A top opposition lawmaker was trapped in Hong Kong's airport yesterday for nearly half an hour as his supporters and pro-Beijing protesters shouted at each other when he returned from a US trip during which he discussed the territory's fight for full democracy, police said.
Martin Lee Chu-ming (
Lee's supporters greeted him with a banner that read "Patriotic hero for democracy," and began yelling back at his deriders.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The verbal sparring among the crowd of about 100 hemmed Lee in for nearly 30 minutes at the airport, police spokesman T.K. Ng said. He was eventually led out by a police escort.
The pro-democracy lawmaker headed a delegation to Washington this week to brief US administration officials and senators on Hong Kong's battle for democratic reform. He met with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The visit drew strong protests from Beijing officials. Some called Lee "a clown" and accused Hong Kong politicians of inviting foreign meddling in China's affairs.
Lee said the visit was only meant to communicate Hong Kong's situation to US officials, adding he will continue to do what he thinks is right for the former British colony, returned to China in 1997.
"Many officials' criticisms went too far and were improper," Lee said.
"Looking at what the central government leaders said in the past two days, they didn't say Hong Kong cannot have democracy," he said.
Many Hong Kongers are demanding the right to pick their leader and all lawmakers.
Hong Kong's political leader was elected by an 800-member elite committee loyal to Beijing, and ordinary citizens were allowed to choose only 24 out of 60 lawmakers in the 2000 elections -- though that number will rise to 30 in the next contest in September.
Full democracy is set out as a constitutional goal in Hong Kong, but there is no timetable.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
Prime ministers, presidents and royalty on Saturday descended on Cairo to attend the spectacle-laden inauguration of a sprawling new museum built near the pyramids to house one of the world’s richest collections of antiquities. The inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, marks the end of a two-decade construction effort hampered by the Arab Spring uprisings, the COVID-19 pandemic and wars in neighboring countries. “We’ve all dreamed of this project and whether it would really come true,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told a news conference, calling the museum a “gift from Egypt to the whole world from a
RSS