Hong Kong police block protest march on China national day

Hong Kong riot police patrolled the route of a banned anti-government march on Thursday, preventing crowds from gathering as chief executive Carrie Lam cheered the city’s “return to stability” at China national day celebrations.

Protesters wanted to march against Beijing’s imposition of a sweeping national security law on June 30 and demand the return of 12 Hong Kong people China arrested at sea in August on their way to self-ruled Taiwan.

Police had banned the protest, citing coronavirus-related restrictions on group gatherings and violence at previous marches.

Shoppers and passers-by still broke into pro-democracy chants sporadically, but there was no sign of large crowds.

“It's China’s national day but this is Hong Kong’s death day,”  Jay, a woman dressed in black, the city’s protest attire, said as she walked past police.

“Hong Kong people are under a lot of pressure but we have to try to keep fighting for freedom.”

Officers, in their hundreds, conducted stop-and-search activities and kept cordoning off areas, while warning people not to linger.

The streets of the prime Causeway Bay shopping area were filled with police and reporters.

Police sent away any people who looked suspicious to them: one teenager playing protest songs into a woodwind instrument; a man dressed in black and holding a yellow balloon — colours associated with pro-democracy supporters; a woman holding a copy of the Apple Daily anti-government tabloid.

Earlier in the day, Lam attended a flag-raising ceremony with other senior Hong Kong and mainland officials in an exhibition centre surrounded by police and security barriers.

“Over the past three months, the plain truth is, and it is obvious to see, that stability has been restored to society while national security has been safeguarded, and our people can continue to enjoy their basic rights and freedoms,” Lam said.

Late on Wednesday, police said they had arrested five people for inciting participation in illegal assemblies online.

Anti-government protests, which often turned violent in 2019, have been smaller and fewer this year due to coronavirus restrictions on group gatherings and fears of arrest under the new security law.

The law punishes anything China sees as subversion, separatism, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.

“The government is using the national security laws and the pandemic to suppress our hearts,”   52-year-old Mandy said as she was shopping with her husband.

“People are in no mood to celebrate.”

Four members of the League of Social Democrats, led by veteran activist Leung Kwok-hung, known as Long Hair, marched holding a banner reading “There is no national day celebration, only national mourning”.

Groups of four are the largest allowed under coronavirus restrictions.

A sore point for democracy supporters has been the capture of 12 Hong Kong people by Chinese authorities, now in detention in the mainland city of Shenzhen, having been arrested for illegal border crossing and organising cross-border crimes.

All were suspected of committing crimes in Hong Kong related to last year’s protests.

Stickers demanding their return were plastered on shop windows in the area where police was trying to prevent protests.

China’s national day is resented by many democracy supporters who say Beijing is eroding the wide-ranging liberties the former British colony was promised when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

For pro-Beijing supporters, it is an opportunity to drum up patriotism in China’s most restive city.

At the ceremony, Lam praised China’s success in curbing the coronavirus and its economic recovery, calling it “a rare bright spot” which “has shown once again the shift of the global economic focus from the West to the East”. — Reuters