at 8 A.M. on a Sunday a line of people outside of St. Eugene de Maxenod Oblate Primary School in Kowloon City snaked past apartment buildings, breakfast shops and real estate offices. White-haired grandmothers in wheelchairs, young people staring at their cell phones, and parents holding tight to wriggly children waited for an hour to vote fro their local district councilor.
for a few days before the Nov. 24 election, Hong Kong enjoyed a rare reprieve from the often-violent protests that have characterize the city in recent months. the election was the firs since the pro-democracy protests began in the former British colony in June 2nd (?) activists took a break from demonstrations in order to ensure nothing interfered with the vote. they hoped Hong Kongers would turn out in high numbers and elect pro democracy candidates , proving voters wee sympathetic to the protesters' cause.
meanwhile, in mainland China, media referred to a 'silent majority' in Hong Hong who opposed the protesters and would surely vote for pro-Bejing candidates willing to reestablish order. according to Foreign Policy, state-run Chinese media had prepared prewritten articles lauding a win for the establishment.
when Nov. 24 arrived, polling stations around Hong Kong ... enormous turnouts: By the time they closed at 1030 p.m., a record-breaking 71% of registered voters had cast a ballot , up from 47% in 2015.
the results were even more astonishing: Pro-democracy candidates gained control of 17 of the 18 districts, winning nearly 90% of district council seats...
the results were so shocking that mainland Chinese media didn't know how to respond d, some outlets didn't mention the election results. others returned to oft-used scripts, accusing the West of swaying the election. ...communist worried that Hong Kong's democracy movement could spread elsewhere in China...
Hong Kong's democracy movement dates back in the 11980s when the city was still under British rule. before the handover in 1997, Hong Kong Gov. David Wilson introduced the first direct elections in 1991, with Hong Kong residents electing a third of their legislature. The sino-British Joint declaration promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy that would allow democracy to blossom in the city, giving the people a chance to elect their chief executive.
yet election after election China thwarted democracy's progress. in 2014, Hong Kongers grew frustrated after Beijing announced they could vote for the chief executive only if Beijing chose the candidates, leading to the 79-day Umbrella Movement. frustrations against the Beijing-backed Hong Kong government increased as it disqualified elected pro-democracy lawmakers and proposed the extradition bill that set off the current protests.
police brutality against young protesters this year, along with the Hong Kong leadership's refusal to listen to most protester demands, has brought more demonstrators into the streets and provoked more violenc3 from front-line protesters. police have arrested nearly 6,000 people.
but in the mainland, Chinese citizens hear a different narrative: Hong Kong protesters are a small, violent group seeking independence from China -= their true grievance is sky-high rent prices and a lack of affordable housing - police are the true heroes in Hong Kong, especially the officer nicknamed 'Bald Lau Sir', who became famous after pointing a shotgun at protesters.
Chinese state media paint a conspiracy of a US backed 'color' revolution meant to topple the
Chinese government. as proof, they point to meetings between Hong Kong democratic leaders and US officials, as well as to Hong Kong protesters ho wave American flags and sing the American national anthem during demonstrations.
after President Donald Trump signed the H K Human Rights and Democract Ac on Nov 27, the Chines government claimed the United states had 'clearly interfered' with the city's internal affairs. the act requires the U.S. State Department annually to assess if H K is autonomous enough to continue receiving preferential trade benefits and also requires sanctions on officials responsible for suppressing the city's freedoms.
while H K residents see the protest movement as a fight to maintain promised freedoms and to vote for their leaders, mainland Chinese instead see an anti-China movement ..protesters have violently attacked pro-Beijing supporters, including one man who protesters set on fire. images of protesters burning Chinese flags or ... flags into the harbor are also widely shared and condemned in the mainland...Yu a 38 year old banker in H K from ..China, said that Chinese censors delete from social media sites post and articles containing facts about police violence or protester motivations. but posts that focus on protester violence remain untouched. as a result, most of his friends in the mainland have bought into china's propaganda. Yu (name changed) said he was in second grade in 1989 when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square to quash China's democracy movement. afterward, he and his classmates were forced to attend a class on sat afternoons about how China had been humiliated by the West and Japan and only the Chinese
Communist party was able to save China.
'that message is taught throughout your education, even when you are getting your master's degree', Yu said. 'even if you didn't want to believe it, eventually you will.
when the internet first became available ... Yu remembers having access to a wide range of information and public intellectuals often wrote freely on the web. but the Chinese govt began developing the 'Great Rirewall' in the late 1990s and now China's internet is closely censored and controlled. ..
since the protests began, state-owned H K newspapers Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po have criticized not only protesters but groups supporting them. one target: Protestant and Catholic churches have opened up their facilities to provide sanctuary for protesters.
with protests spreading to different neighborhoods in H K, churches have invited...
...former Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun has long been out spokenly supportive of democracy in HK and critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Now 87 he co-founded the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund...pays for bail, legal fees...medical aid for protesters arrested or hurt by police...Zen criticizes the Holy See's silence about the ...in Hong Kong and interprets it as an effort to appease the Chinese government. the Vatican has long sought to restore diplomatic relations with Beijing (cut off since 1951). In 2018 the Vatican and Beijing reached an agreement join how to select bishops...the goal of the deal is to bring the underground church out of hiding and unite the Catholic Church in China...Zen said, 'Thy sold our church and gained nothing in return...Pope Francis..'I respect peace...' ..but Zen dismissed such neutrality: 'In this moment, there are the persecutor and the persecuted, the strong oppressors and the weak, suffering people...we have to be on the side of the weak...
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