Small rally marks Hong Kong protest anniversary

HALIFAX — A small group of demonstrators waved flags and showed off bright costumes outside the main gate to Halifax’s Public Gardens on Saturday to mark the second anniversary of mass protests in Hong Kong.

The 2019 action in Hong Kong pitted anti-extradition bill protesters against government authorities and drew worldwide attention.

However, a member of Halifax Hong Kong Link, which organized Saturday’s demonstration, said things have not gotten better since then.

The woman, who asked that her name not be published, preferred to go by “Emma.”

“In the past two years, people in Hong Kong try so hard to push for democracy in the city but the result was status (quo),” Emma said. “We pushed back (on) the extradition bill, which is why we started the movement. We pushed that back but last year, there was another national security law. So basically, we pushed back a bill but we have something worse.”

She said a lot of people have fled Hong Kong since then and organizers wanted to use the anniversary to bring the diaspora together in a reminder of why they took a stand.

“Since then, the freedom of speech was getting worse, actually,” she said. “So this is the day to remind us of bravery of two years ago.”

RETURNED FOR DEMONSTRATIONS

Emma has been living in Canada for about eight years but returned to Hong Kong for the 2019 demonstrations.

“I was very moved by the crowd,” she said, recalling the events of that time. “During the peaceful protests, I was in some of them, so I was very moved two years ago. I want to kind of bring myself back to this.”

She said COVID-19 has made it difficult to organize and hold protests and demonstrations in support of their cause.

“We’ve been trying to hold different events in the past year but because of COVID, we had to adapt and use different methods,” she said. “Maybe that’s a coincidence that when people move, we still use the internet to connect, which is what we do in COVID times.”

She said it’s difficult to fight without seeing a result yet.

“(The gathering was) for us, people from Hong Kong, or people who support us throughout the two years to kind of come back, and secondly we want to show to the larger community that we’re still here. We’re still trying to fight for what we believe. We still believe in freedom ... like aligning the Canadian value.”

Emma said some of those who fled Hong Kong face death threats and other forms of repression in other places in the world.

“We want to keep raising our voice in this way,” she said.

She said it’s going to be difficult road ahead for Hong Kong, which was a British colony from 1842 to 1997 and now is known as a special administrative region of China, with its own executive, judicial and legislative powers. The 2019 bill that sparked the protests would have allowed extradition of wanted fugitives from Hong Kong to mainland China.

“It’s not easy,” Emma said. “To bring actual change, we would like to see real democracy, which is pretty far from that right now. We started with one country, two systems, but right now we kind of stepped back and ... the Chinese government (has) a more tighter grip.

“We kind of moved back from being democratic, so if we want to have the whole system, we have to change the whole system.”