Tag: laws

Art world descends on Hong Kong as Article 23 security laws spur censorship fears


More than 240 international galleries are participating in Art Basel this year, as it returns to full scale for the first time since before the pandemic. A related Art Week event, Art Central, features almost 100 galleries from Hong Kong and around the world.

The two events have been thronged with people this week, both serious art buyers as well as casual ticketholders snapping photos and selfies.

The government provided Art Basel with 15 million Hong Kong dollars ($1.9 million) from a fund aimed at promoting major arts and cultural events, which supported Art Central as well. Officials see such “mega events” as a way to revive Hong Kong’s economy and its international reputation, which has been battered by years of pandemic isolation and the crackdown on dissent.

Hong Kong Culture Secretary Kevin Yeung told lawmakers on Wednesday that the government was “committed to promoting Hong Kong as an East-meets-West center for international cultural exchange,” citing the city’s low tax rate and strategic location in Asia.

Art Basel has played down concerns about free expression.

“We have never faced any censorship issues at our shows, nor have we been asked to do anything differently since the introduction of the National Security Law,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “As with all Art Basel shows, our Selection Committee is responsible for reviewing applications and selects galleries solely based on the quality of their booth proposal.”

But that obscures the self-censorship that galleries may now feel is necessary to be included in major art fairs, said Wear, who published a statement last year urging the international artistic community not to participate in Art Basel’s Hong Kong event.

“They don’t have to do it because everybody does it for them,” he said.

Crack-down on dissent bumps up against Hong Kong’s cultural ambitions

The Hong Kong government has been investing heavily in the city as a cultural hub, opening the M+ art museum in 2021 and the Hong Kong Palace Museum in 2022. And the world’s biggest auction houses continue to express confidence: Phillips opened its new Asia headquarters in Hong Kong in 2023, to be followed by Christie’s and Sotheby’s later this year.

But Hong Kong’s cultural development has coincided with a crackdown on dissent in the name of national security, raising difficult questions for international art companies that don’t want to miss out on commercial opportunities.

“They know they have a problem, but they don’t want to talk about it,” said Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot. “Because the moment they talk about it, then they must face it.”

In 2021, a sculpture by Galschiot memorializing the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing was dismantled and removed from the University of Hong Kong, where it had stood since 1998. University officials said they removed the sculpture, called the “Pillar of Shame,” “based on external legal advice and risk assessment.”

Hong Kong officials have made it no secret that art could be targeted. The city’s security chief, Chris Tang, said in a letter to Galschiot last year that those seeking to endanger national security could use “artistic creations” as a pretext.

Alexandra Yung, a local artist, art collector and art consultant, said there was a feeling of “apprehension” among Hong Kong’s artistic community, some members of which have moved abroad. Artists now have to be “a bit more aware and more responsible,” she said, amid uncertainty over where the “red lines” are drawn.

While in past years Hong Kong’s Art Week events have featured art related to local politics, Yung said this year she “didn’t see anything that was political at all.”

“I think galleries are more aware of what they would show and what they wouldn’t show,” she said.

Hong Kong was required to pass the Article 23 law under its mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, but a previous attempt was aborted in 2003 when an estimated 500,000 of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million people took to the streets in protest. Since the national security law was imposed in 2020, however, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy opposition has been all but wiped out, and this time the bill sailed through the legislature, where it passed unanimously on March 19.

The law has been criticized by the United States and others, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying it “threatens to further undermine the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong.”

The Hong Kong government condemned Blinken’s remarks as “misleading and erroneous,” saying the law is precisely targeted, its crimes and penalties are clearly defined and established freedoms will be protected.

Lawmakers vote for Article 23 in the chamber of the Legislative Council
A local national security law was unanimously approved by Hong Kong lawmakers on March 19.Peter Parks / AFP – Getty Images file

Among the aspects of the new local law of greatest concern to artists is sedition, a British colonial-era crime that Hong Kong officials have resurrected in recent years, said Eric Yan-ho Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law.

The new law expands the crime of sedition, defined as inciting hatred or disaffection toward the Chinese and Hong Kong governments, and raises the maximum punishment from two years in prison to 10.

“There’s already strong self-censorship in Hong Kong in the past few years,” Lai said, pointing to the removal of politically sensitive books from public libraries and schools.

During last year’s Hong Kong Art Week, a video installation by an American artist was removed from a billboard outside a department store after it was discovered to be secretly paying tribute to the 2019 protesters, more than 10,000 of whom have been arrested.

In August, a longstanding mural was removed from outside a restaurant popular with construction workers because it depicted patrons eating noodles while wearing yellow hard hats, a color associated with pro-democracy protesters.

In recent months, national security considerations have also seemingly played a role in the cancellation of multiple performances. In January, organizers of the Hong Kong Drama Awards said they had been told that the government-funded Hong Kong Arts Development Council was withdrawing support for the first time in more than two decades out of concern for its reputation.

Among the reasons the council cited was the invitation of “non-theatrical people” as presenters at last year’s awards, including the controversial political cartoonist known as Zunzi.

Hong Kong Art Basel
A visitor taking photos of works by British artist Mr Doodle at Art Basel on Wednesday. Peter Parks / AFP – Getty Images

Lai said the heightened legal risk brought by the Article 23 law would worsen self-censorship, which in turn would “make Hong Kong become less vibrant and pluralistic and further discourage artistic communities from abroad to visit Hong Kong.”

The effects of self-censorship could also ripple out from Hong Kong to the wider world, Wear said, noting that Western galleries and other arts organizations have rarely contended with restrictive laws of this kind in an art market as big as Hong Kong’s. Like Beijing’s national security law, the Article 23 law claims global jurisdiction.

“If you’re a dealer bringing work, say, to Art Basel, or if you have an operation in Hong Kong, you may hesitate about having work anywhere in your system that might upset the Hong Kong or Chinese authorities,” said Wear, who was associate head of the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 1989 to 2006.

Galschiot said it was the responsibility of Western arts organizations and auction houses to speak out on behalf of a Hong Kong artistic community that has been “castrated” by the national security laws.

“They must take the fight now from the artists,” said Galschiot, whose sculpture was reportedly seized from storage by Hong Kong national security police last year in connection with an “incitement to subversion” case.

Hong Kong officials declined last year to confirm or deny reports that there was a warrant out for Galschiot’s arrest.

Wear said Hong Kong is unlikely to lose its prominent position in the art world any time soon.

“The art market is very likely to persist, and very possibly even likely to grow,” he said. “It’s just that a lot of things won’t be possible.”



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Migrant women grapple with restrictive U.S. abortion laws after sexual violence



In recent years, the rise of irregular migration has offered the Gulf Cartel another lucrative opportunity: It is kidnapping migrants for ransom and weaponizing sexual violence as yet another form of extortion. 

“They undressed me in front of my husband and started beating me because I told them I didn’t have any money,” she said. “‘Then you’ll pay us with your body,’” the cartel replied, she said. NBC News couldn’t corroborate her testimony, but three other migrants interviewed for this article described almost identical experiences. 

Throughout the years, organized crime groups have leveraged the long waiting periods migrants have been subjected to on the Mexican side of the border. The waiting periods are the result of policies such as former President Donald Trump’s Title 42, the pandemic-era law that allowed the government to turn away migrants, including asylum-seekers, at the border, as well as the Remain in Mexico program and, more recently, President Joe Biden’s CBP One App process. All of those policies have pushed migrants to wait in some of Mexico’s most dangerous cities until their immigration appointments are scheduled, which may take months.

Jennifer Harbury, an activist and lawyer who has been advocating for human rights in Latin and Central America for over 40 years, denounced the recent policies.

“These are mothers with tiny children, young men who have refused to become drug smugglers, old people who have been pushed out of their homes,” she said. “They’ve been through hell on Earth, and they’re dying because we [the U.S.] keep pushing them back. We’re killing refugees.”  

Custom and Border Protection didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. According to CBP, the “use of the CBP One™ app to schedule appointments at land ports of entry has increased CBP’s capacity to process migrants more efficiently and orderly while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants.”

Some migrants disagree. 

“Right now, many people are getting on buses and asking [passengers] if they are going to their appointments,” said a young Mexican woman who decided to migrate to the U.S. because of escalating violence from cartel factions operating in her region.

She has seen the way the cartels are systemically exploiting the situation. “Some people say yes and they are taken off the bus, their bags are checked, and they are stripped of all their money. They are also beaten so the captors can send a video to their family members and show that they are truly kidnapped. With these appointments, everything is spiraling out of control.”

Taking matters into their own hands

The politics of abortion in the U.S. is affecting migrants who have been victims of sexual assault on their way to the border, such as the Honduran asylum-seeker who was confronted with the Texas abortion ban.

Weeks after she went through her own self-managed medication abortion, she came across an unexpected opportunity in Texas: She found five doses of misoprostol, one of the abortion pills she once used. She knew she could be penalized for distributing the pills, but she decided to break the state’s law and help other women going through similar situations.

“I have two options: Either I harm my record or I help — I said, ‘I prefer to help, and whatever happens happens.’” She gave her last dose to a recently arrived migrant in Texas who also learned she was pregnant after she entered the U.S. “She told me, ‘I just got here, and I am pregnant. I need the pills.’ I said, ‘OK, I am going to drop them off.’” 

In doing so, not only did the Honduran migrant go against the state’s law, but she also risked her own immigration status in a state that is trying to impose criminal penalties on migrants.

Yet she said the urge to help outweighed her fear. It drove her to lend a hand to a group of people trapped in the dangerous overlap of America’s immigration and abortion policies — a gray zone migrants may not fathom as they’re making their way north, toward that so-called American Dream.

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Amid book bans, DEI cuts and ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws, 7 states will mandate LGBTQ-inclusive curricula



Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, signed a law last week that includes a mandate for the state’s public schools to teach LGBTQ history, as red and blue states continue to diverge on whether schools should expose kids to gay and transgender identities.

The new law, Senate Bill 5462, mandates that the state’s school districts adopt curricula that is as “culturally and experientially diverse as possible,” including the histories of LGBTQ people, people of color and people with disabilities. Schools will be required to institute the inclusive curricula by the 2025-26 school year.

“The governor was happy to sign legislation that aims to ensure students of all races and identities feel safe and welcome at school,” Mike Faulk, a spokesperson for Inslee, said in an email Monday.

Faulk also referred NBC News to research published in the journal Sex Education that suggests LGBTQ-inclusive curricula can reduce rates of bullying and make children feel safer in school. 

Kristie Bennett is a high school teacher in Sammamish, Washington, who is bisexual and leads her school’s gender-sexuality alliance organization. In an interview last week with NBC affiliate KGW of Portland, Oregon, Bennett echoed Faulk’s sentiment. 

“I’ve seen firsthand how important an inclusive curriculum can be and how life-changing it can be to help a student see themselves in the curriculum instead of some old dead white guys from the 1700s,” Bennett said.

Washington is the seventh state to enact legislation mandating that public schools incorporate LGBTQ-inclusive curricula in some capacity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. The other six are: California, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada and Illinois, states that have been won by Democrats in the last four presidential elections.

The law also comes as conservative lawmakers introduce record numbers of anti-LGBTQ measures, including legislation to regulate how LGBTQ issues are taught in public schools. 

Over the last several years, Republican officials have sought to limit how sexual orientation and gender identity are taught in school through measures critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” laws; bans on books with queer storylines or characters; and disbandments of diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public universities.

Seven states — all but one of them led by Republicans — have laws in place that restrict the instruction of sexual orientation or gender identity in some public schools, according to MAP.

Gabriele Magni, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and director of the school’s LGBTQ+ Politics Research Initiative, called the enactment of the measures to mandate LGBTQ history be taught at public schools a “reaction” to anti-LGBTQ measures introduced in red states.

“It’s similar to the analogy we’ve seen with abortion. On the one hand, you’ve seen states banning abortion or making it much more unrealistic,” Magni said. “And then, on the other hand, you’ve seen states like California or New York ramping up their protections and also offering a more welcoming environment for people who may come from out of state.”

LGBTQ advocates in Washington similarly suggested that their state’s new law was necessary to counter the idea from conservatives that queer identities are inappropriate for children. 

“It’s considered too controversial to mention to kids that Thoreau was gay or Walt Whitman was gay,” Ken Shulman, the executive director of Seattle-based LGBTQ advocacy group Lambert House, told KGW. “Alan Turing — who invented the first computer, helped serve the Enigma code and win World War II — was gay.”



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Supreme Court rejects Tulsa in Native American traffic laws dispute


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Tulsa’s bid to block a lower court ruling that cast into doubt the Oklahoma city’s ability to enforce municipal ordinances, including traffic laws, against Native Americans.

The justices left in place for now the appeals court ruling that said, in light of a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that expanded tribal authority in Oklahoma, Tulsa no longer had exclusive jurisdiction to issue traffic citations against tribe members.

In a brief statement, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that the litigation will continue in lower courts and that the city may have alternative arguments that could succeed. He also said that nothing prevents the city from “continuing to enforce its municipal laws against all persons, including Indians.”

As a result of the 2020 ruling in a case called McGirt v. Oklahoma, large swathes of eastern Oklahoma were deemed to be Native American land, including Tulsa.

The ruling marked a major victory for tribes, which have traditionally struggled to assert their sovereignty.

The city and surrounding area fall within the jurisdiction of what are known as the “five tribes” of Oklahoma, although there are numerous other tribes in the state. The five tribes — the Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw — were forcibly moved west in the 19th century in the traumatic event dubbed the Trail of Tears. Tulsa itself sits on Muscogee and Cherokee lands

The case before the court involved Justin Hooper, a member of the Choctaw Nation, who contested a $150 fine he received in Tulsa’s municipal court after being caught speeding. He argued that the court did not have jurisdiction over him because he is Native American, citing the 2020 Supreme Court ruling.

The city countered that it did have such power under an 1898 law called the Curtis Act, which gave lawmaking authority to cities incorporated in Indian Country. The law pre-dated Oklahoma becoming a state in 1907.

Tulsa turned to the Supreme Court after the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Hooper in June.

“The effect of this decision is that the City of Tulsa, and other similar cities throughout eastern and southern Oklahoma, cannot enforce municipal ordinances against Indian inhabitants who violate them within City limits,” Tulsa’s lawyers said in court papers.

Tribes responded that the city could remedy the problem by expanding the implementation of cross-deputization agreements with tribal police, which are already commonplace in the state.

The tribes said in court papers that other municipalities in eastern Oklahoma have cooperated on traffic tickets. Under that system, tickets issued against tribal members by city police are referred to the tribe, which then enforces them and remits most of the revenue back to the city in question.

The McGirt ruling was welcomed by tribes but has met with a frosty reception from some Oklahoma officials, most notably the state’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, who warned after the appeals court ruling that “there will be no rule of law in eastern Oklahoma” if it was allowed to stand.

In a 2022 ruling, the Supreme Court undercut the impact of the McGirt ruling in a ruling that expanded state power over tribes.

Earlier this year, the court handed a surprising win to tribes when it rejected a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law aimed at keeping Native American families together in the foster care and adoption process.

The court, however, then ruled against Navajo Nation in a separate case concerning water rights.

Lawrence Hurley

Lawrence Hurley covers the Supreme Court for NBC News.





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Automaker Tesla is opening more showrooms on tribal lands to avoid state laws barring direct sales


Tesla is ramping up efforts to open showrooms on tribal lands where it can sell directly to consumers, circumventing laws in states that bar vehicle manufacturers from also being retailers in favor of the dealership model.

Mohegan Sun, a casino and entertainment complex in Connecticut owned by the federally recognized Mohegan Tribe, announced this week that the California-based electric automaker will open a showroom with a sales and delivery center this fall on its sovereign property where the state’s law doesn’t apply.

The news comes after another new Tesla showroom was announced in June, set to open in 2025 on lands of the Oneida Indian Nation in upstate New York.

“I think it was a move that made complete sense,” said Lori Brown, executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, which has lobbied for years to change Connecticut’s law.

“It is just surprising that it took this long, because Tesla had really tried, along with Lucid and Rivian,” she said, referring to two other electric carmakers. “Anything that puts more electric vehicles on the road is a good thing for the public.”

Brown noted that lawmakers with car dealerships that are active in their districts, no matter their political affiliation, have traditionally opposed bills allowing direct-to-consumer sales.

The Connecticut Automotive Retail Association, which has opposed such bills for years, says there needs to be a balance between respecting tribal sovereignty and “maintaining a level playing field” for all car dealerships in the state.

“We respect the Mohegan Tribe’s sovereignty and the unique circumstance in which they operate their businesses on Tribal land but we strongly believe that this does not change the discussion about Tesla and other EV manufacturers with direct-to-consumer sales, and we continue to oppose that model,” Hayden Reynolds, the association’s chairperson, said in a statement. “Connecticut’s dealer franchise laws benefit consumers and provide a competitive marketplace.”

Over the years in numerous states, Tesla has sought and been denied dealership licenses, pushed for law changes and challenged decisions in courts. The company scored a victory earlier this year when Delaware’s Supreme Court overturned a ruling upholding a decision by state officials to prohibit Tesla from selling its cars to directly customers.

Tesla opened its first store as well as a repair shop on Native American land in 2021 in New Mexico. The facility, built in Nambé Pueblo, north of Santa Fe, marked the first time the company partnered with a tribe to get around state laws, though the idea had been in the works for years.

Brian Dear, president of the Tesla Owners Club of New Mexico, predicted at the time that states that are home to tribal nations and also have laws banning direct car sales by manufacturers would likely follow New Mexico’s lead.

“I don’t believe at all that this will be the last,” he said.

Tesla’s facility at Mohegan Sun, dubbed the Tesla Sales & Delivery Center, will be located at a shopping and dining pavilion within the sprawling casino complex. Customers will be able to test drive models around the resort. and gamblers will be able to use their loyalty rewards toward Tesla purchases.

Tesla also plans to exhibit its solar and storage products at the location.



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