By Jerome A. Cohen
A variety of developments during the past day or so.
The most sinister is the announcement of the new hotline established by the national security police so that HK residents can make secret phone calls to inform the Mainland police about suspicious people and activities, with confidentiality guaranteed. This is an expected, further step toward bringing Mainland fear and repression to HK. I wish HK cinemas, TV and social media would broadcast the great German movie about the notorious Stasi–the former East German secret police–titled “The Lives of Others.”
Although the unsuccessful attempt by several HK protesters, already under indictment for summer NSL offenses, to gain asylum at the US Consulate General in HK understandably attracted publicity, even more significant is the associated news that they now will also be charged with violations based on more recently sent electronic messages. As the hotline announcement boldly stated, the government’s eyes and ears are now everywhere!
The US Consulate General’s refusal to grant asylum was correct and predictable. Can we imagine how many other Hong Kongers might have wanted to follow suit? And recall the recent San Francisco PRC Consulate’s refusal to claim asylum for the PRC scientific researcher who, after sheltering there for a few controversial days, left the PRC mission and was then detained by the FBI. Reciprocity continues to be an important factor in US-China relations. Diplomatic asylum in someone else’s country can only be exercised in extraordinary and limited circumstances, as the US has famously done twice in Beijing, first in the 1989 case of the popular human rights speaker, Prof. Fang Lizhi, and then in the 2012 case of the blind barefoot lawyer, the courageous Chen Guangcheng.
The report that the Shenzhen Judicial Bureau has formally prohibited the activities of the five PRC law firms that have been trying to help the detained “HK 12” at the request of their families merely confirms earlier complaints expressed by the families. The hapless detainees, charged merely with “illegal border crossing” rather than more severe national security offenses, nevertheless remain incommunicado over two months after their detention began. The inscrutable and unfair processes of PRC justice grind on “in accordance with law,” as PRC spokespersons always assure us.