Hong Kong prisons work to compel loyalty to China among young activists

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Hong Kong prisons work to compel loyalty to China among young activists

Full article from Washington Post #Jun08

#AntiELAB #PrisonerRights #Deradicalization #Brainwashing

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Hong Kong prisons work to compel loyalty to China among young activists

The day begins with goose-stepping. In the prison yards of juvenile facilities across Hong Kong, young men and women practice the form of marching used by the Chinese military, kicking their legs up high as guards yell out commands.

In their mud-colored uniforms, the prisoners look almost indistinguishable from military recruits. But before they were detained, these inmates were foot soldiers in Hong Kong’s fight for greater democratic freedoms.

Arrested for their involvement in the 2019 mass protests that saw almost a third of the population take to the streets, the detainees are now the latest subjects in China’s decades-long experiment in political control. The goal is to “deradicalize” them, echoing efforts honed by Beijing from the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters up to the forced detention and reeducation of Uyghur Muslims, though the Hong Kong version is not on the industrial scale of the repression in Xinjiang.

The deradicalization program includes pro-China propaganda lectures and psychological counseling that leads to detainees confessing to holding extreme views, and it is accompanied by a system of close monitoring and punishment, including solitary confinement, inside the juvenile facilities, former prisoners and guards said. As of April 30, 871 juvenile inmates had participated in the program, the Hong Kong Correctional Services Department (CSD) said, about 70 percent of them charged in connection with the 2019 protests. Some are as young as 14.

Hong Kong officials have refused to provide any specifics about what deradicalization — or “targeted rehabilitation,” as they call it — entails. But The Washington Post spoke to 10 former juvenile prisoners and three prisoners formerly held in adult facilities, all arrested in connection with the 2019 protests, as well as two former employees at the CSD who described the program and how it has evolved over the past year. All spoke under the condition of anonymity or only wanted their first name used for fear of repercussions, including additional prison time or retaliation from the authorities.

The ultimate objective, according to a former prison guard, is to create a feeling of hopelessness among prisoners, deterring the youngest former protesters from activism or even seeing a future in Hong Kong.

“It was explicitly said to us that by the end of their sentence, the goal is to ensure the desire of these inmates to continue doing political stuff is less and less, and that they instead look for ways to leave Hong Kong,” said the former prison guard.

One former prisoner, Leo, said: “What really slowly wears down your will to fight is the everyday living in prison … [being] targeted, oppressed, silenced.”

“This is the brainwashing that happens 24 hours a day,” he said.

Full article from Washington Post #Jun08:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in ... activists/

#AntiELAB #PrisonerRights #Deradicalization #Brainwashing