December 5, 2021

This Week in Human Rights News

10,242: Hong Kong government releases number of protestor arrests since 2019

Sources: The Nation, South China Morning Post, BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera

In April 2021, Hong Kong’s Department of Justice, Civil Service Bureau, and Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau reported that 10,242 arrests have been made in relation to pro-democracy demonstrations since 2019. 

Of this number, South China Morning Post reported that 2,521 people had “undergone or were undergoing judicial proceedings” and 720 people were already “charged with rioting”. The remaining number had been charged with various offences relating to protests, like unlawful assembly, arson, and desecrating the national flag.

Protests in 2019 began after the introduction of a bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects and fugitives to Taiwan, mainland China, and Macau. 

In a op-ed before the finalisation of the national security law in 2020, journalist Wilfred Chan wrote about the “infinite heartbreak of loving Hong Kong”. In it, he described five demands of the 2019 protest movement as “astonishingly humble” and “hardly radical”, most of which revolved around the crackdowns on the movement.

These demands included: retraction of the extradition bill, independent investigations into police violence against protestors, that protests not be called riots due to the fact that rioting charges carry long prison sentences, amnesty for detainees and finally, assurance for free elections as promised by the Chinese government.

The first demand, the withdrawal of the extradition bill, was granted and the bill was formally withdrawn on October 23, 2020. The other four were not addressed. This came after the national security law was passed in June 2020, which was criticised for criminalising dissent. 

Under the law, many prominent activists have been arrested. For example, Jimmy Lai of the newspaper Apple Daily and Joshua Wong, an activist and politician who was involved with the 2014 Umbrella Movement, are both still imprisoned.