With march cancelled, Hong Kong’s Civil Human Rights Front calls for release of ‘political prisoners’ from atop van on New Year’s Day

Name: Hong Kong activists call for release of ‘political prisoners’ from atop van on New Year’s Day
Uploaded: 2021-01-01T08:07:41.000Z
Duration: 1 min 34 s
Description: Hong Kong activists call for release of ‘political prisoners’ from atop van on New Year’s Day

Key figures from the group behind some of 2019’s largest extradition bill protests deliver message via loudspeaker outside prison

‘We can’t visit you now, but we hope you hear our voice,’ activist Lee Cheuk-yan calls out across the road from Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre

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Civil Human Rights Front leaders call for the release of ‘political prisoners’ outside Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre on New Year’s Day. Photo: Felix Wong

Chris Lau

Published: 4:07pm, 1 Jan 2021Updated: 11:39pm, 1 Jan 2021

A prominent rights group responsible for some of Hong Kong’s biggest protests in recent years staged an act of defiance on New Year’s Day for the first time in 12 months – albeit on a much smaller scale – holding a mobile mini protest atop a van calling for the release of “political prisoners”.

The three-person demonstration, aimed at bypassing the city’s ban on gatherings amid the pandemic, was organised by the Civil Human Rights Front, which has seen its applications for events repeatedly rejected by police over the past year due to coronavirus concerns and fears that peaceful demonstrations would be hijacked by radical elements.

The front is the group behind the city’s annual July 1 march, as well as three massive 2019 protests against the since-withdrawn extradition bill that drew hundreds of thousands of participants into the streets.

By comparison, Friday’s show of solidarity with jailed activists was minuscule, but was nonetheless heavily scrutinised by police – who had already planned to break up any gatherings on January 1 that threatened to turn into protests.

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Hong Kong activists call for release of ‘political prisoners’ from atop van on New Year’s Day

“Free Hong Kong political prisoners,” Figo Chan Ho-wun, the front’s convenor, chanted from the roof of a white van parked outside its first stop, the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre.