Beijing has made an unprecedented intervention in Hong Kong politics to block two lawmakers from taking office.
Pro-independence elected lawmakers Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching have refused to pledge allegiance to Beijing when being sworn in.
Beijing has now interpreted a section of Hong Kong law to mean any official who does not swear the oath properly cannot take office, said state media.
The move comes after weeks of chaos in the Hong Kong legislature.
There were also protests, and some scuffles, in Hong Kong on Sunday night, with at least four arrests.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive CY Leung said his government would "fully implement" the ruling.
For Hong Kong's democracy movement, China's intervention is a challenge to freedom of expression and judicial independence, but for Beijing the bigger picture is paramount.
All talk of independence is seen as threatening and elsewhere in China, separatism is a crime and campaigning for independence results in a lengthy jail term.
To allow elected members of Hong Kong's legislature to use such a high-profile public platform to insult China and talk of a Hong Kong nation was unthinkable.
Hong Kong's courts do still uphold the freedoms promised when Britain handed the territory back to China nearly two decades ago.
But this intervention from Beijing is a reminder that China is determined to decide the limits of those freedoms.
I don't think you understand the issues in HK. Recent polls have suggested that over 83% of the public agree with banning those two fools. Even their own constituents that voted for them (Less than 40,000 votes in a city of 7 MILLION got these two imbeciles elected) have abandoned them.
Picture this. A radical right congressman, supported with a pathetic amount of votes in his district due to low voter turnout. His first day in the House of Representatives for his Oath of Office, he states "I DO NOT solemnly swear to defend the Constitution of the USA, as Texas is not a part of the USA. Texas is an independent nation. **** the USA, **** all you niggers, long live Texas!"
Switch USA to China and Texas to Hong Kong, and that, in a nutshell, is exactly what these two imbeciles said in Cantonese.
Well, Hong Kong is a democratic, Western value based city isn't it? It would make sense for the people (at least the younger generations) to want to move closer to the West as opposed to moving closer to Beijing. It can only end in one of two ways: either Hong Kong becomes complete Chinese and everyone who hates Beijing leaves or they achieve the impossible - independence.
I don't think you understand the issues in HK. Recent polls have suggested that over 83% of the public agree with banning those two fools. Even their own constituents that voted for them (Less than 40,000 votes in a city of 7 MILLION got these two imbeciles elected) have abandoned them.
Picture this. A radical right congressman, supported with a pathetic amount of votes in his district due to low voter turnout. His first day in the House of Representatives for his Oath of Office, he states "I DO NOT solemnly swear to defend the Constitution of the USA, as Texas is not a part of the USA. Texas is an independent nation. **** the USA, **** all you niggers, long live Texas!"
Switch USA to China and Texas to Hong Kong, and that, in a nutshell, is exactly what these two imbeciles said in Cantonese.
Tangmo,
Those are zoomed-in pictures of demonstrators in 2003 (against Article 23) and 2014 (Occupy). We're talking about the issue now, 2016. Even if they were supposedly related, again, they "won" their seats based on 40,000 votes, which are the supporters we are talking about here, so your photos are irrelevant.
And unlike the Occupy Wall Street protests, the Occupy protests here in 2014 caused a **** ton of economic damage, not to the rich elite, but to the everyday working class. People look at the low hit to GDP figures and cry that the protests did not take a hit...because real estate and the stock market were doing well, which offset any hits to the everyday Hong Konger. Public transport drivers that work 12 hours a day for under 3k USD a month, sanitation workers making less than 800 USD / month, restaurant and catering staff along the routes making less than 2k / month...many, many people had almost three months of 0 income. There's a reason the bus drivers union came out and started beating up protesters in 2014.
In regards to the current situation, recent interviews and articles have all shown that over 70% of the people that voted for these two "legislators" regret their vote, and would vote for non-"independence" candidates in the soon-to-take-place by-election.
I don't understand how you can defend these idiots.
Under the Basic Law, an anti-sedition law (Article 23) must be implemented for Hong Kong to uphold it's end of the bargain for "one country, two systems", which was actually the same law as HK had back when the UK was the boss. For some reason, it was never "grandfathered" into HK's constitution (the Basic Law) during the handover. It was held off from implementation due to the protests (in your photo) of 2003. These stupid kids and their moronic antics have caused huge problems for the city's governance. Due to their ignorance and arrogance (these two greenhorns still refuse to apologize for their actions, have protested at the government offices by leading rabble against the police, again using knife-tipped umbrellas, destroying public property, and destroying public paved roads to get brick projectiles to fling at police, while calling on Taiwan to "take back" Hong Kong, asking the US and the UK to intervene, generally trying to stay in the spotlight), the pro-Beijing parties are now close to holding a "filibuster" proof super majority, and would be able to implement Article 23.
The issue with Article 23 is that, back in the colonial days, the British used their version of the law to suppress Communist (PRC) and Nationalist (Taiwan) sympathizers. It was a law that almost everyone in HK was against, but under the British, Hong Kongers had no say whatsoever. China has allowed Hong Kong to implement the law itself, yet the pan-democrats (many of which represented vested interests that SUPPORTED the UK version of this law while the Brits were here) have fear mongered people into resisting it's implementation.
Either HK implements the law itself, or China will force it down HK's throat. <<snipped due to length of the two posts>>
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