The pro-democracy Demosisto party has launched a dramatic by-election campaign ad for Hong Kong Island candidate Agnes Chow.
The video shows disqualified lawmakers Nathan Law, Leung Kwok-hung and Lau Siu-lai being slapped, beaten and manhandled until Chow intervenes and says “we will take back what was stolen.”
In 2016, a court ruled that the democratically-elected trio were never lawmakers to begin with, owing to protests they made during their oath-taking at the legislature.
The Facebook video clip has received over 85,000 views and over 1,000 “shares” since it was published on Tuesday.
While some commenters praised the clip’s concept, it attracted a mixture of reactions online.
“When I saw Lau Siu-lai getting slapped and choked on the neck, I felt just as I did when I saw her getting disqualified even though I voted for her,” said one commenter.
But another noted the absence of other ousted lawmakers in the video: “The by-election is for the seats of Baggio Leung, Yau Wai-ching and Nathan Law, but… words mentioning Baggio Leung and Yau only appear for half a second.”
The by-elections will take place on March 11 in order to fill the seats in the Hong Kong Island, Kowloon West and New Territories East constituencies, as well as the functional constituency for Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape.
The elections are to fill seats vacated after a court disqualified Law, Baggio Leung, Yau and Edward Yiu over their oath-taking. Lau and Leung Kwok-hung are still appealing their disqualifications, hence their seats are not up for election at this stage.
