Hong Kong, 2023 | An ugly mob surrounded and spat at New People’s Party District Council candidate Paul Lui Yau-tak earlier this week over party boss Regina Ip’s support of the Gay Games, according to Ip in a Facebook video.
In fact, Ip told me in a message that all of her candidates had faced abuse and harassment on the street this week due to her vocal Gay Games support.
The attacks come as a heavyweight group of lawmakers, public figures and former officials, led by outspoken homophobe Junius Ho, called for the “criminal” games to be cancelled, and for Ip to resign as ExCo Convenor for supporting the games, as, they warned, the event might “spread LGBTQ+ attitudes in the city”.
Ho said the event, jointly hosted in Hong Kong and Mexico, was a dangerous influence that “spread the ideology of gay rights”, while former Equal Opportunities Commission chief Josiah Chok Kin-ming urged National Security police to investigate the Gay Games’ source of funding and whether its development involved “foreign collusion”.
The street harassment of Lui, a candidate in the Eastern District, is, according to Ip, part of an organised defamation campaign against her party in the run up to the District Council election and no doubt fuelled by the rhetoric of Junius Ho and his Liberal Party supporters (including Liberal Party chairman Peter Shiu Ka-fai). The Liberals are going head-to-head with NPP in all four Hong Kong Island districts.
Complicating the story (if you wanted to pick sides) is that Ip, while supporting the Gay Games since before Hong Kong was selected as the Games’ host, is firmly against same-sex marriage in Hong Kong – in fact she says it is impossible since a 2013 Court of Final Appeal ruling said the definition of marriage under Basic Law did not include same-sex marriage. Ip now says those who equate support of the Gay Games with support of same-sex marriage are simply trying to “smear” her and NPP ahead of the District Council election. In Hong Kong in 2023, being accused of supporting same-sex marriage is considered a devastating smear.
Adding yet more sides to the story, we have a few human rights folk outside Hong Kong calling for the Games to be cancelled because people like Ip are supporting it, because the government (outside of the Exco Convenor) is NOT supporting it and because the environment is not safe for LGBTQ+ visitors.
It’s true the government should and could have done much better. It has offered the Queen Elizabeth stadium for the opening ceremony but no senior officials aside from ExCo’s Ip will attend. Departments have reportedly been stubborn and difficult over sports venue rental, leading to many events to be cancelled or moved – all track and field events were cancelled while the 10k road race, which was supposed to be a city run, is now out at Shing Mun Reservoir. Some of this is down to Covid chaos and delays but largely we’ve seen a hostile indifference to the event from our leaders.
And while the government has sponsored some gifts for participants, each one is emblazoned with some message about disease and testing, so our leaders clearly think the Gay Games is a health risk rather than a celebration of diversity.
Overseas attendees could have been put off by stories about over-zealous policing and the potential for “outing” participants in a negative way. The language on tickets sounds harsh: “You also agree to be filmed by police or security staff for the purpose of ensuring public security at the Event and preventing crime.” As one source close to the organisation told me, “imagine how you would feel as a 16yo girl/boy from TKO in the closet reading this?”
Then again, this is the new normal in Hong Kong. Concerns about the ticket small print are fair, yes, but this wording is actually just boilerplate, lifted word-for-word from the Clockenflap small print.
This doesn’t make it right, of course.
But the big question is, will the police presence at the Gay Games be “Clockenflap boilerplate” or “National Security oppressive” (or worse)? It could go either way, frankly – as usual in Hong Kong, it’s fine until it’s not.
I’m taking part in the Gay Games too (it's fine!), and will march in with around 50 British team-mates and a gigantic Union Jack (really fine!) at the opening ceremony at Queen Elizabeth Stadium on Saturday, so I’ll have a good view of proceedings.
If I see Junius Ho or his ilk anywhere near the stadium, I’ll be giving them a good chance to show their best sides on video.
And then I’m limbering up for the Gay Games 22km Lantau trail race on Monday – as my 7-year-old daughter said yesterday at the badge pickup, “you had better do some training, daddy, you don’t want to be getting the bronze medal”.🥉😅
I appreciate all the good work you do. But I have to say that is clear that you fail the "patriot" test for a district councillor if you line up behind the British flag at an international sporting event.