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Arrested organizer of Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil released on bail

蘋果日報 2021/06/05 19:46


An organizer of Hong Kong’s annual June 4 vigil to mark the Tiananmen Square crackdown was released on bail on Saturday after more than 30 hours in detention, following her arrest on suspicion of publicizing the banned event.
Chow Hang-tung, vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, was released from Tsuen Wan police station at around 5 p.m., with a crowd of supporters greeting her. Some chanted slogans such as “The people’s will won’t die” and “lighting candles is not a crime.”
Chow said that she had been released on HK$10,000 bail and was scheduled to report back to the station on July 5. She said that she had mourned the events of June 4 by going on a hunger strike, but added that she had breakfast on Saturday morning and there were no serious issues with her health.
Chow joked that the first thing she wanted to do upon her release was go home to take a shower and wash her hair.
She criticized the police’s action towards her as an “unfounded, preventive arrest.” She added that preventing the spread of COVID-19 was the reason given for banning the June 4 vigil, but it was actually a ban on mourning the historical event.
Chow also said that during the police interrogation, she was constantly shown examples of media interviews, online discussion programs and social media posts, followed by questions on the meaning of terms such as “criticizing the one-party dictatorship” and “resistance.”
She said this was a form of psychological pressure to make people believe they could be arrested and imprisoned for engaging with a sensitive subject.
Chow was arrested on Friday morning for allegedly publicizing an unauthorized assembly, with her lawyer saying that the police’s accusation was based on a Facebook post she wrote on May 29 saying that lighting candles was not a crime.
Meanwhile, the soccer pitches in Victoria Park, where the annual vigil normally takes place, were closed off on Friday evening as police sought to enforce the ban on the event.
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