Hongkongers’ view on human rights prospects in China hits lowest level in over 20 years
Annual poll ahead of city’s Tiananmen memorial also reveals diminished sense of responsibility for promoting democracy and economic development on mainland
Twenty-seven years on, 59 per cent of people in Hong Kong want Beijing to vindicate the 1989 pro-democracy movement that ended in a bloody crackdown, the University of Hong Kong found.
Support for the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the organiser of Saturday’s vigil in Victoria Park, rose 5.5 percentage points, to 50.1 per cent, the same level as two years ago.
However, on the question of whether human rights in China had improved since 1989, this year’s result plummeted 15 percentage points from last year to 46 per cent. The number of respondents who said Hongkongers bore a responsibility to promote the mainland’s economic development fell 5 percentage points to 57 per cent.
Both marks were the lowest for those questions since 1996.