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From Our Own Correspondent: Is Hong Kong losing its freedoms?

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Is Hong Kong losing its freedoms?

05/12/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Is Hong Kong losing its freedoms?

The on-going clampdown against Hong Kong’s opposition, plus stories from elsewhere

The on-going clampdown against Hong Kong’s opposition, why Chilean Mapuche people get such bad press, teaching the past in Australia and a Belarus police officer with a conscience

Pascale Harter introduces analysis, reportage and personal reflections from correspondents around the world.

When Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, Beijing agreed to protect the independent judiciary and free speech there for 50 years. One country, two systems, the slogan said. However, earlier this year, China pushed through a harsh national security law which - in addition to curtailing Hong Kong’s democratic system, made it easy to punish anyone who criticised it, or the government. Danny Vincent reflects on what this means for the future of the territory as prominent democracy activists are sentenced to prison.

The Araucania region in the south of Chile has been making the headlines for all the wrong reasons recently. Arson attacks on timber lorries and prisoners on hunger strikes have become common occurrences. This is the homeland of one of Chile’s main indigenous peoples – the Mapuche – who make up 12% of the population. They say land has been stolen from them. And they want it back. An all too familiar story perhaps, but Jane Chambers travelled to the region to delve deeper.

George Floyd’s death not only triggered the Black Lives Matter movement but also a reconsidering of wrongs past, of how many countries’ made their money. In Australia, many people would like that question left in the past. But, as told by Will Higginbotham, the South Sea Islanders – a community of descendants from Pacific Islanders, many of whom were forcibly brought to Australia to work in cotton and sugar fields – are advocating that talking about it, can help drive change in the present. 


The Belarus presidential election, which took place in August, is still widely disputed. Protests continue each weekend in the capital Minsk, despite violent crackdowns by the authorities. Demonstrators have been detained, grenades have been thrown, police have used water cannons to deter protestors and even threatened to use live rounds. But not all police officers have followed the orders; some have been so horrified by the violence that they have fled the country. Our correspondent Lucy Ash has been to Poland to meet one of them.

Presenter: Pascale Harter
Producer: Bethan Head
Editor: Jasper Corbett

(Image: Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung, sentenced to jail, at the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre in Hong Kong. Credit: EPA/Jerome Favre)

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