Three young leaders of Hong Kong’s democracy movement have been jailed for leading the 2014 protests.
This statement was originally published on freedomhouse.org on 17 August 2017.
In response to Hong Kong authorities imprisoning Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow — three young leaders of Hong Kong’s democracy movement — and thus making them ineligible to run for public office for five years, Freedom House issued the following statement:
“By imprisoning Joshua Wong and his colleagues, Hong Kong’s courts showed their subservience to authorities in Beijing, and their willingness to suppress the political rights and civil liberties of all Hong Kongers,” said Michael J. Abramowitz, president of Freedom House. “Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow are heroes, not criminals, for their campaign for democracy and rule of law. Authorities had found them guilty of spurious charges related to peaceful pro-democracy protests, which has only served to highlight the government’s and Beijing’s fear of their own citizens.”
Hong Kong is rated Partly Free in Freedom in the World 2017 and Partly Free in Freedom of the Press 2017.
