Solo demos, heavy police presence as Hong Kong sees 5th year without protest march on Handover anniversary
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong saw brief, solo demonstrations on the anniversary of the city’s return to China, when streets that crowds of protesters once marched through were instead filled with police on the public holiday.
Outside Sogo department store in Causeway Bay, an elderly man surnamed Ng held up handwritten signs on Monday afternoon with arrest figures related to the protests in 2019. “[Fighting for] freedom and democracy is not a crime,” one of the signs read.
Ng, a member of a protest group that formed after the Umbrella Movement civil disobedience campaign in 2014, told local newspaper Ming Pao that police allowed him to display the signs for 10 minutes before ordering him to put them away. He said he initially asked for 30 minutes, but police said he had to be quick.
The elderly activist also staged a similar protest outside Sogo on the Handover anniversary last year, when he was escorted by police to the MTR station and made to leave, according to local media reports.
Hong Kong marked 27 year since it was handed over from Britain to China on Monday. Traditionally a day of pro-democracy marches led by opposition parties and civil society groups, the anniversary has not seen such demonstrations since Beijing imposed a security law in June 2020.
Similar to previous years, there were patriotic festivities citywide. Pro-government groups organised a fair on Chinese culture in Victoria Park, while entry to some exhibitions at museums were free.
Meanwhile, elderly activist Lui Yuk-lin walked from Sogo to the government headquarters in Admiralty to protest increasing public housing rent. She was followed by plainclothes police officers who filmed her, Ming Pao reported.
She then went to Mong Kok and was warned by officers not to display any slogans or she would face potential arrest.
‘Very angry’
On Monday morning, a woman who was one of the first people arrested under Hong Kong’s new, homegrown security law, known as Article 23, was taken away by police. Lee Ying-chi, a dentist, was reportedly walking through Wan Chai MTR station when she was stopped by a group of men who appeared to be plainclothes officers.
Lee was wearing a white t-shirt featuring a portrait of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong when she was stopped at the metro station, videos posted online showed.
Lee was taken into a control room in the station, and then onto a police vehicle outside. After her release, she went to Causeway Bay, where she told reporters that police suspected she had violated a movement restriction order related to her Article 23 arrest.
After investigation, police confirmed that the order already ended last month, and that in any case, the restricted area did not include Wan Chai.
Lee said she had originally planned to go swimming in the morning when she was stopped by police. She said she was “very angry” and questioned why police were unclear about her movement restriction order.
Lee was also among several people searched by police outside Sogo on Monday evening, near where a man stabbed an officer before killing himself on July 1, 2021. Lee, who was stopped along with three others, said police asked whether she was mourning or observing a moment of silence, according to local media.
One of the woman who was part of Lee’s group was later stopped by police on the concourse of Causeway Bay MTR station, local media reported. Police asked her to go into a room in the station to be searched, but she refused and put her belongings on the floor including a hat, jacket and water bottle as onlookers watched.
Celebrations for the 27th Handover anniversary began on Monday morning, with top government officials and other guests wearing patriotic pins with the Chinese and Hong Kong flags at a ceremony and reception in Admiralty.
Speaking at a morning anniversary ceremony, Chief Executive John Lee said he had been “working hard to unite the community and build a better Hong Kong” over his two years as the city’s leader. Lee was elected by a committee after running unopposed in the leadership race in 2022.
He said the city had resumed normal travel after “rid[ing] out the storm of the epidemic” and legislated Article 23, “fulfilling the constitutional responsibility and historic mission that Hong Kong had waited 26 years, 8 months and 19 days to accomplish.”
Monday’s Handover anniversary marked the first since the homegrown national security law was enacted in March.
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