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Kate Adie introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents and writers.

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From Our Own Correspondent: Stamping out dissent in Hong Kong

05/12/2020

Stamping out dissent in Hong Kong

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Stamping out dissent in Hong Kong

Stories from Hong Kong, Belarus, Chile, Australia and on Covid-19's impact on concerts.

Stories on the erosion of freedom in Hong Kong, disillusioned Belarusian police, the Mapuche in Chile, slavery in Australia, and on Covid-19's impact on concerts. With Kate Adie.

In Hong Kong, the authorities are showing that they mean business with the new security law to stamp out demonstrations and dissent.  The pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been detained, and young campaigners including protest leader Joshua Wong were sentenced to prison this week.  Before that, the pro-democracy opposition resigned en masse, as Danny Vincent reports. 
Seventeen weeks after the presidential election that is widely thought to have been rigged and that led to Belarus's largest-ever anti-government protests, President Alexander Lukashenko still refuses to step down.  But he has lost the support of some of his police officers, a few of whom have fled to Poland.  Lucy Ash meets one of them.
Araucania in southern Chile is a land of ancient volcanoes, virgin forests and agriculture. But recently it has been making headlines for arson attacks on timber lorries and prisoners on hunger strike.  This is the homeland of one of Chile’s main indigenous peoples – the Mapuche.  They want their land back that was taken from them not by early colonisers but by General Pinochet, as Jane Chambers found out.
In Australia there has been a new impetus to look at past injustices this year, as elsewhere.  And these include a little-known practice akin to the slave trade. In what is known as “black-birding”, islanders from the South Pacific were brought to work in Australia against their will, as Will Higginbotham reports. 
Across Europe, coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions have shut opera houses, theatres and concert halls. Despite receiving  large government grants and loans, the performing arts are now facing a critical period in countries like Italy, France, Germany and Austria, says Joanna Robertson. 

Presenter: Kate Adie
Producer: Arlene Gregorius

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