Wednesday 4 August 2021

Broad ruling will have chilling effect in free speech

Michael Davis criticises the recent ruling and sentencing of “secessionist” motorcyclist Leon Tong — banged up for nine years. 

Davis makes the case that the ruling ignores the International Covenant on Human Rights, the HK Basic Law and even the National Security Law itself. The Treble! 

Let’s note — with some hope in our hearts ❤ — that this is published in our own South China Morning Post by a professor at the University of Hong Kong (ok, “former” professor). By “hope” I mean hope that at least this level of free speech — able to criticise the government and judicial decisions by local residents in our main English language newspaper — can continue. And that the other shoe doesn’t drop. Which I keep fearing. 

ADDED: I looked up “waiting for the other shoe to drop” to make sure I’d used it correctly and its origin. 

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

Meaning: Waiting for something to happen you feel is inevitable [Usually negative]

In the tenements of New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century, apartments were built with bedrooms on top of one another. It was common to hear your upstairs neighbor take off a shoe, drop it, and then repeat the action. It became shorthand for waiting for something you knew was coming. [Link]

I learn also that a “shoe drop” is the difference in height between the heel and the sole of a shoe. I now have a drop of half an inch inserted into my right hand Croc, as I did something to my back in my last dive into the pool last October which seems to have shortened my right leg. I just bought a pair of heel risers (“drops”, I guess) on Amazon and used just the right one. It seems to do something, though I should really go along to have an X-ray.…I’ve put my back out in some way.