘inciting secession and colluding with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security’, with police offering a HK$1 million reward for her. (See Brian Kern’s list from three weeks ago.)
So what exactly do the NatSec cops ask when they sit an absconder’s parent, sibling, cousin or ex-colleague down in an interrogation room? ‘When did you last email your niece?’ ‘Did they send you a Christmas card?’ ‘Did you give them laisee?’ The people brought in typically seem to spend several hours in the police station. Are they being questioned the whole time, or are they sipping government tea while hanging around waiting for someone with a clipboard to see them for five minutes? (And are the authorities already tapping relevant persons’ phones and thus know the answers anyway?)
Foreign Affairs looks at how Donald Trump wants to turn the US into a ‘competitive authoritarian’ country, like Hungary or Turkey (where oppositions and elections exist, but the playing field is rigged)…
The most visible means of weaponizing the state is through targeted prosecution. Virtually all elected autocratic governments deploy justice ministries, public prosecutors’ offices, and tax and intelligence agencies to investigate and prosecute rival politicians, media companies, editors, journalists, business leaders, universities, and other critics. In traditional dictatorships, critics are often charged with crimes such as sedition, treason, or plotting insurrection, but contemporary autocrats tend to prosecute critics for more mundane offenses, such as corruption, tax evasion, defamation, and even minor violations of arcane rules. If investigators look hard enough, they can usually find petty infractions such as unreported income on tax returns or noncompliance with rarely enforced regulations.
Some places, of course, do both.
Just in: Ted Hui’s assets, transferred to his family, are confiscated.
“And are the authorities already tapping relevant persons’ phones and thus know the answers anyway?”
The answer would be a hard “yes”. That’s exactly what the thousands of people and billions of dollars being spent on NatSec are for.
And “relevant persons” = “pretty much everyone”. We’re in China.
The purpose of bringing relatives in for questioning is to terrorize, not to learn anything new.
I’m not a Trump fan but the people who are being charged with arcane rules violations (and sure some non-arcane too) in “democracies” (France, Romania, Germany, US) have mostly been in the conservative camp. But “Foreign Affairs” doesn’t seem to consider election invalidation or political prosecution as a problem in that case.
I agree with Casira and wondered why you published an extract from Foreign Affairs which is patently silly. The Biden Administration made many efforts to prosecute Donald trump and those close to him and the actions Foreign Affairs appears to fear is exactly what the previous administration did without, it appears, any critical comment from Foreign Affairs itself.
Foreign Affairs is wrong, Trump doesn’t want to turn the USA into Turkey or Hungary, he wants to turn it into Russia 🙂
I notice there is a Trumper in the room. I already wondered where that sulfurous smell came from.
To claim that right-wing populists are being suppressed in western democracies is reflective of grievance politics, not reality. In France, the political activities of Marine Le Pen have been restricted due to her legally being defined a fascist —a concern rooted in European history. Despite this, the right wing in France is not persecuted; they are actually gaining influence. Similarly, in Germany, the AfD plays a significant role as kingmaker. In Romania, Georgescu’s party were found to have benefited from online election meddling. This isn’t oppression, it’s enforcing their established electoral laws
In the States, figures like Trump, Flynn and most of the rest have had their day in court. None of them are in jail cells – even the most violent attackers of the Capitol are all free – acquitted, dismissed, or pardoned and now wielding full control over the state. There is no widespread persecution of right-wing politics by liberals in Western democracies. The idea exists only in the imaginations of conservatives influenced by biased media brain rot. As the kids say, “touch grass”. The west isn’t HK, and no one’s being persecuted by an ideologically ‘leftist’ state.
“In France, the political activities of Marine Le Pen have been restricted due to her legally being defined a fascist”
Unfortunately this type of political screening is a slippery slope and gives legitimacy to the types of political screening of pan-democrats in HK who are legally deemed not patriots and therefore have their political activities restricted.
If fascists are so popular that they can win elections, maybe it’s time for the left / centre / centre-left to reflect and figure out how to be more competitive in elections instead of going the easy route of just preventing them from being on the ballot.
We all know that in HK the pan-dems are screened out because the pro Beijing camp is not capable of competing with them.
And I am personally not a Trumper, just stating my 2 cents.
@Mark I respect the slippery slope premise, but in this case disagree. There is a historical context to why a European state would disenfranchise fascists, Nazis and other extremist political views… I agree it’s the responsibility of non-indoctrinated society to make democratic, egalitarian ideas more attractive. If society believes there is no difference between the evils of fascists and social democrats, it’s a fascist society already. Anyway, this is probably no different than individuals in a ‘free speech vs absolute free speech’ debate but I acknowledge the point
@Mark Bradley
France takes a somewhat dimmer view, legally, of fascists than the US because, unlike America (so far), they’ve actually had whole towns exterminated by them, so they’re understandably a little more leery about giving them a fair go at gaining political power again.
The feeling generally in Europe is that limiting free speech somewhat and upsetting a few right-wing dickheads in the process, so as to avoid more death camps and genocides is, on the whole, a fair trade. YMMV.
Re free speech etc. The UK had Johnson, the US has Trump. Both inveterate, compulsive (and in my view) irresponsible liars. All politicians lie, but seemingly increasingly. How is an elector to choose?
Particularly in the absence of fact checkers, although that is a different issue.
@James and @Oradour-sur-Glane or free speech
Fair enough and I don’t disagree with the points made since EU generally has a pretty good track record about protecting minority rights and human rights overall.
But as far as the CCP is concerned, the pan-democrats are also “fascists” that “embraced violence” and wanted “the city to burn”
As far as CCP is concerned the pan-dems are no different than nazis in Europe. I disagree with that of course, but that’s the narrative they are running with. I’ve even seen plenty of wumao use this excuse already to justify screening out pan-democrats while still claiming that ICCPR applies to HK.
The thing is that once the fascists are in charge there aren’t any more elections worth the name–at least until Il Duce’s head is on a pike. An ugly and violent time.
And the difference between Biden era prosecutions and those being arranged by the orange fuhrer and his minions is that the former were for actual, documented, adjudicated crimes, while the latter are doled out as a means of oppression, revenge, or both. In Trump’s latest executive order, he vests the ability to interpret law in the president and the attorney general (who answers to the president). He is the law, that is.
@Mark Bradley
I get the concern, but, at base, it’s a bit of a non sequitur:
Wumao are going to use whatever whataboutism tools they have to justify the CCP’s brand of (ironically) national socialism.
For example: As far as the CCP is concerned the Hong Kong government is “democratically elected”, no different than the governments in Europe.
So by your logic, should the West therefore stop using democracy because that sort of system is a slippery slope and gives legitimacy to the type of electoral systems that the CCP use to pretend an unelected “government” in HK has a popular mandate?
“So by your logic, should the West therefore stop using democracy because that sort of system is a slippery slope and gives legitimacy to the type of electoral systems that the CCP use to pretend an unelected “government” in HK has a popular mandate?”
No because as bad as democracy can be (e.g: electing Trump in US and hard right wing extremists in EU), there is no other viable alternative that is able to hold politicians accountable to the public.
But clearly there is something wrong in EU and US when people are electing right wing extremists. These deep rooted issues need to be resolved because disenfranchisement is solving nothing, and doesn’t even work well as it’s not the rigged heavy handed kind that HK uses but a “light touch” that lets many unsavory types through.
It’s a really lame band-aid that might as well not be there at all as these nasty types will just use proxies to get around such disenfranchisement. Half measures don’t work.