As Hong Kong’s courts gave additional prison sentences to activists and the city’s police again banned the annual June 4 gathering, the Legislative Council formally approved new rules imposed by Beijing requiring that only “patriots” can be elected to public office.
Some of Hong Kong’s most senior and prominent pro-democracy leaders have been given jail time or suspended sentences for their participation in demonstrations or on national security law offenses. Beijing is getting real.
As expected, the National People’s Congress in Beijing passed a resolution to change the electoral system in Hong Kong. The new rules will effectively ensure that pro-democracy politicians remain in a permanent minority in the territory.
The U.K. expects around 300,000 Hongkongers to apply, over the next five years, for a new visa for those with British National Overseas (BNO) status. Beijing retaliated by saying it would not recognize BNO passports, but this appears to be an entirely symbolic gesture.
A decision by Beijing led to the immediate disqualification of four pro-democracy lawmakers in Hong Kong, and the remaining 15 opposition members soon resigned in protest.
Beijing’s enactment of sweeping national security legislation in Hong Kong spurred fresh fear for the territory’s cherished freedoms as authorities sought to quash months of...
Hong Kong’s most outspoken pro-democracy tycoon, Jimmy Lai, was arrested on charges related to the city’s new national security law imposed by Beijing. About 200 police officers also conducted an unprecedented raid of Lai’s news outlet, Apple Daily.
Today, a dozen pro-democracy candidates were disqualified from Legislative Council elections in Hong Kong. The government made clear that dissent to the national security law that Beijing imposed on July 1 is now a disqualifying condition.
Two universities in Hong Kong have gotten rid of faculty that have links to protests. Benny Tai, the co-founder of the Occupy protest movement, called his firing “the end of academic freedom in Hong Kong.”