[5th Anniversary of Umbrella Movement, Sept 28]
20:21 Harcourt Road, Admiralty

People at the rally voluntarily give way to ambulance to pass through the crowd.

Source: Apple Daily

#UmbrellaMovement

Former Anti-Occupy-Central Organisation with Pro-Beijing Stance Approaching Arrested Protesters, Claiming to Provide Aid in Cash
 
[Editor's note: Spark Alliance, an initiative to help the arrested through fund raised by donation, has been targetted by the police. Not only that its financial asset has been frozen, four of its members were arrested on December 19, causing uproar among the public]

A company called LiveliCare Limited is said to have been approaching defendants of Anti-ELAB Movement cases outside the courts recently, claiming that they could provide financial aid and asking for defendants’ information. 

According to an article previously published in Stand News, LiveliCare Limited used to be called The Trade and Industrial Federation of Anti-Occupy Central Limited.  2 days after the aforementioned article was published, Ho Kam-wah, the director of LiveliCare Limited, responds to the inquiry saying that the former company director is named Yip Kwok-chung, who is Ho’s relative with a pro-Beijing stance, and it was Yip who gave the company its former name, The Trade and Industrial Federation of Anti-Occupy Central Limited.  Ho further clarifies that former director Yip Kwok-chung is not the younger brother of former DAB legislative council member Ip Kwok-him. 

Although the names of both men match exactly in Chinese, the English spellings of their surnames are different.  However, Ho does admit that it is wrong of their volunteers to approach defendants outside the courts.  Ho also states that their charity license has been revoked and they have decided to stop all crowdfunding activities as of today, disassociating themselves from relief schemes.
 
Earlier, a reporter went to LiveliCare’s registered address in Kwai Fong Estate and was roughly treated by a woman at the address.  The woman yanked the reporter’s clothes and tried to snatch the reporter’s phone.  She even called the police and asked the reporter to leave.  Ho explains that it was a misunderstanding as “someone else’s address” was wrongly written in the registry and an innocent person was disturbed.  Ho claims that the organisation’s address is now corrected in the Companies Registry.   

Source: Stand News #20Dec #UmbrellaMovement
 #Livelicare

#FirstHand
Citizens Gather to Commemorate Umbrella Movement Amidst Heavy Police Presence

1945 | Admiralty

Today is the 6-year mark of the beginning of Umbrella Movement. Citizens have gathered in Pacific Place to commemorate the date. Police stopped and searched journalists on floor 1 and 2 of the mall. Uniformed police are positioned on multiple floors. A police officer with a warning flag was standby. Plainclothes officers were recording with cameras on the ground floor.

The widespread movement six years ago was triggered by the decision of China's Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on the election of the Chief Executive of HKSAR. Hongkongers were angered by the decision, which was widely seen as denying Hong Kong of a fair, true universal suffrage. In response, a large number of citizens occupied Harcourt Road on September 28, 2014, and was confronted with riot police, who fired the first round of tear gas at 5:58pm. They would go on to fire a total of 87 tear gas rounds that day.

The months-long movement was seen as the beginning of political awareness for many Hongkongers, who began to pay closer attention to government policies, as well as the escalating police brutality.

#Sept28 #UmbrellaMovement #ShopWithYou

#NeverForget
The #UmbrellaMovement Started Six Years Ago

With the press release by the Hong Kong Police Force on 5:35 pm, they urged protestors to stop charging Police cordon line and to leave peacefully and orderly, threatening them with using a higher level of force to restore public order and safeguard public safety. The Police then fired the first tear gas to the masses on 5:57 pm. Protesters on Harcourt Road retreated but returned soon.

For "the safety of participants and the interest of Hong Kong", the Government called the organizer to end the Occupying Central movement as they had promised, as they had once promised that once the movement should be stopped and disassembled the movement became chaotic. "No one can stop it now unless CY Leung stepped down," said Benny Tai Yiu-ting.

The Police raised up the orange flag with the phrase "disperse or we will fire" again but protests still kept their hands up in front of the cordon line. A group of riot police, armed with riot guns and shields, kept pushing their line towards Admiralty along Gloucester Road. In front of the Former Hong Kong Red Cross Headquarters on Connaught Road Central, they continuously fired several tear gas towards multiple protesters who raised their empty hands at close range. Protesters dispersed and shouted "shame on you" when the riot police kept pushing and firing tear gas until they arrived at Admiralty Centre.

The Hong Kong Police Force later announced that they had fired 87 tear gas grenades which shocked the city.

Neither one at that time could imagine the police would fire over thousands of tear gas within a few months into the anti-extradition law movement after five years. They fired the most number of tear gas canisters on 18 November 2019 during the siege of Polytechnic University, where over 3,200 tear gas canisters were used.

Photo Source: Kenji Wong
Source: Stand News #Sept28

Sapientia - Exhibition of the protests (Part 2)

Yellow Umbrella

The second-hand yellow umbrella was held in YOHOMall during the first anniversary of the 6.12 protest, a key event that stalled the second reading of the controversial amendments to the Extradition Law. The owner believes the wave of protests since 2019 inherits the spirt of the Umbrella Movement, in which the yellow umbrella became an ionic symbol of resistance. The canopy of this umbrella has been painted with a popular slogan which is not claimed to be illegal under the National Security Law.

“Why? Because this is my duty.” - Student on a bicycle toward Tiananmen Square

#HongKongProtest #UmbrellaMovement #AntiELAB #Exhibition #HKUSU #Sapientia

http://timable.com/zh-hk/event/1940311

#Newspaper #CCPRules
‘Red Roulette’ Uncovers Covert Hands in Hong Kong

//#China has long accused foreign elements of being behind the protests that convulsed Hong Kong in 2019. Authorities returned to the theme in recent days, with the foreign ministry releasing a 6,300-word “fact sheet” of U.S. interference in the territory.

None of the material in either report offers proof of the so-called black hands that Beijing has frequently invoked in its denunciations of external meddling...

There is, though, an account of behind-the-scenes manipulation by an external presence that sought to incite demonstrations in Hong Kong. It’s just that it comes from the other side. 

Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China is a memoir by Shanghai-born businessman #DesmondShum that was published this month. The book has created a stir among China scholars because of its ringside view of the nexus of business and politics in Beijing. But Shum’s description of China’s actions in Hong Kong is also revealing. 

In Shum’s words, he was enlisted by the Communist Party to serve as a foot soldier in its campaign to undermine Hong Kong’s political system. As a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body that is part of the party’s united front operations, Shum says officials ordered him to go to Hong Kong to organize and fund counter-demonstrations during the 2014 #UmbrellaMovement. Those with businesses in Hong Kong were told to pay employees to march in support of China’s position, he says.

The businessman, who was raised in Hong Kong, relates how he joined one march, making sure that he was seen by officials from the Liaison Office, the central government’s main agency in the city, so that he would receive credit.

“I found the whole exercise laughable,” Shum writes. “Everyone, from the Liaison Office officials to all of us marchers, was acting. Few, if any, believed in the main idea underlying the action — that Hong Kong needed less democracy or less freedom. Everyone was there because of self-interest and to gain brownie points in Beijing.”//

Read the full article:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-03/china-worried-about-foreign-meddlers-in-hong-kong-plays-its-own-tacit-role

Source: Bloomberg #Oct3
Photo: Chan Long Hei

#Regime #Infiltration #ForeignPower