Local fashion brand Goods Of Desire (G.O.D.) is selling a new T-shirt that says “I did it on Harcourt Road.” At the top of the T-shirt, it also says “I Occupied Central” with the brand’s logo.
On the G.O.D. website, the description reads, “‘Harcourt Road’ is a major road that runs through Admiralty in Hong Kong. It connects the Central district to Wanchai. ‘Harcourt Road’ appeared quite a bit in the press last year when the thoroughfare was shut down for more than two months causing major traffic delays.”
The new T-shirt was seen on sale just two weeks before the one year anniversary of the pro-democracy occupy protest. The protest opposed the universal suffrage framework set by China’s National People’s Congress, which stipulated that candidates for the Chief Executive election must first be vetted by a nomination committee.
G.O.D.’s founder Douglas Young Chi-chiu visited the pro-democracy occupy protest site in Admiralty last year.
Standing on one of its landmarks, the ‘Lennon Wall’, a staircase covered in thousands of post-it notes supporting the protest, Young told CNN: “Mr. Chief Executive, please don’t tear down this wall. It’s beautiful.”
However, Young was also in an ad campaign in June this year with the pro-establishment ‘Our Hong Kong Foundation’ —founded by former Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa— in which he said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, everything has its order.”
The foundation said the ad campaign was launched in June to encourage Hong Kong people to unite and push for democracy within the framework of ‘One Country, Two Systems’. The foundation opposed last year’s Occupy protests.
Young was arrested in November 2007 for possessing ‘books, accounts, writing, lists of members, seals, banners or insignia of, or relating to, any triad society’ when G.O.D. launched some controversial T-shirts with ’14K’ printed in Cantonese characters on them.
The charges were dismissed by the police in January 2008.
Update 11:28am 16/09: In an email reply to HKFP, Douglas Young said “I have been vocal with my criticisms of the government… but that does not mean that I am against all that it stands for.”
