Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has resigned from an honorary fellowship at a college at Britain’s Cambridge University after it questioned her commitment to the protection of human rights and freedom of expression, Reuters reports (HT: FDD).
China’s Communist Party crackdown on Hong Kong gets more menacing by the day, The Wall Street Journal adds. This week’s roundup of democracy advocates including publisher Jimmy Lai is the latest assault on the once-free city, and hardliners in Beijing see Taiwan as the next prize.
National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
There is much the international community can do in response to Beijing’s aggression in Hong Kong, the National Endowment for Democracy’s Akram Keram told a meeting of the Canadian House of Commons Special Committee on Canada-China Relations:
- First and foremost, it can take steps to protect Hongkongers who are seeking to resettle themselves and the families; since May, thousands of Hong Kongers have applied for foreign immigration documents, seeking safety and protection in third countries, including Canada. This includes a large number of students and young activists, who are alarmed at the Hong Kong government’s efforts to impose so-called “patriotic education” and other nationalistic initiatives that challenge Hong Kong’s academic freedom and cultural and political diversity.
- After the arrest of Jimmy Lai just days ago, Hongkongers are also rightly concerned that the CCP will begin rolling out the censorship and surveillance machine it has perfected in Tibet and East Turkistan, which the CCP refers to as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
- It is incumbent upon the international community to consider other measures that might be undertaken to protect the future of democracy, freedom, and rule of law in Hong Kong.
Without such support, as the events over the last few days have shown, the shadow of authoritarian rule will continue to grow, in ways that are all too familiar to those who have already suffered the CCP’s coercion and repression like the Uyghur community. [Here’s how the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act builds upon the work of NED grantees.] RTWT
