Meet the invisible Hong Kong taxi drivers risking danger to help anti-government protesters escape police – for free
- Some ‘protest drivers’ say they help because they can’t be at the front lines themselves – others because they feel sympathy for demonstrators after seeing too much violence on nightly news
- ‘I was stunned by their resolve,’ one driver says, ‘I swore to them I would do whatever it takes to fight with them’
They are the invisible Hong Kong taxi drivers who have carried anti-government protesters away from police in the midst of countless confrontations over the past three months of political turmoil.
Some of these “protest drivers” said they started to help the protest movement because they could not be at the front lines themselves. Others said they felt sympathy with the protesters after watching too much violence on the nightly news.
Others still said they put themselves in danger to be like the Korean taxi driver Kim Sa-bok, an unsung hero in the democratisation of South Korea in the 1980s.
Kim risked his life to drive a German journalist around dangerous Gwangju city and helped expose a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists. His story was portrayed in the award-winning Korean film A Taxi Driver .
“I couldn’t go to the front line to join the protests because I couldn’t stand the tear gas from the police,” Cheung said. “So I decided to use other means to help the movement.”