Arab News Japan

TOKYO: To commemorate the protests against Hong Kong’s unpopular extradition law, about 150 Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners and Japanese supporters marched through Tokyo’s busy Shibuya district dressed in black and yellow carrying flags emblazoned with slogans opposed to China’s Communist Party.

In 2019, the Hong Kong Autonomous Government proposed the extradition of its citizens to mainland China, which sparked major protests that saw around a million people take to the streets. Although the extradition law was abolished following the protests, a new national security law was drawn up “to tighten the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on the autonomous region of Hong Kong,” according to the protestors.

The demonstrators in Tokyo pointed to the “deprivation of liberty that has taken place since the repression of their movement and the arbitrary arrests of activists, intellectuals and journalists, which have become more and more frequent since the promulgation of the new security law.”

Wai Tong Lee, one of the activists organizing the march, noted that China has stifled the pro-democracy movement thanks to containment measures arising from the coronavirus pandemic.

He also said a Hong Kong activist who resided in Japan was arrested by the Hong Kong authorities after sending SNS messages supporting freedom and democracy from Japanese territory and termed this interference in Japanese domestic affairs.

One demonstrator said he wore black to try and hide from the gaze of the police and pro-Chinese members who take photos of protesters and send them to the Chinese authorities.

Officially, Hong Kong remains an autonomous region separate from China, but mainland China is increasingly inserting itself into the legislative affairs of the island, the demonstrators said.