Hong Kong Solidarity on the Streets of London

SNA (London) — StandwithHK, a Hong Kong solidarity organization, drove a digivan broadcasting live protest footage from Hong Kong through Central London on August 31st. StandwithHK wrote on Facebook that the event aimed to “bring [the] current situation in Hong Kong to light and call for global solidarity with Hongkongers in our call for universal suffrage and democracy, and our fight against police brutality”.

 

After the van was driven across central London in the early afternoon, passing landmarks such as the London Eye, it was parked in Golden Square, Soho. Just a few miles away, large areas of the capital were brought to a standstill as a result of #stopthecoup demonstrations protesting Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament. Yet here in a quiet corner of Soho tucked away from Regent Street, activists and onlookers solemnly gathered in silence to watch the scenes unfold in Hong Kong, thousands of miles away.

 

The crowd witnessed the police repeat the brutal repressive tactics they have employed since the very beginning of this summer’s pro-democracy movement; they fired tear-gas, rubber bullets, and live warning shots. In a first, police deployed water-cannons which shot dyed water at demonstrators. In response, protesters lit fires outside government buildings, and hurled petrol bombs back at the police. These violent scenes attracted several passersby to walk over to the digivan and watch what was going on.

 

After around an hour the van moved onto the next location, Camden, keeping activists updated through a chat on the encrypted messaging service, Telegram (which has proved popular among Hong Kong protesters for privacy reasons) and on Twitter. Whilst it was in transit to the second location, the Digivan drove through the busy streets of Central London - the spectacle attracted many shoppers and tourists, who snapped photographs on their mobile phones and pointed it out to friends and family.

 

Over in Camden, the van parked near the entrance to an underground station. By this time, the weather had turned bleak; a few core activists braved the harsh winds and lashing rain to continue monitoring the situation over in Hong Kong, while others huddled in a nearby sandwich shop.

 

The van soon relocated to South Kensington, where the weather had cleared up. Crowds of diners were sitting outdoors near to where the van was parked, savouring their meals and chatting. As crowds of around fifty gathered around the digivan screen, a beautiful sunset broke out across the West London sky. This was in harsh contrast to the events in Hong Kong which could be seen developing on the screen.

 

As police stormed MTR carriages in Prince Edward and Mong Kok, beating innocent commuters and demonstrators alike with batons and firing pepper spray, StandwithHK activists chatted to curious onlookers and diners. The activists implored them to sign various petitions urging British solidarity with Hong Kong, while thousands of miles away commuters cried out with fear as the police beat them mercilessly. A man was left alone to suffer in the station, bleeding from the head.

 

StandwithHK activists later told this correspondent in an email that these brutal acts “in fact illustrate that the government would rather suppress the people with force than listen to them, and continues to keep people connected and supportive of each other because they know their common enemy is the government and its apparatus.” They also reported that most of the people they spoke to were “supportive” of their cause.

 

It transpired that over in Hong Kong, the police brutality had started after a largely peaceful march in the pouring rain, in which protesters marked the fifth anniversary of Beijing’s Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC) Decision on Hong Kong, which ruled out democratic elections on the island. While small radical groups of protesters were certainly violent on that day, critics argued that what the police did was far worse. As well as firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and warning shots, deploying water cannons, and beating up uninvolved commuters inside MTR carriages, it also turned out that police disguised as demonstrators, arresting them and firing rounds of pepper spray in their faces. After the violence was over, a student told Reuters that "telling us not to protest is like telling us not to breathe,'' adding “I feel it's my duty to fight for democracy... maybe we win, maybe we lose, but we fight."

 

The digivan broadcasting event was not the only effort by StandwithHK to promote British solidarity with the pro-democracy cause that weekend. Activists placed advertisements in the Guardian, The Economist, and The Times, urging support for the pro-democracy movement. This was all part of a week of global solidarity protests. More than 28 events were held in all corners of the world - rallies took place in New York, LA, Toronto, Tokyo, Melbourne, Berlin and Amsterdam, to name but a few. Other events were held in Seoul, Paris, and San Francisco.

 

The wider solidarity movement within London and the United Kingdom is vibrant. The movement has garnered a significant amount of public support, amassing tens of thousands of signatures on petitions urging that a human rights clause be included in any post-Brexit HK trade deal, and on petitions calling for British National (Overseas) Hongkongers to be given full British citizenship. A march on August 17th organised by StandwithHK and Democracy for Hong Kong (D4HK) in Trafalgar Square attracted thousands. Activists have previously projected footage from Hong Kong protests on Parliament itself, in Oxford Circus and Shoreditch. Billboards have been put up in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. Last month, Hongkongers participated in the Prudential RideLondon FreeCycle event, donning the pro-democracy protesters’ typical gear of goggles, gloves, a yellow helmet and a mask.

 

It is true that since the broadcasting event, Carrie Lam has acceded to one of the protesters’ demands, by withdrawing the much-despised extradition bill that originally sparked off this summer’s pro-democracy movement. But the movement has now mushroomed into calling for not only the withdrawal of the bill, but also amnesty for arrested protesters, a withdrawal of the police’s description of the protests as “riots”, and true democratic reforms. The protesters have resolved to not give up, and keep fighting, until all those are secured. Many Hongkongers have cited a screengrab from the Winter on Fire documentary about pro-EU demonstrations in Ukraine in 2015. The screengrab features the line, “if we accept the government’s conditions, our friends who have died won’t forgive us.” On Twitter, StandwithHK dismissed the move as “not remotely enough”, reminding their followers that police fired “thousands of teargas rounds, multiple rubber bullets, beanbag rounds, pepper spray.... people have died, lost an eye, had bones broken, [and have] been whipped”.

 

Several further demonstrations are planned including one on September 7th protesting the notorious DSEI arms fair, to which a Hong Kong delegation was invited by the British government. StandwithHK told this correspondent in an email that they will continue to try and make the general public aware of this issue, to make it heard above the toxic stranglehold over British politics, Brexit. Despite the fact that StandwithHK say they are all “inexperienced volunteers”, despite the fact that Hong Kong is approaching a tipping point in which its reputation as a global financial hub could be lost and in which anarchy could engulf the island, there is one thing to be sure of. Hongkongers are in this for the long haul. They will continue their struggle for democracy and for their rights and freedoms thousands of miles away in Hong Kong, on the streets of London, in Tokyo, and beyond.