NGOs and bookshops are closing, media organisations are leaving and democracy activists are on trial

“Ideas are bulletproof”. Three words , stamped out in multicolour tiles above a doorway, represented one of the last vestiges of Hong Kong’s once vibrant literary spaces. On 31 March, Mount Zero, a beloved independent bookstore in Hong Kong, closed its doors for the final time. Hundreds of Hongkongers came to say goodbye.

The bookshop, which opened in 2018, took its slogan from the 2005 film V for Vendetta; the eponymous antihero’s Guy Fawkes mask occasionally appeared during Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.

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The X owner is paying legal bills of people ‘unfairly treated’ over their posts while weaponizing the law to shut down his critics

Let’s check in on the platform formerly known as Twitter shall we? Let’s have a gander at how it’s doing since Elon Musk, the world’s cleverest man, decided to set its extremely valuable brand equity on fire and rename it “X”.

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Alan Clark , Anne Geraghty and Charles J Corrigan on fears that Scotland’s new hate crime law will stifle debate

Fifty years ago, as a young gay man, I left Scotland because I saw it as a particularly backward and bigoted country ( Scotland’s hate crime law may be well intentioned, but the police should not stymie public debate, 1 April ). In recent decades, I’ve been amazed by its transformation into being seemingly more progressive than the rest of the UK. How sadly ironic that, while still claiming to fly under those same liberal colours, the Scottish government has now enacted punitive legislation that undermines almost everything that has been achieved.

Simon Jenkins might be going a tad far in drawing a parallel with China under Chairman Mao, but the line between well-meant progressivism and authoritarianism is a fine one. With this dangerous new law, Scotland has now crossed that line and is heading backwards. I’ll be staying in England.
Alan Clark
London

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Home theatre apologises for upset caused by cancelling Voices of Resilience

The organisers of a Palestinian literature event cancelled by a Manchester theatre last week, say they are “hugely grateful” the venue has agreed it can go ahead after a surge of support.

Home theatre apologised for the upset caused by cancelling Voices of Resilience, due to be held on 22 April, citing “recent publicity” and safety concerns for the organisers and those attending.

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Author’s comments on Monday relating to trans women were posted as new hate crime law came into force in Scotland

Comments by JK Rowling that described prominent transgender women activists as “men” will not be recorded as a non-crime hate incident, Police Scotland has said.

The Harry Potter author challenged police to arrest her in a series of posts on X on Monday as the Scottish government’s contentious hate crime law came into force, which she described as “wide open to abuse”. She listed sex offenders who had described themselves as transgender alongside well-known trans women activists, describing them as “men, every last one of them”.

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Menier Chocolate Factory, London
Paul Grellong’s gripping dialogue makes a brisk plot and unlikable characters immensely watchable as a Harvard professor invites a white supremacist for a debate

‘I’m one of the good guys,” insists a beleaguered Harvard professor facing student protests after inviting a white supremacist to be part of a university debate on extremism. The defence, for Charles Nichols (Julian Ovenden), is that illogical or offensive arguments need to be heard in order to be dismantled, though hand-wringing principal Amy Katz (Tanya Franks) suggests he is doing this as an attention-grabbing career move.

Paul Grellong’s intelligent if schematic play incorporates themes of cancel culture, Nazi legacies and the intersection between freedom of expression and hate speech.

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Mickaëlle Paty, whose brother Samuel was killed by an extremist, speaks out after Paris head resigns following alleged death threats

The sister of Samuel Paty, the French teacher beheaded by an Islamist terrorist in 2020, has accused the authorities of failing to appreciate or act on the continuing threat extremists pose to school staff.

Speaking after alleged death threats to a Paris head teacher, who resigned last week, Mickaëlle Paty said the state appeared to have learned little from her brother’s killing.

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The Wall Street Journal correspondent is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately from his Russian jail

Evan Gershkovich , a Wall Street Journal reporter, has spent nearly a year in a Moscow prison, awaiting trial for a crime he did not commit. Mr Gershkovich was arrested last March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and jailed on espionage charges. He is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately. Hostage diplomacy lies behind his incarceration. As the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy , said, Mr Gershkovich’s case “is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends”.

Vladimir Putin indicated in February that a prisoner exchange could lead to the release of Mr Gershkovich. There have been high-profile prisoner swaps in the past. In December 2022, Moscow traded a US basketball star convicted of a drugs offence in Russia for a Russian arms trafficker. But a journalist’s detention to secure the release of a Russian hitman would underscore Russia’s retreat into a Soviet past. In 1986 an American journalist, Nicholas Daniloff , was arrested and charged with espionage. He was let go after two weeks when the US released a Soviet diplomat accused of spying. Mr Gershkovich has been inside for nearly 12 months.

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