Every year, the Chinese Communist Party celebrates National Day, the anniversary of its takeover of China. It’s become an occasion for protest in Hong Kong — and freedom-lovers didn’t let 2020 stop them Thursday.
Though Beijing has imposed a “national security” law that criminalizes the dissent that is every Hong Konger’s right under the treaty that put the mainland government in charge, and despite a ban on public gatherings larger than four people (supposedly to fight COVID-19), supporters of democracy turned out big-time.
Not as many as in the past, no: Beijing’s pawns in the local government deployed thousands of riot cops, who manned checkpoints and carried out stop-and-search procedures, and as Hong Kong journalist Alvin Lum tweeted: “For every half an hour, police would accuse passers-by of violating social-distancing rules.”