#Newspaper

Rumors of actor Alex Mak was ordered by TVB to stop working due to participation of Hong Kong pro-democracy movement

(14 May)Hong Kong police have been accused of abusing its power and conducting indiscriminate arrests during the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong in 2019, also known as the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement.

So far, nearly 8,000 people have been arrested. Of the arrested, one of them is 26-year-old up-and-coming TV actor Hoi Ching (Alex) Mak, according to Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily. He was reportedly arrested at the end of 2019 after participating in one of the protests.

Mak is employed by local pro-establishment TV station TVB. It is said that TVB has stopped all of Mak’s work following the arrest. Mak was not seen in the promotion of a recently aired TVB show, in which he is one of the actors. Mak decided to return to his hometown in France after being suppressed by the company due to his political views.

Mak was one of the favorite actors of TVB’s top management team, headed by Yee Ling (Virginia) Lok and Wing Shan (Sandy) Yue. Following his arrest, Mak’s dense working schedule was quickly cancelled by TVB.

Mak’s colleagues at TVB were surprised by his sudden departure.

There are reports that TVB has issued a gag order to forbid the few people who are familiar with the matter to say much.

Mak was actively posting promo videos and photos relating to the latest TVB show he participated in before his employer took him out of all promotional work. He disappeared from Instagram for around three months.

Recently, Alex posted a selfie on his social media platform. In the photo, he wore sunglasses without expression. The caption was: "Take a break. Take a look."

Online comments from his fans included: "You left TVB?", " Why you been gone so long?"

Source: Apple Daily News
https://bit.ly/2T6KKUy

#AlexMak #TVB #WhiteTerror #Censorship #SharpPower #HumanRights #Freedom #AntiELAB

Some words and phrases are used much more frequently in this year than in the last year in Hong Kong Government press releases as well as in statements.

#HongKongGovernment #Freedom #NatioanlSecurity #GoHKGraphics

Hong Kong National Security Law has been implemented for a year. Until May 23, 2021, 77% of National Security Law defendants have already lost their freedom without a conviction.

#NationalSecurityLaw #Freedom #GoHKgraphics

#PoliticalProsecution
Former Reporter Charged with Rioting in Hong Kong: Losing the 612 Fund is Like Losing a Backing

Since 2019, the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund have been providing financial support to the pro-democracry protesters arrested in the #AntiELAB movement in Hong Kong. On August 18, 2021, the Fund annouced that they would suspend their operation. Their record shows that there are still 1,274 ongoing cases as of May 2021.

Ari (a pseudonym), who was previously a #AppleDaily reporter and currently unemployed, was charged with rioting during the AntiELAB movement in 2019. She is one of the arrested persons receiving support from the 612 Fund.

She described the 612 Fund as a firm backing the arrested people who were unsure about their future and struggle to live normally. The Fund relieved part of their financial burden; however, after the suspension of the Fund, Ari would hesitate before filing a legal review, if she would be convicted.

Source: InMediaHK #Oct02
https://bit.ly/3aoZeY3

#612Fund #612HumantarianReliefFund #Court #Freedom #Trial #Riots #Appeal

#Art #Freedom
Italian city defies China bid to scrap dissident's art show

An Italian city is going ahead with plans to host an art exhibition by a Chinese dissident despite a request from China's embassy to cancel it.

The show, called "China is (not) near," is due to run from November 13 to February 13, 2021 in the northern Italian city of Brescia.

The exhibition by #Badiucao, a cartoonist also known as "The Chinese Banksy", is expected to denounce Chinese political repression and censorship of information on the COVID pandemic.

Brescia Mayor #EmilioDelBono told local press that his office would not comply with a request from the Chinese embassy in Italy to scrap it.

He said the friendship between the Italian and Chinese people "is not in question", but "I think it is important to show that you can stay friends while criticising some things".

The deputy mayor, #LauraCastelletti, earlier tweeted that "For us art and freedom of expression are an essential combination".

#Italy #FreedomOfExpression

Source: Stand News, #Oct23 https://thestandnews.page.link/PHgLpzQ5HDsT9fKR8

#Award
A 19-year-old Hongkonger wins National Poetry Competition

#EricYip, who is from Hong Kong, won for his poem #Fricatives in the #NationalPoetryCompetition. The 19-year-old economics student from the University of Cambridge has become the youngest person to ever win the competition.

The poem plays with ideas about language to also comment on colonialism, race, migration, belonging and the guilt of leaving one’s home behind.

Yip’s work was chosen by judges Fiona Benson, David Constantine and Rachel Long, who read all the entries anonymously.

Benson said: “Fricatives is an immensely ambitious and beautifully achieved poem. It puts its reader into the position of a student of English as a second language, the fricative consonants tangling our mouths as we speak the poem, and intriguing us with the alternate meanings that rest precariously on the pronunciation. ‘Proper’ achievements – the correct pronunciation, the good education abroad, and the proud parents – are countered by an underworld of political prisoners and risky, grim sex.”

In an interview, Eric Yip told reporters that he was shocked to have won. “Poetry is definitely one of the arts where you get better with age because you have more lived experiences and you read more and you write more.”

Yip, who cites Ocean Vuong as a writer who made him realise he “had a right” to be heard, speaks Cantonese and Mandarin, but writes poetry in English.

Yip won £5,000 for the first prize. The National Poetry Competition also named nine other winners, including 92-year-old MR Peacocke for her poem Out of School.

#EricYip #NationalPoetryCompetition #Fricatives #Freedom #Emigration

Source: Initial Media #Mar31
https://publielectoral.lat/theinitiumnews/79