Not good news ‘NPC Acts on Security Law’

Dictatorship 101: the brutalist look. Winnie the Pooh in the middle
Prince Charles called them “appalling old waxworks”

ADDED (24 May): it’s fair to ask and expect that the UK should resist Beijing encroachments, given their history and being the other side of the Joint Declaration, an international treaty. Point being that this would have more impact than counterproductive  street protests and pan-Dems’ Legislative shenanigans. Here.

The Chinese National People’s Congress is going to enact a security law for Hong Kong, required under Article 23 of the Basic Law. We here in this household joined half a million other protesters in 2003 to march against the proposal by then chief executive Tung Chee-Hwa to implement it. That succeeded in stopping it and Tung stepped down as a result. 

Since then it’s not been addressed again, and the word is Beijing has become impatient as it’s 23 years since the handover. TBF, it is a requirement of the Basic Law. Still, no one here wants it. If there were more trust in Beijing, it wouldn’t be a problem. But there isn’t, so it is.

The part of the law that worries me most is its potential impact on freedom of the media. If a journalist can be charged with revealing “state secrets”, then freedom of the media is dead.
If the media starts to look like the China Daily and CGTN, then I’m outa here.
If they start blocking blogs like this one, if they start blocking Google and YouTube and other portals, then I’m outa here.

I shudder at this development. Even if it’s been brought on and hastened by the misjudgements of the protest movement and shenanigans of pan-Dems in Legco. “I told you so” doesn’t ease the pain.

Oh dear.

UPDATE: Social media here in Hong Kong, like LIHKG and Telegram, are already calling for people to come out on the streets in protest. Could be a troubled weekend.

LATER (23 May): A reader comments:

Hong Kong is at a turning point and Beijing will be quite happy to let the city wither on the vine. This is a very very sad day for Hong Kong.  The second exodus will now start which will drain the city of talent and this time they won’t return. The Hong Kong I love will never be the same.
 Best,

ADDED (23 May): My comment on this video:

RE Hong Kong (57’): Ben needs to learn a bit more about what’s going on in this part of the world before commenting. I live in HK, and have lived and worked in Shanghai and Beijing. I don’t like for one little bit what Beijing is doing about Article 23 in the HK Basic Law. BUT... it is allowed to do so, and it was entirely predictable (and was predicted, by me amongst many others) that Beijing would be riled into doing exactly this. Not that that’s a good thing, of course. But folks, we are dealing with a tyranny here. Not a nice democracy. My aim, in living here, has been to *maintain the very real and very extensive freedoms that we do have*, and which have been maintained in the 23 years since the handover, whilst living as a part of an acknowledged dictatorship. If the US decides to implement the “HK Human Rights and Democracy Act” to punish Beijing, the only people to be harmed will be us here in Hong Kong. You folks over in America may feel good about it, well done. But we will suffer. Here in Hong Kong. Not Beijing. Not America. WE Hongkongers will suffer.I’m a big Ben fan-boy. But honestly, he doesn’t know anything about China and Hong Kong, and as long as he does not know, he’s only doing damage to us with his crude and uninformed judgements. My feelings care about his non-facts.