Just weeks after China imposed its new Hong Kong crackdown law, the citizens there boldly showed Beijing what they think of it, appearing last weekend at an unofficial “opposition primary” among the candidates. pro-democratic. The communists’ response: threaten prison for all who voted.
That’s more than 600,000 people who turned up to choose from supporters of the months of protests against Beijing’s efforts to crush the city’s freedoms.
Those protests prevented the Hong Kong legislature from acting, prompting the mainland rulers to get the puppet national parliament to do the job, remaining out of reach in Beijing, in flagrant violation of the agreement that restored Chinese sovereignty over the city but with the commitment to preserve its citizens. ‘liberties.
The new “national security” law effectively penalizes any resistance to the whims of the Chinese Communist Party, making the city’s independent legal system and local laws irrelevant.
Hence the threat to independent voters. As Hong Kong Executive Director Carrie Lam (President Xi Jinping’s Pooh Piglet) put it, if the idea was to elect legislators “with the aim of objecting or resisting all political initiatives,” that counts as “subverting power state, “which means voting could earn you years in prison.
Lester Shum, one of the candidates, called the participation as a sign that “the people of Hong Kong have not yet given up.” When they insist that democratic dissent is treason, how can you resign?
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