HRIC Weekly Brief
October 1, 2024
Top News 头条
Last Saturday marks the 10th anniversary of Occupy Central, also known as the Umbrella movement, when Hong Kong’s Central district was filled with thousands of pro-democracy protesters with aspirations of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The 79-day civil disobedience campaign was launched in response to a ruling from Beijing that would allow Hongkongers to vote for their chief executive, but only from among candidates vetted by the central government. Ten years later, although the movement changed the face of Hong Kong politics, the streets are quiet, with protest criminalized, and many of the leaders of the Umbrella movement exiled, jailed or otherwise silenced. Just last week, three people were sentenced to prison under Hong Kong's expanded national security law, Article 23, for the first time, as national security legislation is used to suppress what remains of the movement.
Law & Policy 法律与政策
NPC Calendar: October 2024: Notably, the NPC Standing Committee is seeking public comment on the bill, draft revision to the Law on Preventing and Controlling Infectious Diseases, through October 12.
China to roll out cybersecurity rules covering generative AI: Under the new cybersecurity rules, planned to go into force January 1, 2025, “data processors that are deemed to have undermined China's national security, the public interest or legally protected interests will be held legally responsible…regardless of whether the data is processed within China or abroad.”
Quicktake: Proposed AI-content labeling guidelines: China’s efforts to prevent the spread of misinformation fueled by AI-generated content have relied heavily on labeling efforts, and now new draft rules and standards specifically focus on labeling.
British judge Nicholas Phillips steps down from Hong Kong court: The fifth overseas judge to leave the city’s judiciary this year, 86-year-old British judge Nicholas Phillips has stepped down from Hong Kong’s top appeals court after 22 years for “personal reasons.”
Cyber Security & Digital Rights 网络安全与数字权利
In global game of influence, China turns to a cheap and effective tool: fake news: In relaying messages and lending credibility to narratives favoring the Chinese Communist Party, Beijing is turning to artificial intelligence and foreign players.
Probe finds Beijing seeking to mislead, sow distrust ahead of US election: A joint investigation by Voice of America and the Doublethink Lab, a Taiwanese social media analytics firm, is tracking China-related accounts on X, which often amplify controversial domestic issues in the United States and deepen societal polarization and sow distrust.
Diaspora Community & Transnational Repression 海外社群和跨国镇压
Opinion: Western Universities Have Become Apologists for an Illiberal China: Bill Shipsey and Fengsuo Zhou explain how many universities outside China are vulnerable to CCP pressure and censorship.
Story of Chinese laborers told through Kheel Center items: A recent exhibit in Brooklyn highlighted Chinese workers’ “efforts to create their own organizations, their attempts to take hold of their own destiny through strikes and protests, and their self-expression in the form of poems, music and plays.”
Forging New Lives Abroad, Exiles Connect Homelands and Identities: Residents of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and various provinces of China who have fled abroad to seek refuge reflect on their identities in their native homelands and in new diasporas.
Human Rights in China on X/Twitter: On September 25, HRIC Executive Director Fengsuo Zhou spoke at Princeton University’s Einstein Classroom to about 100 students and faculty about the Tiananmen Massacre and China's current politics.
A path towards freedom: the new route to Europe for desperate Chinese migrants: A small but growing number of Chinese people are travelling to the Balkans with the hope of getting into the EU through Croatia, many of them even attempting illegal crossings.
Human Rights Defenders & Civil Society 人权捍卫者与公民社会
China revokes license of former Xu Zhiyong defense attorney: Zhang Qingfang, who previously represented prominent jailed dissident Xu Zhiyong, had his license revoked in a letter dated September 20 and signed by the Beijing Municipal Judicial Affairs Bureau, according to a copy shared by a fellow lawyer via X.
How a Crackdown Transformed LGBTQ Activism in China: While high-profile campaigns and organizing are no longer possible, China’s LGBTQ advocates still thrive within limited spaces which continue to serve their local communities, and look to subtler channels for change such as joining other coalitions that pursue goals that are not explicitly LGBTQ-related but still benefit the community.
Related: 遭电击治疗，一位跨性别者决定起诉 [A transgender person decided to sue after being subjected to electric shock therapy].
Top Chinese economist disappears after criticising Xi Jinping in private chat – report: Zhu Hengpeng was believed to have made disparaging remarks about China’s economy, and potentially about Xi specifically, in a private WeChat group. He was subsequently detained in April and put under investigation, according to anonymous sources.
Fears grow for Taiwanese man missing, believed detained, in China: 22-year-old Kuo Yu-hsien’s apparent detention on suspicion of “fraud” came after China warned that supporters of Taiwanese independence could face criminal charges and even the death penalty on Chinese soil.
Michael Kovrig: detention by China amounted to psychological torture, Canadian says: The former Canadian diplomat, who was detained by China for more than 1,000 days after Canadian police detained Meng Wanzhou, said he was placed in solitary confinement for months and interrogated for up to nine hours every day.
Tibetan monk jailed for 18 months over Dalai Lama’s speech: Jampa Choephel of Penkar Thang Monastery in Rebkong county, Qinghai province, had shared a speech by the Dalai Lama on March 10, on the date which marks Tibetan National Uprising Day, the start of a failed Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule in 1959.
Hong Kong: Stand News journalists given jail terms for ‘sedition’: The former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s Stand News, Chung Pui-kuen, has been sentenced to 21 months in jail on sedition charges for the publication of news reports and other articles that prosecutors said tried to promote “illegal ideologies” while the former acting editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, gets 11-month term.
Related: This is What Can Land You in Jail for Sedition in Hong Kong.
Ex-Hong Kong student leader denied early release from jail following national security committee decision: Kinson Cheung, a former Hong Kong student leader jailed over praising a knife attack on police in 2021, has been denied early release as it would be “contrary to the interests of national security.”
Associated Press photojournalist denied entry to Hong Kong after visa renewal rejected: French photographer Louise Delmotte, who has been working for the US news agency’s Hong Kong bureau since March 2023, had famously captured rare images of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai in a maximum-security prison.
Hong Kong man arrested on suspicion of damaging decorations for China’s National Day in Sheung Shui: A 51-year-old Hong Kong man has been arrested for allegedly damaging decorative lights put up outside the Sheung Shui MTR station to celebrate China’s National Day.
Hong Kong doctor receives suspended deregistration over 2019 rioting conviction: The Medical Council of Hong Kong ordered the registration of Dr Tse Tat-chi, who was jailed for four years in March last year, to be suspended for nine months due to his rioting conviction.
Elderly activist ‘Grandpa Chan’ has case to answer over unauthorised banner display at Hong Kong’s Lion Rock: In Hong Kong, park regulations state that visitors cannot display signs, notices, posters, banners or advertisements in a country park without permission from authorities, or else offenders face a maximum penalty of a HK$2,000 fine and three months in jail.
China’s Reach & Internal Control 中国: 内控与外扩
China steps up security, surveillance in Beijing for 75th anniversary: As part of "stability maintenance" operations, which kick in ahead of politically sensitive dates or major events, in a bid to stave off potential threats to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, police have been following rights activists and lawyers, detaining their family members, or preventing them from entering Beijing.
Related: Xi vows ‘reunification’ with Taiwan on eve of Communist China’s 75th birthday.
Academic freedom in Hong Kong in ‘severe decline,’ report finds, as gov’t hits back: Responding to the government, Human Rights Watch told HKFP: “We’re disappointed that the [government] has failed to respond to this detailed report – which is also based on many publicly available media reports – with a substantive statement. We would welcome the Hong Kong government to provide details on exactly which part of the report they felt was biased or inaccurate.”
International Responses 国际反应
US, EU demand China respond to human rights abuses in Xinjiang: At the current U.N. Human Rights Council session, China was urged to implement recommendations made by the U.N.’s human rights office in a two-year-old report issued and to release Uyghurs and others unjustly detained in Xinjiang.