In Hong Kong, some of the biggest news over the past few weeks has been the oath-taking scandal. Two newly elected pro-Hong Kong independence lawmakers, Sixtus Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching, from the Youngspiration party, took their oaths to join Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. But they brought out flags that said Hong Kong is Not China, called Hong Kong a nation, and referred to mainland China using a slur used by the Japanese in World War II.
That did not go over well. Then the controversy escalated when China’s National People’s Congress issued a rare “interpretation” of Hong Kong’s Basic Law that effectively disqualified both elected lawmakers from taking office.
Now, Hong Kong chief executive and daywalking vampire CY Leung has suggested implementing Article 23, a Draconian national security law that would basically allow Chinese police to go after anyone in Hong Kong accused of “subversion.” It would make Hong Kong’s freedoms look closer to those in Beijing.
CY Leung’s government dropped another bombshell when it announced it wants to disqualify four other pro-democracy lawmakers who protested while taking their oaths of office. Unlike the Youngspiration duo, these lawmakers’ oaths were accepted by LegCo and they are already in office. Don’t worry, though, the government promises there were “no political considerations involved” in their decision.
One of the targeted lawmakers is well-known activist Leung Kwok-hung, also called Long Hair. He’s clearly guilty of subversion, because when he took his oath of office, he held a yellow umbrella, a symbol of the Umbrella Movement, and called for universal suffrage.
I sat down to interview this hostile subversive force earlier last week, before the government announced it would try to remove him from office.
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