 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(February 2017) |
Jason Y. Ng | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Hong Kong |
| Occupation |
|
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, University of Toronto, United World College of the Adriatic |
| Period | 2000s-present |
| Website | |
| www | |
Jason Y. Ng is a Hong Kong-born Canadian author, news columnist and a social activist for various progressive causes.
Ng was born in Hong Kong and moved to Italy when he was a child, around 1985, and lived in the United States and Canada before returning to Hong Kong in 2005. [1] [2] He earned a bachelor's degree in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and holds a Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from the University of Toronto. Ng is admitted to the New York bar [3] and the Massachusetts bar. [4]
Ng's parents were born in Taishan, Guangdong in the People's Republic of China. They lived in Hong Kong, where his father was a newspaper illustrator until the late 1980s, when they emigrated to Canada.
Ng is the author of four books about Hong Kong: HONG KONG State of Mind (2010), No City for Slow Men (2013), Umbrellas in Bloom (2016) and Unfree Speech (2020). His books have been translated into many languages. Ng also co-edited Hong Kong 20/20 (2017) and Hong Kong Noir (2019), the Hong Kong edition of Akashic Books' internationally "Noir" series.
Ng contributes opinion columns to the South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Free Press and news pieces and commentary to the Guardian . Between 2014 and 2016, he was a classical music and opera critic for Hong Kong Time Out .
Between October 2016 (inception) and April 2019, Ng served as the inaugural President of PEN Hong Kong, [5] the local chapter of PEN International that promotes literature and defends freedom of expression around the world. He is also an ambassador for Shark Savers Hong Kong and frequent advocate for Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, free expression, and the rights of foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong. [2]
In 2019, Ng was elected Co-convener of the Progressive Lawyers Group, a group of Hong Kong-based lawyers dedicated to promoting rule of law and civil liberties.
In September 2019, Ng made comments in several posts on his personal Facebook page during the anti-extradition protest in Hong Kong, which included words "monkey see, monkey do" when referring to Chinese mainlanders. The post prompted outrage among Chinese netizens. [6] [7]
In a statement on BNP Paribas's global website, the French bank apologised for "the offence caused by those social media posts that were expressed on one of [its] employees’ personal accounts", and added that while it respects its employees’ freedom of expression, it does not tolerate "language that is racist or disrespectful". [8] In an interview with CNBC, Jean Lemierre, chairman of BNP Paribas, said that Ng's "inappropriate words were not compatible at all with the standards of the bank". [9]
A few days later, Ng issued a public statement, stating that "It isn’t my fault that a common North American expression I used has been misconstrued and twisted to political ends. It isn’t my fault that I’ve become the latest target of vicious cyberbullying and doxxing. But that isn’t the scary part. What worries me most is that the same can happen to anyone in China." [10]
In the same month, Ng left BNP Paribas, which he first joined in 2007. [6]
In December 2018, Ng wrote an op-ed for South China Morning Post titled "What France’s ‘yellow vests’ can teach Hong Kong activists about political protests and the use of violence", in which he compared the political situations in France and Hong Kong and raised doubts over the use of violence in Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement with the observation that "to subscribe to [the] argument [that violence works] is to ignore several key cultural and political differences that shaped the two uprisings" [11]
In a January 2020 interview with Agence France-Presse in Barcelona, Ng itinerated his belief in nonviolent civil disobedience as a means to achieving political goals and that violence would not bring about the desired change in Hong Kong. "Using violence is a slippery slope... You sort of become addicted to media attention by creating more violence and I don’t want that to happen in Hong Kong." [12]
In 2011, Ng was named "Man of the Year" by Elle Men magazine. [13] In 2013, Hong Kong State of Mind was chosen as the book prize for the Harvard Book Award in Hong Kong. [14] In the following year, No City for Slow Men was chosen as the book prize for the same award for that year. [15]
Victoria Park is a public park in Causeway Bay, Wan Chai District, Hong Kong. The park is named after Queen Victoria, who has a statue in the park. It is around 190,000 square metres (19 ha) in size and contains sporting facilities for tennis, association football, basketball, handball, volleyball, swimming, jogging, fitness, roller skating, and bowling.
The 1967 Hong Kong riots were large-scale anti-government riots that occurred in Hong Kong during British colonial rule. Beginning as a minor labour dispute, the demonstrations eventually escalated into protests against the colonial government. The protests were partially inspired by successful anti-colonial demonstrations in Portuguese Macau which had occurred a few months prior.
Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee is a politician, barrister, writer and columnist in Hong Kong. She was a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1995 to 2012.
The Immigration Department of the Government of Hong Kong is responsible for immigration control of Hong Kong. After the People's Republic of China assumed sovereignty of the territory in July 1997, Hong Kong's immigration system remained largely unchanged from its British predecessor model. Residents from mainland China do not have the right of abode in Hong Kong, nor can they enter the territory freely, both before and after 1997. There are different regulations that apply to residents of Macau, another Special Administrative Region of China. In addition, visa-free entry acceptance regulations into Hong Kong for passport holders of some 170 countries remain unchanged before and after 1997.
Albert Ho Chun-yan is a solicitor and politician in Hong Kong. He is the former chairman (2014–2019) and vice-chair (2019–2021) of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, and former chairman of the Democratic Party from 2006 to 2012. He is a solicitor and a former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong for District Council (Second) constituency.
The League of Social Democrats (LSD) is a social democratic party in Hong Kong. Chaired by Chan Po-ying, wife of Leung Kwok-hung, it positions itself as the radical wing of the pro-democracy camp and stresses on "street actions" and "parliamentary struggles".
Democratic reforms in Hong Kong did not seriously begin until 1984 and has faced significant challenges since 2014. The one country, two systems principle allows Hong Kong to enjoy high autonomy in all areas besides foreign relations and defence, which are responsibilities of the central government. Hong Kong's Basic Law allows residents to vote for local district councillors and directly elect about half of the region's legislators (LegCo) at the time.
In Hong Kong, censorship, which refers to the suppression of speech or other public communication, raises issues regarding the freedom of speech. By law, censorship is usually practised against the distribution of certain materials, particularly child pornography, obscene images, and reports on court cases which may lead to unfair trial.
Hong Kong independence is the notion of Hong Kong as a sovereign state, independent from the People's Republic of China (PRC). Hong Kong is a special administrative region (SAR) of China and is thus granted a high degree of de jure autonomy, as stipulated by Article 2 of the Hong Kong Basic Law ratified under the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Since the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the PRC in 1997, a growing number of Hongkongers have become concerned about what they see as Beijing's encroachment on the territory's freedoms and the failure of the Hong Kong government to deliver "genuine democracy". Advocating for Hong Kong independence became illegal after the Hong Kong national security law in 2020.
Joshua Wong Chi-fung is a Hong Kong activist and politician. He served as secretary-general of the pro-democracy party Demosisto until it disbanded following the implementation of the Hong Kong national security law on 30 June 2020. Wong was previously convenor and founder of the Hong Kong student activist group Scholarism. Wong first rose to international prominence during the 2014 Hong Kong protests, and his pivotal role in the Umbrella Movement resulted in his inclusion in TIME magazine's Most Influential Teens of 2014 and nomination for its 2014 Person of the Year; he was further called one of the "world's greatest leaders" by Fortune magazine in 2015, and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.
Robert Chow Yung, BBS, is a Hong Kong journalist and media personality who is a former RTHK radio host. He is currently the spokesman of the pro-Beijing conservative Alliance for Peace and Democracy and founder and leader of the Beijing-approved Silent Majority for Hong Kong movement.
Meri Nana-Ama Danquah is a Ghanaian-American writer, editor, journalist and public speaker, whose name at birth was Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby. She is best known for her 1998 memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression. Her short story "When a Man Loves a Woman" was shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing.
The Hong Kong National Party was a localist political party from 2016 to 2018 in Hong Kong. It was the first political party in Hong Kong to advocate for Hong Kong independence. The Hong Kong National Party is also the first political party to be outlawed since Hong Kong's 1997 handover to China.
Lau Siu-lai is a Hong Kong educator, academic, activist, and politician. She is a sociology lecturer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Hong Kong Community College and the founder of Democracy Groundwork and Age of Resistance. In 2016, Lau was elected to the Legislative Council, representing the Kowloon West geographical constituency until she was disqualified by the court on 14 July 2017 over her oath-taking manner at the inaugural meeting of the Legislative Council on 12 October 2016.
On 15 October 2014, pro-democracy activist Ken Tsang was beaten by Hong Kong Police officers in Tamar Park, Admiralty, after being arrested in a police clearance operation during the 2014 Hong Kong protests. Though not the only reported instance of police brutality during the protests, the assault gained notoriety as it was filmed from a distance by a Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) news crew and broadcast to Hong Kong audiences.
Huang Qingyun, or Wong Hing-wan in Cantonese, was a Hong Kong-Chinese writer of children's literature and magazine publisher. She published the only Chinese-language children's magazine in China and Hong Kong during World War II, and later served as Vice President of the Guangdong Writers Association. Considered a pioneer of children's literature in Hong Kong, she received the Best Artist Award from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 2009.
The 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests were a series of demonstrations against the Hong Kong government's introduction of a bill to amend the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance in regard to extradition. It was the largest series of demonstrations in the history of Hong Kong.
The founding cause of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests was the proposed legislation of the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill. However, other causes have been pointed out, such as demands for democratic reform, the Causeway Bay Books disappearances, or a general fear of losing a "high degree of autonomy". The Hong Kong protests are unique in this respect from democracy protests in general, which are often provoked by economic grievances. Subsequent actions by the police, such as mass arrests and police violence, as well as what was perceived to be an illegitimate legislative process of the bill, sparked additional protests throughout the city.
The conduct of the Hong Kong Police Force is a subject of controversy during the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. Tactics employed by the force have led to misconduct allegations and protesters have accused the Hong Kong government of using the police as a method to resolve a "lingering political crisis." Actions taken by the police force and the Hong Kong government have caused mixed reactions inside Hong Kong and in the general international community. Allegations against the police include excessive use of force, force against unspecific targets, and arrest without warrant. These allegations have been presented in various media both supporting and detracting from the complaints, such as through amateur video. In general, the spirit, rumors, videos, and other media shared by the public have caused a drop in support for the police force, and an Amnesty International report accused the police of using excessive force against civilians. One of the objectives of the 2019–2020 protests is establishment of an independent inquiry system into said allegations.
The yellow economic circle, also known as the yellow economy, is a form of consumer activism in Hong Kong, in which businesses are classified based on their support or opposition to the 2019–2020 protests in the city. It was created by protesters to enable dollar voting and support like-minded businesses, sustain the livelihoods of pro-democracy business owners, create job opportunities for supporters of the movement, and reduce local dependence on businesses that are connected to the Chinese Communist Party. Local political analysts suggested that the yellow economic circle could have increased votes for the pro-democracy camp in the Catering, Wholesale, and Retail functional constituency in the later postponed 2020 legislative election.
