Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act

Hong Kong protesters plead for American protection as police crackdown intensifies

By Shibani Mahtani

Anti-government demonstrators hold U.S. flags as they march in protest against the invocation of the emergency laws in Hong Kong, China, October 14, 2019. 

HONG KONG — Protesters gathered in the tens of thousands in central Hong Kong on Monday night, pleading with American lawmakers for the second time to pass legislation that supports the territory’s democratic aspirations and punishes those who try to curtail it.
The demonstration, the first approved by authorities since the imposition of an anti-mask ban at all public gatherings, was marked by the sense of anguish that has gripped the movement after months of protesting. 

Instead of offering any further concessions, the government has instead expanded police powers and imposed more restrictions.
As the crackdown on protests intensifies — with the arrest of more than 2,500, including 201 arrested in smaller-scale protests over the weekend — some see foreign pressure as the best hope for securing a democratic future for Hong Kong.
“Our citizens do not have any kind of power to fight against the government,” said Crystal Yeung, 23, standing among thousands of protesters spilling out onto roads from a small square that couldn’t contain the rally. 

“We are relying on the U.S. to punish to those who are trying to breach the Hong Kong law.”
Protesters are specifically hoping for the passage of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, a piece of legislation that has broad bipartisan support. 

The bill, which will require the annual review of the special treatment afforded by Washington to Hong Kong and allow sanctions on those found to be “suppressing basic freedoms,” was fast-tracked through the House and could be discussed as soon as this week. 

In the Senate, it remains in committee.
A large demonstration was first held in September in support of the bill, but protest organizers want to keep the pressure on as it makes it way through the congressional process.
“The bill is necessary in order to give pressure on Chinese and Hong Kong government,” said Ventus Lau, one of the organizers of Monday’s demonstration. 

“We have to do everything possible to push for a quick passing of the law.”
The international push is among several strategies employed by protesters as the Hong Kong government digs in their heels in against any further concession to the movement. 

Protests began in June over a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China, but have since swelled into a sustained effort at securing direct elections for Hong Kong and against increasingly harsh police tactics. 

Communities are divided, businesses are suffering and violence is increasing as the dissent drags on.
Several Republican senators have recently visited Hong Kong, including Ted Cruz (R.-Tex) and Josh Hawley (R.-Mo) to observe the protests and speak to pro-democracy activists. 

Both are sponsors of the Human Rights and Democracy Act.

Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley listens to questions from members of the media at a hotel in Hong Kong on Oct. 14, 2019.

The bill “has come up in every single meeting” with pro-democracy activists in the city, said Hawley, speaking in Hong Kong to a small group of reporters. 

He said the legislation could be voted on in the House as early as this week. 

“It is obviously a very felt and urgent concern here in the city, and rightly so.”
Prominent activist Joshua Wong, speaking at the rally, noted that when the bill was first floated, only a handful backed it. 

Today, more than 60 lawmakers have supported the legislation.
“We owe it all to the blood and sweat spared by the front-line protesters and the peaceful protesters,” Wong said, before leading the group into a cheer of “Pass the act!” 

Chants were so loud they could be heard miles from the rally’s gathering point. 

Speaking Sunday in Nepal, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping said any attempt “to split China in any part of the country will end in “crushed bodies and shattered bones.”

Trump has appeared to change his tone on Hong Kong several times in recent months.

At the United Nations, he made strong comments in defense of the city’s promised autonomy, saying the world “fully expects” Beijing will protect “Hong Kong’s freedom, legal system and democratic ways of life.”
Speaking to reporters last week after a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, however, Trump said the situation in Hong Kong is “going to take care of itself” and has “de-escalated”.
Hawley, the congressman, said the situation in Hong Kong is an “urgent, pressing concern” and would share his experiences with Trump.
On Sunday, protests broke out in several areas of the city, a new tactic that sought to scatter the police force, allow demonstrators to stick to local neighborhoods they are most familiar with and avoid transit shutdowns. 

Numbers however were much smaller than in past rallies, and police were able to make a large number of arrests compared to the size of the demonstrating crowd.
Protester violence has also increased, leaving 12 officers wounded, including one who was cut in the back of his neck by a sharp object. 

What appeared to be a homemade bomb was set off near a police car, and a police station in Mongkok was hit by over a dozen petrol bombs.
Police said 201 protesters between the ages of 14 to 62 were arrested between Friday to Sunday.

Anti-government demonstrator holds a placard as they march in protest against the invocation of the emergency laws in Hong Kong, China, Oct. 14, 2019. 

Yeung, who was attending the rally with her boyfriend, added that even without any American action on the bill, Hong Kong’s fight will go on. 

Several more rallies are planned over the coming weeks.
“Hong Kong people must rely on our own power, our unity to fight against the government,” she said. 

“We will keep fighting anyway”

China's crimes against humanity

American Lawmakers Push to Sanction Chinese Officials Over East Turkestan Camps
“No Chinese official or business complicit in what is happening in East Turkestan should profit from access to the United States or the U.S. financial system.”

Josh Chin and Eva Dou

A screen showed Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in China's East Turkestan colony last year. 

BEIJING—Members of Congress are pressuring the Trump administration to confront Beijing over the mass roundup of Muslims in internment camps, urging travel and financial sanctions be clamped on senior Chinese officials involved in the detentions.
In a letter sent Wednesday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and 16 other members of Congress from both parties called for the sanctions on seven Chinese officials and two businesses that make surveillance equipment.
An official at the Treasury Department, which is largely responsible for executing the administration’s sanctions policies, said the office “responds as appropriate to Congressional correspondence” and doesn’t “telegraph sanctions or comment on prospective actions.” 

A State Department spokeswoman said she hadn’t seen the letter.
The letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, cites the Communist Party boss of East Turkestan, the western colony where Chinese authorities have over the past year vastly expanded an internment program that initially targeted religious extremists but now includes broad numbers of Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group.
The build-out of detention centers to neutralize Uighur opposition to Communist Party rule has been under way for two years in East Turkestan. 

Only in recent months, as the build-out has gathered momentum, has the program begun to attract concerted criticism from Western governments.

A Chinese Auschwitz–Birkenau in East Turkestan

China’s detention of as many as a million Uighurs and other Muslims in the camps “requires a tough, targeted and global response,” the letter from the Congress members said. 

“No Chinese official or business complicit in what is happening in East Turkestan should profit from access to the United States or the U.S. financial system.”
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

Senior Chinese officials have denied the mass incarcerations and said the centers are for "vocational" training.
In calling for sanctions, the letter urges the Trump administration to apply the Global Magnitsky Act. 

The act, named after a Russian lawyer and whistleblower who died in prison in 2009, allows the U.S. to freeze the assets and ban the entry of foreign individuals involved in gross violations of human rights or sizable acts of corruption.
While Congressional letters are sometimes dismissed by the State Department with a form response, this letter lands as officials inside the department are pushing for action on East Turkestan, said Todd Stein, a former State Department staffer who worked on human rights issues in China.
“It would not be surprising to see Magnitsky sanctions come out on East Turkestan,” said Mr. Stein.
The State Department last month said it was “deeply concerned” about the camps and the campaign against Chinese Muslims.
East Turkestan has come to resemble an armed encampment in recent years as the Chinese battle what they see as violent separatism fueled by "terrorists". 

A high-tech surveillance network enables police to track and collect evidence on people seen as potentially threatening.
The detention centers, many of them equipped with watchtowers and surrounded by high walls topped with razor wire, have expanded in recent months, according to satellite imagery and interviews with former inmates and relatives of those detained.
Much of the spread of this security network has taken place under East Turkestan’s party chief, Chen Quanguo. 

He arrived in the region in 2016 after a stint in Tibet, where he is credited by security experts with stifling dissent and ending a series of self-immolations by Buddhist monks protesting government controls.
The letter sent by the Congress members names Chen. 

An attachment to the letter also cites Hu Lianhe, a senior official with the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, who defended the program before a U.N. panel last month. 

He denied arbitrary detentions were taking place and said the centers are being used as "vocational" training centers for petty criminal offenders.
Neither Chen nor Hu could be reached for comment late Wednesday in China. 

They haven’t responded to previous attempts to reach them to discuss the situation.
The two companies the Congress members want targeted are Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. Ltd., two of the world’s largest manufacturers of video surveillance equipment. 

Both have significant business in East Turkestan and in the U.S. 

Both were also banned from supplying equipment to the U.S. military in the recently approved John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act. 

The companies couldn’t be reached for comment.
Experts on East Turkestan disagree about how effective Magnitsky sanctions would be. 

David Brophy, a historian at the University of Sydney, said it isn’t clear if East Turkestan officials have large overseas bank accounts that would make them vulnerable to such sanctions. 

The Magnitsky sanctions were originally designed to target Russian officials with significant overseas wealth, he said.
He also said that Beijing could use the continuing U.S.-China trade war as a way to brush off any unilateral U.S. pressure over East Turkestan.
“It makes it very easy for China to characterize opposition to its policies in East Turkestan as simply part and parcel of efforts to constrain China’s economic development and its political rise,” he said.
China has rebuffed requests by Western governments in recent months for access to the detention centers in East Turkestan. 

In July, a senior European Union foreign affairs official, Paola Pampaloni, raised the request during an annual EU-China human rights dialogue and was promptly turned down, according to two people familiar with the talks.
Germany’s Interior Ministry last week told lawmakers it is halting deportations of Uighurs and members of other Muslim minorities to China for now. 

In April, a Uighur man was mistakenly deported from Germany to China due to what officials called an administrative error, according to German media reports.