Caspar Tsui resigned after attending 200-person birthday party

Damdul

After rising controversy over a birthday party, Caspar Tsui, Home Minister of Hong Kong resigned from his position on 31^st January. The party is organized by Hong Kong government officials and was attended by roughly 200 people in January during the early stage of the Omicron outbreak.

After flouting COVID-19 precautions, which Tsui helped in organizing, the Home Minster took the blame and resigned effective immediately.

Home Minister Caspar Tsui, immediately resigned from his position after handling his resignation to Carrie Lam, Chief Executive of Hong Kong on 31^st January. In the Bloomberg interview, Caspar Tsui said “as one of the government officials being the face of the anti-epidemic fight, I have not been the best example during the recent Omicron outbreak for the citizen of Hong kong.

Tsui was one of the 15 officials who attended a party of around 200 people for the local representative of the Chinese economic development agency organized on 3^rd January, where several guests were tested positive for COVID-1. Interestingly, only a few days before, the government urged people to avoid large gatherings to stop the COVID outbreak.

After Tsui’s resignation news, Lam said at a press briefing that those 12 officials who attended the birthday party strictly followed the Covid-19 precautions protocols, and that time the city’s infection rate was low. However, Tsui didn’t wear a mask and stayed for nearly two hours. His acts had put the government into a bad light and brought dishonor, she added.

The party took place at an Spanish restaurant in Wan Chia “ReservaIberica”. As per the invitation of the party, all the guests were instructed to wear masks unless they are eating or drinking and to avoid posting photos on their social media handles. Although, the leaked photos of the party showed a different scenario where the guests were unmasked and seated close to each other. The exact number of attendees is still unclear, as per the local media there were around 200 attendees at the party.

Lau Siu-kai, vice president of the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies said this resignation by Hong Kong’s home minister will help in reducing the damage made by the scandal and it shows that the authority is taking corrective measures to control the pandemic.

Just hours before Caspar Tsui’s resignation, Chief Executive Lam released the reports of an internal investigation of the scandal which included 15 government officials.

As per Hong Kong press reporter Candice Chau, the investigation was made on the basis of a self-reported questionnaire issue to all 15 people. They were asked to give the details of the party like their arrival time at the party, how long they stayed there, whether they wore a mask, and did they used LeaveHomeSafe or not.

On 31 January, Gary Cheung and Natalie Wong published an article in the South China Morning Post outlining the results of the investigation. They mentioned Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s statement in which she stated Caspar Tsui attended two vital internal meetings focused on ways to tighten social-distancing rules held on December 31 and January 3 (just hours before attending the birthday party).

The investigation also found that the political assistant to the Development Secretary, Allen Fung Ying-lun stayed at the party for more than four hours. He was uncertain whether he wore a mask or not due to alcohol consumption. Deputy Head of Policy Innovation and Coordination office, Vincent Fung Hao-yin didn’t appear for the mandatory testing order on the day it was issued and put the risk of transmitting the infection on fellow colleagues by returning to work the very next day. However, Allen Fung and Vincent Fung would receive only a verbal warning from their respective supervisors seeing that they were not involved in anti-pandemic work.

It is worth mentioning that people were not satisfied with the fact that apart from Tsui, only two out of the 15 officials under investigation suffered the consequences. Lawyers who were in charge of reviewing the party photos mentioned that they gathered potential evidence of many criminal offenses like large crowd size, unmasked attendees, and not using the LeaveHomeSafe exposure alert app – which add up to HK$5000 fine to jail for six months.

Meanwhile, all the government officials who attended the party issued public apologies. The zero-covid policy is already testing Hong Kong’s restricted limits on free speech. Recently, the government informed the citizens by issuing a statement clarifying that making general comments and discussions regarding the effectiveness of the policy is not illegal.