As a former resident and frequent traveler in Hong Kong, R had never considered himself a political threat under the city’s national security law, which inaugurated a continuous repression against dissent when it was imposed three years ago.
Until he was inaugurated in a small window without window from Hong Kong International Airport at the beginning of this year when he arrived at his native Taiwan, and subject to interrogations and complete research of the police in uniform and in civilian clothes.
“Who do you know in Hong Kong?” His interrogators wanted to know. “For whom you worked, an employee or not paid, during your stay in Hong Kong?”
A sign on the wall seemed to be reassuring: “You have the right to contact friends and parents, and you have the right to a lawyer, as long as it does not obscure official functions.”
But R, who was initially held by immigration agents, was not allowed to use his phone.
Later, some plainclothes officers presented themselves and took his personal documents, in particular his passport, his Taiwanese identity card and even his staff of his Taiwanese university, for photocopying.
R, who asked not to be appointed for fear of additional reprisals, was denied entry to Hong Kong, then loaded in a prison van with bars on the windows, for the deportation to Taiwan.
“It was the first time in my life inside a van,” he said. “There were new with me, looking closely.”
“They treated me like a terrorist.”
Refuse entry
R once worked in a university in Hong Kong, but his research does not directly affect the city or its policy, he said. However, he has frequently traveled there in recent years with regard to a kind of second home.
While he went to observe some of the mass steps of the 2019 protest movement, he was never a direct participant.
Sometimes he represented news on political developments in the city on Facebook.
R was officially refused the entry to Hong Kong because he had “failed to respond to qualifications after a complete evaluation”. He will no longer try for a few years.
The Hong Kong authorities denied entry to the eminent militants of democracy and the militants of rights for years, from the 2014 pro-democracy umbrella movement.
R still cannot understand what he has done wrong, since his research does not even imply Hong Kong.
The Taiwanese government has recently updated its travel advice for the city, warning its nationals not to submit to the National Security Act.
Possible offenses include wearing the wrong type of t-shirt or the song of bad song in public, or displaying slogans linked to the protest movement.
Crampon
The National Security Act – imposed by Beijing in Hong Kong from July 1, 2020 – inaugurated a repression on the scale of the city against public dissent and the criticism of the authorities who saw main journalists, a pro -democratic media magnocracy Jimmy Lai and 47 former legislators and democracies activists responsible for “collusion”.
It applies to speeches and acts committed all over the world and was used to issue the leaders of a London -based rights group with a withdrawal order for its website.
Shouting or displaying protest slogans in a public place, including “Free Hong Kong! Revolution now!” Or playing the British national anthem in public also appeared on the list of actions to avoid publishing by the Taiwan Continental Affairs Council, an executive organization in charge of the complicated relationship of the island with China.
But the council refused to comment on the case of R when contacted by The journalist Recently, saying that he had not received any report from his treatment.
So who decides who goes on the “black list” of people arriving in Hong Kong and according to what criteria.
From 2018
It is a troubled area that Taiwan officials could not enlighten, apart from that things have started to become more risky for nationals of the island in Hong Kong around 2018.
They have long been a fair game for police in mainland China. The Taiwanese political activist Lee Ming-Cheh was detained and imprisoned for five years during a trip there in 2017, the colleague activist Lee Meng-Chu meeting a similar fate in 2019.
More recently, Chinese authorities have arrested the main Taiwanese nationalist politician Yang Chih-Yuan for “Secession” and held Taiwan Li Yanhe’s publisher, known by his “Fucha” penname, in Shanghai.
The recent charge of Yuen King-Ting, 23, with the sedition for having published Slogans of protest banned from Hong Kong while studying in Japan also increased fears in Taiwan.
According to the former anthropology professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Gordon Mathews, most foreign nationals are likely to be refused in Hong Kong if they are judged suspect, unless they have been accused of a crime, rather than being detained and prosecuted.
But it does not expect there to be problems related to national security law for foreign nationals who simply pass through Hong Kong.
However, his advice specifically refers to people not born in China or Hong Kong, and who have never held citizenship in these territories. Foreign passport holders who were Chinese citizens tend to have their foreign nationality ignore, as in the case of Jimmy Lai, he said.
Arbitrary list?
It is not only Taiwan academics who could be in danger. Foreign journalists working in Hong Kong could also be at risk – it is simply difficult to say how much, according to journalists without the borders of the Eastern Asia office, Cédric Alviani.
Indeed, the Chinese government can always replace its own directives and hold who anyone who arbitrarily.
Alviani also warned that journalists of Chinese origin holding foreign passports are particularly vulnerable to this type of treatment, citing cases of Cheng Lei, Yang Hengjun and Jimmy Lai.
Lin Thung-Hong, who directs the Center for Contemporary China Studies at the Tsinghua National University of Taiwan, has agreed that the “black list” can be an arbitrary thing.
“It is impossible and quite insignificant to try to guess where the political red lines of Hong Kong are,” said Lin The journalist.
“An authoritarian government will never allow these lines to be clearly traced, because [opacity] is the best way to spread fear and facilitate control, “he said, adding that there is no basic rules to determine whether you have been put on blacklist or not.
But he said that his university warns that researchers going to China and Hong Kong to go with empty phones and hard drives, and to only use tailor -made alphanumeric passwords, not facial recognition or other identification factors.
If you are detained, stay calm, never admit any crime and not mention the name or details of anyone, he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This is a version published by a collaborative report of Mandarin Service of RFA And The journalist An investigation magazine based in Taiwan.