The Struggle Continues

Two protesters apologize about what happened last night with eye patches

Today protesters apologized for their horrific behaviour in Hong Kong International Airport.

The heartfelt apologies don't forgive what they did, but at least they admit their mistakes and are willing to do some self-reflection unlike a person we all know.

The airport had to be shut down due to overcrowding

Last night was shocking and hard to understand and accept. After a three-day peaceful protest at the airport on the weekend, it escalated to another occupation on Monday after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor continued to condemn the protesters, while reporters were frustrated she had nothing new to say, or would she directly answer questions.

The entire airport was covered in people wearing black and the sheer numbers of people overwhelmed the Airport Authority who shut down the airport for the rest of the afternoon. Reporters said the chanting was non-stop and loud. They were very angry.

Another occupation of the airport was decided for Tuesday from 1pm onwards, but for some reason the protesters would not allow people to enter the departures area. They physically blocked them, restrained them, and shouted at them.

Travelers were desperate to make it to the departure gate

Going to the airport is stressful enough and yet the added layer of protesters made many travelers desperate and freaked out which is understandable. People had to force their way to the departure area or even beg protesters to let them through. It was shocking and embarrassing. Why were protesters doing this?

And then it escalated into paranoia when they saw two men who were mainlanders in their crowd and assaulted the first one, thinking he was an undercover Chinese police officer, when in fact he was there to see his friends off at the airport.

He fell unconscious and the protesters even prevented emergency services from collecting him. What is going on?

The second one apparently smirked and said he supported the Hong Kong police and dared protesters to beat him. Again he was roughly treated and even hog tied with plastic ties. It turns out he was a Global Times reporter and Editor-in-chief Hu Xijin confirmed the young man worked at the paper.

This young man turned out to be a Global Times reporter

This was the perfect storm for state media to pounce on these two incidents, claiming that the protesters had terrorized these two men, the latter one already declared a hero only an hour after the incident ended.

But that's not all.

There were tensions between the riot police and protesters. At one point a woman was just tear gassed in the face and crouched down when a riot police officer literally pounced on her about to beat her with a baton. Others rushed to her defense and the scuffle resulted in one young man grabbing the policeman's baton, that left the police officer terrified and reached for his pistol and point it at the crowd.

Thank God he did not shoot. He slumped to the ground, probably relieved.

In self-defense a police officer brandished his pistol

Eventually the Airport Authority got a court injunction to legally remove the protesters out of the airport.

Today all of us were trying to make sense of what had happened and why.

The protesters themselves are doing some massive soul searching too. They were probably paranoid that police may have been undercover around them, but cooler heads must prevail from now on. This cannot continue.

At the airport, some protesters held handmade signs profusely apologizing for what they did and said they were desperate after having exhausted all means to get through to the Hong Kong government.

But the must continue the fight.

An acquaintance posted a quote from Frederick Douglass, an African-American former slave who became a social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman. Douglass championed equal rights for people of colour -- including Chinese immigrants, as well as for women.

Abolitionist, social reformer, and orator Frederick Douglass

He said this on August 3, 1857:

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Thank you for the reminder that the struggle must continue.

The People are Angry

About 5,000 people showed up at the airport to protest this weekend's violence

CARRIE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CITY!

In the past weekend we have seen even more shocking images of violence and repression from your police force -- they are not ours. Our police force would not shoot people in the eye to make them blind, shoot rubber bullets at point blank range, beat people descending on a moving escalator, and crush them on the ground to break their jaw.

Your police force has fired many more rounds of tear gas in the past weekend than the past few months. Is it because you need to use up the expired canisters before buying new ones? Or you just want to cause Hongkongers to have long-term health problems from the effects tear gas because there has been indiscriminate use of it all over the city, particularly in Kwai Fong MTR station, in the shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui and the bar area in Wan Chai this weekend.

WHAT KIND OF MOTHER ARE YOU?

Children are Hong Kong's future, but Carrie doesn't think so

Back on June 12 in an interview with TVB you said: "... if the young people have walked, and acted, and you still don't give them what they want. Then what? The metaphor that I use is that I'm a mother who has two sons. If every time my son tells me he wants something and I acquiesce to his wishes, for a short time our relationship between mother and son will be very good, but once this child is grown, he will have regrets. He will ask, 'Mother, why didn't you remind me then?'"

Is beating up people, shooting tear gas at them, and worst of all, telling them they have no stake in society what a mother does to her children? Or are you disowning your children who you have a responsibility to look after? They are the future of Hong Kong and you have completely disregarded them.

As a friend told me the other day, there's saying: "The hated child fears nothing". You have unleashed tens of thousands of these "hated children" in Hong Kong.

YOUR MESS IS OUT OF CONTROL

Protesters are creative in dealing with each situation

We are all angry at what you did to Hong Kong this weekend. Some 5,000 of us swarmed Hong Kong International Airport this afternoon. The airport authority shut down the airport without warning -- or was it your intention to blame the protesters? Then the police claimed they were coming with tear gas to clear the protesters and then nothing happened. So more protests are expected at the airport tomorrow.

Also today the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office is making more threats.

"In recent days, Hong Kong's radical protesters have repeatedly attacked police with highly dangerous tools, which constitute serious violent crimes and have started to show signs of terrorism," HKMAO spokesman Yang Guang said today.  "This type of violent criminal activity must be resolutely combated according to the law with no hesitation or mercy."

He ominously said the city had come to a "critical moment" and vowed to clamp down on violent crime with an "iron fist".

THERE IS NOT "BLACK HAND" BEHIND THE PROTESTERS

Shooting at point blank range in the MTR is shocking

These young people on the front lines are very smart, agile and creative. They are highly organized and know what they are doing. They use encrypted smartphone apps to communicate and on the streets they are assigned specific tasks.

Some are experts in uprooting sidewalk railings in seconds, others tying them up into barricades, others tasked with defusing tear gas canisters, or are good at throwing them back at police. No one taught them how to do it -- they learned quickly on their own.

How can you underestimate this talented group of people? Imagine if you were able to channel their energy and creativity towards building Hong Kong's economy?!

But instead your police force is the one that is sinister in its tactics, dressing up like protesters and beating them up and arresting them. That is downright dirty. How would God feel about that?

YOU ARE BEING MAINLANDIZED

Lam tells the young to fight together to build a better HK

Carrie where were you yesterday? Oh at closing ceremony of a People's Liberation Army training camp for university students. And how did you address them? In Mandarin!

"My colleagues and I will be more patient to get in touch with youth from different classes to listen to their voices. We hope that we can fight together to build a better Hong Kong," is what you said.

Fight? Really? How about build, or create, establish, assemble, or forge? Fight seems such a combative choice of words.

And yes words do mean a lot, especially when you said the extradition bill was "dead", but it's not "dead" when the bill appeared in the Gazette Index of Bills on Friday... that means the bill is still very much alive.

STAND UP FOR HONG KONG

Many people could not sleep last night. There are reports of people of all ages who cried watching the news last night, shocked and terrified their city had devolved to this mess. We need a leader to bridge the gap, but you are hardly anywhere to be found except hiding in Government House.

You've effectively handed over control of the city to other people representing Beijing, like liaison office director Wang Zhimin and Maria Tam Wai-chu, deputy director of the Basic Law Committee under the National People's Congress Standing Committee. It's hardly reassuring.

If you can't lead us, go away. We want a leader who fights for Hong Kong.

AGAIN -- WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CITY, CARRIE?

CARRIE?

Hong Kong Scared to Show its True Colours

Cathay Pacific wants to show diversity with this advert, but it's banned in HK

Last Friday Taiwan made a bold statement last week in legalizing same-sex marriages, the first place in Asia to do so.

In a way it threw down the gauntlet on other Asian places to see where they stand, and in the case of Hong Kong, it's still in the closet.

The city's airline carrier, Cathay Pacific also made a daring move with its rebranding with its campaign "Move Beyond", in a bid to demonstrate its diversity. In one of its images, it shows two Asian men wearing suits and holding hands as they walk along a beach.

Other Cathay campaign images are shown in MTR stations

However, both the Airport Authority, which runs Hong Kong's airport and the MTR Corporation rejected showing this image, and other ones are being shown around the city.

Since the news broke about not showing the image of the two men, MTR Corp tried to blame its advertising agency, JCDecaux to reconsider using it in the future. However this wasn't enough for LGBT groups, demanding to know when in the future MTR Corp would use the image.

"What does it mean that they will consider so in the future? What about [this advert] this time?" said Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, Hong Kong's first openly gay lawmaker.

"We reiterate that the MTR Corporation is committed to equal opportunities in all aspects of its business and supports diversity, and it does not tolerate any form of discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation or any other factor," the corporation said on Monday.

So... why not let actions speak louder than words and post the image in the stations?

Meanwhile, the Airport Authority tried to explain its reasoning not to show the image due to "established guidelines" on how adverts are displayed. 

"In the airport's environment, one important consideration is given to the fact that [the airport] receives a large number of passengers of all ages with different cultural backgrounds from all over the world," a spokesman for the Airport Authority said.

The LGBT community has started an online campaign

He said the advert in question had not been submitted to the authority, perhaps again blaming the ad agency.

In the meantime,  the LGBT community has started an online campaign, getting people, homosexual or not to hold a picture of the banned image and take pictures of themselves in MTR stations or at the airport, and post it on social media.

Already Gigi Chao, daughter of property tycoon Cecil Chao, posted a picture of herself and another woman at the Airport Express where they held up a sign, "#MoveBeyondDiscrimination".

Chao made headlines around the world in 2012 when her father offered HK$500 million (US$63.7 million) to any man who would marry his daughter, even though she was already married to another woman. Two years later he doubled the offer to HK$1 million.

Gigi Chao (left) and friend at Airport Express

Previously Cathay Pacific CEO Rupert Hogg had said of the rebranding campaign: "The inclusion bit is really important. No matter who you are, when you come to work at Cathay Pacific... we want you to be who you are and feel really comfortable and be a productive part of the team and that's what we strive for."

Also, the airline told staff in an internal meeting that one of the key messages of the rebranding was to "fly with pride for our LGBT community allies".

Can we please move forward with this issue? Hong Kong looks like an ostrich with its head in the sand next to Taiwan. We look sheepish in dealing with the reality of diversity in the community instead of embracing it.

The Leung Airport Bag Fiasco is Laid to Rest

Leung Chun-yan (far right) left her bag at the check-in counter two yeras ago

Can I jog your memory?

Back in March 2016, then chief executive Leung Chun-ying's daughter, Leung Chun-yan was catching a flight to the United States when she left her bag at the airport check-in counter and only realized it after she had passed through immigration and security.

What did she do? She called daddy to fix the problem. He called Cathay Pacific and demanded that they take the bag through security and pass it to his daughter who was already at the gate. He claimed there was a courtesy service that helped passengers with their left-behind bags.

Leung Chun-ying claims today's ruling is "political"

The airline staff tried to explain the rules to him, that it was the passenger's responsibility because they should be present when the bag is undergoing security screening.

Meanwhile, the Airport Authority felt it was the airline's responsibility to take the bag through, while the Aviation Security Company (AVESCO) said it had no objection to the airline taking the bag, contravening the airport's own security rules.

The Hong Kong Aviation Security Programme (HKASP) rule at the time was: "All screening of cabin baggage shall be conducted in the presence of the passenger."

In the end a CX staff member did take the bag through security screening and gave it to Leung Chun-yan just before her flight took off.

Following the incident, airport security changed the rules, saying that only suspicious bags that needed to be screened a second time required the presence of the passenger, thus trying to make the Leung Chun-yan incident end.

However, flight attendant Law Mei-mei filed for a judicial review, as she was concerned whether a flight attendant should be allowed or required to take unattended baggage through security screening.

Passengers must be present when their bags are being checked

And today the judge ruled airport bosses broke their own safety rules in the baggage fiasco two years ago.

Justice Anderson Chow Ka-ming declared decisions made by the Airport Authority and AVESCO contravened HKASP in force at the time. He concluded the government had later amended the security rules specifically to address the Leung case.

Chow also rejected Leung's argument that the airlines had a courtesy delivery service.

In a comment to Chinese media, Leung said the judgment was a "political act rather than a safety issue" but did not elaborate.

Hong Kong Cabin Crew Federation spokeswoman Carol Ng Man-yee said her group, an umbrella organization that includes Law's flight attendants' union -- was "very pleased" with the court ruling and demanded the Airport Authority and Civil Aviation Department apologize for going against their safety-first principle in the 2016 incident.

Carol Ng (second left) was very pleased with the ruling

"What would I tell Leung Chun-ying and his wife? I'd tell everyone the same thing: it's everyone's obligation to follow the rules," Ng said outside the court.

Ng is now calling for the reinstatement of the original rules for safety reasons.

The Airport Authority respected the ruling, but stopped short of saying it would appeal, as the rules were already amended.

Finally vindication that everyone -- that means everyone -- must follow the rules when going through airport security.

The fact that Leung still insists he is right, and that the ruling is a political one just reveals how he and his family still believe these airport safety rules do not apply to them at all.

It also shows how the Aviation Authority and AVESCO bowed to Leung's demands, throwing security concerns out the window.

Can we please have more back bone in Hong Kong? Or is this a sign of things to come?

More CY Leung Family Drama

Leung Chung-yan (middle) almost left her bag at Hong Kong airport

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and his family are back in the spotlight again after an Apple Daily report the other day about his daughter leaving her luggage in a non-restricted area but she was about to board her flight to San Francisco on Marcy 28.

What makes this interesting is the differing accounts of the story.

Apple Daily reported -- complete with a copy of Cathay Pacific's internal memo -- that Leung was in touch with the airline's staff demanding that they help his daughter retrieve the luggage -- even though this is against airport security rules.

When Cathay staff addressed him as "Mr Leung", he apparently demanded they call him "Chief Executive Leung"...

The bag was finally brought to the gate by a Cathay staff

But the document did not document the telephone conversations.

However, his office claims he only heard about the luggage issue when he called his daughter to wish her a good flight, as it was his wife Regina who saw their daughter off at the airport.

It was then that he called airline staff, but only to find out how the luggage would meet up with her if she left on her flight. The CE's office also stated Mrs Leung never went to airport restricted areas, or the boarding gate area, nor did she wear any "special identity".

He also claims he didn't abuse his power, nor ask anyone to call him "Chief Executive Leung".

Another version of the story has come out that it was Mrs Leung who insisted that airport staff take the luggage, which was left in the immigration area and bring it to her daughter.

According to a Cathay log, Chung-yan was arguing with airport security Aviation Security Co (AVESCO) for more than 20 minutes.

"Leung [Chung-yan] asked us many times to claim her bag on her behalf from AVESCO," the log said.

Apparently Chung-yan left her bag at immigration

"She was aware time was running out [boarding had started] and she did not want to waste time going through immigration."

"At 00:05 on March 28, passenger's mother returned to the site and confirmed the bag belongs to her daughter," according to another entry.

"Mrs Leung said her daughter must board [the flight] with this bag."

While AVESCO staff tried to explain to Mrs Leung that the owner of the bag must personally retrieve it, the chief executive's wife apparently insisted on having things her way.

Then at 12.15am, a Cathay staff retrieved the bag with permission of AVESCO and by 12.23am, Chung-yan received it and immediately boarded the flight.

Which version do you believe?

The story is making the rounds on social media and already the court of public opinion has weighed in.

Wouldn't it be best if the facts were clarified as quickly as possible?

The War on Books at the Airport

Page One bookstore is quitting the airport after its lease was up in April

From tomorrow there will be fewer reading material for sale at Hong Kong International Airport.

There were two bookstore chains, Relay, and Page One, and the latter has lost all six of its airport bookshops with its leases up in April.

Both bookstores' biggest shops near gates 20 and 21 will be replaced with luxury brands MCM and Hermes. Relay's other stores will be relocated to smaller spaces near departure gates.

But that's not all -- there will be five bookshops at the airport that will be run by mainland publisher and bookstore chain Chung Hwa. One wonders what kind of reading material will be for sale there.

It is believed the change in the bookshop vendors may have something to do with pressure being put on the Airport Authority to shut down bookshops selling politically sensitive books, in relation to the saga of the missing booksellers.

There will be fewer Relay stores in the airport

However, an Airport Authority spokeswoman said the decision was made to reduce bookstore space because of a "change in reading habits and advancement in technology", following regular customer surveys on travellers' needs.

When asked to comment, a spokeswoman for Page One said the proposed units up for tender by the authority were not appropriate for the chain to continue its presence in the airport, and cited the economic downturn as another reason.

Lisa Leung Yuk-ming, associate professor in the department of cultural studies at Lingnan University, said Chung Hwa had "quite a strong mainland Chinese background" and people might come to the conclusion that there were political reasons behind the change in book vendors.

"Airport book shops became a haven for all these controversial books about Beijing government officials and their sex lives and how they made their way [to power] through corruption," she said.

"They were a haven not only for books but for magazines publishing gossip tabloid stories about the mainland government. This might be a reprisal for bookshops selling these kinds of things or it might be self-censorship by the airport itself to try to weed out these problematic bookshop labels.

Pro-China Chung Hwa bookstore chain will be moving in

"It might be a more proactive strategy to let more pro-Beijing commercial presses have more space at the airport as a way to toe the official line -- [and say] these are the books you should be reading rather than the problem [ones]."

The Airport Authority spokeswoman declined to address concerns over a political motive for the reduction in bookshop space. "The selection of books to be offered in the shops is decided by bookstore operators," she said.

It sounds like the airport is taking a cue to be more politically correct and ensure it doesn't rile up Beijing. But really, those bookstores did make a lot of money from selling these books that are banned on the mainland.

So instead of confiscating the books when travelers enter China, why not stop them from even coming in in the first place, by cutting the number of bookstores in the airport and putting in a pro-China shop?

Talk about waging a soft power war on culture.

In the meantime I, like everyone else will have to buy our reading materials before we head to the airport. It sounds like this new reality is only the beginning of the new normal...