HONG KONG, China —
Hong Kong democracy activist Agnes Chow
described prison 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.
اضافة اعلان
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
criminalized 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, adding that she
intended to rest after becoming “weak” while 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” trying to
undermine China.
They have since overseen a sweeping crackdown that has
successfully curbed dissent and radically transformed the once outspoken
semi-autonomous city.
The spear tip of that crackdown is the national security
law.
More than 100 people have been arrested under the new law,
including Chow.
She has not yet been charged but dozens of others have,
including jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
Most have been denied bail and they face up to life in jail
if convicted.
‘Absurd era’
Protests have been all but illegal for the last year in
Hong Kong but anniversary events can focus attention.
On Friday, two activists from Student Politicism were
arrested on suspicion of advertising an unauthorized assembly.
The pro-democracy group had planned to staff a street booth
on Saturday night.
In a statement the group’s secretary Chan Chi-sam said Hong
Kong had fallen into an “absurd era”, 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 deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square
crackdown.
But many Hong Kongers still quietly signaled defiance by
turning on mobile phone lights and lighting candles that evening.
On Saturday afternoon police kept up a strong presence in
the same shopping districts where last week’s protests took place.
Saturday’s anniversary was also marked overseas — including
by many Hong Kong democracy activists who have chosen self-exile over likely
prison sentences back home.
In Tokyo, more than two hundred protesters dressed in black
gathered at Shinjuku Central park holding yellow umbrellas — a symbol of Hong
Kong’s democracy movement — and waved flags reading “Liberate Hong Kong,
revolution of our times”.
‘Enemies of Hong Kong’
Western nations say China has torn up Hong Kong’s “One
Country, Two Systems” model -- a pre-handover promise that the city would keep
key freedoms and autonomy.
China’s leaders say the security law was needed to restore
stability.
As Chow was being released, Beijing’s top envoy in Hong Kong
was speaking to hundreds of dignitaries at an event themed around next month’s
100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
Luo Huining hit out at western media coverage, international
criticism and those who “cry for the end 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 said.
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