Hong Kong police have arrested two martial artists
The charge is “sedition”
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Incogni.
You probably know that companies are collecting your personal data. But you may not realize
just how many. Dozens, maybe hundreds—most of which you’ve never heard of. And you have no
idea what they’re doing with it. Incogni helps you stop them. I’ll explain more at the end.
And speaking of unscrupulous organizations trying to figure out what you’re up to...
authorities in Hong Kong are going after dissenters who don’t like the Chinese Communist
Party. Which is definitely not going to make even more people dislike the Chinese Communist Party.
Last week, authorities arrested a local 59-year-old martial arts teacher
and his 62-year-old female assistant.
Hong Kong police have accused them of training anti-China warriors.
“The suspects...are accused of posting anti-government messages
including calls to topple China’s communist regime
and for a ‘shadow government and self-defense force’ to be established.”
OK, well, setting up a self-defense force does sound pretty serious.
I mean, that’s at least what Hong Kong Police Senior Superintendent Steve Li claimed.
Li also said, “Police said they found unlawful weapons including an airgun,
eight crossbows, 30 steel-tipped arrows and a collection of blades.”
Wait a minute. They were planning to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party with one airgun,
some crossbows, and “a collection of blades”?
Ok, someone has been watching too many Hong Kong martial arts films.
This isn’t the Return of the Condor Heroes.
Having personally observed the armed riot police in Hong Kong,
I don’t think a couple of old martial artists and a group of students with eight crossbows,
one airgun, and a collection of blades are much of a threat to
these guys.
Unless of course those blades were the Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber.
What can I say, I’m a Jin Yong fan.
But were these martial artists really going to—as police claimed—be able to
“overthrow the government and set up an independent state”?
Probably about as likely as they were to fly through the trees.
Now I get why Hong Kong authorities and the Chinese Communist Party feel threatened by
martial artists. They’ve probably watched a lot of Hong Kong martial arts dramas too.
And in that case, these guys are definitely the baddies.
And their boss is a not-so-secret member of the
Golden Honey Bear Sect.
But there’s definitely something more going on here. See, technically the martial arts master
and his assistant were both charged with “possessing offensive weapons
and possessing firearms without a license”.
And the man was additionally charged with sedition.
But Hong Kong Police Senior Superintendent Steve Li seems to have accidentally revealed the real
reason for the charges when he said, “The arrested persons were deeply affected by misinformation
and became self-radicalized... Now they are spreading the misinformation to others.”
Ah, so authorities aren’t worried so much about potential violence from a tiny group
with insignificant firepower. No, they’re worried about something much more dangerous:
Ideas. Or what police call “misinformation”. Including, I assume, the “misinformation” that
Chinese and Hong Kong authorities are a threat to people’s freedom.
So they arrested two elderly people... without any hint of irony.
Adding a layer of irony is that, to go after the martial arts teacher, Hong Kong authorities used a
British colonial-era “sedition” law from 1938.
That law was originally designed to go after *pro-communist* forces in Hong Kong.
The sedition law had rarely been used since the 1960s,
and not even once since the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997...that
is, until 2020. That’s when authorities passed the draconian Hong Kong National Security Law.
And then they dusted off this old British law go after *anti-communist* forces in Hong Kong.
The first person in decades to be convicted using that law
is Tam Tak-chi, a Hong Kong pro-democracy radio host.
He was convicted of sedition last month. Sedition carries a maximum two year sentence,
and he was found guilty on 11 counts of sedition, including “saying the now-banned protest phrase
‘Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,’ as well as ‘death to corrupted police families.’”
At this point, it’s unclear what his final sentence will be. What is clear,
is that before the conviction, he had already been held in jail for more than a year without bail.
And that’s the main way Hong Kong authorities are using the law:
They lock people up for long periods of time on *charges*, and then deny them bail. That way,
most of the time authorities don’t even have to prove the person is guilty of anything.
They can just hold them in long-term detention.
For instance, last July authorities used sedition charges to arrest
five people behind a series of children’s books...about sheep.
Those books were a metaphor for the Hong Kong democracy movement—
illustrated with the peaceful free domain of sheep being taken over by evil wolves.
So police arrested them.
As far as I can tell, those five people have been locked up for more than eight months now,
without bail, and without actually being convicted of any crime.
Except the crime of using a metaphor so obvious even the Hong Kong police understood it.
These guys don’t read a lot, but it was a picture book.
So for the two martial artists arrested last week, what’s likely to happen is that
authorities will simply hold them in jail for an extended period of time. Maybe in a
year they’ll convict them of sedition and weapons possession, or maybe they’ll just release them.
But either way, it’s a warning:
We can lock you up whenever we want, so don’t speak out against the Chinese Communist Party.
And I guess, don’t do subversive martial arts.
Which means with moves like this, I can never go back to Hong Kong.
And this episode has been sponsored by Incogni.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.