4 Jun 2021 | China, Hong Kong, Opinion, Ruth's blog
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Illustration: Badiucao
32 years ago, on 4 June 1989, the world bore witness to the realities of a totalitarian regime as the Chinese Communist Party deployed the People’s Liberation Army against unarmed protestors in Tiananmen Square. We still don’t know exactly how many people were brutally murdered although best estimates are in the thousands; the crackdown that followed across China shaped the country as we know it today and continues to resonate throughout the world.
‘Tank Man’, the image that is now synonymous with the events of Tiananmen Square, which shows an unarmed man seeking to block the movement of a tank by simply standing in front of it is both awful and awe-inspiring; it affected many of us in the decades that have followed, including me.
The Tiananmen Massacre shaped both my politics and my personal values. When you are lucky enough to be born and raised in a democracy the images from Beijing, from both the protests and the aftermath, were truly beyond comprehension. I was not yet 10 years old on the day of the massacre but I can remember the image of the man and a tank vividly.
It will surprise no one to learn that I grew up in a very political household and my extraordinary mum sat me down to explain what was happening thousands of miles away and why it was so important – but all I can really remember was fear for the man who was standing in front of a tank and an overwhelming sense of his bravery.
My home was one that celebrated collective action, a home that embraced the concept of solidarity and was internationalist – the image of the Tank Man was as crucial to my understanding of the world around me as the Miners’ Strike and the Poll Tax Riots. And without realising it, it was the events of Tiananmen Square on that fateful day which cemented my commitment to equality and justice – it also for the first time made me aware of the importance of a free press and free expression and of how the actions of one person on behalf of others can change the world.
These principles of anti-censorship, of solidarity, of equality and of justice are not only my values, but they are also the values of Index on Censorship and were those of our founders. As we reflect today on the events of 1989, we will remember not only the people who were killed for demanding a level of democracy in those fateful protests, but the people of Hong Kong who for the first time will be prevented from marking the anniversary because of the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party. We stand with them today as we stood with the protestors in Tiananmen Square.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
3 Jun 2021 | China, Hong Kong, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116835″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]For 30 years in a row after the 4 June bloodshed in Beijing, Hong Kong people had turned out en masse at Victoria Park, the city’s central park, to commemorate the victims of the killings at and around Tiananmen Square in the summer of 1989.
The regular June scenes saw marked changes last year. The imminent enforcement of a national security law scheduled for 1 July 2020 and a government ban on assembly on grounds of the Covid-19 epidemic cast a long shadow over the annual vigil. Still, thousands of people came out, holding candlelights and vowing “not to forget 4 June”.
Citing social distancing rules again this year, the Police rejected the application for a march planned for 30 May and an assembly at the park on 4 June to mark the 32nd anniversary.
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movement in China (Alliance), an umbrella body composed of pro-democracy groups which holds the vigil every year, has announced they will not hold any event at the park in the evening of 4 June.
More than 20 democrats, including leaders of the Alliance, who took part in last year’s candlelight vigil last year, were convicted of participating in unlawful assembly. They were given jail sentences of up to 14 months.
The remaining Alliance leaders will no doubt be arrested and face at least the same charge if they turn up at the park on 4 June. Worse, they may be charged with subversion under the national security law.
Alliance leaders advised people to commemorate the victims in a safe and peaceful manner.
Media reports quoted anonymous sources close to the government warning people not to wear black clothes – a regular form of portest – and not to hold up candles at and near Victoria Park. First, they may breach the social distancing rules. Mort importantly, they may be charged with unlawful assembly if they are deemed to have the same purpose in public places.
As this article goes to press, the city is laden with an air mixed with anger and fear, persistence and helplessness.
Following the harsh sentences of democrats convicted of unlawful assembly and the enactment of the national security law, fear has swept the city. Calls for a democratic China and an end of one-party dictatorship that resonated in earlier 4 June vigils could now be deemed as subversive.
Although the majority of people still believe they are on the right side of the history of the 4 June crackdown and must persist in holding up the candle of hope, they feel helpless in stopping the government crackdown on commemorating the anniversary.
Last Wednesday, the operators of the 4 June Museum run by the Alliance closed its doors, hours after officials from the Food and Environmental Hygiene department accused it of operating as a place of public entertainment without the required licences.
The museum reopened briefly on Sunday to mark the 4 June anniversary; it may never reopen again.
Founded at the heyday of the student-led movement in 1989, the Alliance’s days are seemingly numbered. Pro-Beijing political figures and media have put more pressure on the Government to ban the Alliance on grounds that its call for an end of one-party dictatorship in its manifesto is subversive.
Its disbandment is no longer a question of if, but when.
This is not so much because the Alliance has or will pose any real threat, nor embarrassment, to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. It can be argued that the opposite is true. That it was allowed to exist has provided a real-life case study that showed the world how the policy of “one country, two systems” worked.
Except for the much-smaller scale of commemorations in Taiwan, Hong Kong had been the only place in mainland China where people were allowed to commemorate the Tiananmen massacre.
Tolerance of the communist authorities towards 4 June commemoration, and indeed a free Hong Kong, has now run out.
With hindsight, the authorities feel they were wrong to have given too much freedom to Hong Kong people. As a result of that, many, in particular young people, have kept testing Beijing’s tolerance by crossing the political “red lines”, referring to politically sensitive issues such as independence and self-determination as well as challenging the system of government and their governance.
The protracted territory-wide protests sparked by a bill on extradition in 2019, followed by a landslide victory of the democrats in the district council elections in November that year, have shocked Beijing. They responded by imposing the national security law and overhauling the election system to make sure the city is run by Beijing-trusted patriots.
With democracy scuttled and freedom curtailed, the 4 June candlelights, described by Nancy Pelosi, US House Speaker, as “a beautiful sight to behold”, may now become history, testifying the end of “one country, two systems.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”85″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 May 2021 | Israel, News and features, Palestine
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116823″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]I can’t remember the first time I heard the slogan “No voice is louder than the voice of the intifada”.
I was born at the peak of the intifada (uprising) in which this slogan first appeared, in 1988. I became more aware of it during the second uprising, at the start of the millennium when the slogan re-emerged.
When I chose the topic of my dissertation in sociology on the impact of a prevalent ideology in determining the options of sociological research in Palestinian universities, I found that the slogan summarised how the existent national ideology works against critical visions in social sciences and tries to silence them. After research, I found that the slogan was a modification to a slogan that existed during phases of tyranny in Arab countries in the last century, namely “No voice is louder than the voice of the battle.”
Ever since I was born, I’ve been living through the “battle” in which no other voice should prevail. This is what happens when you live in a conflict that has not been resolved for more than 70 years. I live in Ramallah in the West Bank, an area that is subject to Israeli military occupation according to the UN since 1967.
There have been national movements that worked towards ending the occupation but these were transformed into an authority that signed a peace agreement with Israel and that hasn’t led to peace. Instead, there were understandings reached that resulted in administrative and security coordination.
At various times, this led to calm periods full of economic opportunities and cultural activity that were supported internationally. It seemed as if the battle’s voice receded or faded away. Yet the national authority maintained the battle discourse, which must remain above all others.
Years ago, on the wall of an oil press, in the village of my maternal grandparents, I read a slogan that shocked me: “You are either a mine that explodes under the feet of the enemy or you shut up.” Underneath was the signature of a leftist faction. I realised that I faced two choices: I am either dead –because I am a mine that explodes under the enemy’s feet – or I am muted.
In 2016, when I wrote my novel A Crime in Ramallah, I was subject to a dual-pronged attack.
The first manifested itself legally through the public prosecutor and the Palestinian Authority (PA), who confiscated my novel from bookstores and libraries, issued an arrest warrant against me and detained the distributor of the novel.
The second was of a popular dimension in social media, which fed on the prevalent ideology and its logic. This incident highlighted the reality relating to freedom of speech in the areas controlled by the PA, through legal tools on the one hand and national tools connected to the prevalent ideology on the other. Accusations were hurled against me regarding public morals in the current law, along with charges of treason and insulting national symbols that are prevalent in the discourse of the “battle”.
The current laws in force in PA areas remain a topic of legal argument. These include the penal code of 1960, which is a regressive law with an abundance of violations to freedom of expression and speech in addition to violations of political freedoms, freedom of sexual orientation and freedom of women.
Further, the law is vague and can be maliciously misinterpreted. The arrest warrant was issued against me on this basis. Efforts to amend the law or enact a contemporary law that allows for even minimal freedom of expression have all failed.
In 2018, the electronic crimes law was issued which violated freedom of the press and online expression and statement. It included harsh penalties that had an impact on writers, journalists, artists and everyday people who have become hesitant to merely criticise the authorities with a post or tweet on social media.
Recently, and at an unprecedented level, major social media outlets have started censoring Palestinian content. Accordingly, I cannot write anything about the occupation and its practices in Arabic without the threat of my account being restricted or removed.
Due to the weak algorithms of these sites in the Arabic language, the context thus becomes irrelevant. So merely mentioning certain words might result in the restriction or cancellation of my account. Two options here remind me of the graffiti on the wall I previously mentioned: I either shut up or become non-existent in this cyberspace.
Today as I write these words, I am unable to freely express my thoughts on both sides of the “battle.” I fear that many began surrendering indeed to the truth that there is no voice above its voice, and I worry that I am one of them.
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28 May 2021 | Belarus, Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116817″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]292. 137. 423. 5.
These unfortunately aren’t just random numbers. They tell an appalling story of what has been happening in Eastern Europe, only 1,500 miles from where I currently sit, safe and secure in the UK. They tell a story of a country where human rights, media freedom and democratic values have been replaced by a truly totalitarian regime.
292 days since Lukashenko fraudulently claimed an election win.
137 days since our friend and former member of Index staff, Andrei Aliaksandrau, was arrested and detained in Belarus with his partner for paying the fines of protestors.
423 political prisoners detained since the election was held last August.
5 days since the Belarusian KGB falsified a terror threat and forced a commercial airline travelling through their airspace to land in Minsk so they could arrest and imprison a dissident journalist who had already had to flee the country.
This is not happening away from the media spotlight, it is happening as I type, in Europe, in the twenty-first century. It is happening on our watch and we simply cannot sit back and ignore it.
There has been a great deal of coverage this week about events in Belarus, which given the appalling actions of Lukashenko’s regime in recent months is hardly a surprise. But, and it’s a big but, the hijacking of the Ryanair flight on Sunday, as appalling as it was, wasn’t the beginning of the regime’s attacks on democracy and media freedom.
Lukashenko is a tyrant. He leads a repressive regime and over the last few weeks has initiated a severe clampdown on media freedom. And as the world’s media temporarily moves on to the next outrage it is our job to make sure that people are regularly reminded about what is happening in Belarus, what the impact is in Europe and most importantly what we can do to fix it.
The political leadership of the European Union, the UK and the United States this week demonstrated how quickly they can act when their own citizens could be at risk. They moved immediately in response to the removal of Roman Protasevich from a plane that was diverted to Minsk under the rouse of a terror threat. Within hours the global community had moved on from strong words of condemnation to sanctions and amendments to civil aviation rules restricting airspace over Belarus.
But the reality is they can and should go even further. Lukashenko’s regime is currently financially propped up via bonds refinanced on the London Stock Exchange – which they will need to repeat in the coming months to keep afloat and something that the British Government could stop them doing.
In the coming months Index will be campaigning to get the Government to exert economic pressure on Lukashenko – but we’ll need your help to get it done.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
