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Cato Video • June 29, 2021 

# The Loss of Freedom in Hong Kong 

The assault on Hong Kong’s freedoms since Beijing passed a sweeping national security law on June 30, 2020 has been alarming and rapid. Hundreds of critics and activists have been arrested—including dozens of pro-democracy politicians—dissidents have fled, and schools, bookstores and sectors of the media have engaged in self-censorship. Most recently, the government forced the newspaper Apple Daily to shut down by freezing its assets; its publisher, Jimmy Lai, was convicted and imprisoned along with other leading advocates of democracy under the new security law. Prominent democracy activists Alex Chow and Samuel Chu of the Hong Kong Democracy Council join Cato’s Doug Bandow and Ian Vasquez to discuss the deteriorating state of freedom in Hong Kong and pro-freedom strategies in the face of Beijing’s crackdown.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

[![Doug Bandow Cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-11/bandow-cropped.jpg?itok=aRVHhLhx)](/people/doug-bandow) 

##### [Doug Bandow](/people/doug-bandow)

Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

[ 

](https://x.com/Doug_Bandow) [ 

](mailto:dbandow@cato.org) 

[![Ian Vásquez](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-01/Ian%20Vasquez.jpg?itok=yBS_mzpm)](/people/ian-vasquez) 

##### [Ian Vásquez](/people/ian-vasquez)

Vice President for International Studies, Cato Institute

[ 

](https://x.com/vasquezian) [ 

](mailto:ivasquez@cato.org) 

##### Alex Chow 

Advisory Board, Hong Kong Democracy Council

##### Samuel Chu 

Managing Director, Hong Kong Democracy Council