Exiled Activist Denied Entry to Singapore
Pro-democracy activist Nathan Law (羅冠聰) was denied entry to Singapore over the weekend on the grounds of the city state’s “national interests.”
Law, one of the leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, said he was detained after his plane landed at Singapore’s Changi Airport, questioned by immigration authorities for four hours and put on a plane back to San Francisco.
The dissident and former lawmaker, who holds a British refugee passport, fled Hong in 2020 after Beijing imposed national security legislation on Hong Kong.
Hong Kong police issued warrants in 2023 for Law and seven other activists living in exile aboard and offered bounties of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) for information leading to their arrest.
Law said he had been given a Singapore visa three weeks before his departure to attend a “closed-door, invitation-only event.”
Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry said in a statement on Monday that “Law’s entry into and presence in the country would not be in Singapore’s national interests.”
“A visa holder is still subject to further checks at point of entry into the country. That is what happened with Nathan Law,” it said.
The story was first reported by the Financial Times.
Political Prisoners Face Systemic Abuses
Hong Kong’s political prisoners face system-wide abuses and political control inside the city’s prisons, “including systemic physical and sexual abuse” in juvenile prisons, according to a recent report by a Washington-based foundation.
More than 1,900 people, among an average prison population of slightly over 8,000, have been political prisoners in Hong Kong since protests broke out in 2019 against a proposed law to allow extraditions to China, according to the report by the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.
Key findings of the report include the routine use of solitary confinement to control prisoners, the punitive use of psychiatric detention, chronic medical neglect and squalid infrastructure and hygiene.
Among the abuses highlighted by the 91-page report, which included interviews with 17 former inmates, were the use of “B-boys” (B仔), inmate orderlies who beat and sexually assault inmates in juvenile prisons. “Sexual violence happens all the time,” said one former inmate.
In another, a prisoner stopped eating and speaking while suffering from worsening physical and mental health symptoms. Guards said the prisoner had to ask for care himself, something he could no longer do. He was only taken to the hospital after he fell into a coma. He died en route to the hospital.
National Security Checks in Schools
Educational authorities are now requiring national security oversight for school activities conducted by external organizers to prevent “political propaganda,” part of the city’s push for the implementation of “patriotic education” in schools.
Citing updated guidelines published for the new school year, Hong Kong Free Press reports that schools must now review the details of activities held by outside groups or individuals and conduct background checks on organizers and guests to ensure they do not promote “political propaganda.
Hong Kong’s government has pushed changes to the city’s educational system and curriculum to encourage patriotism and teaching on national security.
Secretary for Education Christine Choi (蔡若蓮) last month said schools were on the “frontline” of preventing “soft resistance” and “hostile forces from infiltrating schools.”
Same-Sex Partnership Bill Rejected
Hong Kong’s legislature has rejected a bill granting limited rights to same-sex couples, marking the first time the city’s opposition-free legislature has voted against a government-approved bill.
Seventy-one of the Legislative Council’s 89 members voted against the Registration of Same-Sex Partnerships Bill, which was proposed by the government to establish a registration system for same-sex couples who were married or had entered a civil partnership abroad.
The bill would have made Hong Kong the fourth place in Asia to recognize same-sex marriages, after Taiwan, Nepal and Thailand.
“When the council votes down the bill, it will not give rise to a constitutional crisis. Instead, it will embody the checks and balances between the legislature and the administration,” said Lawmaker Maggie Chan (陳曼琪) ahead of the vote. “It will also show that the council is not a rubber stamp.”
Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, or LegCo, has effectively been without an opposition since Beijing imposed a “patriots-only” elections framework on Hong Kong in 2021.
In related news, Hong Kong’s largest LGBTQ event, Pink Dot, said yesterday that it will hold an online concert in November in lieu of its annual carnival after being notified that the usual location “could not be rented to us, without any explanation provided.”
Organizers said the decision was made to cancel because of the short notice and scarcity of outdoor venues suitable for Pink Dot.
Playwright Cancelled for Tiananmen Script
Playwright Candace Chong (莊梅岩) has accused cultural authorities of blacklisting her over her politically sensitive works, including a play referencing the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Writing in a series of posts on social media earlier this month, Chong detailed incidents including the delay of funding approval for a group staging her play, prohibitions against her name in promotions and the removal of an alumni interview and ban from taking a curtain call by her alma mater, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Chong linked the suppression to her 2009 play “May 35th,” a veiled reference to June 4. “I went on the streets and wrote a play about June Fourth during Hong Kong’s freest years — that alone marked me,” she wrote.
Umbrella Movement Anniversary Commemorated
Police deployed over a dozen officers in Admiralty on Sunday as a small group commemorated the 11th anniversary of the Umbrella Movement, a series of pro-democracy protests in 2014 against changes proposed by Beijing to Hong Kong’s electoral system.
Activist Lui Yuk-lin (雷玉蓮) held a brief vigil, and Italian priest Franco Mella displayed battery-powered lights and said prayers near a site where tear gas was fired at demonstrators.
“It is important to remember because it was a [time] — a series of sit-ins — for Hong Kong people to express themselves and just ask for more democracy, freedom and these core values,” Mella told Hong Kong Free Press.
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