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.
Both Wong, 30, and Shiu, 50, who were jailed in April, said they needed time to familiarise themselves with the new Hong Kong, and hoped to learn more from protesters and about the movement itself.
“At first I was upset that I couldn’t join the movement and I felt really lonely,” Wong said. “But when I saw Hongkongers march on the streets, my feeling of loneliness went away because I know there are millions of people who are also fighting for democracy.”
The League of Social Democrats vice-chairman was found guilty of refusing to leave a protest site in Mong Kok during a court-ordered clearance on November 26, 2014.
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Social welfare lawmaker Shiu was convicted of one count of incitement to commit a public nuisance, and incitement to incite a public nuisance.
The pair were sentenced to eight months behind bars, while Tai is out on bail pending appeal after he was sentenced to 16 months at the same trial.
Chu, 75, was also convicted of two public nuisance charges, but had his 16-month jail sentence suspended for two years because of his age and past service.
Previously, Wong had been jailed in 2017 along with 12 other activists for storming the city’s legislature in 2014 before Occupy, to protest against the government’s controversial plan to build a new town in the northeast New Territories.
“Our demands are simple. We hope [Chief Executive] Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor will respond to our five demands, among them the most important is universal suffrage. Even if we must face the danger of jail, we will not be afraid to keep fighting for it,” he said.
“I want those who are arrested to know that jail is not scary. What’s scary is us giving up.”
A year before the Occupy movement eventually took shape in 2014, Shiu was already among a group of 10 academics throwing their support behind the civil disobedience campaign.
“Although we physically couldn’t join the movement, we were still with everyone in spirit,” he said.
But Shiu said prison life was very tough and prisoners’ rights were not respected.
“They don’t treat prisoners as stakeholders … they treat us like brown objects,” he said. “I’m not pursuing a five-star lifestyle, I just want a regular person’s lifestyle.”
Shiu said he has written a book about his experience in prison, which he expects will be released by the end of this year.
He also expressed concern over many young people who have been arrested and said he will request to visit children’s homes where young protesters are being detained.
