As the anniversary of the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement arrives, HKFP looks back at the day protesters were evicted from the Admiralty base camp outside government headquarters. On December 11, as the remaining demonstrators left the site – or were removed – many left messages promising to return.
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Posted inOpinion
During tough times for Hong Kong, some words of wisdom from a minibus uncle
Like many Hongkongers everywhere, I carry a heaviness around these past days – a raging, aching, messy heaviness that is shaped like loss, but also feels like anger. And before anyone helpfully explains that I should have seen this coming – that it’s hardly a surprise that the Chinese Communist Party would torpedo Hong Kong’s […]
Posted inOpinion
Love and peace, or love and hate: is it ‘game over’ for civil disobedience as Hong Kong’s protest model?
By T-Fai Yeung At the beginning of 2013, Benny Tai, an associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, proposed the Occupy Central with Love and Peace Movement, with reference to Martin Luther King’s civil rights activism and John Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience. Some scholars and commentators have suggested that Occupy Central […]
Posted inHong Kong
‘If we lose, Hong Kong will become Xinjiang’: The Umbrella Movement generation, five years on
by Jasmine Leung and Yan Zhao From doing homework by torchlight to hurling flaming molotov cocktails at riot police: the character of Hong Kong’s protests has changed dramatically in five years, with young demonstrators hardened by the failure of their peaceful Umbrella Movement. Then-student Bunny was one of thousands of Hong Kongers who camped out on […]
Posted inHong Kong
Hong Kong’s director of public prosecutions David Leung resigns over differences with justice secretary
Hong Kong’s Director of Public Prosecutions David Leung has resigned from his role, citing differences with the Secretary for Justice (SJ) Teresa Cheng. “It is most unfortunate that I do not see eye to eye with the SJ on the running of the PD [Prosecutions Division], and the situation has not improved with the passage […]
Posted inHong Kong
PTSD and protests: How the violence on Hong Kong’s streets impacts mental health
The first panic attack took place two weeks after Sarah (not her real name) was caught in the middle of an evening protest in Admiralty on September 29, during which multiple rounds of tear-gas were fired by the police. “I’ve never felt afraid for my life. I’ve always been brave,” she told HKFP. “I’ve always […]
Posted inHong Kong
Hong Kong lawmaker Tanya Chan handed suspended sentence over Umbrella Movement charges
Civic Party lawmaker Tanya Chan has been given a jail sentence of eight months, suspended for two years, over her involvement in the Umbrella Movement protests. Chan was charged with public nuisance offences, but her sentencing was postponed after her legal team revealed to a judge in April that she required medical treatment for a […]
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The least an expat Hongkonger can do in the city’s summer of protest? Empathise
The on-going protests have made it abundantly clear that millions of Hongkongers believe their political autonomy and civil liberties are necessary parts of their future. Hong Kong folks come in many stripes: locals and non-locals of varying, complex, and sometimes overlapping identities. One can be “local” and hold more than one passport or have spent […]
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Hong Kong police arrest Tony Chung for allegedly vandalising a flag pole. Why the dawn swoop?
I am indebted to a kind reader who brought up an interesting aspect of police procedure in cases with what we might call a political flavour. The Occupy Nine were, we were told, all arrested at various times between two and three years after the events which led to them being charged. Why? This is […]
Posted inHong Kong
Chan kin-man, co-founder of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Occupy movement, opts for Taiwan ‘retreat’
A high-profile academic and co-founder of Hong Kong’s Occupy Central movement has left the city to teach for a year as a visiting professor at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University. Chan Kin-man, who arrived in Taiwan on Monday afternoon, had accepted an invitation from the university’s sociology department, Faculty Chair Hermes Huang said in a social […]
