Civic Passion

Civic Passion
熱血公民
Leader Wong Yeung-tat
Founded 29 February 2012
Headquarters Wan Chai, Hong Kong
Newspaper Passion Times
Ideology Anti-communism[1]
Direct democracy
Localism
Populism[2]
Colours      Yellow
Politics of Hong Kong
Political parties
Elections
Civic Passion
Traditional Chinese 熱血公民
Civic Passion founder Wong Yeung-tat

Civic Passion (Chinese: 熱血公民) is a populist[2] anti-communist[1] Hong Kong political group. Founded and led by activist Wong Yeung-tat, it holds strong "Hong Kong localist" views, opposes the involvement of the Chinese central government in the governance of Hong Kong and has called for the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party.[3]

History

The group was founded on 29 February 2012 and is led by founder Wong Yeung-tat.[4] Wong Yeung-tat was a candidate for the electoral alliance People Power (a radical democratic political party) during the 2012 Legislative Council election in Kowloon East constituency and Civic Passion served as the election campaign vehicle for Wong. After losing the election, Wong denied any relationship with People Power and Civic Passion became non-affiliated with any group.

As an internet activist group, it runs Passion Times (Chinese: 熱血時報), an organisation that publishes printed materials and broadcast internet radio programmes and which has over 300,000 Facebook followers. The group's app was banned in China's Apple App store during the 2014 Hong Kong protests.[1] During the protests, its website suffered distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, during which Passion Times claims its website was hit with up to 200,000,000 requests per second.[5]

Civic Passion takes a radical view towards the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China and against the large influx of mainland tourists and new immigrants to Hong Kong. Due to these anti-mainland sentiments, the group has been accused of xenophobia, nativism and advocacy of Hong Kong independence by the pro-Beijing camp and even by mainstream democrats.[6]

Civic Passion criticises the moderate pan-democracy camp, criticising their stance on immigration policy and border control and their relationship with Beijing. In 2013 and 2014, the group organised an alternative 4 June rally in Tsim Sha Tsui against the annual vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown held by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China of the pan-democracy camp as they accused it being under the theme of Chinese nationalistic sentiment. The alternative event attracted 200 people in 2013 and 7,000 in 2014, compared with 180,000 and 150,000 respectively for the main event.[7][8]

During the 2014 Hong Kong protests, Civic Passion was one of the constituent groups of the Umbrella Movement. One of its activists, nicknamed "Frenchman" allegedly instigated the forced entry into the Legislative Council Complex. The masked raiders rammed glass doors and dispersed promptly after two panes of the glass door were broken. Wong Yeung-tat denied claims that he instigated or planned the incident.[9] The group also allegedly tried to gain control of the main stage of the Admiralty site and confronted the campaign leadership after the pan-democrats condemned the attack on the LegCo building.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lee, Terrence (11 November 2014). "Anti-communist news site Passion Times banned from China’s Apple App Store". Tech in Asia.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Buckley, Chris; Wong, Alan (26 October 2014). "Pro-Democracy Movement’s Vote in Hong Kong Abruptly Called Off". New York Times.
  3. ↑ Ending the party … with thought power?, SCMP, 12 June 2014
  4. ↑ Organisers say 510,000 people take to the streets for July 1 march, South China Morning Post, 1 July 2014
  5. ↑ passiontimes.hk brutally attacked by 200,000,000 requests per second, Passion Times, 16 November 2014
  6. ↑ "Commission on Strategic Development: Hong Kong's Relationship with the Central Authorities/the Mainland" (PDF). Central Policy Unit. Hong Kong Government. 26 May 2014.
  7. ↑ Ip, Kelly; Phneah, Jeraldine; NectarGan (5 June 2013) "Undampened". The Standard.
  8. ↑ Tiananmen massacre remembered at massive Hong Kong vigil, chinaworker.info, 6 June 2014
  9. ↑ Lau, Kenneth (20 November 2014). "Rioters linked to Mad Dog follower". The Standard. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  10. ↑ Tsang, Emily; Sung, Timmy; Chan, Samuel (21 November 2014). "Split within Occupy deepens as splinter group challenges leadership". South China Morning Post.