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Hong Kong national security law and Covid-19: ‘This was our 2020’, activists say as they lament change in protest mood
- Double whammy of pandemic and Beijing-imposed legislation has seen 2019’s anti-government movement fizzle out in past year
- Some in opposition camp think city will never be the same again, as residents are now less inclined to join rallies
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As the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve 12 months ago, groups of young people who had been gathering outside Times Square in Hong Kong – many of them couples – chanted “See you in Victoria Park on January 1”, making an open invitation to a planned protest march.
Some shouted: “Liberate Hong Kong; revolution of our times,” a clarion call for the anti-government movement that had rocked the city for most of the latter half of 2019.
But as Hong Kong ushered in 2021, deep in its war against the Covid-19 pandemic and with a newly imposed national security law in place, there was no repeat of such scenes. The New Year’s Day march was also for the first time in a decade cancelled.
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Activists pointed to the double whammy of the health crisis – which led to social-distancing measures and a cap on the size of public gatherings – and the Beijing-imposed security legislation as having dealt a crushing body blow to their cause.
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With the exception of a New Year’s Day mass protest in 2020, all other rallies throughout the year had been smaller compared with 2019. While some people still defied social-distancing rules to protest against the national security law, which came into force on June 30, such demonstrations fizzled out as the year wore on, as police detained suspects under the legislation. The number of arrests linked to protests had already been on the rise before the law was introduced.
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