Freedom Fighter

A Hong Kong protester on why he won’t surrender to police
By ALICE FUNG

In this image made from video, a frontline protester. One of the last remaining protesters on the campus of Polytechnic University who goes by the name Hei speaks to the Associated Press, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Hong Kong. A small band of anti-government protesters, their numbers diminished by surrenders and failed escape attempts, remained holed up at a Hong Kong university early Wednesday as they braced for the endgame in a police siege of the campus. 

A woman is attended to by medics at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019. Hong Kong schools have reopened after a six-day shutdown but students were facing transit disruptions as the last protesters remained holed up on a university campus.

HONG KONG — Pale and thin, a teenager wandered the nearly deserted campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University at about 1 a.m. Wednesday. 

He hugged his body with his arms, whether because of the chill in the air or gnawing worry he felt was unclear.
Only a handful of protesters remain at “Poly U,” which hundreds occupied for several days, fighting pitched battles with police in the surrounding streets. 

Now, authorities have cut off the campus and are arresting anyone who comes out.
The teen, who wouldn’t give his exact age but said he is under 18, is one of the holdouts. 

He figured he had slept about 10 hours in total since arriving at the campus about five days earlier. He said he had eaten only two biscuits all day because his mind was too distracted, obsessed with one thought: How am I going to get out?
He arrived at Polytechnic late last week, heeding a call for support from protesters who were occupying five major universities in Hong Kong. 

It was Thursday or Friday — the days and nights have become such a blur that he kept asking an interviewer what day it currently was.
Like many of the protesters, he spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing arrest, and would only appear on camera with his face covered.
The campus takeovers were the latest escalation in an anti-government movement that has divided the city for more than five months. 

The protesters’ demands include fully democratic elections and an investigation into police brutality in cracking down on the demonstrations.
In the mind of all Hongkongers, the police have become as big a problem as the government.
Riot officers began raining tear gas on their defense line outside the university on Saturday night, before battering them repeatedly with water cannons and tear gas on Sunday afternoon.
The teen jumped into the fray. 

He joined others wielding umbrellas — they call them “shields” — and taking the full brunt of the often pepper-spray-laced bursts of water.
Three times he faced the barrages, dashing inside the campus stronghold after each attack to wash off the stinging water, change his clothes and return for the next round.
“I was at the very front,” he said. 

“It hit me straight on and I was soaked. If I hadn’t been wearing a jacket, my whole body would have felt like it was burning. Just my lower body really stung, and the water also got all over my face and into my eyes.”
It’s one of the roles of the front-line protesters, those who engage the police directly. 

Wearing gas masks, they throw homemade gasoline bombs and snuff out tear gas cannisters to try to keep the police at bay.
He acknowledges that others are likely see their actions as aggressive but he says their role is important because the government didn’t back down when hundreds of thousands of people peacefully marched in the streets in the summer.

“If it was just the peaceful protests, it wouldn’t succeed,” he said. 

“Already back in June, we saw that it was just peaceful protests, and the government wouldn’t listen.”By Sunday evening, the police had begun to approach from all directions, setting up a cordon around the area. 

They warned that everyone inside would be subject to arrest.
Some protesters tried escaping on Monday and Tuesday; most were caught or repelled. 

The government offered to let those under 18 leave without facing immediate arrest, though their identification information would be taken down and they could be charged later.
Worried family members reached out to their children. 

The teen got WhatsApp messages from his parents, his stepmother and others asking him to give up. Police allowed religious leaders onto the campus to make similar pleas.
Others turned themselves in. 

The teenager wasn’t swayed. 

He said he prefers to fight with all the strength he has. 

Surrendering would show that he had given up the fight and agrees with the government and the police, he said.
“Even if you get arrested or die, you know that you’ve tried your best and you’ve got no regrets,” he said.
And so he waits, as the hours turn into days, with less and less company around him.

Freedom Fighter

A Pop Star Defends Democracy in Hong Kong
By JAY NORDLINGER
Denise Ho performs at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway, May 27, 2019. 

In the forthcoming issue of National Review, I have a piece about Tanya Chan, who is a Hong Konger: She is a legislator and a democracy leader, in the thick of it all. 

She is also an inspiration.
Today, I talked with Denise Ho — who is also an inspiration. 

She, too, is a Hong Konger, and a democracy leader, in the thick of it all. 

She is also a pop star — a household name in Hong Kong and beyond. 

Her activism has not come without costs. 

She has paid a price in engagements, endorsements, etc. 

Obviously, she is persona non grata in Mainland China — which is a very big market. 

But she could not remain silent. 

Something within her impelled her to join the others in the streets.
For my podcast with her — a Q&A — go here.
We met at Town Hall in New York City, where the Oslo Freedom Forum was holding a special session. (On the façade of Town Hall, it says in big, bold letters, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”) 

We talk about her life and career. 

The prospects for democracy in Hong Kong. 

The brutality of the police. 

The question of Taiwan. 

And other key subjects.
She says that all people who favor democracy, freedom, and human rights — wherever they live — are linked. 

They are allies, and should stand together against oppressors.
Usually, Q&A goes out with music by Glazunov (which is how the show is introduced, too) — the last movement of his Symphony No. 5, “Heroic.” 

This time, it goes out with a Denise Ho song. 

Again, here.

Freedom Fighter

A Hong Kong ‘Troublemaker’ With a Clean Conscience

By Andrew Higgins

The media tycoon Jimmy Lai is the rare prominent businessman in Hong Kong who openly supports antigovernment protests.

HONG KONG — He has been mocked for years in China’s state-controlled news media for being fat, which he isn’t, and denounced more recently as a C.I.A. agent, a “black hand” and a member of an American-directed “gang of four” supposedly responsible for orchestrating the Hong Kong protest movement that is now in its 12th week.

He says he isn’t any of those things, either.
This week the object of all that opprobrium, Jimmy Lai 黎智英, a Hong Kong media tycoon, rose in Chinese propaganda from the number three spot in the “gang of four” to its senior member.

That China has put much so much energy into demonizing a 71-year-old man is a measure of Mr. Lai’s singular status as the one prominent businessman in Hong Kong who openly supports antigovernment protests, routinely denounces the Communist Party leader Xi Jinping as a “dictator” and refuses to follow fellow tycoons in paying at least token obeisance to Beijing.
China’s relentless campaign of vilification against Mr. Lai took a particularly nasty turn last week when his name was purged from the genealogical records of his family across the border in southern China.
His relatives, according to a report in Ta Kung Pao, a Communist Party-controlled newspaper in Hong Kong that invariably refers to him as “fatty Lai,” deleted his name from a family tree going back 28 generations, declaring him a “traitor” to his ancestors and his country who is no longer part of the clan.
In an interview over a light Chinese lunch of shrimp and chicken in a glassed-in veranda at his home, Mr. Lai said the same relatives used to visit him regularly and have for years received money that he sent to them, but “of course they are going to deny me now.”
The Chinese authorities, for all their talk about the primacy of family in Chinese culture, he added, frequently hound families to put pressure on critics. 

“They are very good at frightening people,” he said.
Students took part in a protest in Hong Kong on Thursday. Through his media companies, Mr. Lai has provided a powerful, wide-reaching platform to the mostly young and leaderless protesters.

As the majority owner of Next Media Group, which publishes Next, a weekly magazine, and Apple Daily, a popular newspaper and website, Mr. Lai has provided a powerful, wide-reaching platform to the mostly young and leaderless protesters. 

Both also have separate editions published in Taiwan.
Apple Daily, once a lowbrow rag that ran prostitute reviews, has evolved into a more serious, though still rambunctious, journal of political and social news with a decidedly antigovernment and anti-Beijing slant. 

It also publishes a weekly column by Mr. Lai that has cheered on the protesters.
His weekly, Next, which began as a print magazine but now has only a digital edition, writes a lot about celebrities and covers local tittle-tattle, but also provides unstinting support for the protests.
The Chinese Communist Party, which controls two newspapers in the city, has squeezed the revenue of both Mr. Lai’s publications by pressuring companies not to advertise. 

Not a single Hong Kong company now advertises in his newspaper, despite it being the second best selling daily in the city.
The flight of advertisers, he said, has meant a loss of print revenue of about $44 million a year. 

But the online version of the paper, now behind a partial paywall, earns money from subscriptions and foreign advertisers who are not worried about being blackballed by Beijing.
While all the other prominent tycoons in Hong Kong have stayed silent about the protests or issued statements filled with Communist-style jargon about the need to “resolutely stop the turmoil,” Mr. Lai has not only supported the protesters but joined them. 

He marched last Sunday in a mass parade through the center of Hong Kong that drew over a million people.
“The establishment hates my guts. They ask, ‘Why don’t you just let us make money in peace?’ They think I’m a troublemaker,” he said, adding: “I am a troublemaker, but one with a good conscience.”
He has caused further anger by cheering on President Trump, whom he describes as “the only one who plays hardball with China. This is the only thing that China understands.”

This is a common view, too, among Chinese dissidents on the mainland, who see Mr. Trump, despite his describing Xi Jinping as “my good friend,” as the first United States leader to see China clearly since President Nixon visited Beijing in 1972 and began what they see as decades of weak-kneed policy.
Mr. Lai’s keen interest in China, however, is one area in which his views diverge sharply from those of Hong Kong’s mostly youthful protesters, who often want nothing to do with the country that took back control of their city from British colonial rule in 1997.
“I always feel Chinese because I belong to the older generation,” he said. 

Each year he takes part in a candlelight vigil held on June 4 to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. 

Most Hong Kong student groups view Hong Kong as a place apart from China, and stay away from the event.
Born across the border in Canton, the capital of Guangdong, Mr. Lai fled to Hong Kong in a boat as a boy and, until the Tiananmen killings, was a typical success story in the then British-ruled city. 

He stayed away from politics and diligently worked his way up from lowly jobs as a knitter and clerk to become the main owner of Giordano, a successful chain of clothing stores.
The 1989 Tiananmen bloodshed, he said, made him start thinking about politics and led to his setting up Next Magazine the following year, a move that quickly hurt his clothing business once he started writing insulting articles about leaders in Beijing, particularly China’s then prime minister, Li Peng, widely known as the “Butcher of Beijing,” who died last month at 90.
“I had always hoped that China was changing and would become a democracy. I was wrong. It was wishful thinking,” he said.
In retaliation, the Chinese authorities began closing his Giordano clothing stores on the mainland, his chain’s fastest growing market. 

He realized that he had to either sell up or mind his tongue. 

He sold everything but his media holdings for nearly $320 million.
That experience, he said, has helped him understand why so many of his fellow tycoons toe Beijing’s line. 

“As a businessman, you can’t confront the regime,” he said.

Many business people, he says, do not believe their own statements against the protesters, but feel they have no choice but to show support for the Hong Kong government and Beijing.
This, he said, is understandable but also a mistake because China’s leaders “know that once they cow you, they can always cow you. Once they have you in their pocket they will always squeeze you.”

For Mr. Lai, unlike the other tycoons, the protests are potentially a commercial boon. 

Apple Daily has been running advertisements that try to lure new digital subscribers by promising them that of every 3 Hong Kong dollars (about 40 cents) they pay for a daily subscription, it will donate 1 Hong Kong dollar to the protest movement.
Mr. Lai has become such a bogeyman for China’s propaganda machine that one newspaper has a photographer and video cameraman on permanent duty on the street outside his colonial-era house on the Kowloon Peninsula to record all his visitors — and, it apparently hopes, find evidence of secret contacts with American intelligence.
A group of mysterious “patriots” also gather regularly outside his front gate, arriving together in a white minibus to wave banners denouncing Mr. Lai, a father of six, as an “American running dog” and “the black financier supporting the turmoil.” 

He has given modest donations but his main support has been the unswervingly favorable coverage provided by his media outlets.
To put pressure on him through his children, one pro-Beijing newspaper recently published the name and address of a Hong Kong restaurant owned by an older son and urged a boycott. 

Business increased.
Mr. Lai said he stopped paying attention long ago to all the insults, though he doesn’t enjoy being disturbed by raucous renditions of the Chinese national anthem on his doorstep. 

The abuse has scared off some old friends, but, he said, “If you don’t fight, you get frightened. I have always been a fighter.”
Photographed whenever he leaves his home and often followed, Mr. Lai shrugged off the harassment as an annoyance that he has grown used to. 

“I don’t go out much.”

Freedom Fighter

Mysterious Chinese Political Cartoonist Badiucao Unmasked at Last

By Amy Qin

The dissident Chinese cartoonist Badiucao posted street art in Melbourne, Australia, on Monday, the day before the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

BEIJING — The political cartoonist Badiucao still remembers the sultry Shanghai afternoon when he stumbled upon a video about the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 — and his world turned upside down.
It was 2007, and he and his law school roommates had been watching a pirated movie when suddenly it cut to a documentary that was apparently spliced in. 

The three-hour film first showed crowds of young Chinese holding pro-democracy banners in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. 

Then Chinese army tanks rolled into the city and troops began firing on the people.
During the military campaign, which began on the night of June 3 and ended the next day, thousands were killed.

Badiucao in his storage container in Melbourne last week. Finding out the Chinese government had used violence against protesters, he said, was like “dropping from heaven to hell.”

The four roommates, all in their early 20s, sat in the dark, speechless. 

Until that moment, Badiucao recalled, he had been just another good, apolitical kid from a working-class Shanghai family. 

He was only 3 years old during the crackdown, but seeing the soldiers turn their guns on the students and civilians, he said, felt personal, like “dropping from heaven to hell.”
The student protesters had been so young and carefree, he thought, he could easily have imagined himself there. 

Questions began racing through his mind: Why had he not learned about this before? 

What were the names of the victims? 

Was it even real?
“We were always told that this is a new era, we have left history behind and we have a good life,” Badiucao said in an interview from Melbourne, Australia, where he now lives. 

“But seeing the documentary made me believe that China was the same and under the control of the Communist Party, it would never change.”

A Badiucao cartoon of the Chinese intellectual and Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia, that went viral after Mr. Liu’s death in 2017.

Badiucao’s political awakening explains to a degree why the ruling Communist Party goes to great lengths to quash discussion of the Tiananmen massacre, which could undermine its legitimacy. Badiucao is also an example of how some young Chinese — who are better educated and expect a fairer and more just society — are willing to take action in pursuit of such ideals, as have a group of Marxist students whose fight for labor rights has run into trouble.
In the decade since that life-changing afternoon, Badiucao (pronounced bah-diyoo-tsow) has tried to hold power to account through his satirical cartoons. 

He uses bold colors and images that are loud to take on everything from the Chinese leadership’s authoritarian tendencies to the complicity of Western companies in Chinese censorship.
The cartoonist first gained popularity by posting his work under the randomly chosen pseudonym “Badiucao” on the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo. 

But the authorities in China moved quickly to limit his reach his social media accounts have been shut down 37 times over the years. 

His main social media platform these days is Twitter, which is blocked in China.

Badiucao dressed up as “Tank Man,” an iconic figure from the Tiananmen protests, in a performance art piece in Adelaide, Australia, in 2016.

In one of his cartoons, called “Tiananmen Mother’s Day,” an older woman bends over to plant a red rose into a tank. 

Another features a simple line drawing of Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese intellectual and Nobel Peace laureate who helped negotiate an exit for student protesters in 1989 and later died in prison, and his wife, Liu Xia.
For a performance art piece marking the 29th anniversary of the crackdown last year, Badiucao called on people around the world to pose as “Tank Man” — the iconic and unidentified figure who confronted a column of tanks and has since become a symbol of peaceful resistance in the West. From Paris to Washington to Hong Kong, images of people in Tank Man’s outfit — a white shirt and black pants with a white bag in each hand — began circulating online under the hashtag #TankMan2018.
In an interview, Zhou Fengsuo, an organizer of the Tiananmen protests who also took part in the performance art piece, called Badiucao’s work “very courageous” and “important to the collective memory of Tiananmen.”

Badiucao has an image of Tank Man tattooed on his arm.

Xiao Qiang, founder of China Digital Times, which tracks Chinese media, said that the constant censorship of Badiucao’s cartoons was a testament to the power of imagery, particularly among young people.
“Unlike long theoretical articles, a good satire or cartoon has the potential to reach millions of young people,” said Mr. Xiao, whose website has published many of Badiucao’s cartoons. 

He also said the censorship suggested a deep-seated insecurity within the Chinese Communist Party that “the dictator cannot be laughed at.”
Until recently, Badiucao worked under complete anonymity. 

After finishing law school in Shanghai, he moved to Australia where he eventually obtained citizenship and got a job for a few years as a preschool teacher. 

He went to great lengths to hide his identity for the sake of his own safety and that of his family back in China; no one, not even his colleagues or his parents, knew that he was moonlighting as a dissident cartoonist.
“During the day, I worked, changed nappies and sang lullabies to the kids,” he said. 

“At night, I became a fighter in my little room, going through all the news of the day to find a topic to address with my pen.”
Badiucao now works on his art full time. 

But last November, just days before the opening of his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, he learned that the authorities in Shanghai had uncovered his identity and approached several of his family members. 

They were asked to pass on a message to Badiucao: Cancel the show, or there will be trouble.
Together with the exhibition organizers, Badiucao eventually decided to call it off.
“I’m not brave, I call myself the most coward of the world’s dissident artists,” he said. 

“I choose to keep my identity hidden as much as I can while also making some noise with my art.”

Freedom Fighter

Fate of Chinese student in Taiwan who criticized Xi Jinping online uncertain
By Keoni Everington

Li Jiabao

TAIPEI -- A Chinese student, who denounced Chinese dictator Xi Jinping during a live stream earlier this week, faces an uncertain fate after his Taiwan student visa expires in July.
Li Jiabao 李家寶, a Chinese exchange student at Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science in Tainan, took to live-streaming platform Persicope on Tuesday (March 12) to conduct a question and answer session he titled “Beijing High School Anti-Xi Alliance Meeting," in which he admonishes Communist Party General-Secretary Xi Jinping for declaring himself emperor for life.
In an interview with Formosa Television last night, Li started by saying, "When I decided to stand up to the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party, I already made the determination that I would die."
When the host of the show asked if he ever thought about the consequences of his criticism of Xi in the video, Li said, "I thought about it. Maybe it will cost me my life."
Although the school publicly denied doing so, Li said that professors from the International Department had spoken with him about the matter.
Although the professors expressed understanding and support for his actions, judging from their behavior during the discussions with him, Li felt they must be under a great deal of pressure.
Li suggested that "This pressure probably came from China."
Li said that he had viewed many TV programs after he came to Taiwan, and he said he believed that Taiwan is a very free and democratic country.
At the same time, Li criticized China's collapse under Xi's heavy-handed policy, "because he is the last emperor of China."
He also admitted that very few young people in China had ideas such as his, and those that do are afraid to speak out because of intimidation by the Chinese Communist Party.
Li said that the reason why he had such an idea and decided to stand up was because he was influenced by Taiwan's freedom. 
"Taiwan can have democracy and freedom. Why can't China?" he asked.
When asked by the host if he had ever thought about how he would go back to China, Lee said that his visa runs out on July 2, and if he returns to China, he is sure that he will be charged with many "pocket crimes."
He said he would likely be charged with crimes such as inciting subversion of state power or other "strange charges," which would "destroy his personality." 
Li closed by appealing to the Taiwanese government to swiftly "implement a refugee law as soon as possible," so others like him could seek asylum.

Freedom Fighter

He Called Xi Jinping ‘Xitler’ on Twitter. Now He Faces Prison.

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

BEIJING — From his hometown in northeast China, Kwon Pyong used the internet to mock and criticize the nation’s rulers, including posting a selfie in which he wore a T-shirt that likened Xi Jinping to Hitler.
But Mr. Kwon, an ethnic Korean who studied in America, disappeared into police custody last September, soon after he shared on Twitter a picture of the T-shirt featuring scabrous names for Mr. Xi, including “Xitler.” 

And on Wednesday Mr. Kwon faced trial on a charge of “inciting subversion,” said his two former defense lawyers, who were abruptly dismissed from the case days before the trial.
Mr. Kwon’s fate showed that even crude online posts about China’s rulers can lead to a prison term these days, Liang Xiaojun, one of the dismissed lawyers, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. The Communist Party authorities are especially sensitive about protecting Xi's image, and comparisons with the Nazi dictator seem sure to anger them.

“Before, there were cases of people like Liu Xiaobo tried for subversion for long commentaries and essays, but now even short comments on Weibo and Twitter can be treated as inciting subversion of state power,” Mr. Liang said. 

“That point is a change from before. There are other cases like it, including ones that haven’t come to trial yet.”

Weibo is China’s equivalent of Twitter, a popular platform for short comments shared with followers.
But Mr. Kwon, 28, mostly aired his views on Twitter and Facebook, which are both inaccessible in China, except for people with the knowledge and tools to burrow under a wall of online censorship.
“Let’s work together and topple this invisible wall,” Mr. Kwon said in the Twitter post that showed him in the T-shirt mocking the Chinese dictator. 

Mr. Kwon’s Chinese name is Quan Ping, but online he preferred to use his Korean name, and on Twitter he described himself as a “perpetual student, citizen, dedicated to overturning communism.”
The indictment against Mr. Kwon said the charge was based on 70 or more comments, images and video that he shared on Twitter and his Facebook page, Mr. Liang said. 

The comments and images “slandered and insulted state power and the socialist system,” the prosecutors charged, according to the Human Rights Campaign in China, an advocacy group that has followed his case.
But Mr. Kwon’s lawyers said they did not know which ones were classified as subversive and did not know whether the picture of the T-shirt was one of them because officials denied their requests to see Mr. Kwon and the case files. 

They also disputed the claim that such criticism amounted to subversion.
The two lawyers hired by Mr. Kwon’s parents were excluded from defending him in court days before the trial started, when a judge demanded extra paperwork and then Mr. Kwon’s father said their services were no longer needed.
“A judge from the court told us that we needed to provide a letter of introduction from our local bureau of justice” in Beijing, Zhang Lei, who was Mr. Kwon’s other defense attorney, said by telephone. 

“That’s an impossible request and outside the bounds of the law. It’s an unlawful and unreasonable demand.”
Mr. Kwon embodies a phenomenon that worries the Chinese communists: young people, exposed to foreign ideas, sometimes through study abroad, who feel free to criticize the government, Mr. Liang said.
“He’s from a younger generation that’s absorbed ideas about democracy and freedom,” he said. 

“They have a clearer spirit of opposition.”
In January of last year, Zhang Haitao, an activist in his 40s, was sentenced by a court in far western China to 19 years in prison on charges of “inciting subversion” through his writings on the internet and of illegally providing information abroad.
Mr. Kwon studied aerospace engineering at Iowa State University but worked for the family trade business after finishing his studies in 2014, Mr. Liang said. 

Yanbian, the city where Mr. Kwon lives and stood trial, is a hub for trade between China and North Korea, and South Korean businesses have also invested there, partly because of its ethnic Korean population.
But in his spare time, Mr. Kwon’s thoughts turned to the wider world. 

He often sent messages criticizing the Chinese government’s censorship and political controls and voicing support for dissidents and other banned causes. 

In one of his Twitter posts, he discussed being told to “drink tea,” a popular Chinese euphemism for being questioned by security officials.
“If I have to drink tea again, I won’t be shy and nervous,” he wrote on Twitter in September. 

“I’ll very clearly declare my views, as bright as a banner opposing the Communist Party. That’s my attitude. I won’t seek out trouble, but if it comes to me, I’ll live with it.”
But trouble came to Mr. Kwon that month, after he posted a picture of the provocative T-shirt and then, according to later accounts from overseas human rights groups, told friends that he would wear the T-shirt in a show of protest on Oct. 1, China’s National Day.
On Sept. 30, Mr. Kwon sent a message to friends, “There’s trouble,” and then he disappeared, according to the Human Rights Campaign in China.
His family later learned that he had been taken away by the police. 

Officials had told his parents that Mr. Kwon could expect a prison sentence of one and a half years, as long as he dropped Mr. Liang and Mr. Zhang as his lawyers, Mr. Zhang said. 

Mr. Kwon’s parents initially resisted that demand but on Monday told the lawyers that they were no longer needed.
The court did not give a verdict after the one-day trial, and Mr. Kwon’s former lawyers were unsure when it would announce a decision. 

Officials at the Yanbian Intermediate People’s Court refused to comment on the trial, and Mr. Kwon’s mother, Li Lianhua, told Radio Free Asia that she did not want to say anything.
“The authorities were insistent that he plead guilty,” Mr. Liang said. 

“He’s been under all kinds of pressure.”

Freedom Fighter 游蕙禎

Hong Kong's rebellious lawmaker Yau Wai-ching
By Helier Cheung

Yau Wai-ching is the youngest woman to be elected to Hong Kong's parliament -- and she has been called many things, including: "radical", "goddess", "spy", "pretty" and "cancer cell".
In the space of two months, the 25-year-old has become one of the most controversial politicians in Hong Kong -- and is now pitted in a court battle against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments -- even though she has admitted it could bankrupt her.
Ms Yau and fellow party member Sixtus Leung won elections in September, gaining more than 55,000 votes between them.
Ms Yau, a daughter of two civil servants, had little previous political experience, and made headlines for edging out a veteran politician to win a seat.
The Chinese Studies graduate had been involved in the 2014 pro-democracy protests, when tens of thousands of people, including large numbers of students, took to the streets demanding fully democratic elections in Hong Kong.
She describes the protests as an important part of her political awakening.
After the movement failed to win any concessions from Beijing, Ms Yau and Mr Leung became involved in a new political party -- Youngspiration -- that campaigns against mainland China's influence on Hong Kong, and advocates a "Hong Kong first" approach.
The party struck a nerve with many young Hong Kongers unhappy with China and disillusioned with traditional pro-democracy parties, who they argue have failed to achieve any reform.
But, after their election victory, things quickly spiralled out of control.
Ms Yau and Mr Leung sparked a furore when they were being sworn in last month.
Instead of pledging allegiance to the "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China", the duo swore allegiance to the "Hong Kong nation", used a term considered derogatory towards China, and displayed a banner that read "Hong Kong is not China".
Their oaths were invalidated, and thousands of people protested against their actions, demanding they be removed from parliament.
A top Chinese official even likened the duo to "two cancer cells -- if you don't care about it, it will continue to hurt your body".
The Hong Kong government launched a court case to disqualify them.
And the Chinese government also decided to intervene -- issuing a controversial interpretation of Hong Kong's law on oath taking, to say that any oath that is not "sincere" should be automatically disqualified.
After losing the court case, Ms Yau and Mr Leung were disqualified as legislators -- and are now also bombarded with angry comments on social media, where people accuse them of being useless, politically naïve, or insulting their country.
But for all the controversy surrounding her, Ms Yau comes across as mild-mannered and determined in person -- and less slick or media trained than many other politicians.
"We know that appealing the court decision will cost a lot," she says.
"We may face bankruptcy, but we have no choice."
She is concerned that if the case is not challenged, it may set a legal precedent for other pro-independence legislators to be disqualified, which would allow the government to "negate the results of a democratic vote".
She says she believes in independence for Hong Kong because the "One Country, Two Systems" model under which it is governed, after it was handed back to China from the British in 1997, is "a failed experiment".
Despite the model, which promises Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy, "in these few years we have seen the PRC [People's Republic of China] government having direct interventions into the internal affairs of Hong Kong".
"We have to find another way to solve this problem," she says.
"One solution may be independence -- or maybe we can find another kind of solution, but right now I can't think of any other solutions."
It is true that there has been growing anger in Hong Kong at perceived Chinese involvement in its affairs.
In particular, the disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers who published books critical of mainland China in late 2015 sparked concerns over Hong Kong's future.
Hong Kong relies on China for much of its food and water supplies -- as well as much of its trade -- and the Chinese government has shown that it has zero tolerance for moves towards independence from any of its territories.
Veteran democracy activist Martin Lee said he felt suspicious of Ms Yau and Mr Leung's actions, saying that they are "giving [Beijing] the excuse" to destroy Hong Kong's judicial independence.
Some have even accused Ms Yau and Mr Leung of secretly working with Beijing to undermine Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement.
Ms Yau flatly denies this, and says her party has faced such accusations ever since it was founded.
"There are no external forces telling us what to do, to make long term plans, or betray Hong Kong."
Looking amused, she adds: "If we really were undercover agents, surely we'd still be in the legislative council -- we wouldn't have let ourselves get kicked out, would we?"
Ms Yau is known for being outspoken.
She supported gay marriage in her election campaign -- despite receiving criticism for it -- and also raised eyebrows when she said that Hong Kong's housing shortage meant that young people had "no room to bang".
But a lot of the comments about Ms Yau have focused on her gender and appearance, rather than her policies.
One newspaper wrote articles about what she wore to rallies, highlighting what they called her "protest look", while others nicknamed her "goddess" in reference to her appearance.
And the sexism appears to have stepped up a notch since the oath-taking controversy.
At one pro-Beijing protest, demonstrators stuck a photo of Ms Yau on a sex doll -- and internet commentators have shared photos of Ms Yau's dress being hiked up during a scuffle in parliament.
Ms Yau says she believes the sexist attacks are "not because of my gender -- it's because my ideology is different from theirs".
However, experts have argued that the remarks are indicative of gender stereotyping in Hong Kong media -- and worry that they could put off other women from entering politics.
As for Ms Yau, she says she will continue to work to fulfil her campaign pledges -- even if she loses her appeal and her seat in parliament.
"The fact is that many Hong Kongers take [independence] as an aim for the future of Hong Kong," and the government can't ignore those voices, she says.
"I hope in the future, Hong Kong people have the power to choose their destiny and the future they want -- whatever it is they decide to choose."