{"id":13746,"date":"2016-12-08T07:56:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T23:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=13746"},"modified":"2016-12-08T20:15:41","modified_gmt":"2016-12-08T12:15:41","slug":"hong-kong-defend-long-hair-and-other-threatened-lawmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2016\/12\/08\/13746\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong: Defend \u2018Long Hair\u2019 and other threatened lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government purge widens to throw out four more lawmakers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dikang, chinaworker.info<\/p>\n

The purge of lawmakers in Hong Kong has widened as chinaworker.info and many others warned could be the case. Four elected legislators including veteran left-wing pro-democracy campaigner \u2018Long Hair\u2019 Leung Kwok-hung of the League of Social Democrats are now facing the axe on the completely spurious charge that their oaths of allegiance were \u201cimproperly delivered\u201d.<\/p>\n

In addition to \u2018Long Hair\u2019 the other targeted politicians are Nathan Law Kwun-chung of youth party Demosisto, independent pan-democrat Edward Yiu Chung-yim, and Lau Siu-lai of Democracy Groundwork. All except Yiu (who represents a functional constituency) were elected in September\u2019s LegCo (Legislative Council) elections in which the government suffered a humiliating setback.<\/p>\n

The four are being dragged before the courts (the trial will take place on 15 December) in an undemocratic witch-hunt masterminded by Chief Executive \u2018CY\u2019 Leung Chun-ying. The courts have already shown, with the disqualification of two localist politicians last month, that they have become just another tool of the Chinese dictatorship for further limiting democratic rights in Hong Kong. The expulsion and subsequent capitulation of the two localists, from the shadowy group Youngspiration, which many suspect are pro-government provocateurs, has been used as a pretext for the current more serious attack.<\/p>\n

CY political manoeuvres<\/strong><\/p>\n

CY is clearly using the purge, based on a bogus \u2018legal\u2019 interpretation by the Standing Committee of China\u2019s unelected National People\u2019s Congress (NPC), as part of a Machiavellian putsch to divide his opponents and cling to power for another five-year term. By attacking and weakening the position of the democratic opposition parties in the LegCo, CY hopes to win Beijing\u2019s backing in the elite-only election process next March.<\/p>\n

By escalating the political crisis that began with the exclusion of the two localists, CY hopes that Beijing will be forced to back him in the Chief Executive race rather than\u00a0risk a damaging open split in the establishment camp occurring simultaneously with a major standoff against the pan-democratic opposition. He calculates that if the disqualifications are\u00a0successful, some of the seats can be won by pro-Beijing politicians in subsequent by-elections, thus reversing the establishment\u2019s setback in September\u2019s elections. The government\u2019s legal offensive is a \u201ccoup d\u2019etat\u201d against these election results said \u2018Long Hair\u2019. The law courts were the government\u2019s instruments for carrying out the coup, he said.<\/p>\n

A weaker pan-democratic bloc in the LegCo, which has an undemocratic built-in pro-Beijing majority, could make it easier for the government to control the LegCo and push through unpopular legislation. CY was already stated that his aim if re-elected is to reintroduce the anti-subversion law \u2018Article 23\u2019, stopped by mass protests in 2003, which represents a massive threat to democratic rights and freedom of speech in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Power struggle<\/strong><\/p>\n

A clear sign that the purge is also a weapon in an\u00a0elite-level power struggle was shown by the incident in the LegCo on 5 December, when Finance Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah refused to field questions from the four legislators targeted by the government\u2019s lawsuit. Tsang claimed he was following the government\u2019s legal advice by refusing to recognise the four, despite the fact they have not yet been found \u2018guilty\u2019 or removed by the courts. But after the incident, Tsang\u2019s boss and possible rival in the upcoming Chief Executive elections, CY Leung, claimed it was done without his knowledge.<\/p>\n

Many commentators don\u2019t believe this explanation. Its seems quite likely that Tsang was set up by the CY camp. Tsang, who has presided over eight ultra neo-liberal budgets, is the most widely touted potential challenger from within the ruling establishment to run against CY in March.<\/p>\n

There is an urgent need for an organised campaign of mass resistance against\u00a0the purge and to defend basic democratic rights including the results of the September elections. Unfortunately, the traditional \u2018moderate\u2019 pan-democratic parties are keeping a low profile and only calling for relatively small and half-hearted protests against CY\u2019s coup. The only way to successfully defeat the government would be\u00a0to convene a \u2018people\u2019s parliament\u2019 of all organisations that want to fight back, and for this to map out a fighting strategy of demonstrations, student strikes, mass boycott actions and other forms of collective civil disobedience.<\/p>\n

The occupation movement of 2014 (Umbrella Movement) failed to win concessions not because it did not get enough support inside Hong Kong, but because it lacked any programme to spread the struggle beyond Hong Kong and because it focused solely on street occupations that cannot be sustained indefinitely and have no economic impact on the tycoons who run Hong Kong\u2019s economy. Workers\u2019 strikes and even student strikes \u2013 as recently brilliantly exemplified in Spain where a major victory has just been won against\u00a0government attacks on education \u2013 are a much more effective political weapon.<\/p>\n

By hesitating and refusing to reply with a bold call to fight back and mobilise, the pan-democratic leaders are inviting even greater attacks from\u00a0the establishment side. Mass struggle and democratic organisation, with a programme linking democratic rights to\u00a0the need to scrap corrupt capitalist rule, is the only\u00a0way forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government purge widens to throw out four more lawmakers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":13747,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[133,124],"tags":[2514,1007,4490,7109,7221,1333,1633,2836],"class_list":{"0":"post-13746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hong-kong","8":"category-news","9":"tag-cy-leung","10":"tag-democracy","11":"tag-hong-kong-en","12":"tag-legco-oaths","13":"tag-legco-purge","14":"tag-leung-kwok-hung","15":"tag-repression","16":"tag-umbrella-revolution"},"yoast_head":"\nHong Kong: Defend \u2018Long Hair\u2019 and other threatened lawmakers - China Worker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2016\/12\/08\/13746\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hong Kong: Defend \u2018Long Hair\u2019 and other threatened lawmakers - 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