#HongKong now places 135 out of 180 countries and territories as RSF cites 'unprecedented' setbacks.
Its press freedom ranking rose five places from last year’s 140.

Hong Kong was ranked 18th place in 2002.

rsf.org/en/country/hon…

I live by Columbia. Tonight I went for a walk & saw 10+ blocks rapidly barricaded, dozens of police vehicles flying by, large groups of NYPD in riot gear gathering.
I study protest in E Europe. What I saw tonight was some of the most wildly disproportionate policing I've seen
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Zoom in and look at how much of Damascus's Qaboun district was bulldozed and blown up with explosives by the regime.

This entire community was wiped out for their protests against Assad.

Left: May 2011.... Right: December 2022

NOW: Columbia University faculty link arms and form a wall in front of the entrance to the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ as hundreds of students encircle the both lawns

Students remaining in the encampment were told they could face disciplinary action after 2PM

China is already waging a cold war on the US, says former top Trump China aide Matt Pottinger—and the US should try to win it. Our conversation from today's GPS:

Thank you to all UK-Hong Kong Symposium for supporting the call to #FreeJimmyLai .

Today Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC (@caoilfhionnanna) spoke on the need to do more for political prisoners in #HongKong . She highlighted shocking details from #JimmyLai ’s trial.

Rishi Sunak Keir Starmer

We will not tolerate the attempts by foreign dictators to silence us or intimidate anyone in the United Kingdom.

Thank you to Nathan Law 羅冠聰 for joining us in Trinity College Dublin earlier this month for a wonderful address, interview and Q&A session!

It was an honour to award him our Gold Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Public Discourse for his landmark activism in Hong Kong and internationally

Catching up on last night's HK debate in EP.

Chair calls for order as MEPs give Reinhard Buetikofer rapturous applause after his last address to parliament before retiring.

Reinhard Bütikofer: 'I find it fitting my last debate in this parliament concerns human rights & China policy'

Thank you China Commission Chair Smith & Tom Suozzi for new legislation designating the area outside the U.S. HKETO office as 'Jimmy Lai Way.' It sends a strong message to Beijing & #HongKong that we will not rest until #JimmyLai & other political prisoners in HK are released

The honour is mine, Madam Speaker. There is so much to learn from your leadership and dedication to freedom and democracy.
The Hong Kong community has always been grateful for your decades-long support of human rights advocacy in the region. Looking forward to seeing you again.

Bring. It. On. The bill is tightly written by legal experts at DOJ & in Congress. The US gov has regulated foreign ownership of companies since the beginning of our republic. Passing the TikTok bill is a major bipartisan accomplishment & I'm proud of everyone who was a part of it

It’s law.

For a short period, the new issue of Index on Censorship - which looks at the increasingly concerning topic of transnational repression - is free to read via Sage Journals. Featuring Nathan Law 羅冠聰 周锋锁 Fengsuo Zhou Andrei Soldatov Kirill Martynov & more. Content here: journals.sagepub.com/toc/IOC/current

Biggest joke of the day.

'From day one of its founding, the CPC is a champion for democracy.'

BREAKING: US House of Representatives approves confiscation of frozen Russian assets in the US and handing them over to Ukraine. I’ve been working on this since the war began with many good people in Ukraine and around the world. This is a huge milestone and paves the way for the…

'Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”

UPDATE: SFT ACTIVIST INTERRUPTS AMB. XIE AGAIN DURING TALK

SFT activist asked Xie how he could be at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government when the Chinese government is directly violating every human rights law in the world.

Again, the Ambassador was stunned into silence.

I take a taxi to the airport in Washington with a sense of relief. The aid package for Ukraine passed the House of Representatives, where it was blocked for eight months. Most likely, it will be voted on in the Senate on Tuesday, but there will be no problems there.

I will…

The root problem of the TikTok scandal is its connection to ByteDance, through which Beijing can harvest user data and manipulate public discourses.

Ex-TIKTOK employees say they were told to send US user data to Beijing mol.im/a/13314335

It should not be owned by a…