Hong Kong
Arrests Spark Anger From Movement That Has Left the Streets
Pro-democracy marches are on hold in coronavirus
pandemic, but calls emerge for summer protests
Pro-democracy activist Martin Lee on Saturday, as he left a Hong
Kong police station after his arrest.
PHOTO: ISAAC LAWRENCE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By
Natasha Khan
Updated
April 19, 2020 6:03 pm ET
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HONG KONG—The arrest of veteran pro-democracy
figures has stirred anger among supporters of a protest movement that has
stayed off the streets during the coronavirus pandemic and spurred
calls to restart demonstrations this summer.
On Saturday, Hong Kong police arrested more than a dozen
pro-democracy lawyers and activists. More than 7,500 people have
been arrested during the course of the protests that rocked the city for much
of last year, but many of those have been for alleged acts of violence and
vandalism. Saturday’s arrests targeted participants in largely peaceful rallies
that police said violated the boundaries of their permits.
Among the arrested were Martin Lee, a senior barrister known as
the “father of democracy”; Albert Ho, a lawyer and former lawmaker; and Jimmy
Lai, a media tycoon and founder of Apple Daily, a local pro-democracy
newspaper.
The arrests drew condemnation locally and
globally, including criticism of authorities for targeting the pro-democracy
movement at a moment when the world was focused on halting the spread of the coronavirus and
social-distancing restrictions limited how protesters could respond on the
streets of Hong Kong.
“It’s a golden opportunity for them to suppress democracy
activists in Hong Kong,” said Lee Cheuk-yan, vice chairman of the city’s Labour
Party. “If this happened before the outbreak, there would be a march today, a
march tomorrow and one next week—but no one can march for us now because of the
virus.”
Lee Cheuk-yan was among the group arrested
Saturday in connection with three protests last year. He has been charged for
organizing and participating in an unauthorized assembly on Aug. 18 and Oct. 1. He is now out on bail and is due to
attend his first court hearing next month.
The protests, which began last June, were initially sparked by a
now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed for people to be tried
on the mainland. The demonstrations widened into a larger movement fighting for
democracy in the semiautonomous city, as well as an independent judge-led
investigation into police handling of the protests.
As some protests increasingly turned violent last summer, police
began restricting rallies. On Aug. 18, police allowed an assembly in Victoria
Park but banned a march. As hundreds of thousands crowded the park, a number of
pro-democracy figures, including Mr. Lee, led them out of the park to march
anyway through pouring rain. The march concluded hours later without sparking
notable violence or confrontations with police.
A government spokesperson said Sunday that decisions to arrest
the protesters were made independently by police and weren’t politically influenced.
“The Police are duty bound to handle every case in a fair, just and impartial
manner,” the spokesperson said in a written statement.
Protests that simmered throughout the second
part of last year scored a victory in late November, when pro-democracy
candidates—many of them new to the political arena—swept district council elections. While street
protests continued after that, many in the movement began turning their
attention toward other ways of supporting it in civil society, such as organizing labor unions and patronizing restaurants and businesses that were seen as
supportive of democracy and shunning those that were viewed as
pro-government. Attention has now shifted toward supporting pro-democracy
candidates in Legislative Council elections scheduled for later this year.
“Now is the time for us to concentrate on these fronts rather
than street politics,” said Eric Lai, vice-convener of the Civil Human Rights
Front, an umbrella group that organized some of last year’s biggest marches.
“The state intimidation, though threatening, will only consolidate people in
Hong Kong to resist the authoritarian rule.”
Immediately after the arrests, Mr. Lai’s group called for more
people to join their annual July 1 march. “In general, people are waiting for
alleviation of the spread of coronavirus. People hope to mobilize in a safe
environment,” said Mr. Lai, who added he was concerned that the government
would continue emergency measures against public gatherings even when the
threat of the coronavirus has dissipated.
The Saturday arrests, targeting peaceful protesters as opposed
to those who were more radical, will stir anger among older, traditional
pro-democracy supporters who might otherwise have had misgivings about the more
violent tactics of some protesters last year, said Kevin Yam, a Hong Kong
lawyer and former convener of the Progressive Lawyers Group, thus widening the
antigovernment coalition even further.
Outside the police station on Saturday, Martin Lee, the
81-year-old veteran democracy campaigner, said: “I’m relieved and proud to
finally be listed as a defendant alongside so many brilliant young Hong Kong
people in walking the road to democracy together. I have no regrets.”
Mr. Lee has been a prominent advocate for
democracy here. He has met with senior officials in the U.S. to promote the
cause, such as Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo last May and then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2014.
The arrests drew condemnation from senior figures in the U.K.
and the U.S., including Attorney General William Barr, who said in a written
statement that he condemned “the latest assault on the rule of law and the
liberty of the people of Hong Kong.”
“These events show how antithetical the values of the Chinese
Communist Party are to those we share in Western liberal democracies,” Mr. Barr
said.
The coronavirus pandemic, which began in mainland China in
December, has brought pro-democracy rallies to a halt. Hong Kong has been
praised for its containment of the outbreak. The city has avoided the full
lockdowns seen in other major cities, though there are social-distancing
restrictions for restaurants and gyms and bars have been ordered to close.
The city reported daily single-digit increases
in the number of new infections last week, as the pathogen appeared to be on
the retreat locally. Credit for that has been in part given to the local
population, who wear masks in public places and have
generally avoided social behavior that might exacerbate the spread. The city of
7.5 million has had 1,025 confirmed coronavirus cases and four deaths so far, a
comparatively low number, especially given its proximity and travel ties to
mainland China.
Politicians from both the pro-democracy and pro-government camps
have been handing out masks to supporters. In late February, as the local
population criticized the government for failing to procure enough protective
equipment, for example, a political group led by activist Joshua Wong bought
more than a million masks from Honduras, which were later distributed to local
people.
Fears in Hong Kong of another wave of pressure
from the mainland were heightened this past week after Luo Huining, Beijing’s new representative in Hong Kong,
said the city needed to introduce national security legislation, which
democracy advocates fear would criminalize political dissent as a form of
treason, “as soon as possible.”
“We’re now confronting the Communist Party in a very naked
manner—all the veils have been removed,” said Mr. Lee, the labor activist.
“After fighting on behalf of human-rights activists on the mainland these many
years—our predicament is now more and more like theirs.”
“But anger is still building in Hong Kongers’ hearts, and they
will take every opportunity to show their resistance.”
Write
to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com
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