Kevin Yam 任建峰

A huge thanks to Law Council of Australia, the country’s peak national legal body, for speaking out against my Hong Kong disbarment within a day of it being made public.

My disbarment is not just about me. It is a reflection of where the Hong Kong legal system is at right now.

Here is my response to being struck off from the roll of Hong Kong Solicitors, which was made public today in the Hong Kong Government Gazette.

(Link to Gazette entry: www.gld.gov.hk/egazette/eng...)

Penny Wong complained to China about intimidation of exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners Exclusive: Foreign affairs minister used July meeting on Asean sidelines to elevate criticism of targeting of Adelaide-based Ted Hui and Melbourne-based Kevin Yam

I am grateful to Foreign Minister Penny Wong for this. Not all transnational repression are this brazen - they can be quite subtle or even take on airs of due process. I hope the Australian Government will act against all forms of transnational repression.

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Great to see @badiucao.bsky.social, Cheng Lei, Kylie Moore-Gilbert and many other friends at Badi’s exhibition at Goldstone Gallery in Melbourne last night!

The HK Government extended the terms of 3 HK Court of Final Appeal non-Permanent Judges by another 3 years. One of them is former Australian High Court Justice William Gummow. His extension at a time when Hong Kong’s crackdown on dissent continues to intensify is highly disappointing.

Tried doing a half marathon race for the first time at the ripe old age of nearly 49! Am pretty slow, but the main thing is to get to the finish line. The road is long, and I’m always that so many of you are running and fighting alongside me.

…in pacifying Hong Kong, it needs to loosen its grip over Hong Kong, just as it did back in the 1990s in China itself. But I am not holding my breath for that to happen. (7/7)

…working levels, China is ensuring the very mismatch between propaganda and reality which leads to propaganda being ineffective and, worse still, being a source of resentment in itself.

As such, if China wants its propaganda to be effective… (6/7)

…the realisation of this mismatch between propaganda and reality merely made those subject to years of propaganda even more angry and discontent.

Which brings us back to this report. By continuing its endless crackdown and persecution even down to the most granular everyday living and… (5/7)

…years of propaganda efforts in places like Tibet and Xinjiang failed. Propaganda about ethnic equality and harmony was not matched by the reality in which Tibetans and Uyghurs were denied equality in everyday life, economic opportunities and fair treatment by the State. If anything, … (4/7)

…all the happy talk propaganda about China were mostly matched in reality, with most 1989 dissenters being eventually forgiven, economic opportunities being plentiful and individuals’ lives mostly being more free.

By contrast, … (3/7)

…some of their Mainland Chinese counterparts.

My answer: much depends on whether the reality that HK people face would at least in part match the propaganda.

For example, post-Tiananmen Square Massacre propaganda in China during the 1990s largely worked. This was because… (2/7)

Hong Kong's security net extends beyond arrests as small businesses pressured It’s been years since Hong Kong’s mass arrests of activists devastated its pro-democracy activism. But a crackdown on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese city is still expanding, hitting restaurant...

This piece reminds me of one thing that I often get asked, which is whether China’s current attempts to force-feed “patriotic” propaganda in Hong Kong through education, media and the like would turn HK people into pro-CCP Chinese nationalists, like at least… (1/7)

apnews.com/article/hong...

… are now being extended into business, education, culture, and “soft resistance” (whatever the hell that means).

May all Hongkongers live on as best we can, as we await the day when we shall be free. (3/3)

But I count myself lucky. Many have suffered much worse, ranging from business disruption, work harassment, time in prison, you name it. And for a piece of law that claims only to affect a tiny minority of people, it has turned Hong Kong upside down, and its tentacles … (2/3)

Today marks the 5th anniversary of Hong Kong’s National Security Law.

This day 5 years ago, things were going very well for me - I just got promoted from salaried partner to equity partner at an international law firm. 5 years on, I am now a PhD student with a HKNSL bounty over my head. (1/3)

… called for the end of one party rule in China. Expect the Hong Kong Law Society to take further, even more heavy handed action against Ho after he is inevitably convicted of subversion. (4/4)

… languishing in jail both for this conviction as well as being held in prison pending trial for the more serious charge of subverting state power in his role as leader of a group that commemorated the Tiananmen Square Massacre and… (3/4)

… unbecoming of a solicitor, thereby compromising his integrity, his own reputation, and the reputation of the legal profession” after being convicted of inciting an unauthorised protest in 2019.

Ho is currently a Hong Kong political prisoner, … (2/4)

Hong Kong solicitor and democracy movement veteran Albert Ho has had his right to practice as a solicitor suspended for 3 months and ordered to pay HK$180000 in the costs of the Hong Kong Law Society in prosecuting him. He was found to have “engaged in conduct … (1/4)

I have nothing against Jimmy O. Yang talking up Hong Kong (hey, lots of HK shops and eateries are doing it tough), nor his outdated nostalgia about the city he once called home. But I do object to him taking blood money from a repressive regime that caused HK’s doldrums.

Downloading and playing an online game (and paying to play the game and for certain of its settings and features) is now considered national security crimes in Hong Kong.

It’s the best advertisement that the makers of the game can have.

On this day 13 years ago, Tiananmen activist Li Wangyang was killed by PRC days after he gave a defiant interview to Hong Kong media.

On this day, jailed HK democracy activist Joshua Wong has more trumped up NatSec charges piled on him.

RIP Li Wangyang.

Free Joshua Wong.

The last time Hong Kong had a water safety scandal, it was Democrat Helena Wong who called the authorities to account and forced them to fix things quickly after they initially tried to fob things off just like now. Helena is now in prison on trumped-up NatSec charges.

www.scmp.com/news/hong-ko...

History will not be forgotten, even if tyrants spent 36 years trying to wipe out all memory and hope.

Let us also remember the likes of Hong Kong political prisoner Chow Hang Tung, who is on a 36-hour hunger strike as an act of remembrance.

Lest We Forget.

#TiananmenMassacre

The Law Society of South Australia has spoken out against attempts to intimidate lawyer Ted Hui, which coincides with Hong Kong’s ruthless authoritarian turn in recent years. I’m not holding my breath for the Law Society of Hong Kong to speak out in my defence.

Great musical with lots of meaning for those of us fighting tyranny. The performance was brilliant.

Alas - the lady who sat to my left thought that she was at karaoke, and it was not always easy to block out her at best very ordinary voice and focus on the performance.

HK's independent news sector faces simultaneous tax audits, demands Hong Kong's independent news sector, including companies, staff and family members, are facing simultaneous tax audits and backdated demands, a press union says.

I won’t go into details, but I know for a fact that this abusive use of HK tax authorities to go after critics of HK and Chinese governments is not confined to HK-based independent media companies and journalists.

hongkongfp.com/2025/05/21/h...

… Catholicism any day.

PS: For those “Christians” to which I refer above who totally misinterpret what “faith alone” really means, I suggest they read Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a real Protestant martyr with genuine theological chops) and reflect. (3/3)

… Protestant - by no means are all or, hopefully, even a majority of Protestants like that, I should stress) who have been spewing vile and uninformed anti-Catholic, taking the Bible out of context bigotry and misinformation in the wake of the Papal Conclave, I would prefer … (2/3)