Hong Kong Art Space Raided Twice by Authorities
By Ophelia Lai
Officials from the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department visited Parallel Space on June 10. Image via Local Youth Will’s Facebook.
In their message to AAP, Local Youth Will described the incident with police as “an act of white terrorism to clamp down on an already suppressed civil society, and to curtail the limited freedom and space of expression.” The spokesperson said the group’s members were “psychologically prepared” for political suppression and asserted that the event will continue at Parallel Space until June 21 as planned. “We are not afraid of the regime’s oppression [. . .] We hope to lead by example and let our fellow travelers know they are not alone. We can still overcome fear through our actions, regain civilian power, and reconnect with each other to expand our civil society.”
While no art events have yet been shut down explicitly due to suspected violations of the National Security Law, several local art spaces have been inspected by the FEHD over alleged license infractions. On June 2, the FEHD temporarily closed the June 4th Museum, run by the non-governmental Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China and dedicated to preserving the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. The FEHD cited a complaint it had apparently received over the space’s suspected lack of a public entertainment license.
The June 2 FEHD probe and the police inspection of Parallel Space bookended several weeks of tension as boosted numbers of police were deployed to prevent public commemorations of the Tiananmen Square incident as well as Hong Kong’s June 9 and June 12 mass demonstrations, the latter of which marked the first violent clashes between protestors and police.
Ophelia Lai is ArtAsiaPacific’s associate editor. Additional reporting by assistant editor Pamela Wong.
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