Nonviolence as a Tool for Protest in Hong Kong
By Anonymous / Fall 2019
Throughout the past six months, plenty of conflicts happened between the Hong Kong Police Force and the protestors. It all started with the proposal of the Extradition Law. This law is a cooperative law with the Chinese government, such that the Hong Kong government could transfer back the Chinese criminals that got caught in Hong Kong. The law might look great in maintaining the law enforcement between the two places (Ives). Yet, the Hong Kongers doubted that the Chinese Communists would use this law as a tool to carry out political persecution towards Hong Kong people or anyone who holds a different political standpoint from the Chinese Communists. Therefore, the Hong Kongers started the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement to show their objection to the law. The police were sent to disperse the demonstrators, but they started to abuse their power to torture the demonstrators, as well as to indiscriminate arrest. At this moment, I believe the police brutality is the most urgent problem in our society that needed to be solved.
The protesters have been using a nonviolence way to voice out their opinions. On 16 June 2019, Sunday, nearly two million Hong Kongers went on street to protest the Extradition Law Bill as well as asking the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, to resign as she refused to withdraw the bill, instead, she only mentioned to delay the bill (“Hong Kong: Timeline of extradition protests”). On 26 July 2019, around fifteen thousand people gathered in the Hong Kong International Airport to protest the bill as well as calling tourists’ attention to things happening in Hong Kong, so as to raise International awareness. In terms of gaining more International awareness, Hong Kong people did a couple times of fund-raising campaign and used those funds to publish contents on front pages of newspapers in over 7 countries. Each front page were designed differently, and were written in different languages according to the counties they were to be published. The content of those front pages was to explain and let the world know the incidents that are happening in Hong Kong and why it matters. Other than that, Strike actions are organized by Unions in different industries, students have class boycott campaign, citizens formed human chain all across Hong Kong. The Hong Kongers had always been protesting in a peaceful and calm way, yet, the Hong Kong Police Force is treating the protesters or even journalists in a very inhumane way.
Here are examples of police brutality that happened in Hong Kong. The police shot tear gas to protesters right after the protest was declared to be ended, while almost all of the protesters were just peacefully dispersing and walking on the street. The police even chased after the protesters to the underground subway station, shot tear gas, and beaten the protesters, whilst the protesters were trying to catch the train and head home. A woman, who was a volunteer medic to help the injured protesters, was aimed and shot in the eye by the Hong Kong Police with a beanbag round (Kilpatrick). It happened when she was standing next to a bus stop, showing no threat to anyone. A journalist from Indonesia also got shot in the eye by the police while working. A fifteen years old protester was shot in the chest by the Police Force at a point-blank range, the police did not even provide immediate first aid to him after the bullet shot. At the moment, the teenager was closely approached by the police and plastic shield (lid of a plastic container) in his arm, which shows no definite life threat to the police who shot bullet (“Hong Kong Police Shot a Protester”). The Hong Kong Police once rushed into an underground railway at late night to try to arrest a small group of protesters. Yet, they ended up stormed the railway, beaten up all the passengers and sprayed pepper spray on them (“Hong Kong police brutality and growing disorder”). When the police arrest protesters, they would beat them up, press their face onto the ground, tie their hands up with zip tie, physically assault and torture the protesters that are injured and not able to even stand up on their own (“Hong Kong: Arbitrary arrests, brutal beatings and torture”). The police even break into Universities, which they are private properties that police officers are not allowed to enter until they have the search warrant from the High Court. They surrounded the Universities and attempted to assault the University students and arrest them for absolutely no reason. There are way too much footages and evidences that can prove the police brutality in Hong Kong, while the protesters are mostly calm and not even close to life threatening to the police to be treated in such brutal way.
All the cases I illustrated above were just a tip of iceberg, there are hundreds of injuries, insultation and destruction caused by the Hong Kong Police. In the above cases I mentioned, we can clearly see that the police abused their power to physically assault protesters, innocent journalists and citizens that caused no threat to them. The police violence reminds me of the Edmund Pettus Bridge incident and the Alabama Highway Patrol’s attack on John Lewis and the activists. Police attacking citizens that cause no harm to others and are not committing crime at the moment. Among the past six months, none of the police officers that shown extreme violence to the citizens were charged, suspended from their duty, or fired. This is revealing a class hierarchy going on. It is almost like the Police Force are in one of the top classes, they are able to pick on anyone and beat them up, including lawyers, legislative councillors, leaders of organizations, just because they know they are able to get away with the it. Talking about the reason of police brutality and the fact that most of the time the police can get away from the crime they committed while they were on duty, the deep-down root was the political tension in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was a British colony for over 150 years. Under the rule of British, Hong Kong followed the British way and developed the separation of powers in Judicial, Administrative and Legislative systems, so as to prevent corruption among the three powers. In comparison to the Chinese Government, it is under the one-party dictatorship, which means the Chinese Communist Party owns all the power by all means. In 1997, the sovereignty over Hong Kong was transferred back to the hand of People’s Republic of China. The huge differences in social structure between Hong Kong and China led to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an International Treaty signed between the People’s Republic of China and the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Under the declaration, Hong Kong can keep practising the Capitalist system, maintaining its Judicial, Administrative and Legislative systems, and the way Hong Kong people live can remain unchanged for 50 years until 2047. However, since the reunification of Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party had always been trying to interfere the systems of Hong Kong.
Among all the District Councillors, Legislative Councillors, Secretaries of Bureaus, they are either on the Pro-Chinese side or on the Democrats side. As the name implies, the Councillors that are Pro-Chinese side support the Chinese Communist Party and are to help the Chinese Communist Party to control over Hong Kong; the Democrats are the ones who strive freedom and democracy for Hong Kongers. The Pro-Chinese councillors always propose bills and vote for bills that are harming Hong Kong people in some way. Yet, those bills please the Chinese Communist Party or they are actually instructed by the Chinese Communists to be proposed. For example, the previous Chief Executive proposed that the Education Bureau should set up a subject called Moral and National Education, and this would be a compulsory class for all Primary School students every year. This Moral and National Education class contains contents that are to brainwash children’s mind, so that they will support the Chinese Communists Party in the future. All the Pro-Chinese Legislative Councillors voted pass on this bill for sure, yet, this bill is extremely controversial among citizens and majority of the citizens oppose this bill. At the end of the day, the bill was amended as schools can decide whether to set up this class on their own, the class would not be pushed as compulsory for students. The other example that the Pro-Chinese camp proposed that harm Hong Kongers is the set up and use of “Multi-functional Smart Lampposts”. The “Smart Lamppost” have cameras, internet connection, as well as facial recognition function, which totally invade personal privacy. The citizens also worried that the “Smart Lamppost” would be used as a tool to surveillance over and target on citizens, especially the protesters. Not surprisingly, the Pro-Chinese camp all voted pass to this bill, yet again, this bill is extremely controversial that the bill is now delayed and being amended. From just the two above cases mentioned, it is clearly shown how the Pro-Chinese camp is supporting the Chinese Communists to control and interfere Hong Kong.
The Pro-Chinese councillors may not sound like they own lots of political power, since in both of the two examples I provided above, they failed to make the bill a law. However, The whole Pro-Chinese Camp in the political system totally affected Hong Kong’s legislation, judicial and administration separation of power. The candidates of Chief Executive of Hong Kong are nominated by the legislative council, which majority of the councillors are Pro-Chinese camp. This directly caused that no Chief Executive candidates are from the Democrats camp. Then, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong is Elected by the National People’s Congress, which the Chief Executive was made sure that he or she is on the Pro-Chinese camp. Once, the Chief Executive is elected, he or she get to assign the Secretary for each Bureaus in Hong Kong, which of course, all the Secretaries for every Bureaus are on the Pro-Chinese side. This chain illustrates how huge the Pro-Chinese Camp is, as the top cabinet of the government is on its side. The proposal of the Extradition Law Bill by Ms Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, passed through the first and second read in an accelerated manner under the help of Pro-Chinese camp. This is exactly the reason that ignited the dissatisfaction and resentful of Hong Kongers, seeing the separation of power being corrupted as the Pro-Chinese camp grasps majority of political power and destructing the systems of Hong Kong and the freedom Hong Kongers are having.
The Hong Kong Police Force were sent to control over the situation of protests and maybe riots if that ever happened. They were supposed to enforce the law and maintain the safety and stability of the society, they need to be professional and not biased when they are on duty. However, the Hong Kong Police showed no professional spirit as one of the Disciplined Services. They are politically biased. The entire Police Force supports the Chinese Communists Party, as well as their ally, the Pro-Chinese camp in Hong Kong. The police constantly insult the protesters as “cockroach” since they are on strikes and “destructing the social stability”; insult that the the protester has low social status in the society because they are not on the Pro-Chinese side. Another evidence to show that the Police Force is political biased, is that the police consistently receive catering and gifts sponsored by Chinese enterprise or Pro-Chinese stand organizations, as well as greetings from Pro-Chinese camp councillors, Pro-Chinese side artists etc. If the police were just to complete their duty in a non-biased way, they might not be as violence. Yet, since the police are on the Pro-Chinese side, while the protesters are on the Democrats side, the police brought their hatred and anger to work due to the different political view. Moreover, the Police Force are extremely violence because of the indulgence of the Pro-Chinese camp. As I mentioned before, until now, none of the police officers were charged, suspended or fired. It is because they are under the protection of Pro-Chinese camp. There were a lot of times citizens were to complain or to charge the police, but nothing ever happened, the cases did not even get to the courts. The Police Force is getting more and more violence, since they know they are under the protection of the Pro-Chinese camp, and they will never get charged or be responsible for the violent act. This reveals that the police brutality is also caused by the different in political stance between the protesters and the police.
The police brutality is an urgent problem that definitely affects the whole society. The cases I mentioned at the beginning of this article totally proven that the police will literally assault and pick on anyone on the street, no matter if they are protesters, students, or elderlies. In such case, everyone in the city has the risk to be mistreated by the police. However, there are still people who support and encourage the cruel acts of the police officers. They are citizens on the Pro-Chinese side. Mostly are elderlies and older generations that are Chinese immigrants, who we believe they experienced the national education that trained them to fit in the Chinese Communists policies. They are just blindly supporting whoever or whatever that is on the Pro-Chinese side. They also criticized the protesters are paid by Western imperialists, just to create riots and chaos, so that the economy of China can go down, and then the western countries can get more benefits on the trade war. Think about it, if you were to get paid to be a protester in Hong Kong, do you really think the money worth the risk of getting spray by pepper spray, breathing in tear gas, physically assault by police, or even going to jail? At least for me, I would never be wanting to get paid to do so.
The Anti-Extradition Law Movement has now developed into the Water Movement, lasted for six months until now, I believe there is a principle that the protesters should follow, so that they can get more help from others and go further. The protesters should keep the protests in a nonviolent way. Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned that there are six principles of nonviolence: “nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people”, “nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding”, “nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice not people”, “nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform”, “nonviolence chooses love instead of hate”, “nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.” So far, I see the protesters in Hong Kong sticking with nonviolence principle most of the time. Even though some individuals tried to fight the police, it is clear their reason was that police were threatening their lives. Also, the resistance from the protesters are not causing major injuries to any of the police officers so far. Having this nonviolence principle for the movement, the Hong Kongers are indeed gaining the benefits of nonviolence mentioned by Martin Luther King Jr. They educated and transformed so many citizens that are on the Pro-Chinese side to Democrats side. Also, they gained friendship and understanding from the International community, the United States already passed through a federal law “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” to impose sanction against Chinese and Hong Kong officials that are responsible for human right abuses in Hong Kong. There are a couple more western countries that are proposing bills to do same thing, to help Hong Kongers.
The police brutality issue in Hong Kong reveals the retrogression of civilization. The police brutality issues happening in Hong Kong right now, was issues that happened decades ago in the United States, it is just clear that the civilization level in Hong Kong is going backwards. We have been fighting for human rights and equalities for centuries, our ancestors sacrificed and fought for the rights we are having today. Even though there are still things that needed to be worked on the social systems and ideologies that the society has, we walked step by step to where we are at right now. Hong Kongers have been enjoying high degree of autonomy and freedom for generations, yet, now they are losing them and they do not even have the basic human rights under the police brutality. The police brutality is a symbol of Chinese Communists threat as well as an alarm for the world. As the economy of China had been growing rapidly, lots of companies, organizations, or even countries are starting to obey the Chinese Communists, to please them, just to earn more money. However, what is happening in Hong Kong today is exactly a mirror for the world to see what will happen in the future if the Chinese Communist Party keep growing their political and economic power. It is exposing the means that the Chinese Communist Party used, the International community should alert what Chinese Communists will do to them.
Works Cited
“Hong Kong: Timeline of extradition protests.” BBC News. 4 September 2019.
Ives, Mike. “What Is Hong Kong’s Extradition Bill.” The New York Times. 10 June 2019.
Kilpatrick, Ryan Ho. “‘An eye for an eye’: Hong Kong protests get figurehead in woman injured by police.” The Guardian. 16 August 2019.
“Hong Kong Police Shot a Protester at Point-Blank Range, Here’s What Happened | Visual Investigations.” YouTube, uploaded by The New York Times, 2 October 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRdXjsGlh2s
“Hong Kong police brutality and growing disorder” YouTube, uploaded by DW News, 2 September 2019, \
“Hong Kong: Arbitrary arrests, brutal beatings and torture in police detention revealed.” Amnesty International. 19 September 2019.