Free Republic

HONG KONG—For months now, I’ve been told that Hong Kong’s protests would end soon. They’ll end when school starts, I heard during the summer. School did start, but the protests wore on, only now I saw high-school students in crisp school uniforms joining the protesters’ ranks. Next, the mask ban of early October was supposed to slow protesters down, but the very first day after that ban, I watched streams of protesters in masks and helmets make their way to their usual haunts on Hong Kong Island. The government shut down many of the subway lines that day, a practice...

PHOENIX - A judge has struck down provisions Republican lawmakers tucked into the Arizona budget that block schools from requiring masks and restrict the power of local governments to impose COVID-19 requirements. The ruling was made on Sept. 27, just days before the ban was officially set to take effect on Sept. 29. Despite the new laws banning mask mandates, at least 29 public school districts in Arizona have enacted their own mask requirements. The districts account for more more than a third of the approximately 930,000 students attending more than 2,000 schools run by public districts. The ruling Monday...

A group of Swedish football fans have launched a protest against a new ban on wearing masks at stadiums, exploiting an exception to the ban by wearing niqabs to cover their faces. On March 1st, the ban on wearing masks in the stands at Swedish football stadiums entered into force in an effort to combat violent behavior at games. Exceptions to the ban can be made however for people covering their faces in the line of duty like police, or people who cover their face for religious reasons. And it was the latter exception that some supporters of Stockholm club...