{"id":17413,"date":"2018-04-30T03:26:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T19:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=17413"},"modified":"2018-04-30T03:54:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-29T19:54:00","slug":"hong-kong-stop-political-persecution-of-long-hair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2018\/04\/30\/17413\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong: Stop political persecution of &#8216;Long Hair&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Expelled lawmaker has been a consistent thorn in the side of pro-Beijing camp\u2019s authoritarian big business agenda<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Vincent Kolo, Socialist Action<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Long Hair\u2019 Leung Kwok-hung has long been a thorn in the side of Hong Kong\u2019s pro-Beijing establishment. Since the authoritarian offensive began in earnest in 2016, \u2018Long Hair\u2019 and his League of Social Democrats (LSD)\u2008have been regarded as \u201cpublic enemy number one\u201d by the government.<\/p>\n<p>Hong Kong is currently in the grip of an unprecedented crackdown against democratic and political freedoms.\u00a0 China\u2019s \u2018Emperor\u2019 Xi Jinping is tightening control over the semi-autonomous territory and wants to crush its democratic opposition to turn Hong Kong \u2013 in political terms \u2013 into a new Singapore. Elections to the semi-elected Legislative Council (Legco) are being manipulated, candidates banned, and dozens of court cases are lined up with the aim of criminalising pro-democracy protests. New national security legislation, Article 23, is being prepared \u2013 an even harsher version than that which was defeated by mass protests 15 years ago.<\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2017\/11\/27\/16335\/\">\u27b5 Hong Kong: Only mass struggle can defeat repression<\/a><\/h4>\n<p>\u2018Long Hair\u2019 was undemocratically disqualified (\u2018DQ\u2019) from the Legco last year along with five others. He has faced four different legal prosecutions, all with the aim of sending him to jail from where he would be prevented from running for election to reclaim his Legco seat. Other leading LSD\u2008members have faced prosecutions as part of the same establishment offensive. Raphael Wong Ho-ming, vice chairman of LSD, was jailed for 13 months last August (\u201cunlawful assembly\u201d) and got an additional four month sentence in another political trial this year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Universal pension<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In April, police arrested \u2018Long Hair\u2019 for assault in a case dating back to last year. This has all the hallmarks of a political witch-hunt by Carrie Lam\u2019s administration. He has been released on bail. In\u2008April 2017, \u2018Long Hair\u2019, then a legislator, attended a protest by elderly citizens calling for a universal pension system. No such thing exists in Hong Kong, a city where one in three over-65s live below the poverty line. These peaceful protesters were physically attacked by pro-government \u2018blue ribbon\u2019 thugs.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Long Hair\u2019 condemned the passivity of the Legco security officials: \u201cMy safety was not protected, the safety of the group handing me the letter was not protected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But by defending himself and the elderly protesters, \u2018Long Hair\u2019 now finds himself charged with \u201cassault\u201d, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison. A three-month jail sentence would result in him being prevented from standing for election for a five-year period.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Long Hair\u2019 is being victimised for his uncompromising stand in the struggle for democracy and for workers\u2019 rights. As a legislator he did not take his full salary but donated over half to various struggles and causes. He lives in a council flat, while most legislators \u2013 including the pan-democratic opposition \u2013 own properties worth millions. He has a record of opposing and exposing privatisations, government anti-welfarism, and supporting migrants and refugee rights.<\/p>\n<p><strong>By-election<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A by-election to fill his Legco seat has been put on hold until his appeal to Hong Kong\u2019s highest court against his disqualification from Legco. The appeal hearing has now been set for April 2019 and \u2018Long Hair\u2019 is contesting this extremely late scheduling. Such a long delay would mean that, if he loses the appeal, the government may be able to wriggle out of holding a by-election for his seat before the next general Legco election in September 2020.<\/p>\n<p>This is just the latest example of the many juridicial manoeuvres being used against democracy activists. The pro-Beijing establishment currently enjoys a so-called &#8216;super majority&#8217; of two-thirds in the Legco by virtue of the disqualifications which reduced the numbers on the opposition benches. The government is especially keen to keep \u2018Long Hair\u2019 out of the Legco and has shown it is prepared to use various dirty tricks to achieve this.\u00a0For him to reclaim his Legco seat \u2013 to which he has been elected four times (2005, 2008, 2012 and 2016) \u2013 would be a severe blow, in propaganda terms not least, to the establishment and its attempts to emasculate the democracy struggle in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2018\/03\/20\/17277\/\">\u27b5 Q &amp; A on the Hong Kong government\u2019s crackdown<\/a><\/h4>\n<p>Socialist Action (CWI in Hong Kong) is organising solidarity with \u2018Long Hair\u2019 and LSD. This vicious persecution must be defeated.<\/p>\n<p>On May 4 we are actively participating in the Stop Repression in Hong Kong campaign, with protests planned in up to 20 countries against the repression in Hong Kong and China.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-17414\" src=\"http:\/\/media.chinaworker.info\/2018\/04\/LongHair-poster-600x424.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"424\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Expelled lawmaker has been a consistent thorn in the side of pro-Beijing camp\u2019s authoritarian big business agenda<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":17414,"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":[10717,8793,4490,4409,1633,915],"class_list":{"0":"post-17413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hong-kong","8":"category-news","9":"tag-long-hair-leung-kwok-hung","10":"tag-disqualifications","11":"tag-hong-kong-en","12":"tag-legco","13":"tag-repression","14":"tag-xi-jinping"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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