On Dec. 29, more than 200 national security officers invaded the headquarters of a small online media organization and detained seven employees, causing various rights organizations to publish expressions of concern.
After 500 police officers stormed local newspaper Apple Daily’s offices and detained five of its founders in June, Stand News, a non-profit founded in 2014, became the second Hong Kong media company to be searched in 2021. Both publications have a history of promoting pro-Hong Kong protester perspectives.
The raid on Stand News’ office in the city’s Kwun Tong District finished at noon local time, with about 30 boxes of evidence and numerous laptops seized.
Following the raid, Stand News declared on Facebook that it will cease operations immediately, as well as update all of its social media pages. It also said that all of its staff had been fired, and that Patrick Lam, the interim editor-in-chief, had quit.
According to Hong Kong media, Lam was one of the seven persons arrested.
During a news conference following the raid, Steve Li Kwai-wah, senior superintendent of Hong Kong’s Police National Security Department, revealed the seven detainees comprised three males and four women without naming them. They were detained for “conspiracy to publish seditious materials,” according to the city’s colonial-era Crimes Ordinance, he added.
Between July 2020 and November 2020, he said, the publication released a slew of “seditious” pieces. On July 1, 2020, Beijing’s harsh national security law went into force.
According to him, the purpose of these writings was to “cause hatred” or “contempt” toward the Hong Kong government and courts. He also charged the news organization with enabling international individuals to use its platform to “incite hatred” against the Hong Kong authorities and the Chinese regime.
Stand News’ assets, worth HK$61 million (approximately US$7.8 million), have been blocked, according to the police superintendent.
According to Denise Ho’s Facebook page, she was among those detained. Denise Ho is a well-known Hong Kong pop singer and activist. She was a member of the Stand News board of directors previously.
Ho was a key figure in the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the 2019 and 2020 anti-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pro-democracy protests.
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF), located in New York, expressed worry about Ho’s detention, calling it “outrageous” and adding that it was yet another proof that the Hong Kong administration is “a puppet” of the CCP.
In a statement, HRF Chief Executive Officer Thor Halvorssen stated the CCP and Hong Kong government “have complete disregard for press freedom and are shameless in brazenly attempting to remove all of Hong Kong’s freedom advocates from public sight through high-profile arrests,”
According to Hong Kong media, three more former board members of Stand News have been arrested: Margaret Ng, Chow Tat-chi, and Christine Fong. Ng was also a previous pro-democracy Hong Kong politician.
Chung Pui-kuen, the former editor-in-chief of Stand News, and Chan Pui-man, Chung’s wife, were the other two persons detained.
After the Hong Kong authorities originally reported that six people had been detained in an operation against Stand News on the morning of December 29, several human rights organizations criticized the raid.
The raid and arrests, according to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong (FCCHK), “are a further blow to press freedom in Hong Kong and will continue to chill the media environment in the city following a difficult year for the city’s news outlets.”
The FCCHK concluded that 61 percent of those questioned were slightly concerned and 10% were extremely concerned about the “possibility of arrest or persecution from reporting or writing opinion articles.” in a study published in November.
The journalistic climate in Hong Kong “has become worse than the mainland because nobody knows what the red lines are.” according to one anonymous poll respondent.
According to a statement from Steven Butler, Asian program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, the arrests are “an open assault on Hong Kong’s already tattered press freedom,”
According to a statement, Brian Leung, executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council in Washington, voiced worry over whether those imprisoned would get a fair trial.
“By branding the exercise of press freedom as sedition, Beijing is making clear that the regime doesn’t tolerate truth-telling in Hong Kong,” Leung said.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who pays attention to global politics that this is happening. However, one could speculate and say that tensions across the board are running higher than ever for the Chinese Communist Party. Something has got to give, America is no longer able to turn a blind eye from persecution due to the rapid spread of information in this digital age. The question remains, who will stop the CCP from committing further violations against human rights, and how much longer until that takes place?
1 Peter 4:12-14 says: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Stay inquisitive in the word of God, and the world around you.”
Since December 27, China’s communist regime has increased travel restrictions in the northwest city of Xi’an, as it tries to limit the country’s highest known rise in COVID-19 infections in almost two years.
On December 27, Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, reported 150 more cases, bringing the total number of those infected to 635 since December 9.
Authorities have severely restricted traffic into and out of the city, with footage from state broadcaster CCTV showing trucks queueing at road checks as hazmat officials examined health data on drivers’ phones on Sunday.
“For Xi’an, intensified control and screening measures are urgent to block the virus as soon as possible,” said Zhang Boli, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
“I estimate the transmission will be cut off in mid-January and the outbreak can be completely put under control in late January. It is very possible,” he said in a recent media interview.
Given the Chinese regime’s history of underreporting virus statistics, the official figure is unlikely to be representative of the genuine amount. However, this is the highest daily count documented when COVID-19 initially appeared in Wuhan.
The Delta variant was blamed by Chinese health officials for an increase in illnesses in five regions, including Beijing. In six weeks, the capital city, roughly 625 miles from Xi’an, will host the Winter Olympics, which the dictatorship has promised will be a “safe” event.
The authorities also announced that the norm of allowing just one individual per home to buy groceries every two days would be suspended. Residents were required to stay at home until December 27, save when getting tested for COVID.
Residents were only permitted to buy basics at businesses within their complex, according to a resident who provided her surname as Zhou to The Epoch Times on Dec. 26. She said that she had been banned from leaving her home in the medium-risk Lianhu district.
At least three rounds of mass testing have taken place in the city, with 28,983 persons being placed under centralized quarantine.
Anyone who refuses to observe the guidelines during the testing, such as maintaining three feet apart when standing in lines, might be detained and fined, according to authorities.
Workers spray pathogen-killing substances onto roads and buildings in Xi’an as part of a citywide cleaning program.
Given the minimal chance of individuals contracting COVID-19 from outdoor surfaces or the air with so few people outside, Dongyan Jin, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, believes bulk disinfection of outdoor air and surfaces is unnecessary.
“This is like firing mosquitos with a cannon,” Jin stated, while he did agree that disinfecting interior surfaces, particularly in areas frequented by ill patients, was vital.
China has long lost hope for liberation. Only an inconceivable catastrophe can shine a hint of light into the hearts and minds of these oppressed individuals. When infection spreads across the United States and Europe to a degree that justifies serious “concern”, governments will react in the same way that China’s government is: martial law and technocratic top down surveilence. This would likely result in civil war in the United States. John 15:19 says: “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” Stay inquisitive in the word of God, and the world around you.
