Flame of freedom burns in former right of abode activist

When mainlander Ada Fu Kahui first visited Hong Kong in 1999 she immediately relished the freedom to speak out and protest. Within a few months she was in the streets campaigning for right-of-abode seekers, her long hair becoming a familiar sight on TV news reports.

Thirteen years later, the veteran campaigner estimates she supported more than 10,000 mainlanders seeking abode. Now she is a permanent resident, the wife of a Hongkonger and mother of a five-year-old.

'Freedom of speech has become more restricted than I expected,' she says. 'Mainland China is imposing its rules forcibly on Hong Kong people. But this will not succeed. Hong Kongers are different from native mainlanders; they grew up in the British colony.'

Fu was born and raised on the mainland by parents who later gained permanent residency in Hong Kong. In February 1999, when she was 29, she left her home in Fujian to join her parents in the city.

Fu thought she would automatically be granted residency, having heard of the landmark decision by Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal in January 1999. It gave permanent residency to mainlanders like her whose parents already had the right.

Instead, Fu got caught up in one of the city's great legal battles, and it would take her six more years to win a permanent ID card. The court's verdict was widely criticised, and in June of that year key parts of it were overturned by the National People's Congress Standing Committee at the request of the Hong Kong government.