Young activists recall abuse at Hong Kong juvenile correctional facility — Radio Free Asia

He was later transferred to a forensic psychiatric facility at Castle Peak Hospital, but never returned.

“Usually, he would have come back to Pik Uk 14 days later,” Cheung said, “but I never saw him again, and I heard from the staff that he never came back from Castle Peak Hospital.”

Hong Kong independence activist Tony Chung, who has served a 21-month jail term for “secession” under the 2020 National Security Law, spent some time after his release campaigning for the rights of other prisoners in Hong Kong.

He told RFA Mandarin and The Report that he once tried to help a teenage inmate “forced to have oral sex to the point of ejaculation” by another inmate at Pik Uk to file a complaint.

But he was never allowed to meet with the youth alone, only with another inmate who he suspected was actually the perpetrator of the alleged assault.

“The older inmate who was rumored to be the perpetrator asked him in a provocative tone of voice: ‘Has someone been treating you badly? Tell me!’ and the boy whispered ‘No,” and changed the subject, and that was that,” Chung said.

More abusive than adult prisons

Chung, who is now seeking asylum in the United Kingdom and is once more wanted by the authorities, said juvenile institutions lend themselves far more readily to abuse than adult prisons for a number of reasons.

For example, guards and fellow inmates rarely show newcomers how to do their chores properly, offering ample opportunity for physical reprisals when they’re not up to standard, he said.

“If you keep doing it wrong, they just beat you up,” he said. “If you do it wrong again, they will gradually increase the level of violence if they find that you can’t fight back.”

And according to Cheung Tz Hin, guards in adult prisons are a little more concerned about angering the wrong people in a city where criminal gangs, or triads, might target off-duty officers who have mistreated one of their own.

In the facilities for younger inmates, Chung said that any attempt to complain or investigate is met with stonewalling by prison guards, who cow prisoners into keeping quiet in the event of any inquiries.

Public data from the Correctional Services Department shows a total of 579 complaints filed by persons in custody over the past five years, with only 12 substantiated or partially substantiated following investigation.

Much of the reason for this is that guards and their favored inmates are well aware of the best blind spots in which to carry out their attacks, which are seldom picked up by surveillance cameras.

No one will speak up

In Hong Kong, one of the duties of the Justices of the Peace appointed by the Chief Executive and Chief Secretary is to “ensure that persons in custody are not be treated unfairly or exploited.”

Justices of the Peace inspect the city’s four juvenile detention facilities and halfway houses every two weeks or at least once a month, and would be an ideal channel through which to raise a complaint.

But nobody would dare to speak to them publicly in front of fellow inmates and guards, according to Chung and Cheung.

There was a flurry of public concern about prisoner abuse in Hong Kong when dozens of high-profile pro-democracy activists and opposition lawmakers were released from their sentences in the wake of the 2014 Occupy Central movement and the 2016 “Fishball Revolution” in Mong Kok.

But the 2020 National Security Law forced many civic groups and prisoner charities to disband out of fear of further prosecution.

Chung said anyone advocating for prisoners in Hong Kong now faces the additional risk of prosecution under the new Safeguarding National Security Law, which took effect on March 23, as well as the 2020 National Security Law.

“I’m no longer in Hong Kong, so I don’t have to worry about being accused of inciting people to hate the government,” Chung said. “But others are still in Hong Kong, so I’m a bit worried about them.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.