City of Protest author Antony Dapiran on his fears and hopes for Hong Kong
Dapiran covered Article 23, the government’s campaign of ‘lawfare’ and the expulsion of pro-democracy lawmakers at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, but says he still has great hope for the city’s future
It is a rainy Sunday afternoon on the last day of the 10-day Hong Kong International Literary Festival. The audience packed into the lecture theatre at the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences is listening intently to corporate finance lawyer Antony Dapiran discuss public protests in Hong Kong.
Although it is barely a year since Dapiran finished writing City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong – about unrest in Hong Kong since the 1960s – he says he could easily add a few more chapters based on what has happened since then.
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“Hong Kong’s rule of law has been compromised,” Dapiran says to moderator Nisha Gopalan from Bloomberg.
“But legally people tell me that no rules have actually been broken,” Gopalan replies.
“Nothing has been broken except people’s confidence in the judiciary,” Dapiran says, raising a laugh from the crowd.
He has coined a phrase for the Hong Kong government’s recent efforts to clamp down on dissent, referring to it as a “campaign of ‘lawfare’”.