
China Tortured Me over Hong Kong, Says Former British Consulate Employee - kerng
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/11/20/world/asia/20reuters-hongkong-protests-britain.html
======
Andr1
I suggest you to read the first hand report of the tortured Employee of the
British Consulate. [https://www.facebook.com/notes/cheng-man-kit/for-the-
record-...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/cheng-man-kit/for-the-record-an-
enemy-of-the-state/2490959950941845/)

It's far more detailed and interesting than the article, and it clearly
exposes the mindset of a 21th century secret police.

~~~
bobx11
Torture, threats, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, and when he gets
home to Taiwan he is followed. The detail he puts into describing how they
manipulated forms to start his prison stay to be contributed, to the number of
times they took prison photos, makes it a crazy read. It reads like science
fiction as an American - I hope he is able to hide out and find a job in a new
country.

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panpanna
Nytimes is paywlled, here is Cheng's own account of the events:

[https://www.facebook.com/notes/cheng-man-kit/for-the-
record-...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/cheng-man-kit/for-the-record-an-
enemy-of-the-state/2490959950941845/)

Edit: archive link for the above
[https://archive.is/LWyz2](https://archive.is/LWyz2)

(I guess I'm on some kind of list now)

~~~
kd3
Absolutely horrifying read. I couldn't help but think about Julian Assange
going through similar treatment in the UK. Just goes to show: All governments
are criminal and terrorist organizations, oppressing and enslaving the people.

Edit: sources for perennate

> Two medical experts accompanied Melzer when he visited Assange at Belmarsh
> prison in the UK, he said on Tuesday. "We came to the conclusion that he had
> been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time. That's
> a medical assessment." Melzer’s message fell largely on deaf ears, as only a
> handful of reporters attended Tuesday’s press conference at the UN
> headquarters in New York.

[https://www.rt.com/news/471016-assange-torture-violations-
un...](https://www.rt.com/news/471016-assange-torture-violations-un/)

Physically and mentally his condition has gotten pretty bad. He could barely
speak in front of the judge recently. Listen to John Pilger who met him:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLXzudMCyM4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLXzudMCyM4)

~~~
perennate
Please provide sources for describing incidents where the UK government
physically tortured Julian Assange by forcing him to stay awake, or strapped
him to a chair so he couldn't move his limbs, or hung from a crossbar and
forced into an eagle pose, etc.

I doubt there are sources though since I'm pretty sure you just made this up.

------
jdkee
Perhaps it is time for the citizens of the Western liberal democracies to stop
doing business with Chinese interests.

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cgriswald
I've been watching both _For All Mankind_ (Ronald D. Moore, in which the
Soviets beat the U.S. to the moon) and _The Man in the High Castle_ (based on
the P.K. Dick novel in which the Axis powers win WW II), and have generally
always enjoyed alternate history fiction.

So, I find myself wondering how this would have all played out if the Cold War
hadn't ended and Soviet Union hadn't fallen apart before 1999 when Britain was
required to turn HK over to the PRC.

~~~
hnarn
Do you mean that it's reasonable to assume that the USSR wouldn't have backed
China? Or what's the "alternate" part of this history?

~~~
cgriswald
> Or what's the "alternate" part of this history?

I'm not sure what you are asking. The alternate part is the part where the
Soviet Union doesn't collapse a half decade before the handover of HK back to
China.

Would a Cold War Britain have really handed over HK? What does China look like
without the West's influx of money for manufacturing? (Maybe that still
happens.) If it leads to war, how does that play out? Is it another
Korea/Vietnam or does it blossom into WW III? Does it end with a new lease or
an armistice? If 9/11 still happens during this crisis, how does a Cold War
world respond to it?

A major part of such works is that they allow us to look at ourselves and our
real history through a different light.

~~~
hnarn
I just think you're vastly overestimating the impact a still standing Soviet
union would have on Hong Kong. My personal guess is that it would play out in
about the same way.

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badrabbit
For all those that say "I have nothing to hide" wrt privacy issues, Chinese
people thought so too. Now they can't even afford to care about such horrile
things because lack of privacy means all dissent will be crushed.

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khc
The best smartphone security doesn't help when you are forced to unlock your
phone.

~~~
cloverich
Until the "best smartphone security" is two passwords: The second you enter
when under duress, and it populates your phone with pro government content
based on your current location. Or just wipes your phone. Or permanently
locks, encrypts, and sends decryption key to some trusted source.

~~~
MperorM
And then we beat you up for deliberately sabotaging our investigation. If you
didn't have anything to hide why would you wipe your phone? Clearly you must
be a spy or worse so we have no choice but to send you to the re-education
camp.

~~~
the8472
The action should be indistinguishable from a remote-wipe if possible.

~~~
colejohnson66
So it was working right up until you put in the special password? How would
you make it look like a remote wipe?

Also, keep in mind, remote wiping your phone after the police take it is
evidence tampering. In the US, that alone can get you imprisoned.

~~~
the8472
Well yes, it's not trivial. The lock screen would have to remain unaffected
and the filesystem would have to look like it was rebuilt a few hours ago.

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csense
How should the rest of the world explain to China that being evil is bad, and
they should stop being evil?

~~~
rasz
Being evil by western standards is a small price to pay for huge quality of
life improvements - from going to sleep hungry to central European wages, from
dirt roads to biggest (if not best) rail and highway network in the world,
from planting rice knees deep in mud to nice city apartment and
office/engineering job. To Chinese population this rhetoric might sound like F
you I got mine.

~~~
Huycfhct
HK and Taiwan both don't like torture and political persecution. Not a
"western standard". Plus CCP government ideas of communism is a west/Russian
idea. I would say the CCP that destroyed its own Chinese history is more
western than Taiwan

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ilaksh
The problem is that moral outrage like this is used to justify war.

Nothing justifies war. Please remember that. War is innocent people mass
murdering other innocent people.

~~~
PavlovsCat
The problem is that you want to look the other way. What could ever justify
that?

~~~
ilaksh
I did not say that we should just look away.

I am saying the answer is not to have millions of Chinese and American
innocents engaged in slaughtering each other or activities that support that.

