Inside the organisational structure of Hong Kong protests challenging China’s might
NEW DELHI: When Hong Kong introduced an extradition bill, it could not have anticipated the most serious challenge to the Communist Party of China since the 1989 pro-democracy protests.
Seven months on, the protests became more violent and expanded their list of demands including universal suffrage. A unique organisational structure has enabled this.
The frontline protesters, wearing masks and all-black, have become the face of the pro-democracy movement. They get support from Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), which organised many of the protests. But the mobilisation of the protesters has been their own doing.
“Being a promoter…is sometimes even more difficult than being a ‘frontline protester’,” said a 25-year-old IT professional activist. “We spread the message online, but we also hand out pamphlets and engage with the public – trying to get our message out to them as well as how the police treat us. It’s dangerous because not only do we have to keep an eye out for the police.”
Volunteers for each of the organisational roles are found through social media, chat apps and online forums. Each stage of the protest also has its own group chat to keep an open flow of information. Besides being a part of the ‘promotion’ team, this activist has been a participant on the frontline.
She has also been part of the ‘backup’ team, whose job is to support those in the frontline and boost their numbers.
“The quantity of people is very important,” said another organiser, a 24-year-old graduate student. “Our job mainly is to lead the confrontations with the police.”
It would be foolish to go in blind, which is where the team of ‘informers’ comes in. They track police movement and other vital details, updating the protesters in real-time through social media, information crucial to avoid being cornered by police.
A group of volunteers called ‘parent cars’ get involved once the protests are over. They drive back protesters home or provide food and water or even open up their homes if they need to stay. “They are like parents taking care of their children,” the second activist explained.
Protesters are able to volunteer and switch over to different stages. “There is another stage that I have been a part of that we can call the magician,” the second activist said. “The magicians are the people who create the weapons,” he said, referring to the petrol bombs lobbed at the police. Each protester brings what they can, whether it is bottles or fuel.
The protesters haven’t always been violent. They began with marches outside the government headquarters and the streets, the most notable being the march of a million people on June 9. The police say only between 50,000 and 60,000 took part that day. The violence started as the government began a crackdown with force and tear gas, the second activist said.
The police’s heavy-handedness morphed the protesters’ demands into a larger call for democracy. ‘Five demands, not one less’ became the slogan. The other demands focused on police violence: establishing a commission of inquiry, amnesty for the detained and withdrawing the characterisation of the protest as a riot.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam’s office did not respond to request for comment.
But the police deny that there were any excesses. “Under section 10 of the Police Force Ordinance, Chapter 232 of the Laws of
Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Police Force have the statutory duty to maintain public safety and public order,” they said in an email response.
So far, there have been two deaths but protesters don’t believe these numbers, according to the activists, who said up to 1,000 are missing. Many, they said, after weeks of disappearance, appear to have committed suicide. The protesters blame the police for covering up their deaths. But the police described it as “social media chatter.”
They refuted claims on transporting of protesters to mainland China after a video showing police loading protesters onto the trains surfaced. Police said the protesters were “taken by train to Mong Kok East Station and were then escorted back to a police station for investigation.”
The police affirmed that arrested persons were never moved to the mainland.
It is difficult to understand where the protests will go in the new year. “Some people are hoping for foreign interference, which I disagree with,” the second activist said. US President Donald Trump recently signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 into law. “Although this will bring more international scrutiny of the situation in Hong Kong, it’s hard to determine for the moment whether that will bring benefits to the pro-democracy camp,” said Sebastien Veg, who teaches history of 20th century China at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris.
“It is possible that there will be a shift in methods, for example toward boycotting or ‘buycotting,’” he said, referring to boycott of shops seen as pro-China.