3 Winning Poetry Collections Suspected of Violating the National Security Law Disqualified From Literary Competition

The results of the 16th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature hosted by the Hong Kong government did not show any results for the "Poetry Category" the winner and alternate winners had been disqualified. (Shusheng website and Facebook)

Entries for the 16th “Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature” organized by LCSD Hong Kong Public Libraries, were submitted in April 2021, and the competition results would normally be expected to be released in November 2021, but the results for the 16th competition were delayed and were not released until Oct. 24; about a year later.

The published results did not include awards for the “Poetry Category” as the selected winners had been disqualified. In the recently announced list of results, the “Poetry Category” was shown as “absent.”

The poetry collections “Light Hidden in the Dust, The Dark Light, in the Long Fog” and “Commandment and Fellow Practitioners” were recommended by the judges of the biennial awards as the recommended winner and the alternate award winners, respectively, but all were eventually disqualified by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD). “Light Hidden in Dust” and “The Dark Light in the Long Fog” were believed to include Hong Kong Social movement issues and its protests, while “Commandment and Fellow Practitioners” was alleged to include the mention of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo.

According to the website of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD), Hong Kong Public Library, the award has been biennially organized by the LCSD since 1991. LCSD claimed that the award “aims to commend local writers for their outstanding achievements and encourage them to continue creating quality Chinese literary works, as well as to promote the publication of these quality works by local publishers.

The recently announced results of the “The 16th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature in 2021” show that there are no biennial awards and recommended prizes for the “Poetry Category.” The government refused to explain the reason. On 27 October, The Secretary for Culture, Kevin Yeung, said on a radio programme, “I have to ensure that its events and anything it promotes are legal, reach certain academic levels and match the moral standards of society. If it involves issues to do with national security, naturally, law enforcement agencies would act according to the law. We don’t discuss individual cases.”

The list of awardees of the biennial awards, but the recommended prizes for the "Poetry Category" of the 16th competition were missing: there was a note in the small print at the bottom of the results message reading ""the recommended prizes and the biennial award for poetry remain empty." (LCSD website)

On Oct. 26, Mr. Woo wrote a poem about his sudden thoughts after reading the news. The first four lines have the following approximate meaning: “Every article tells its own story. Everyone interprets it in their own way; A judge should judge the skill involved. Why give the law the power to judge.” (Facebook of Mr. Woo)

Poetry Collections Removed From Library Shelves

In December 2021, Wen Wei Po (a pro-CCP media) reported that “Light Hidden in the Dust,” “The Dark Light in the Long Fog,” and “Commandment and Fellow Practitioners” had been removed from the shelves of public libraries. The LCSD responded that it would take a serious approach if literary collections are suspected of violating the National Security Law.

The reporter of the Epoch Times searched the relevant works in the Public Library Catalogue, and the results showed the message “No results were found for your search request.”

Sensors are Also Looking Carefully at Films

In addition, it has also recently been revealed that the distributors of many Taiwanese films have been requested by the authorities to delete or modify the content, and two film festivals in Hong Kong have been canceled. Kevin Yeung said that Hong Kong has always had an established censorship system for films and newspapers, and it has followed the mechanism for many years, and the producers or directors of films have the right not to accept them.