Julie Leung had always planned to return to Hong Kong after completing her education in Canada.
The 26-year-old master’s student at Dalhousie University in Halifax is not so sure anymore.
“I like Canada and I like the way of life, but that (Hong Kong) was my home, right,” Leung said while the bright Saturday afternoon sun blanketed about 50 people who formed a human chain near the entrance to the Public Gardens.
“But now, with stuff happening, I don’t even know how safe I am if I go home.”
The gathering at the corner of Spring Garden Road and South Park Street was, according to a handout from the protesters, a show of solidarity with the people of Hong Kong in their fight against escalating human rights abuses.
The neatly arranged leaflet said eight people have died in protests in Hong Kong, 1,400 have been arrested and 100 have been charged with rioting. The flyer cites countless injuries caused by blatant police misconduct.
Finishing up her post-graduate degree in architecture, Leung has spent six years in Canada. She went home to Hong Kong in August and took part in two human chains and a protest.
“I didn’t see any violence, I didn’t do any violence,” she said, but violence against Hong Kong citizens did take place while she was there.
“We just want to raise awareness to the human rights violations happening in Hong Kong,” she said of Saturday’s demonstration. “It’s more than a political issue. It’s a human (rights) crisis. Police are using force, brutally treating protesters, sexually abusing women protesters. I think this is something that all people in the world should address. It’s not only (Hong Kong’s) problem.”
Leung said the freedom of speech enjoyed by Canadians that allows her group to protest on the street is being crushed and encroached upon by the Chinese governing administration.
Hong Kong, now home to about seven million people, was ceded to the British Empire in 1842, occupied by Japan during the Second World War and handed over to China and returned to Chinese rule in 1997. But Hong Kong's legal system is still rooted in the British model of due process and transparency and the city’s de facto constitution, known as Hong Kong basic law, guarantees freedoms such as free speech and the right to protest that are unavailable to Chinese mainlanders.
The most recent round of protests in Hong Kong centres around a controversial plan to allow extraditions from Hong Kong to mainland China in what China says would prevent the city from being a safe haven for criminals. Critics in Hong Kong said the city’s judicial independence would be eroded and its citizens would be exposed to China’s flawed justice system.
The Hong Kong people are demanding a complete withdrawal of the extradition law, removal of the “riot” description of Hong Kong protests, amnesty for all arrested protesters, an independent inquiry into police brutality and implementation of universal suffrage.
“We know that they won’t agree,” Leung said of the Chinese government. “We need international pressure from other countries. I feel like this is something that we as a city, it’s hard to do by itself.”
There were similar protests in 43 cities around the world Saturday, Leung said.
While the Halifax protesters chanted, “Show me what democracy looks like; this is what democracy looks like,” three anti-protesters stood in front of them with an unfurled Chinese flag.
A young man who introduced himself as Jeff Man from Shandong province in mainland China said people everywhere must be able to demonstrate in the streets but added he doesn’t think “Hong Kong police have made any errors or mistakes.”
If protesters take dangerous actions, police have to respond, he said.
He said the ongoing protests in the streets of Hong Kong disrupt the lives of the “many people who have their own work, their own thing to do.”
Joshua Wong, an organizer of the Halifax protest, grew up in Canada but his parents were longtime Hong Kong residents. Wong said there are fewer than 100 Hong Kong people living in Halifax but the demonstration is to show Haligonians why people continue to fight for democracy, rule of law and, most importantly, human rights and freedom.
“These things are common values for society globally,” he said.
Wong said there is a rule of law and separation of powers in Hong Kong whether the government likes it or not.
Violation of freedoms and rights have led to fear and desperation among residents, he said.
“Tens of thousands of Hong Kong people are being louder and louder, pressing for the case, because nobody seems to be listening.”
