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Hong Kongers Are Purging the Evidence of Their Lost Freedom
“那些《苹果日报》我该怎么处理？” 6park.com 6park.comSomeone in Hong Kong who I was chatting with on the phone recently had suddenly dropped her voice to ask that question, referring to the pro-democracy newspaper that the government forced to shut down in 2021. 6park.com最近我在电话中跟一个香港朋友聊天时，她突然压低声音问道，她指的是2021年被政府强制关闭的那份亲民主报纸。 6park.com 6park.com“Should I toss them or send them to you?” 6park.com“我应该把它们扔掉还是寄给你？” 6park.com 6park.comMy conversations with Hong Kong friends are peppered with such whispers these days. Last week, the city enacted a draconian security law — its second serious legislative assault on Hong Kong’s freedoms since 2020. Known as Article 23, the new law criminalizes such vague behavior as the possession of information that is “directly or indirectly useful to an external force.” 6park.com这些日子里，我与香港朋友的谈话里经常出现这种低语。上周，香港政府颁布了一项严厉的国安法，这是2020年以来政府通过立法对香港自由的第二次严重打击。这项所谓的“23条”立法把一些没有明确定义的行为定为刑事犯罪，比如“直接或间接向外部势力提供有用信息”。 6park.com 6park.comHong Kong was once a place where people did not live in fear. It had rule of law, a rowdy press and a semi-democratic Legislature that kept the powerful in check. The result was a city with a freewheeling energy unmatched in China. Anyone who grew up in China in the 1980s and 1990s could sing the Cantopop songs of Hong Kong stars like Anita Mui, and that was a problem for Beijing: Freedom was glamorous, desirable. 6park.com香港曾是人们可以不在恐惧中生活的地方。它曾拥有法治、热闹的出版业、控制权力的半民主立法机构。这些让香港拥有了中国内地望尘莫及的自由活力。20世纪八九十年代在内地长大的人，都会唱梅艳芳等香港明星的粤语流行歌曲，这对中国政府来说是个问题：自由是如此迷人和令人向往。 6park.com 6park.comWhen Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the city’s people accepted, in good faith, Beijing’s promises that its capitalist system and way of life would remain unchanged for 50 years and that the city would move toward universal suffrage in the election of its leader. 6park.com英国1997年将香港主权交还给中国时，北京承诺保持香港的资本主义制度和生活方式50年不变，并最终在香港特别行政区通过普选产生行政长官。香港人民曾诚心诚意地相信了这些承诺。 6park.com 6park.comNot anymore. Now Hong Kong people are quietly taking precautions, getting rid of books, T-shirts, film footage, computer files and other documents from the heady days when the international financial center was also known for its residents’ passionate desire for freedom. 6park.com他们现在不再信了。现在，香港人正在悄悄地采取预防措施，把那些令人兴奋的日子留下来的书籍、T恤衫、录像片段、电脑文件和其他文件处理掉。那时的香港是国际金融中心，其居民曾以对自由的热情渴望而闻名。 6park.com 6park.comI used to joke that I never needed to watch dystopian thrillers like “The Handmaid’s Tale” or “The Hunger Games.” As someone who has lived and worked for years in Hong Kong and China, I know what it feels like to descend into deepening repression, remembering our free lives. 6park.com我曾开玩笑说，我从来不需要看《使女的故事》或《饥饿游戏》等反乌托邦惊悚片。作为在香港和中国内地生活、工作了多年的人，我知道一边怀念着曾经的自由生活，同时受到愈演愈烈的镇压是什么感觉。 6park.com 6park.comAs Beijing kept breaking its promises over the years, Hong Kongers took to the streets to defend their freedoms nearly every sweltering summer. 6park.com由于中央政府多年来不断违背承诺，香港人曾几乎每年冒着酷暑走上街头捍卫他们的自由。 6park.com 6park.comIn 2003, demonstrations of half a million people forced Hong Kong’s government to shelve an earlier attempt to introduce Article 23. In 2014, hundreds of thousands peacefully occupied parts of the city for 79 days to protest moves by Beijing to ensure only candidates acceptable to the Communist Party could run for election as Hong Kong’s top leader. 6park.com2003年，50万人的示威游行迫使香港政府搁置了一次进行“23条”立法的尝试。2014年，数十万人曾和平地占领了香港中环长达79天，抗议中央政府确保只有被中共接受的候选人才能成为香港特区行政长官人选的做法。 6park.com 6park.comBut Hong Kongers were unprepared for the coming of President Xi Jinping of China, the architect of another frightening crackdown far away on the other side of the country. 6park.com但令香港人没有做好准备面对的是中国国家主席习近平的上台，他从遥远的北京策划了又一场可怕的镇压。 6park.com 6park.comIn 2017, I started to receive reports that Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities were disappearing into “political education” camps in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. People who had managed to get out told me how Xinjiang’s borders were suddenly closed, escape was becoming impossible and that speech or behavior that was once acceptable — like simply praying at a neighbor’s house — could get you jailed. Officials would enter homes to inspect books and decorations. Uyghurs were discarding copies of the Quran or books written in Arabic, fearing they would be disappeared or jailed for insufficient loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. One man told me he had burned a T-shirt with a map of Kazakhstan on it — many of Xinjiang’s inhabitants are ethnic Kazakhs with family ties across the border — as any foreign connection had become risky. 6park.com2017年，我开始收到有关维吾尔族和其他突厥语系穆斯林少数民族成员消失在中国西北部新疆“政治教育”营的报告。设法逃出来的人告诉我，政府突然关闭了新疆边境，让逃跑变得不可能，同时，曾经被接受的言论或行为——比如在邻居家祈祷——可能会导致入狱。干部进到维族人家中检查书籍和摆设。由于担心对中共不够忠诚而被失踪或被投入监狱，维族人处理了《古兰经》或阿拉伯文的书籍。一名男子告诉我，他烧了一件印有哈萨克斯坦地图的T恤衫，因为任何与外国的联系已变得危险。许多新疆居民是哈萨克族，他们在国外有亲戚。 6park.com 6park.comAs these stories of repression and fear emerged from Xinjiang, they were instantly recognizable in Hong Kong. 6park.com随着这些镇压和恐惧故事从新疆传出来，香港人马上意识到了它们的意义。 6park.com 6park.comIn 2019, the Hong Kong government proposed a bill that would have allowed extradition to China. Fear and anger — and the feeling that Hong Kong people needed to make one last stand while they could — exploded into months of protest. 6park.com2019年，香港政府提出了一项允许将嫌疑人引渡到中国内地的法案。恐惧和愤怒——以及香港人民要尽自己所能进行最后一搏的感觉——引发了长达数月的抗议活动。 6park.com 6park.comOne of the 2019 protest slogans — “Today’s Xinjiang is tomorrow’s Hong Kong”— sounded to me like hyperbole at the time. Now, five years later, it feels prescient. Today, it’s Hong Kongers who are disposing of dangerous books and T-shirts. Some people I know have quietly left an online chat group that includes foreign organizations and individuals; such contact could put the group’s Hong Kong members at risk. Others are quitting social media; tens of thousands have already left Hong Kong. 6park.com2019年抗议活动的口号之一是“今日新疆，明天香港”，我当时觉得它有点夸张。五年过去了，那个口号现在给人的感觉是先见之明。现在，香港人正在处理危险的书籍和T恤衫。我认识的一些人已悄悄离开了一个网上聊天群，因为该群里有外国的组织和个人；与境外机构或个人联络可能会给群里的香港人带来风险。还有人正在退出社交媒体；数万人已离开了香港。 6park.com 6park.comAfter Beijing imposed the National Security Law in Hong Kong in 2020, it used the law to decimate the city’s pro-democracy movement by jailing its leaders. More than 1,000 people remain in jail. Fearful of arrest, independent labor unions and media outlets disbanded. Libraries pulled hundreds of books off shelves. Films and plays were censored. Civil servants can no longer stay neutral but are forced to pledge allegiance to the government. 6park.com中央政府2020年对香港实行国家安全法后，政府用该法监禁了香港民主运动领导人，摧毁了香港民主运动。现在仍有1000多人被关在狱中。由于担心被捕，独立的工会和媒体纷纷解散。图书馆从书架上撤下了数百本书。电影和戏剧受到审查。公务员不再能保持中立，而是被迫宣誓效忠政府。 6park.com 6park.comBoth the National Security Law and Article 23, passed last week, are broad, vague and blunt instruments intended to critically wound civil liberties and transform institutions that protected people’s freedoms into tools of repression. Under Article 23, anyone found guilty of participating in a meeting of a “prohibited organization,” or who discloses “unlawful” and vaguely defined “state secrets,” could face a decade behind bars. 6park.com《香港国安法》和上周通过的“23条”立法使用的语言都宽泛模糊，它们是旨在将公民自由置于死地、将保护人民自由的机构变成镇压工具的钝器。按照“23条”立法，任何被判犯有参加“被禁止组织”的会议、或“非法”泄露定义模糊的“国家机密”罪的人，都可能面临十年有期徒刑。 6park.com 6park.comBeijing has couched this repression in terms like “rule of law,” and visitors to Hong Kong often fail to recognize the transformations taking place beneath the enduring glitz of the city. That leaves the rest of the world detached from the reality on the ground — unable to sympathize with Beijing’s victims or to feel their breathlessness under this growing weight. 6park.com中国政府将这些镇压表述为“法治”，来香港旅游的人往往看不到这座城市经久不衰的繁华外表下正在发生的变化。这让世界其他国家认识不到香港的现实，不能对受中国政府迫害的人产生同情，也感受不到他们在日益沉重的压力下喘不过气来的感觉。 6park.com 6park.comOne acquaintance in Hong Kong told me that people he knew had become blasé about their sudden loss of freedom and were just coldly watching the destruction of the city and what it stood for. But others, toughened over the years, still express hope and defiance. The solidarity forged through nearly two decades of widespread activism won’t die easily. A Pew Research Center survey this month found that more than 80 percent of Hong Kongers still want democracy, however remote that possibility looks today. 6park.com一名香港熟人告诉我，他认识的人已对自由的突然消失司空见惯，对这座城市及其代表的意义被摧毁冷眼旁观。但也有一些经过多年的磨练而坚强起来的人，仍表示了希望和反抗。在近20年的大规模抗议活动中形成的团结不会轻易消亡。皮尤研究中心本月的一项调查发现，超过80%的香港人仍想要民主，尽管民主的可能性在今天看来是多么遥远。 6park.com 6park.comThe Chinese government wants the world to forget about Hong Kong, to forget what the city once was, to forget Beijing’s broken promises. But Hong Kong’s people will never forget. Don’t look away. 6park.com中国政府想让世界忘记香港，忘记这座城市曾经的样子，忘记北京违背了承诺。但香港人民永远不会忘记。不要把目光移开。
“What should I do with those copies of Apple Daily?” 6park.com
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