Hong Kong democracy advocate Agnes Chow (周庭) was yesterday released from prison on the second anniversary of the territory’s 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 prohibition on public gatherings to curb the spread of a COVID-19, despite the territory recording just three local infections in the past month, and a Beijing-imposed National Security Law criminalizing most expressions of dissent.
Photo: AFP
However, yesterday morning one of those arrested for allegedly contravening the security law walked free from prison.
Chow, 24, was mobbed by waiting media, but made no comment.
Chow hails from a generation of democracy advocates who cut their teeth in politics as teenagers and became an inspiration for those who chafe under Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian rule.
She spent about seven months behind bars for her role in a 2019 protest outside the Hong Kong police headquarters. Fellow democracy campaigners Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) and Ivan Lam (林朗彥) were sentenced in the same case.
More than 100 people have been arrested under the new law. Chow has not yet been charged, but dozens of others have, including jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英). Most have been denied bail and face up to life in prison if convicted.
Chow’s release comes at a sensitive time.
Two years ago, on June 12, 2019, thousands of protesters surrounded the the territory’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, sparking seven months of inceasingly violent protests.
Separately, the main representative of the Chinese government in Hong Kong yesterday said that people trying to turn the territory into a “pawn in geopolitics” were the “real enemies” and Beijing was the true defender of Hong Kong’s special status.
Hong Kong Liaison Office Director Luo Huining (駱惠寧) told a forum that the former British colony remained one of the world’s most competitive economies, the South China Morning Post reported.
“Those trying to turn Hong Kong into a pawn in geopolitics, a tool in curbing China, as well as a bridgehead for infiltrating the mainland, are destroying the foundation of one country, two systems,” Luo said, referring to the formula agreed when the UK in 1997 handed Hong Kong over to China, which aimed at preserving its freedoms and role as a financial hub.
“They are the real enemies of Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” he said, without identifying any people or groups.
Luo said the Chinese Communist Party was “the creator, leader, implementer and defender of one country, two systems.”
Despite such assurances, many Hong Kongers have become worried about what they see as attempts by Beijing to curtail its freedoms, taking to the streets two years ago until the protests were outlawed by the security law.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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