Dissident Joshua Wong freed, tells Hong Kong leader to resign

Leading Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong walks free from prison and vows to join anti-government protests

Joshua Wong leaves Lai Chi Kok Correctional Institute in Hong Kong yesterday. Picture: AFP

Leading Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong walked free from prison yesterday and vowed to join anti-government protests rocking the finance hub, as activists debated how to keep pressure on the city’s embattled pro-Beijing leader.

Organisers said nearly two million people marched in tropical heat on Sunday calling for the resignation of Chief Executive Carrie Lam, protesting a now abandoned bill that would have allowed extraditions to the Chinese mainland.

The city has witnessed unprecedented scenes as public anger boils towards the city’s leaders and Beijing, with two record-breaking rallies a week apart punctuated by violent clashes between protesters and police armed with teargas and rubber bullets.

Mr Wong, the poster child of the huge pro-democracy Umbrella Movement protests in 2014, became the latest voice to call for Ms Lam’s resignation as he was ­released from a sentence imposed over his leadership of those demonstrations. “She is no longer qualified to be Hong Kong’s leader,” he said. “I will also fight with all Hong Kongers to oppose the evil China extradition law.”

Mr Wong was sent to prison last month and was eligible for early release for good behaviour — there is no indication the move was linked to the current protests.

The sheer size of the last week’s crowds, and unprecedented violent clashes on Wednesday, forced Ms Lam into a major climbdown.

On Saturday she indefinitely suspended the extradition bill and she apologised on Sunday for causing “conflict and disputes”. But protesters have called on her to resign, shelve the bill permanently and apologise for police using teargas and rubber bullets on Wednesday. They have also ­demanded all charges be dropped against those arrested.

The estimate for Sunday’s massive rally has not been independently verified but if confirmed it would be the largest demonstration in Hong Kong’s history. Police, who usually give far lower estimates for political protests, said 338,000 people turned out at the demonstration’s “peak” — still their largest crowd estimate on record.

Yesterday the massive crowds from the previous night abandoned their occupation of a highway next to the parliament.

Instead smaller groups gathered in a nearby park to discuss how to keep up pressure on Ms Lam. “We will have to stay here till Carrie Lam changes her mind,” said Candy, 32.

But others weren’t sure if Ms Lam’s resignation would make a difference given Beijing’s hold on the city. “The Chinese government will just send another Carrie Lam and there will be no change,” fumed Kok, a 21-year-old student.

In an interview yesterday, her top adviser, Bernard Chan, said no chief executive would dare reintroduce the bill now. “Everyone has forgotten what she has done. I hope people can give her another chance,” he said.

The violent crowd-control measures on Wednesday, used by police as protesters tried to storm parliament to stop the bill being debated, have proved enormously costly for Ms Lam’s government. Political allies distanced themselves from her as public anger mounted. “I think she has lost any remaining credibility or legitimacy to rule in Hong Kong ­because of her own mishandling of this whole affair,” politician Charles Mok said.

In Beijing the Communist Party-owned China Daily lashed out at “foreign “meddling” in Hong Kong as hypocritical and “ill-intentioned”, saying Beijing would continue to back Ms Lam. Support for Ms Lam would “not waver, not in the face of street violence nor the ill-intentioned interventions of foreign governments,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

A US consulate spokesman in Hong Kong welcomed Ms Lam’s decision and urged the views of the domestic and international community be taken into account should her government pursue changes to the laws, particularly regarding mainland China.

Hong Kong’s “fugitive rendition arrangements are purely an internal affair”, the China Daily said, adding that countries such as the US or former colonial ruler Britain should have no say. ­“Indeed, their sanctimonious posturing is hypocritical, given their bluster is maliciously intended and fans anti-government sentiment in Hong Kong,” it said.

In another editorial, the state-owned Global Times tabloid warned the US against using Hong Kong as a “bargaining chip” to force compromises in trade talks.

AFP, Reuters