In general, there is relatively little Internet censorship in Hong Kong beyond laws that criminalize the distribution of unlicensed copyrighted material and obscene images, particularly child pornography when compared to the rest of China.
Stand News was a free non-profit online news website based in Hong Kong from 2014 to 2021. Founded in December 2014, it was the successor of House News. It primarily focused on social and political issues in Hong Kong, and generally took a pro-democracy editorial position.
The month of June 2020 was the first anniversary of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. The decision taken by the National People's Congress on national security legislation and the alleviation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong led to a new series of protests and international responses. On 30 June, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the Hong Kong national security law which came into force the same day, leading to even more people protesting on 1 July.
The month of July 2020 in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests began with a turning point in the evolution of the protests, brought about by the Hong Kong national security law. The law, which had been passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China on 30 June and come into effect on the same day, was widely seen as having the purpose of curbing opposition, in a broad sense, against the Chinese Communist Party in the city. The law had direct relevance to the protests, as it prescribes harsh penalties for the tactics that protesters had commonly used. Nevertheless, sizeable protests erupted throughout the city on occasion of the 1 July protests the next day, resulting in about 370 arrests, including at least ten on charges under the new law. The Hong Kong government, faced with the task of implementing a law that had been drafted and promulgated without substantial involvement by its own officials, was seen widely, including in the academic and media sectors, as being unable to draw a clear demarcation line between which acts would constitute punishable offences under the law, and which would not. The vagueness of the law, while refused by the city's police chief, was seen by pro-democrats and observers as a deliberate device to amplify its deterrence effect.
Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam is a Hong Kong social activist and former reporter of the now defunct news outlet Stand News, who rose to prominence for her frontline reporting in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. In June 2020, she announced her candidature in the 2020 Hong Kong pro-democracy primaries, in which she obtained a nomination ticket in the general election that was later postponed. For her participation, she was arrested in January 2021 along with over 50 other pro-democrats on national security charges and was remanded in custody. In December 2021, she received a sentence of six months in relation to her role in a banned protest during the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in June 2020.
Cheng Tat-hung, known as Tat Cheng, is a Hong Kong politician, formerly affiliated with the Civic Party. He was a member of Eastern District Council for Tanner from 2016 to 2021.
The month of August 2020 in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests saw only sparse and relatively small protests, mainly due to the city going through a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and an outdoor gathering ban on groups of more than two people. As the impact of the Hong Kong National Security Law on the city became increasingly evident, and additionally in response to acts by representatives of the local and mainland governments throughout the protests, Western democracies continued to voice sharp criticism and implemented sanctions against China, with the United States imposing sanctions on 11 Hong Kong officials on 7 August. These developments supported the opinion expressed by former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind in late June that the protests had morphed from a mostly local dispute into an international one.
The offices of Apple Daily, once the largest pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong, and its parent company, Next Digital, were raided and executives arrested by the Hong Kong Police Force on 10 August 2020 and again on 17 June 2021. Some of the arrested and three companies of Next Digital were charged under the Hong Kong national security law. The 26-year-old newspaper was forced to close in June 2021 following the raids and freezing of its capital.
On 6 September, the biggest protests in the course of the 2019-20 Hong Kong protests since 1 July occurred in the city. The fresh protests were in a large part due to the day having been the scheduled election day for the Legislative Council; on 31 July, the Hong Kong government had the elections postponed by a year, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, a justification that was widely doubted. The unauthorized protests resulted in nearly 300 arrests, one of them on suspected violation of the national security law, and brought the total number of arrests during the entire protests since June 2019 to above 10,000.
Hong Kong 12, or 12 Hongkongers, are the twelve Hong Kong protesters, previously arrested by the Hong Kong police, detained by the Chinese authorities in 2020 on sea after a failed attempt to flee to Taiwan.
A suicide attack took place at approximately 22:10 on 1 July 2021, in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. 50-year-old Leung Kin-fai approached a Police Tactical Unit police officer from behind and stabbed him, injuring the officer's scapula and piercing his lung, before Leung committed suicide by stabbing his own heart. Leung was immediately subdued by surrounding police, arrested and sent to hospital. He died at 23:20.
The Sixth District Councils of Hong Kong was the meeting of the local councils of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. The membership of the council is based on the 2019 election. The term of the session is from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2023. The pro-democracy camp in conjunction with the localist camp achieved its biggest landslide victory in the history of Hong Kong, gaining absolute majority in votes and electoral seats in all of the 18 District Councils. The election was widely viewed as a de facto referendum on the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.
Leung Kin-fai, was a Hong Kong merchandiser known for stabbing a 29 year old police officer in Causeway Bay and committing suicide immediately afterwards. The attack took place on a day when three sensitive dates converged – the anniversary of the territory's handover from British to Chinese rule, the 100th Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, one year after the imposition of the Hong Kong national security law. The victim, Wai-ming survived the stabbing after going through 7 hours of emergency surgery. In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Wai-ming said that he could not forgive "a man who thought he could evade responsibility by committing suicide”, as that sent a wrong message to society, and that his message to Leung was that he believed violence was wrong and is never the solution.
A dramatic manifestation of the far reach of the Hong Kong national security law was the mass arrest of 54 pro-democracy activists on 6 January. The arrested stood accused of subverting state power, a crime under the national security law, for their participation as candidates or in other capacities, in the 2020 Hong Kong pro-democracy primaries, which was part of a plan to increase pressure in parliament for democratic reform. Most of them were released on bail the following day. For the first time, the National Security Department of the police cited the national security law to block the website of HKChronicles. There were also several convictions in relation to the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests.
On 22 February 2021, Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, proposed that Hong Kong's governance had to be in the hands of "patriots". Observers considered it possible that the definition of "patriot" would require candidates for public office to embrace the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, as also suggested by Hong Kong Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang; and that this signified a departure from the position that had prevailed since a speech by China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in 1984.
The city held its first National Security Education Day after the national security law had come into force. Chief Executive Carrie Lam emphasized that the law had helped Hong Kong to emerge from the "dark violence" of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. National Security Committee Adviser Luo Huining also gave a speech. Even very young children were photographed handling toy weapons, which drew criticism.
Few protests took place in June 2021 and there were no large-scale demonstrations in threat of the national security law. The anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre on 4 June saw only small crowds or single individuals engaging in vigils in the vicinity of Victoria Park – the venue of large vigils on the same occasion in past years – before police dispersed them. The pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily once again had its headquarters raided by police using the national security law; its executives were arrested. Security Bureau also froze the assets of three Apple Daily companies, which led the newspaper to print its final edition on 24 June. Many pan-democratic groups disbanded at the end of the month under pressure from the law.
After the 1 July police stabbing, Hong Kong police and the government characterized the incident as a "lone wolf" terrorist attack. Foreign media saw the stabbing as a sign of a steep decline of the reputation of the police in the eyes of some locals, a process that had begun with the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. They also considered the uncovering of a bomb plot on 5 July as evidence of a polarization in society, and pointed to the influence of diminishing legal ways to voice dissent in the year since the national security law came into effect. At the beginning of the month, the police arrested citizens who posted on the Internet for inciting others to kill the police. Later it persecuted members of the student union of Hong Kong University for having passed a motion, subsequently withdrawn, that had praised the "sacrifice" of the deceased attacker of 1 July.
