Expelled for Democracy.
Hong Kong Legislators are being purged
But they aren’t staying silent
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
Democracy in Hong Kong has been
killed. The Hong Kong Government is now firmly in the hands of Beijing.
Last week, the Hong Kong government expelled four pro-democracy legislators.
They were accused of violating the new National Security Law,
a draconian bill forced upon Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party.
It basically makes any form of dissent or criticism of the Communist Party illegal.
In solidarity with the four expelled legislators,
the remaining pro-democracy lawmakers also resigned. Hong Kong’s darkest day...so far.
Yes, because it seems things somehow always manage to get worse in Hong Kong. It’s like a weird
pessimistic way of being optimistic. Now matter how bad things seem now, it can always get worse!
Joining me today from Hong Kong is one of the four lawmakers who was expelled, Dr. Kwok Ka-Ki.
Thank you for joining me. I know this is a difficult time.
It's all right, yeah. Has been almost over.
So you and three other pro-democracy legislators were expelled. Did any of you see this coming?
In fact, it come to us a bit surprise, because we were told
to remaining to serve the legislative council about three months ago in August, when the
government decided to cancel the election this year and to extend the terms of the
president for another year. But then three months later the scenario change
totally. And the standing committee of the NPC, the National People's Congress of Beijing make
a decision without actually asking us to talk or anything to disqualify us from being a legislator.
If you really want to disqualify anyone, you should give that legislator an ample time for
them to, maybe she, he or she would like to talk to the government and ask why, and to
present the case, to see whether there's any strong case or any good reason why to disqualify
them, unless they say that so and so forth. But we were never given the chance. And once
that decision made by the same committee of the NPC. Everything was actually being decided and
no more rooms for talking negotiation what not. So, that was a bit surprise to us.
You were expelled for endangering national security.
What explanation did they give you about what that means?
There was no one ever given a proper explanation or the detail explanation as to at what point
we were told, or we are being charged with not loyal the Basic Law or not loyal to the SAR.
But there was a case always, you were told that you are not loyal to the SAR, not loyal the Basic
Law. And, and I think for me, and in my case is more likely to be, to be like that. Although
every one of us may have slightly different charges, but you know,
more or less my charges is what I can comprehend or understand is more or less like that.
Yeah. So why do you think you four were targeted?
You better ask them? Don't ask me because we all, actually all of us as a democratic come
legislator, we are trying to preserve the one country, two systems. We trying to get
what has been promised by the Basic Law. What has been promised in a Basic Law. We should have
universal suffrage. We should have all legislators and the chief executive being elected by a popular
election. One man, one vote, and no others. There shouldn't be any functional constituency.
And not only that, we should have our own system. As of the 1997 will be unchanged for 50 years.
And we still have all the conditions given by the human rights convention
under the United Nations. But it seems all these promises has been denied and
there's a lot of empty promises. If you compare the situation nowadays to ’97, I can definitely
tell you that we are actually moving backwards instead of moving forward. We are actually
further and further away from the real democracy and real autonomy.
Do you feel like you're in danger in Hong Kong?
We wouldn't in danger in Hong Kong, but you know, if you talk about our own position nowadays,
we never know what will happen next moment. So it's kind of fright of course, is a kind of fright
to the democratic legislator. We never know what can happen to us.
So in solidarity, the remaining 19 pro-democracy legislators quit, how do you feel about that?
First of all I feel encouraged and I really felt the solidarity or the
unity that we have been sharing for the past four years. But in fact, the decision was not
made at that very moment when we were discussing whether we should join the remaining one year
as a final year of services to the LegCo. We already had the kind of agreement that any of us,
who subsequently being disqualified from the LegCo. Then we would like to...we
signed on mass as a whole. There was something which were important because,
we try to be united. We would like the people of Hong Kong to know that we are not serving
Hong Kong, without any purposes. We have a strong mission on us that we should try our very best.
In the whole year that we should strive for justice,
solidarity and we would try to have freedom,
democracy and all those things which is very important for us.
And as we have made the decision three months ago. So we... It's easier for us to make a decision,
just last week, because we had that in mind already. And secondly, if we only have the very
close margin of whether we would be able to oppose or withstand some unequal arrangement with LegCo.
We only have a really tight margin. If all of us stay, then we may have the possibility of
rejecting or opposing any attempt to disqualify any of us. But if we have somehow four of us
forced to leave the legislative council, then the remaining 15 plus two
will not be able to withstand any unfair agenda, decision made by the LegCo. So
in reality it don't have any real meaning at all. So that's why we have that arrangement
actually way before we decided to join the last year before the opening of this year's LegCo
section, which was in mid-October, we all have that ideas already.
So right now, there are no more
pro-democracy legislators. What do you think that means for Hong Kong?
It was sad. It was a saddest day for Hong Kong. If you're going back to the basic normal,
going back to the joint declaration between the UK and the Chinese government. The message was very
clear that we would like to preserve the original system in Hong Kong for at least 50 years.
So we acknowledge the importance of separation of powers in Hong Kong.
We acknowledge the independent role of the administration of the legislative council,
and also the judiciary department by carrying on the law part. That hasn't been the same,
at least for the past one year. And particularly under the national security laws, the government,
perhaps in back of them is a Chinese government will be able to
influence the judiciary by they have the ability to appoint a certain numbers of judges to handle
cases relating to the National Security Bureau. So, that means it's not a double blind system.
You know, they have dedicated judges whose specific role is to look into
this kind of national security appeal. So to us is a bit strange because in Hong Kong,
all along we are observing the rule of law. Although we don't have them real democracy,
but you know, people of Hong Kong is quite comfortable with the
so-called present system on nowadays is the system before that this free establishment
has their own role, and they will monitor each others to make sure that no one is going to abuse
their own power. So if we, as a whole, the normal legislative council in the whole year.
The government is actually without any real monitoring; they can do whatever they want.
No matter the appeals or the funding application is really set benefiting the people of Hong Kong.
No one care about that because even if you are not.... Even if there were solution or any
powers to be passed, it's not helping Hong Kong people is still will pass without any difficulty,
because within the LegCo already 41 pro-democratic legislators and two more independent legislators,
you still needed two legislators inclined to follow what the democratic camp has decided;
but number one is not sufficient. Number two, we can protect what exactly will happen
after we don't. We, we actually were forced to leave the LegCo.
So how will the fight for Hong Kong's freedoms continue now?
We learned from the past experience, at least from the fights against say, amendment use of,
of the extradition ordinance said we could not. And actually we never
rely on one single platform. We have been able to kind of change Hong Kong, the whole
history of Hong Kong, because we have... It's not only about the LegCo members, because at that very
moment the LegCo actually being locked down, we will have the input from the ordinary citizen,
which is framed for them because you know, all street of walk, they just come to support their
whole ideas of fighting against these extradition bills. So we were able to do so because we have
the power on the street. So nowadays, if the LegCo is actually without any power,
any endorsement or any progress, then we know we need to decide whether we should go forward.
Maybe we need to go on the street. But of course at this right moment, when we are under the threat
and the impact of the COVID-19 we will be ready to go. We start the civil movement and secondly,
under the new national security bills, these puppet, or the people who go on the street may
be charged eventually by the government and under this national security bills. So the life would be
very difficult. But I think at this moment up to this moment, the morale of the people of Hong Kong
is still very high. And we have been, actually, we extending a lot of the impact over the years
by other country, like including mainland China, like the Tiananmen Massacre, like the 2003 SARS,
we have a lot of experience to deal with the so-called the people behind which is controlling
Hong Kong. But we had that experience. So I'm not too afraid of that. Not too worried about that.
What can the international community do to support Hong Kong?
I think the international communities
should continue their efforts to support the people of Hong Kong and to
really ask for the Chinese government to look into the whole situation and whether they are
using their power, whether it is any, we will also have these, a lot of these unpopular arrangement.
You know, it's still the international community still have a lot of role to play.
Great. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
Thank you. Thank you.
Take care.
And thank you for watching. I know there’s a lot going on in the US right now,
but we can’t let what the Chinese Communist Party is doing to Hong Kong slip through the
cracks. Keep talking about it. Keep telling your elected representatives you care about Hong Kong
and want them to take action. And stay aware of what’s happening.
I recommend Hong Kong Free Press as a great source for all that’s happening in Hong Kong.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.