18 April 2021

Chinese pro-democracy activist WF calls for all-out resistance to the Tories’ Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill. This article originally appeared on the democracy unchained website.

The Tory Bill, if passed, would impose severe restrictions on the right to protest in the UK. Particularly concerning is Clause 59, which would criminalise a protest which causes or risks causing ‘serious distress, annoyance, inconvenience, or loss of amenity’, with a sentence of up to ten years in prison. The wording is, of course, vague and open to broad interpretation.

What is the purpose of a protest, if not to make the voice of the people heard? A protest that causes no disturbance to the status quo, and which does not threaten the power of the regime, is toothless and not likely to be taken seriously.

For context, the charge of rioting in Hong Kong under the Public Order Ordinance carries a maximum prison sentence of ten years.

After the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and the subsequent government repression and crackdown on political freedoms and civil rights, many Hongkongers have fled to the UK as political asylum-seekers or as emigrants under the BNO scheme.

Here, we see an attempt by the British ruling class to impose a piece of legislation on the people that would limit their democratic freedoms and rights in order to suppress political opposition. As it is with the Chinese Communist Party and the National Security Law, so is it with the illiberal Conservative Government and their Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill.

Some would argue that these two examples are not comparable. After all, the Chinese Communist Party presides over an authoritarian one-party dictatorship, whereas the Conservative Party operates within a democratic system with free elections and constitutional checks and balances. This is true: the Conservative Party is not the CCP, nor is their Police Bill as draconian as the National Security Law.

However, as activists and citizens fighting to defend democracy and freedom of expression, which we have seen abolished wholesale in Hong Kong, we cannot turn a blind eye to any encroachment on political or civil rights anywhere in the world. The Police Bill must be condemned as a step towards authoritarianism that would suffocate political freedoms in the UK as they have been in Hong Kong.

As a matter of political strategy, should we refrain from criticising the UK government when it has spoken out in support of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and condemned the CCP’s attack on Hong Kong’s autonomy, as well as offering Hongkongers a refuge by way of their BNO scheme?

The logic of ‘the enemy of the enemy is my friend’ is insidious and toxic. It is true that Western governments and leaders, most notably Donald Trump and the Republican Party, have fiercely criticised the CCP. But it is also true that they are enemies of democratic values and basic human decency. Donald Trump has undermined the foundations of American democracy by baselessly disputing the legitimacy of the US Presidential Elections, resulting in the Capitol Riot, and has also defended police brutality during the BLM protests.

Through the Police Bill, Boris Johnson would readily suppress the freedom of protest in the UK even while he condemns the political system and human rights abuses of China. At any rate, it seems unlikely that the West will do much on behalf of Hongkongers beyond strongly-worded letters of protest and economic sanctions, which have limited effect and would harm ordinary Hongkongers as much as they would hurt the regime.

Therefore, if Hongkongers believe that we are indeed fighting for freedom and democracy, we must condemn the Police Bill as a piece of legislation that would attack the values we claim to cherish and uphold.

WF is a Chinese pro-democracy activist.