Defiant Occupy leaders released from Hong Kong prison and immediately vow to join new anti-government protest movement
- Lawmaker Shiu Ka-chun and activist Raphael Wong free men after serving five months of eight-month sentence
- Pair were leading figures in 2014 civil disobedience campaign
Two leading figures in the Occupy movement were released from a Hong Kong prison on Thursday morning, after serving five months in jail for their roles in the 2014 pro-democracy campaign.
Lawmaker Shiu Ka-chun, and activist Raphael Wong Ho-ming, were among nine leaders of the civil disobedience movement convicted on a string of public nuisance charges over the mass protests that paralysed the city’s central business district for 79 days.
Around 50 people, including Benny Tai Yiu-ting and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, two of the three Occupy co-founders, gathered outside Stanley Prison, the largest of the city’s six maximum security prisons, to greet them.
“If the government tells us to stop the violence, then they must first stop their suppression of freedom and democracy,” Wong said.
He led a chant of popular protest slogans such as “five demands, not one less” and “no rioters, only tyranny”, and sang “Glory be to thee, Hong Kong!” which is the last line of Glory to Hong Kong, the de facto anthem of the city’s protest movement.