This week Transit Jam, a website devoted entirely to the consideration of transport and planning matters, hastily closed after being attacked by one of the Liaison Office’s poodle papers. Legal intimidation through other channels also continues unchecked.

Was it encouraged by the local representatives of the motherland to dial up the Wolf Warrior domesticity? Or is this the result of the whole government adopting the approach of our historically prickly police force? It is difficult to explain how the SAR government turned into such an intolerant creature. I awaited with confidence an official clarification and condemnation of the JA’s many sins and errors, culminating in the claim that the government “welcomes criticism”, though in the light of recent and forthcoming electoral reforms criticism is likely to be in short supply.

Still, it sounds very nice, in theory, but the practice is that comparatively harmless cartoonists and writers face a constant flow of official abuse, or as the Hong Kong Journalists Association put it when Ming Pao axed a long-running cartoon this week, “Backed by abundant resources and public power, the SAR government repeatedly targeted a mere, reflecting that Hong Kong cannot tolerate critical voices.” Or as the Secretary for Security put it in a recent speech, “You can’t use misleading accusations to vilify the government… the government must speak up, clarify and condemn… and give the citizens the right to know.” This is not the context in which “the public right to know” usually comes up. Any expression which does not actively subscribe to both is to be contested and condemned. Nowadays, the government has its own facts and its own version of history. In order for this to be at all meaningful, though, it is necessary for both parties to entertain at least as an extraordinary and remote thought the possibility that they are wrong and the other people are at least partially right. There used to be a dialogue in which the government expressed its views through various channels and accepted that other views would be expressed through other channels, or indeed in the more broad-minded media in the same channels. But the need to tiptoe through a legal minefield is only part of the problem. We are, of course, in dangerous times for people who do not share our government’s high opinion of itself. Why I am giving up writing about Hong Kong politics - Hong Kong Free Press HKFP Close

Constant political writings