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LettersHong Kong protesters who use violence to silence critics can’t lay claim to Nobel Peace Prize for ‘Hong Kong people’
- A Norwegian lawmaker has nominated ‘Hong Kong people’ for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. But the protesters she intended to nominate have no right to be called Hongkongers
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Norwegian lawmaker Guri Melby has nominated “the people of Hong Kong” for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize; I can only infer that she referred to the protesters who identify themselves as “Hongkongers”.
During the past months of social unrest, I have always been checking their schedule to find out where their next activities would be held, so as to avoid being caught up in those troubled spots. Because of Ms Melby’s suggestion, I have begun to think seriously about what “people of Hong Kong” actually means.
On Sunday, when the protesters were vandalising shops and throwing petrol bombs into MTR stations in Kowloon, I was on an MTR train in Central, sitting next to an elderly woman, probably in her late 60s. She was on her way to work: she would be doing the night shift till 1am the next day and then go to her day job at 8am. She was the only breadwinner in the family and lived with her eight-year-old grandchild. She was not eligible for social security allowance but she did not blame the government.
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I think she had all the spirit and traits of the Hongkongers we used to know: hard-working, resilient, able to face adversity, determined to work one’s way up and law-abiding.
I do not believe that violent protesters can call themselves “people of Hong Kong”. Many people would give excuses for the illegal acts of the violent protesters. However, we cannot forgo some of the basic principles which make up a civic society: respect for the right to hold divergent views, respect for private and public property, and the need to protect minors.
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