Independence say: Hong Kong’s ongoing protests

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. In Hong Kong, a proposed change to the judicial system has sparked massive protests around the world. There are concerns about how justice is served. In many countries, putting prison inmates in solitary confinement is seen as an unnecessary and distressing punishment, but its use is still widespread. In America, we speak to a death row inmate in Texas who has spent half his life in solitary. And the justice system in Iraq leaves much to be desired. So many people turn to a much older means of resolving disputes, letting tribal leaders known as sheikhs, do the negotiating. But what if you don't have a tribe or know its leader? Don't worry, you can rent a sheikh. Just make sure it's a real one. First up, though, over the weekend, people in Hong Kong staged one of the largest public protests since the territory was handed back to China in 1997. The disquiet isn't over. More demonstrations are planned for tomorrow. The protesters are railing against legislation that they say blurs the line further between Hong Kong's notionally independent government and influence from officials in mainland China.

On Sunday, huge crowds of people gathered in Victoria park on Hong Kong island and marched through the city to protest an amendment to a law which the government wants to enact, which would allow it to send suspected criminals from Hong Kong to the mainland.

Caroline Carter is our Deputy Asia News editor.

Organizers of this protest estimated that 1 million people attended. It's difficult to verify those numbers, but certainly the streets were absolutely packed. People stood in the heat for hours waiting to pass down these roads. The protests were mostly peaceful, but at around 11pm a small group of protesters had gathered outside the governments headquarters in Admiralty. And in response to a statement from the government which was released at 11pm saying that they were planning to press ahead with the bill, the protests became violent as a number of protesters tried to storm the government offices. At that point, policemen with batons and pepper spray moved in to try to disperse the crowds.

Why has there been such a spirited response to this legislation? Why do people care so much?

People are upset with the way that the government seems to be trying to rush through this legislation. And they're worried that by agreeing to send suspected criminals to China, they are putting people in Hong Kong at risk of becoming entrapped within the Chinese legal system, which many people consider to be untrustworthy.

And why is this coming to a head now?

The reason that the Hong Kong government is giving for wanting to rush this legislation through at the moment is to solve the issue of a Hong Kong man who went to Taiwan and murdered his girlfriend and then he fled back to Hong Kong. Under the existing law, it's impossible for him to be extradited from Hong Kong to Taiwan. So the government says that the amendment to this legislation is necessary in order for him to stand trial there.

How has the government responded to these enormous protests?

On Monday morning, the Chief Executive, Carrie Lamont, came and met the media and acknowledged that there was a force of feeling that these protests had happened and that people were upset. But she reiterated her stance that this legislation was essential and really made no concessions to the force of these protests.

But why is it that people are so concerned about this law if it, you know, notionally allows justice to be served, you know, in a cross border kind of way?

Hong Kong people cherish the things that separate them from mainland China, particularly that's their government and their independent rule of law. So when Hong Kong was returned from Britain to China, it was agreed that it would be run on a separate system, known as one country, two systems for 50 years. That means that it's part of China, but it has its own judicial system and government. And so when Hong Kong people feel that that separation and their autonomy is being undermined, particularly by the Communist Party in China, that's something that they leap up to defend.

So the government isn't making any concessions, but is it giving any assurances?

The governments in Hong Kong and Beijing have tried to assure people that the amendments to this bill will only be used to extradite criminals accused of particularly egregious crimes and for crimes which have a minimum sentence of seven years in prison at the moment, it specifically excludes political crimes. But many people worry that this extradition bill could be abused by the Chinese government who have form on accusing political dissidents of crime in order to get them into the penal system.

This isn't the first time that Hong Kongers have protested changes to the law in Hong Kong, notably the umbrella movement in 2014. I mean, does this have parallels? Does this look similar to you?

The protest that people are comparing this to most closely took place in 2003 when around half a million people came out on the streets to object to the passing of a law known as Article 23, which was a national security bill which was seen very much to undermine the freedoms and autonomy in Hong Kong. And in that case the government shelved the bill and it still hasn't passed it. The force of public opinion was so strong that the government backed down and shortly afterwards, the then Chief Executive also resigned. Since then, other protests have gone less well for activists. In 2014, the umbrella protests closed huge parts of the city for months on end, but in the end petered out without any strong political influence. It seems unlikely in this case that the Chief Executive will bow to pressure from a single protest as there was this weekend. But it'll be interesting to see in the next few days certainly what else Hong Kong has up its sleeve.

So after this enormous protest and its fairly heavy handed end, what happens next?

So on Wednesday morning the bill will go back to the Legislative Council and there are already plans circulating on social media for further protests including surrounding the government offices. And also many shops say that they will close in solidarity and to allow their staff to protest and to show the government that Sunday's march was not a one off event and that people are prepared to give up their day to day lives in order to try to block this bill.

Original figures from Umbrella Movement stuff are in the news still. Is there any strong connection between these protests and them?

So some of the younger leaders of the Umbrella Movement protest, Joshua Wong is the most famous, went on to found a political party called Democisto and on Sunday night they were leading the sit in around the government offices, which is the same strategy they used in 2014 when they were young students protesting against an education bill that they disapproved of. So they're still very much involved in Hong Kong's politics.

The wide perception is that Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, is fairly cozy with Beijing. How much do you think that the introduction of this law is sort of coming from Beijing and its changing attitudes towards Hong Kongers?

Umbrella protests in 2014 were an attempt to persuade the government to give Hong Kong people more democracy, and ultimately they failed. But they are seen as a pivotal moment in Beijing's attitude towards liberals in Hong Kong. And the way that protest takes place here has certainly changed since 2014. The Hong Kong government has become less tolerant of protesters, and protesters who took part in that movement have subsequently been jailed for various offences. So some people see this bill as a reflection of this tougher mood in Hong Kong. Carrie Lam is committed to putting this bill through, and I'm sure that she's under pressure from Beijing not to bend to the will of the people in this case.

Caroline, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you very much for having me, Jason.

Tony Medina has spent the past 23 years on death row.

I came here September 13, 1996. I remember very clearly. I was 21, and we were chained up, you know, handcuffs were chained and shackled and a chain around our stomach. And we walked into the building, and it was such a long hallway. And it just seemed like, like the Hollywood movies of, like, prison going into prison, which is the long brick hallway and the noise gates slamming, the steel on steel. You know, prisons are all concrete and steel. So it's echoes, echoes, echoes, echoes. It never stops.

Convicted at the age of 21, Tony has lived more of his life inside prison than outside. Since 1998, Texas has held all its death row inmates in solitary confinement. So for the past two decades, Tony has been held alone inside a cell measuring 7 by 11ft for 23 hours a day, every day of the.

I.

Met Tony the other day down in Texas.

Adam Roberts is our Midwest correspondent.

I went to the Allenby Polanski unit, which is the part of the Texas prison system that hosts all the death row prisoners. And the unit is gray, it's surrounded by fences. You enter through clanging doors. And in the visiting room, I met Tony, the polite, articulate, burly man with heavily tattooed arms. He was convicted of a drive by shooting at a New Year's party that killed two children. He's appealing. He continues with his legal appeals, but he's sentenced for Execution.

So he's on death row there. But why is it that he's been kept in solitary confinement for 19 years?

Well, the policy in Texas since 1998, when some prisoners who were on death row attempted to escape, has been to lock up anyone who is on death row in solitary confinement.

And so what is life like for prisoners like Tony? How does he spend his time?

Well, if you imagine the room he's in, it's about the size of a bathroom in a hotel room or a large walk in closet. He spends most of his days locked up inside that cell. He gets one hour in an enclosed yard most days for recreation. But again, he's alone. He can get messages from relations and from volunteers, but he's denied any physical contact. He told me he hasn't touched a relative since he was convicted.

The last time I hugged my mom, the day I was sentenced to death, August 1, is the last time I hugged my mother.

Most of the day he's just alone with his thoughts. He occasionally paints, but he's mostly reading or just lying on his bed and passing the time. And I asked him if he could see the sky. And he described that if he stood on his bed, he could peer out of a narrow vent window. But he told me that he doesn't do that.

I used to spend a lot of time in the window. Now I try to ignore it. You know, it just. It gets to the point where I just. I don't like looking out the window. You know, I don't like being reminded of what is out there that I can't touch, I can't have.

And so how has all of this time in such solitude affected him?

Well, he talked about reading studies and understanding how experts have looked at the effects of solitary confinement. And he told me that he recognized those symptoms.

A sense of feeling alone, a sense of feeling abandoned. Like, it's hard to describe. I mean, it's not normal, you know. And even though I know it's not normal, sometimes I find myself isolating myself, like, not going direct, even though I can, simply because I feel more comfortable being alone. Like, I don't feel. I don't feel right being around a lot of people now. And I know that's not good.

So how many inmates are living like this in America in solitary?

Not every state releases the details, but a report by the Lyman center at Yale University last year made an estimate that about 61,000 inmates across all of America are kept in solitary confinement. And about one third little bit more have been at least six months in Solitary confinement. In Texas, where Tony is held, the use of solitary is more intense than in any other state. And around 4,200 prisoners are kept long term in solitary confinement. Now, even in Texas, the numbers are coming down because I think there's more realization that solitary confinement is actually very damaging. It's also, frankly, extremely expensive. It's far more costly to lock up people in individual cells than in the usual way, shared cells or larger dormitories.

So why do it then? What's the rationale for keeping them in solitary?

I spoke to one expert about this, Dennis Longmire, who's at Sam Houston State University in nearby Huntsville, and his view is this is for security reasons.

It's intentional, but not to make them mad. But it's an intentional effort to fully incapacitate them. The logic says that if I've been convicted of a capital murder, what's to stop me from killing everybody I run into in prison? Now, the answer is your own humanity. But these people are cast out of that group.

But in fact, those on death row are typically older inmates, those who are in prison for a long time. They're not the most violent prisoners. They're, in fact, very unlikely to be violent towards others in prison. The most violent prisoners are the youngest, those who are newly in there. And so the effect of putting all these long serving prisoners in solitary cells is in fact, rather pointless and vindictive. Mr. Longmire concludes that basically solitary confinement is torturous and inhumane, and the isolation is inhumane.

I mean, it's the antithesis of the human nature. And I believe many of the offenders that ultimately get subjected to that kind of isolation become mad.

What about more widely, is this, if you like, an American problem? How does this compare to the way other countries around the world treat their highest security prisoners?

By and large, in the developed world, the use of solitary is seen as counterproductive. The UN generally condemns it. Solitary confinement is seen as a form of punishment and a way of getting your prisoners to change their behavior. And for that reason, it's thought to be a short term practice. If you were to go across to the European Union, for example, it's far less commonly used, and it's used for much shorter time. So I think America is an outlier when it comes to democracies using this. And the point that Tony made to me was that other countries that use solitary confinement and the death penalty are not the sort of company that America would like to be part of.

I feel like we're seen in the same light as places like, you know, China, places like, you know, Saudi Arabia and Iran, that's. That's a company we keep.

Is there any hope for. For Tony to get out of solitary?

Yeah, I think there's a chance that Tony gets out of solitary. On the one hand, Texas, along with other states, is beginning to realize that solitary confinement is counterproductive. So they may decide eventually, even for their death row prisoners, that it makes sense to shift away from these concrete boxes. There's also the possibility for Tony that his appeals will prove successful. He's going through a process of federal appeals at the moment. It's an incredibly arduous and difficult legal process. But there is some glimmer of hope for Tony that he may be able to fight his case.

Adam, thanks very much for joining us.

Thank you.

When the courts don't really hold sway, getting justice can be tough. In Iraq, the judicial system is rife with corruption and often moves slowly. So more and more people with a claim to make are turning to their tribal leaders, sheikhs, to resolve disputes and negotiate solutions, even when their relationship to that sheikh is somewhat transactional. Because in Iraq, if you don't have your own, you can simply hire one.

That's a thing that is increasingly common, especially in Baghdad and other cities where the tribal bonds that used to be rather strong in the past have weakened and where people don't really know who holds the real power in the tribal system.

Simona Foltin writes about Iraq for the Economist.

The problem is that some of the sheikhs, of course, are real sheikhs. They hold real power. They are respected. They're able to enforce the decisions that are negotiated. But then there are a lot of imposter sheikhs who don't really have the authority to resolve deals. They end up taking the money, but in the end, there are no results.

So notwithstanding the fake sheikhs, does this sort of parallel judiciary work?

It can in some cases. So in rural areas, it can be still very effective. And people seek it out, for example, to settle family disputes or community disputes. There, people still have very strong attachments to their tribes, and they still hold a lot of power. In the cities, that not really the case anymore. And especially with commercial disputes, what ends up happening is that companies who are desperate for a resolution will try to find a sheikh, and in the end, they're not really sure whether the sheikh they found is somebody who has the sufficient power to resolve their cases.

So how does it all work in practice?

So Sayf is a dual Iraqi British citizen. He's pretty young and he's somebody who was brave enough to return to Iraq and invest in a medical supplies company very soon. Soon though, he started to having issues with one of his employees who embezzled around $800,000. So what safe did is that he took him to court. So after three months he was thrown into jail. Now this is the point where the employees tribe showed up on Saif's doorstep. They wanted Saif to basically drop the case. In the end, the corrupt employee ended up getting out of jail anyway. So then in the end he had no choice but to start negotiating with the tribe. Now the problem with that was that he didn't really know how to do that. So through a friend, he hired a sheikh to represent him in the talks.

And how did that work out?

What ended up happening is that he had to pay thousands of dollars, be it for meals or for, so to say, attendance fees for both. His own hired sheikh, but also his opponent's sheikh, who basically promised him that, hey, if you pay me, I will make sure that you're taken care of. That ended up not working. Basically, eight or nine months into tribal negotiations, there was still no settlement. So right now Sayf is actually given up on tribal resolution and is considering to return to the court and resubmit his case in the court.

It sounds to me that it's a real racket, even if the sheikhs are the real kind. But what happens then when the tribal law kind of intersects the state judiciary?

So these tribal agreements, which are often just hand scribbled notes on a piece of paper, they don't really hold up in front of the law. Actually some of these deals that are struck are considered illegal under Iraqi law. At the same time, there is a contradiction because there is actually a department within the Ministry of Interior that arbitrates when people seek tribal resolution. And the fundamental problem is that the state is just not strong enough to resolve a lot of issues. And they're probably aware of that. They recently tried to curtail the power of the tribes by banning a sort of tribal intimidation tactic, which is known as the Dega ashariya, which means the tribal knock in Arabic. And that's basically when a tribe goes and shoots at somebody's house, which is the knock, which is essentially a way to force somebody to the negotiating table. So that has now been classed as an act of terrorism. So in a way this has helped to curtail the power of the tribes. But what hasn't happened, on the other hand, is to strengthen legal institutions, to actually provide an alternative. So a lot of people now say, well, we were used to going to the tribes because the state was unable to help us. Now the tribes are also weakened, and we're basically left with no alternatives to find solutions to our legal problems.

Simona, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple podcasts and you can subscribe to the economist@examiner.com radioffer 12 issues for $12 or 12 pounds. See you back here tomorrow.