This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now licensed for reprint.
In response to a crackdown on dissent at house, Radio Free Asia has learned that Yuen Hong Tam, 22, a speaker and social media activist from Hong Kong and presently detained after applying for political asylum in the United States, is receiving more and more calls for his release.
After arriving in the United States at the end of March, Tam, who is currently being held in immigration detention at California’s Golden State Annex, was detained and sought social prison.
He has been volunteering for a social media platform called the Great Translation Movement, an unnamed Twitter account that provides natural versions of online comments from Chinese social media, which has been widely criticized by the Chinese state advertising for” smearing” China, since 2022.
On July 13, the Great Translation Movement X accounts requested his release.
Yuen Hong Tam, one of the readers of The Great Translation Movement, has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for requesting prison in California since March, according to the organization. We call for his quick release from ICE and are deeply concerned about his well-being.
It claimed Tam had assisted in “exposing the duplicity of autocratic propaganda” by translating” cartoons satirizing the Chinese Communist Party government’s suppression of Hong Kong.”
According to the party, his name and identity have been made open, and under Hong Kong’s Rules on Safeguarding National Security, also known as Article 23, he is prone to being targeted by the government, adding:” We strongly believe in freedom of speech and freedom from fear for all individuals.
Wang Dan, a former Tiananmen protest leader from 1989, announced to RFA Mandarin that he is writing an open letter to the U.S. Congress to demand that Tam be freed and that no other activists be imprisoned in immigration camps.
On July 28th, the U.S.-based China Democracy Party held a rally in support of the organization outside the Los Angeles Consulate.
National security crackdown
In a statement released from detention on Tuesday, Tam told RFA Mandarin that he had to leave Hong Kong because of the ongoing crackdown on political dissent, the second of which was passed on March 23. He was concerned that his online activism might lead to his imprisonment.
” I made posts, contacted other dissidents, and helped them to translate and publicize stuff”, Tam said.
Chinese officials were irritated by the country’s social media posts that included some of the least endearing words.
State media was slamming the account as” a malicious smear campaign against China” in articles.
The nationalistic , Global Times , newspaper accused the account’s translators of “extracting niche and radical comments from the Chinese internet … colluding with other anti-China forces and claiming to show foreigners the’ true face’ of Chinese netizens.
” The image of China and Chinese people in their depiction has been arrogant, populist, cruel and bloodthirsty, forcibly presented by them to the world through the use of various pejorative terms,” the paper said in a , March 22, 2024 article.
” Collusion with foreign forces “is a crime under the 2020 National Security Law in Tam’s native Hong Kong, while China’s own national security law” punishes acts of infiltration, destruction, subversion or separatism by foreign influences, “according to the , China Law Translate , blog.
Tam feared being detained and put on trial for his actions when Hong Kong’s” Article 23″ security law, which would have sent him to prison for some forms of prohibited public speech, was passed.
” I saw that Article 23 was about to be passed, and my feeling was that the oppression would escalate”, he said. I ended up coming here because I was concerned about being punished by Article 23.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan criticized the passage of the law as” the darkest day” for Hong Kong, warning that the new law’s more expansive interpretations of national security crimes would” completely destroy what Hong Kong has left in the way of human rights or a legal system.”
” A lot of psychological pressure.”
The U. S. State Department , said in February , that the legislation “risks compounding the 2020 National Security Law that has curtailed the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong”.
Tam claims that his current situation in immigration detention is still preferable to languishing in a Hong Kong jail despite labeling himself as “desperate” at the time.
” Physically I’m in a good state”, Tam said. ” I’m not going to go hungry, and there is air conditioning 24 hours a day, so everything’s fine”.
” But I’m experiencing a high degree of psychological pressure, which is inevitable”, he said.
Tam, whose court asylum hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 16, currently spends his days” sleeping, eating, watching TV and movies, or going online on my tablet and reading the news”.
Zheng Cunzhu, a pro-democracy activist, claims Tam was denied bail on a technicality because he entered the country legally and without a tourist visa, rather than smuggling himself across the border like thousands of others.
Aaron Chang, a fellow Great Translation Movement activist, stated that the organization wanted to demonstrate how the Chinese Communist Party uses excessive nationalistic sentiment to advance its own political objectives.
According to Chang,” the Chinese government has been covering it up with its external propaganda,” the premise of our translations is that extreme nationalism has reached a serious level in China.
An 18-year-old Hong Kong activist who uses the hashtag” Fragile Bard” claims Tam had previously translated a speech he delivered during a protest outside the Los Angeles Chinese Consulate.
The activist claimed that he also informed me that he intended to apply for asylum in the US. ” It was n’t until he got to the immigration prison that he called me and told me about his situation, which did n’t turn out as well as he had imagined”.
