Hong Kong democracy activist Agnes Chow described jail as “agony” on Saturday after she was released on the second anniversary of the city’s huge democracy rallies, with police out in force and protests now all but banned. Two thousand officers have been placed on standby after social media calls for residents to commemorate the failed democracy demonstrations.
Authorities have kept a coronavirus prohibition on public gatherings, despite the city recording just three local infections in the last month. A Beijing-imposed national security law has also criminalised much dissent and most of the city’s democracy leaders have been arrested, jailed or fled overseas.
On Saturday morning, one of those figures walked free. Chow, 24, was mobbed by waiting media but opted for a quiet exit, making no comment. Instead, she wrote a short Instagram post after her release.
“The… agony is finally over,” she wrote, including that she supposed to relaxation after changing into “weak” whereas behind bars.
Chow hails from a generation of activists who cut their teeth in politics as teenagers and became an inspiration for many chafing under Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian rule.
She spent around seven months behind bars for her role in a 2019 protest outside the city’s police headquarters. Fellow youth activists Joshua Wong and Ivan Lam were sentenced in the same case. Chow’s release comes at a sensitive time.
Two years ago on June 12, thousands of protesters surrounded the city’s legislature in an attempt to stop the passage of a bill that could have allowed extraditions to mainland China’s opaque judicial system.
Riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the huge crowds. Footage of the clashes deepened public anger, fuelling what became an increasingly violent movement calling for full democracy that raged for seven straight months. Huge crowds rallied week after week in the most serious challenge to China’s rule since Hong Kong’s 1997 handover.
Beijing’s leaders have dismissed the call for democracy, portraying those who protested as stooges of “foreign forces” making an attempt to undermine China.
They have since overseen a sweeping crackdown that has efficiently curbed dissent and radically remodeled the as soon as outspoken semi-autonomous metropolis.
The spear tip of that crackdown is the nationwide safety legislation. More than 100 folks have been arrested below the brand new legislation, together with Chow.
She has not but been charged however dozens of others have, together with jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Most have been denied bail and so they withstand life in jail if convicted.
‘Absurd era’
Protests have been all however unlawful for the final 12 months in Hong Kong however anniversary occasions can focus consideration. On Friday, two activists from Student Politicism have been arrested on suspicion of promoting an unauthorised meeting.
The pro-democracy group had deliberate to employees a road sales space on Saturday evening. In a press release the group’s secretary Chan Chi-sam stated Hong Kong had fallen into an “absurd period”, adding that he hoped Hong Kongers would “continue to speak out and not be pushed into cowardice or silence.”
Last week Hong Kong authorities banned an annual candlelight vigil commemorating victims of Beijing’s lethal 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
But many Hong Kongers nonetheless quietly signalled defiance by turning on cell phone lights and lighting candles that night.
On Saturday afternoon, police stored up a powerful presence in the identical purchasing districts the place final week’s protests befell.
Saturday’s anniversary was additionally marked abroad — together with by many Hong Kong democracy activists who’ve chosen self-exile over possible jail sentences again dwelling.
In Tokyo, greater than 200 protesters wearing black gathered at Shinjuku Central park holding yellow umbrellas — an emblem of Hong Kong’s democracy motion — and waved flags studying “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our occasions”.
‘Enemies of Hong Kong’
Western nations say China has torn up Hong Kong’s “One Country, Two Systems” mannequin — a pre-handover promise that town would hold key freedoms and autonomy.
China’s leaders say the safety legislation was wanted to revive stability.
As Chow was being launched, Beijing’s prime envoy in Hong Kong was chatting with a whole lot of dignitaries at an occasion themed round subsequent month’s one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
Luo Huining hit out at western media protection, worldwide criticism and those that “cry for the top of one-party rule” — a popular pro-democracy slogan in Hong Kong.
“They are the real enemies of Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” Luo stated.
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