Insights & More

Hong Kongians Plan March Against Banner Invaders

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Citizens fed up with Chinese regime-inspired anti-Falun Gong slogans

By Sonya Bryskine
Epoch Times Staff

A Facebook campaign group called “We are Hong-Kongian not Chinese” has called on the former British Colony to protest the increasing anti-Falun Gong slogans that continue to appear in the metropolis.

The group says citizens must stand up for their freedom and stop accepting the abusive behavior of the Hong Kong Youth Care Association, Ltd.

The Association has been blanketing central and very popular areas of Hong Kong, such as the SoGo, Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui and Star Ferry, with banners that slander the Falun Gong spiritual practice.

The Association is believed to be doing so because it is a front for the Chinese Communist Party’s 610 office—a Party organ specifically set up to persecute Falun Gong.

A Facebook message dated Feb. 22 from the “We are Hong-Kongian not Chinese” group has urged citizens to march to the SoGo area on March 3. The posting described the dress code for the event as “black T-shirts” for all participants, presumably to symbolize mourning for Hong Kong’s freedoms.

Soon after the online call-to-action surfaced, the group’s spokesperson, Danny Chan, was called to the Hong Kong Department of Security, to dissuade them from holding the protest.

Chan said the group had not met such resistance from the police before, even though they have previously held a few protests against the Youth Care Association.

The Feb. 22 Facebook message reported that the police promised to clear the Association’s abusive banners by March 3.

“If those banners are down [by March 2], then we would cancel the event of afternoon tea at SoGo and will go to Star Ferry,” reads the message, euphemistically referring to the proposed action as “afternoon tea.” Star Ferry is one of the busiest spots in Hong Kong and a prime tourist attraction.

Chan, however, expects the members of the Association to be present with their banners on March 3. “The police said the Hong Kong Youth Care Association people are very firm,” Chan said. “They will not remove their banners.”

Because the March 3 event is an appeal on the Internet, Chan does not know how many people will show up. The Hongkongese Facebook page is popular, though. It has 31,887 likes and over 29,000 people are talking about it, as of the printing of this article.

And they are not the only group expressing impatience with the Youth Care Association and support for Falun Gong.

Xiong Li, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong Citizen Falun Gong Protection Group, said his group is planning to invite Hong Kong senators and democracy groups to join the March 3 protest.

“The whole information site of Falun Gong is covered by their banners that are offensive and we cannot tolerate this anymore and have to stand out to say something,” Li said. “Our slogan this time is ‘Crack Down on the CCP, Protect Falun Gong.’”

The pro-democracy Facebook group HK Innovational Guard has in the past also taken part in protests on behalf of Falun Gong in opposition to the Youth Care Association, but has typically not announced its plans in advance.

Numerous democracy activists and pro-democracy politicians have also spoken out against the activities of the Association and in defense of Falun Gong.

Protecting Hong Kong

In June 2012 the Youth Care Association began to interfere with the information sites around Hong Kong where Falun Gong practitioners tell others about their practice and how it is persecuted in China. The Association has attempted to cover up or wall off Falun Gong sites with giant banners that repeat Chinese Communist Party propaganda slogans slandering Falun Gong.

Beginning in November, the Association also began covering busy Hong Kong streets and tourist sites with their banners.

The Hong Kong police have allowed the Association’s banners to spread and allowed the Association to interfere with the Falun Gong information sites, despite Hong Kong law that would seem to prohibit the Association’s activities.

Mr. Wang from the “We are Hong-Kongian not Chinese” group says the banners hung up by the Youth Care Association in the Tsim Sha Tsui and Star Ferry are illegal and offensive, and also affect the city scape and the safety of the drivers.

“Many drivers say that the banners block their sight and worry they may cause a traffic accident,” he said.

Danny Chan agrees with Wang’s points but believes the people of Hong Kong will also support the protest of the Youth Care Association’s activities for other reasons.

“Hong Kong people are very understanding,” Chan said. “People can express their political differences, but one thing, they [the Association] are going way too far, far past the tolerance threshold of the Hong Kong people, and out of the scope of the freedom of expression.”

Chan places the blame for the Association’s actions on the Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong government. He worries that the character of the city of Hong Kong itself is at risk.

“If this is allowed to continue to happen, the Hong Kong people are the ultimate victims,” Chan said. “The Hong Kong people have to stand up to protect themselves and not let the regime or the Hong Kong government turn Hong Kong into a place where people are against people.”

Reporting by Lucy Leung.

via Hong Kongians Plan March Against Banner Invaders | Democracy & Human Rights | China | Epoch Times

Related Articles: Hong Kong Looks Dimly Upon Harassment of Falun Gong

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Communist Front Group Seeks to Silence Hong Kong Falun Gong

Falun Gong practitioners are seen meditating at their information site at Star Ferry in Hong Kong on Feb. 13, 2013. A rack of banners subsequently erected by the Hong Kong Youth Care Association blocks passerby from seeing the practitioners’ site. The raised tile at the base of the Association’s banners is a pathway meant for the blind. (Epoch Times)

By Stephen Gregory
Epoch Times Staff

Hong Kong is a city proud of its legacy of individual rights, but a campaign to deny those rights to Falun Gong practitioners has proceeded systematically and in the open for eight months, while the city’s police stand aside. Hong Kongers are by turns annoyed and alarmed as the character of their city seems to be changing before their eyes.

On the morning of June 10, 2012 Falun Gong practitioners arrived at the Hung Hom train station in Hong Kong as they had every day for the past ten years. They planned on setting up information booths where they would tell people about their spiritual practice and how it is persecuted in China. This day was different, though.

In the spots they would ordinarily occupy, individuals wearing uniform shirts had hung banners that attacked Falun Gong. When the practitioners hung their own banners in other spots, that group hung banners covering the Falun Gong banners. The new group also began blasting communist propaganda through a sound system.

When the practitioners approached police officers, as they had in the past if there were problems at this site, the police refused to get involved.

This group that first popped up at Hung Hom is called the Hong Kong Youth Care Association and since June 10 it has had Falun Gong in Hong Kong firmly in its sights.

The Association’s very simple website claims it is devoted to various charitable enterprises such as helping the poor and contributing to the community.

In fact, the Association appears to be a front organization for a deadly Party organ. A front organization has no public ties to the Chinese Communist Party, but works to isolate and attack the Party’s enemies.

A reporter for Hong Kong’s Next magazine traveled to the office the Association maintains in
Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong in mainland China, and uncovered the Association’s close ties to the CCP.

The Association’s Shenzhen office stands next door to the local 610 Office. The 610 Office—its name comes from the date of its founding, June 10, 1999—is a Party organization tasked by then Communist Party head Jiang Zemin with eradicating Falun Gong.

The Next reporter tried the door for the Hong Kong Youth Care Association, but it wouldn’t open. A staff member from the 610 Office came out to help. “The two associations have the same people,” the staff member said, according to the Next Magazine report.“Two door signs. If you want to find them, come here. That side won’t open.”

Children are seen playing on a swing from which the Hong Kong Youth Care Association hung a banner attacking Falun Gong. In the background, another Association banner is seen on the playlot’s fence. In November 2012, the Association began blanketing Hong Kong with banners such as this. Parts of the above photograph have been digitally obscured in keeping with The Epoch Times policy to not publish hate speech. (The Epoch Times)

The Youth Care Association is headed by Lin Guo-an a member or former member of the pro-communist political party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and currently Special Councilor in of the People’s Political Consultative Conference of Jinggangshan City in southeastern China’s Jiangxi Province, according to Next Magazine.

The journalist Ching Cheong told Radio Television Hong Kong that if the Hong Kong Youth Care Association is a front group, then “the mainland public security people are implementing their laws in Hong Kong.”

Tourists and Tuidang

In 2011, the last year for which numbers are available from the Hong Kong Tourism Commission, Hong Kong hosted 28.1 million tourists from mainland China. Falun Gong practitioners have set up booths at popular tourist sites throughout Hong Kong to reach these tourists.

The booths typically have a table surrounded by banners and placards. The practitioners hand out fliers and may demonstrate Falun Gong’s slow-motion exercises.

The practitioners want to disabuse the mainland tourists of the anti-Falun Gong propaganda they have been steeped in, so they tell them about the practice, and about the cruelties of the persecution against it. And they ask the tourists to renounce any association with the Communist Party—an act called “tuidang” in Chinese.

“The Chinese Communist Party really fears tuidang,” said Juliana Chan, a Falun Gong practitioner and a retired travel agency executive. According to the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP, over 133 million Chinese have renounced the Party. 

“The Youth Care Association seeks to mislead the tourists,” Chan said. “The tourists arrive and they can’t get close to our booths and they see communist propaganda instead.”

Blind Spot

On Chinese New Year’s Day, Feb. 10, the police ordered the Youth Care Association and the Falun Gong practitioners each to remove all of their banners from Star Ferry—one of the busiest spots in Hong Kong and a prime tourist attraction.

The next day, Wincy Chan, who regularly helps staff the information site at Star Ferry, said that an army of Association members covered the entire Star Ferry with its banners, including the spot customarily maintained for years by the practitioners. On Feb. 13 the police assigned a spot to the Falun Gong practitioners against a wall so that they would have a place to set up their booth.

The Association then set up a rack with its banners that formed a wall between the practitioners and the public. The Association’s rack was so close to a lane on the sidewalk reserved for the use of the blind that the lane was in effect impassable.

Practitioners called the police, and a video shows what happened next. The Associations’ head, Lin Guo-An, showed no deference to the police, who requested that the banners be moved. He argued heatedly with them, and in the end the police withdrew, leaving the Association’s banners in place.

Falun Gong practitioners tell of the Association trying on a daily basis to completely cover their information booths with banners.

Mandy Liu, an old hand at the information sites, says the police could easily resolve any conflicts between the two groups.

“If the police assigned one spot to the Hong Kong Youth Care Association and another spot to the Falun Gong practitioners, and then enforced their decision, there would be no problems,” Ms. Liu said.

No Ground Rules

Without the police setting ground rules, there is room for even more mischief.

Mandy Liu says the practitioners who staff the information sites are suffering a reenactment of the Cultural Revolution. Videos show the Association members shouting at practitioners, cursing them, waving fingers in their faces, and pushing them.

Practitioners began videoing all confrontations with the Association members after an incident at the Lok Ma Chau border crossing with mainland China.

“The Hong Kong Youth Care Association members have these huge banners,” Ms. Liu explained. “They wrapped our practitioners inside these banners and beat them. No one could see what was happening behind the banners. By the time the police arrived, there was no evidence. So, we began videoing everything.”

Zeng Qiaochan is a practitioner who helps staff the Lok Ma Chau information site. She says physical abuse continues there.

“Their banners have long sticks at each end,” Zeng said. “When no one is looking they whip those sticks down and hit your hands or feet. They do it so quickly, you can’t catch them on video.”

On July 4 at the Hung Hum train station, a member of the Association brandished a large knife in front of a New Tang Dynasty TV reporter who was filming the Association’s activities. Police were called, but were not interested in seeing video of the incident and chose to do nothing.

Wincy Chan said the harassment by the Association has an ulterior motive.

“These people try to create a situation where practitioners will involuntarily defend themselves—a situation where they can accuse the practitioners of breaking the law or beating them up,” Chan said. “Because we cultivate truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance we avoid having any kind of conflict with them.”

Legalities

The police have told practitioners that there is no legal basis for stopping the Association from putting up its banners. According to Mandy Liu, the police have said, “both sides have the right to speak, if there is no conflict this situation has nothing to do with us.” Recently the police told practitioners they are “gathering evidence.”

A request for comment from the Service Information Office of the Police Public Relations Bureau in Hong Kong had not been answered at press time.

Some of Hong Kong’s netizens say the police refuse to defend the practitioners because of the Association’s CCP connections.

The practitioners say they should be protected under the Hong Kong Basic Law, whose Public Order Ordinance states in part, “Any person who at any public gathering acts in a disorderly manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the public gathering was called together or incites others so to act shall be guilty of an offence.”

Hong Kong is also a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”

With the police refusing to protect them, the Hong Kong practitioners are investigating gaining redress through the courts.

The Hong Kong Youth Care Association could not be reached for comment by press time.

Public Opinion

In November 2012, the Association’s campaign spread from the information sites to Hong Kong’s streets. Hundreds, if not thousands, of its banners now line Hong Kong’s busiest and most chic thoroughfares.

Social media and blogs in Hong Kong are filled with complaints: The banners have destroyed Hong Kong’s cityscape; they’re a traffic hazard; they disrupt city life; and they’re an embarrassment.

In December, stickers started appearing on the banners saying, “Not From HK People.” An organization called Hong Kong Citizens Attending to the Falun Gong Issue was formed.

When someone destroyed a number of the Association’s banners, netizens cheered. A message posted to Mini forum.net, Hong Kong bulletin board, said: “The government is offering shelter to the communist thugs, and the citizens are acting on behalf of heaven. From Mon Kok to Nathan Road, some banners and nearly 70 posters destroyed.”

Several members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council have called on the police to protect the rights of Falun Gong practitioners, but the sympathetic Legco members are powerless to help. They are the minority in a body dominated by CCP allies.

Chow Wai Tung, the district councilor of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong, told The Epoch Times for a previous report, “The CCP thinks that Jiang Zemin and his like can just do whatever they please in Hong Kong, and this Youth Care Association was established just at this time, and right after it’s set up it goes and specifically targets Falun Gong and does all these wicked and shady things.”

“Falun Gong is the conscience of Hong Kong, a kind of moral compass of Hong Kong; it’s the most law abiding, kindest group of people,” Chow said. “If even they are attacked, then no group, and no individual in Hong Kong is safe.”

With reporting by Zhou Meihua

via Communist Front Group Seeks to Silence Hong Kong Falun Gong | Democracy & Human Rights | China | Epoch Times

Related Articles:

• New Zealander Takes Action Against Hong Kong’s Hateful Banners
• Communist Front Group Pulls Knife on Falun Gong in Hong Kong
• Hong Kong Youth Group Commandeers Falun Gong Information Site

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