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Hong Kong's 'Grandma Wong' Arrested for Solo Tiananmen Protest

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Hong Kong's 'Grandma Wong' Arrested for Solo Tiananmen Protest Established 1961 7 International Tuesday, June 1, 2021 Hong Kong’s ‘Grandma Wong’ arrested for solo Tiananmen protest Prosecutors seek up to life in prison for ‘subversive’ activists HONG KONG: Hong Kong police have arrested an yellow umbrella-the latter a symbol of Hong Kong’s elderly democracy activist as she made a solo democracy movement. demonstration over China’s deadly Tiananmen The South China Morning Post said the pension- crackdown in a vivid illustration of the zero protest er started chanting slogans in a park before heading tolerance now wielded by authorities in the financial towards the Liaison Office by herself, while being hub. Alexandra Wong, 65, was detained on Sunday followed and filmed by police. She was stopped on suspicion of taking part in an unlawful assembly twice. “I’m only by myself, just an old lady here. as she walked towards Beijing’s Liaison Office in Why stop me?” the Post quoted Wong as telling Hong Kong. Wong-known locally as “Grandma officers. Soon afterwards she was arrested. Police Wong”-was a regular fixture of the huge democra- confirmed a 65-year-old woman surnamed Wong cy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019. had been arrested for “knowingly participating in an She could often be seen waving a Union Jack unauthorized assembly and attempting to incite flag, a symbol of her dissatisfaction with Beijing’s others to join an unauthorized assembly.” rule since the city was handed to China by former Hong Kong’s democracy movement has been colonial power Britain in 1997. Protest is now all but crushed by a broad crackdown on dissent over the outlawed in Hong Kong. Authorities have used both last year, including the imposition of a sweeping secu- the threat of the coronavirus and security concerns rity law that criminalizes much dissent. In the middle to ban demonstrations. A vigil planned for this of the 2019 protests Wong disappeared for more than Friday — the 32nd anniversary of Beijing’s 1989 a year. She resurfaced saying she had been detained crackdown on democracy protests in Tiananmen by mainland authorities during a trip to Shenzhen, a Square — has been denied permission for the sec- neighboring city where she lived at the time. HONG KONG: Alexandra Wong (right), an activist known as Grandma Wong, holds a British Union Jack flag out- ond year in a row. side the District Court in Hong Kong, as nine pro-democracy activists await their sentencing for charges of Authorities have cited the coronavirus, although ‘Subversive’ activists unauthorized assembly on China’s National Day on October 1, 2019. — AFP Hong Kong is currently celebrating no local trans- Dozens of leading Hong Kong democracy mission cases of unknown origin for the last month. activists could face up to life in prison for organiz- dants say they were simply taking part in opposi- have the case upgraded to the city’s High Court. Activists had also sought permission for a small ing an unofficial primary election, prosecutors con- tion politics. But authorities accused them of a Offences heard in that court start at seven years Tiananmen-themed march on Sunday to the Liaison firmed yesterday, in the most sweeping use yet of “vicious plot” to subvert the government by seeking imprisonment for those who are convicted. The maxi- Office, which represents the central government in Beijing’s strict new security law. Police charged the a majority in the city’s partially-elected legislature. mum penalty under the new security law is life in the city, but it was also denied permission. Wong 47 activists with “subversion” after they organized a Yesterday the defendants appeared en masse for prison. Beijing has moved to quash dissent in the turned up anyway that afternoon holding as sign non-binding vote last year to choose candidates for the first time in nearly three months at a hearing in semi-autonomous city after huge and sometimes vio- that read “32, June 4, Tiananmen’s lament” and a an ultimately postponed local election. The defen- which a judge granted a request by prosecutors to lent pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019. —AFP New Zealand, News in brief Australia play down Bangladesh arrests tiger poacher differences on China DHAKA: Bangladesh police have arrested a notorious poacher wanted for 20 years and WELLINGTON: New Zealand and Australia believed to have killed around 70 endan- downplayed policy differences on China yesterday, gered Bengal tigers. Local police chief with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern denying Saidur Rahman said that Habib Talukder- Wellington was taking a soft stance on human nicknamed “Tiger Habib”-lived next to the rights to avoid offending its largest trading partner. forest and would flee whenever officers raid- Ardern’s government has taken flak over its meek ed the area. “Acting on a tip-off, we finally criticisms of China’s rights record, while Australia’s succeeded and sent him to jail,” he told AFP. more outspoken position has drawn punitive trade Talukder’s hunting ground was the vast measures from Beijing. The center-left New Zealand Sunderbans mangrove forest region strad- leader insisted the trans-Tasman allies were lock- QUEENSTOWN, New Zealand: New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (center right) and her Australian coun- dling India and Bangladesh that is home to step on attitudes towards China after holding talks terpart Scott Morrison (center left) pay their respects after laying wreaths during a visit to the Arrowtown War one of the world’s largest populations of with her Australian counterpart Scott Morrison in Memorial in Queenstown yesterday. — AFP Bengal tigers. The cats’ pelts, bones and the South Island mountain retreat of Queenstown. even the flesh would be bought by black The pair issued a joint statement expressing further investigate the origins of the COVID-19 Australian products. Morrison said he did not market traders who would sell them in China “deep concern” at the erosion of freedoms in Hong pandemic, which remains a sensitive topic for China. believe New Zealand was a weak link in the spy and elsewhere. —AFP Kong and the treatment of the Uyghur Muslim The New Zealand government declined to sign a network, which also includes the United States, the minority in China’s Xinjiang province. “You’ll see statement from the Five Eyes intelligence network United Kingdom and Canada. “Neither of us will that Australia and New Zealand have broadly been last year condemning developments in Hong Kong, ever trade our sovereignty or our values, we have China limits travel in province positioned in exactly the same place on these issues and this month insisted on removing the word stood side by side to defend those values,” he said. consistently,” Ardern told reporters. “So I really “genocide” from a parliamentary motion about the Morrison said both Australia and New Zealand BEIJING: push back on any suggestion that we are not taking plight of the Uyghurs. Australia has fully backed the wanted a free and peaceful Indo-Pacific region and Chinese authorities imposed a strong stance on these incredibly important Five Eyes statements, sparking fiery rhetoric from would work to ensure that goal was not threatened fresh travel limits, cancelled flights and test- issues.” Ardern and Morrison also backed a push to Beijing along with import levies on a range of by rising China-US tensions. —AFP ed thousands of residents in Guangdong yesterday after the Indian variant of the coronavirus was reported in the country’s most populous province. Travellers leaving Australian writer says Guangzhou-the capital of the southern province home to 100 million people-must ‘tortured’ in Chinese prison show negative COVID-19 test results from the past 72 hours, starting from 10:00 pm on SYDNEY: An Australian academic good.” Yang insisted he is “100 per- Monday, the city said in an announcement on trial in China for espionage has cent innocent” and said he had tried late Sunday. —AFP told supporters he has been tortured and failed to get records from his in detention and still does not know interrogation dismissed. “It’s illegal. which country he is accused of spying Torture,” he said, accusing authorities for. Chinese-born Yang Jun said he of using a “hidden camera”. “The Singapore to vaccinate children was mistreated while being held at a interrogations I had been subjected SINGAPORE: secret detention site after being taken to, where I was told I had to confess... Singapore will start vacci- into custody more than two years ago. Perhaps someone was taking revenge nating schoolchildren against the coron- “The first six months... was a really against me.” avirus soon, the prime minister said yester- bad period. They tortured me,” he Yang also said he failed in a plea to day, after officials warned that new strains said in a message seen by AFP. “I’ve be allowed to submit evidence and were affecting youngsters more. The city- already been held in a place worse call witnesses in his own defense. BEIJING: Australian Ambassador to China Graham Fletcher speaks to journalists outside state recently tightened curbs following a than prison for over two years now.” Beijing has said the trial can lawfully the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court ahead of the trial of Australian academic slight uptick in cases, after months of The 56-year-old academic’s trial be held in secret because it involves Yang Jun, also known as Yang Hengjun, on espionage charges in Beijing. — AFP reporting barely any local transmissions. began behind closed doors on “state secrets” and has criticized This included closing schools amid signs Thursday, with the Australian ambas- Australia for “interference” at a time criminal, then who did I work for? I for Hong Kong in 1992 and then trav- that new variants, such as the one first sador in Beijing denied access.
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