Hong Kong Geheime Staatspolizei

Unidentified flinching object: In Hong Kong protests, police wage assault on facts
By David Crawshaw and Timothy McLaughlin

Riot police move to disperse protesters outside a police station in Hong Kong early Monday. 

HONG KONG — The “yellow object” lying on the ground had a distinct shape, evident in the video footage that surfaced later. 

Certainly, a good portion of it was bright yellow. 

It appeared to have arms. 

And two protrusions that resembled legs. 

Someone had dressed the object in dark-colored shorts.
As Hong Kong police officers swarmed over the object and roughed it up in a dark alley, it appeared to squirm.
In a city grown accustomed to clashes between demonstrators and police as the government responds to months of protests with tear gas and mass arrests, the incident on Saturday and the official response to it illustrated a breakdown in the relationship between the police force and the public.


Galileo Cheng@galileocheng
A high definition, in focus video showing the malpractice by the police, shot by Yuen Long resident Ben, obtained for @HKFrontline - Acting Senior SP (Ops)(NTN HQ) Vasco Williams, that is not an ‘yellow object’ #antiELAB #ExtraditionLaw #HongKongProtests


The episode underlined a harsh reality in this global financial hub, once admired for its legal system and official transparency. 

With Beijing asserting increasing control over the city’s institutions and Hong Kong’s leader refusing to allow an independent inquiry into police behavior, authorities here appear not to fear the consequences of violating protocols intended to uphold the rule of law.
Instead, their approach this week was to obfuscate.
Asked Monday about the incident in Yuen Long, an outlying area of Hong Kong, acting senior superintendent Vasco Williams said footage showed an “officer kicking a yellow object,” not a man lying on the ground.
“We don’t know what that object is, but there are other videos that are more clear that show the entire incident,” he said. 

“And there’s no malpractice by the police whatsoever.” 

There was no assault, he added during a heated news conference.
The man shown in the video being kicked by police was a member of a group that deploys volunteers to negotiate between police and protesters at rallies, the group said. 

He was later arrested, local media reported.

Riot police stand guard behind a burning barricade after a protest march in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong, on Saturday. 

Williams conceded that the case warranted investigation but suggested that the video could have been “doctored” — an idea that was quickly debunked.
“Knowing you are being videoed, do you think any officer would be that stupid to assault someone under detention? I don’t think so,” Williams said. 

Hong Kong’s daily police briefings are carried by numerous news outlets and watched by thousands. Nearly as soon as Williams spoke, netizens pointed out that more than a month ago, two officers were arrested after being captured on security footage beating a 62-year-old man restrained in a hospital bed.
Shortly after the news conference, posts that appeared to be from Williams’s account on the job networking site LinkedIn were revealed, drawing even more negative attention to the police from those supporting the pro-democracy movement.
The account, which used the name Vasco W. and listed “Superintendent at the Hong Kong Police Force” as the job description, included derogatory comments about protesters, pro-democracy lawmakers and Hong Kong residents in recent months. 

Images of the posts were taken by The Washington Post before the account appeared to be deactivated.

Throughout the protests that have rocked the city, triggered by a now-shelved plan to allow extraditions to mainland China, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has refused to countenance an independent investigation into police tactics — one of protesters’ five demands.
Those tactics have become more forceful over recent weeks, with police making more than 1,550 arrests and deploying water cannons and stinging blue dye along with tear gas.
A report last week by Amnesty International accused the force of “reckless and indiscriminate” tactics, including torture, beatings and other mistreatment of detained protesters. 

The report followed criticism of the police by the United Nations.
Asked Tuesday how her government could rebuild trust in the police without a fully independent investigation, Lam said her backing of the force does not mean she “condones irregularities.” 

Lam has said the existing police watchdog has her “full support” to conduct fact-finding studies, but critics note that the body is headed by an official she handpicked, is packed with her associates and loyalists and is not authorized to call witnesses.
Pressed about the video of the “yellow object,” Lam said it would be difficult to opine on “what is right, what is wrong, what is true, what is fake, because there have been . . . different versions [of] the same incident.”
The police have been under extreme pressure, she said, adding it was “quite remarkable” that there have been no fatalities.

The protests represent a challenge to the authority of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, who warned in 2017 that any effort to contest China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong was a “red line.” 

Although not an independence movement, the protests have come as Xi faces pressure on numerous fronts, including China’s trade dispute with the United States, a slowing economy, rising food prices, a recalcitrant Taiwanese administration and accusations of cultural genocide against the Uighur people and other Muslim minorities in China’s East Turkestan colony.
Chinese authorities appear particularly anxious for calm ahead of Oct. 1, the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China. 

Protesters are planning to disrupt official events in Hong Kong, where the government has already canceled a fireworks show.
On Tuesday in Hong Kong, a pro-democracy lawmaker, Roy Kwong, was attacked by three masked men as he tried to get into his car. 

The trio kicked and punched Kwong and recorded the assault on video, according to other lawmakers from the democracy camp.
“The fact the attackers recorded the ambush leads me to believe that the attackers were paid to do this and the video would be needed as proof in order to get paid,” said James To, a pro-democracy lawmaker. 

“By beating him, it is sending quite an alarming signal that Hong Kong is a place without regard for rule of law.”

Sina Delenda Est

China’s Ignoble Treatment of a Nobel Laureate
By CHEN GUANGCHENG

Protesters holding portraits of Liu Xiaobo at a demonstration in Hong Kong on Saturday.

One of my countrymen, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, has been imprisoned for eight years for the crime of drafting Charter 08, a political manifesto calling for democracy in China.
Now, the 61-year-old intellectual and literary critic has liver cancer — and the Chinese authorities are refusing to allow him to travel to the United States for medical treatment. 

If Mr. Liu’s incarceration for “inciting subversion of state power” was appalling, the way China has handled Mr. Liu’s illness should give pause to any government or business seeking to form closer ties with Beijing.
No lawyer or independent medical professional has been allowed to see Mr. Liu since his diagnosis. This is particularly troubling given that Reuters recently reported that Mr. Liu’s “time is limited” because of a fluid buildup around his stomach. 

Mr. Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, herself under house arrest, was allowed to see her husband in the hospital, but only under the close watch of guards. 

In the meantime, the Chinese authorities released a preposterous video in which a figure purported to be Mr. Liu exercises and undergoes “routine medical exams.”
But Mr. Liu’s treatment is anything but routine, as indicated by his release from prison on medical parole and the Chinese state’s condemnations of outside meddling — a sign the authorities are worried. 

Clearly, Beijing is concerned about what a tragic end for this famous dissident could mean for its international reputation.
All of this calls to mind the recent case of Otto Warmbier, the American citizen who, as a result of strong U.S. pressure, was released in June after being imprisoned last year by North Korea. 

When he went to the hermit kingdom as a tourist he was a healthy young man; when he returned home to Ohio he was in coma and died days later. 

North Korea continues to deny any wrongdoing.

China, like North Korea and other authoritarian regimes, has a penchant for brutality, lies and self-deception. 

I know this from personal experience.

In 2005, the Chinese authorities began what would turn out to be seven years of persecution of my family and me in retaliation for my work as an activist and lawyer, which focused on the corruption of the Communist Party, including its violent one-child policy. 

I was kidnapped, put in jails and detention centers and sentenced to over four years in prison on a bogus charge of “disrupting traffic order.”
In serving out my sentence in prison — where torture, forced labor and inhumane conditions were the norm — I was occasionally brought to the medical wing for sham exams performed by a staff made up of convicts who had a smattering of experience in medicine or biology. 

I was never seen by a properly trained doctor, despite grave illness and serious injuries inflicted on me by other inmates on order of the wardens. 

Before I was released, I was given a “medical exam” during which they injected me with drugs that caused me to be unable to speak properly for many days.
Once I returned home, my family and I were immediately placed under house arrest, during which we suffered from extreme deprivation, isolation, and beatings. 

If fleeing entered our minds, we were deterred by guards in our house and in our village tracking us 24 hours a day.
I was severely ill, and my wife often heard the guards chatting among themselves, saying they thought either I or my elderly mother would die soon. 

Meanwhile the authorities publicly claimed — accompanied by propaganda photos and videos — that I was well and free. 

Ultimately I escaped, crawling to a nearby village on my hands and knees — a task made more difficult given my blindness. 

I arrived, finally, at the United States embassy in Beijing in 2012. 

Now I live in freedom in America with my family.
My case and Mr. Liu’s are fairly well known in the West, but there are many attorneys and activists in China who have endured horrific suffering. 

Such political prisoners are routinely denied due process under the law and are forced to participate in show trials in which verdicts are predetermined by Communist Party insiders. 

Some don’t survive prison: Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, Cao Shunli, Li Wangyang and Peng Ming-Min are among those who have died behind bars. 

Families of the victims will likely never get clear answers, as their loved ones’ organs are immediately removed and bodies cremated before independent autopsies can be performed.
For a nation with no rule of law, one of the main levers for influencing the status quo is outspoken condemnation from foreign governments and the public. 

Authoritarian regimes fear public shame, which is why it is time to shame China’s Communist Party for its brutal treatment of Mr. Liu and other champions of liberty currently being held by Beijing.
The Trump administration had no qualms about condemning North Korea’s shameful treatment of Otto Warmbier. 

The White House should do the same for Liu Xiaobo by forcefully demanding his immediate release to the United States for medical treatment.
The document that sent Mr. Liu to prison, Charter 08, insists that “every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom.” 

That sounds a lot like the Declaration of Independence we will be celebrating tomorrow. 

This Fourth of July, will we in America use our freedom to call for the liberation of others?