Nathan Law Kwun-chung is a mainland-Chinese-born activist and politician from Hong Kong. As a former student leader, he has been chairman of the Representative Council of the Lingnan University Students' Union (LUSU), acting president of the LUSU, and secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS). He was one of the student leaders during the 79-day Umbrella Movement in 2014. He is the founding and former chairman of Demosistō, a new political party derived from the 2014 protests.
Au Nok-hin is a pro-democracy politician in Hong Kong. He is the former member of the Legislative Council for Hong Kong Island from 2018 to 2019 and member of the Southern District Council for Lei Tung I from 2012 to 2019.
Ted Hui Chi-fung is a Hong Kong politician. He formerly represented the Chung Wan constituency in the Central and Western District Council, and formerly he was the Legislative Councillor for the Hong Kong Island constituency. Fearing prosecution by the Government of Hong Kong, he announced his self-exile in Denmark and withdrawal from the Democratic Party in December 2020.
In September 2017, tensions arose between different parties over the content of posters put up on Democracy wall in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This has led to increased tensions in Hong Kong society, due to the interpretations of freedom of speech of certain content of the posters. This has also led to copycats incidents occurring in other universities in Hong Kong as well reigniting Hong Kong Independence debate within Hong Kong Kong society. The standoff, which has manifested in a series of protests and counterprotests on campuses, is reflective of the wider disconnect between mainlanders and Hongkongers, fanned by a host of reasons from politics and language barriers to state-fuelled propaganda and competition for scarce resources.
The 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests were a series of demonstrations against the Hong Kong government's introduction of a bill to amend the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance in regard to extradition. It was the largest series of demonstrations in the history of Hong Kong.
The month of July 2020 in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests began with a turning point in the evolution of the protests, brought about by the Hong Kong national security law. The law, which had been passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China on 30 June and come into effect on the same day, was widely seen as having the purpose of curbing opposition, in a broad sense, against the Chinese Communist Party in the city. The law had direct relevance to the protests, as it prescribes harsh penalties for the tactics that protesters had commonly used. Nevertheless, sizeable protests erupted throughout the city on occasion of the 1 July protests the next day, resulting in about 370 arrests, including at least ten on charges under the new law. The Hong Kong government, faced with the task of implementing a law that had been drafted and promulgated without substantial involvement by its own officials, was seen widely, including in the academic and media sectors, as being unable to draw a clear demarcation line between which acts would constitute punishable offences under the law, and which would not. The vagueness of the law, while refused by the city's police chief, was seen by pro-democrats and observers as a deliberate device to amplify its deterrence effect.
The 2020 Hong Kong Legislative Council election was originally scheduled on 6 September 2020 until it was postponed by the government. On 31 July 2020, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that she was invoking the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to postpone the election under the emergency powers granted to her by it, citing the recent resurgence of the COVID-19 cases, adding that the move was supported by Beijing.
Tony Chung Hon-lam is a Hong Kong pro-independence activist. He was the founder and convenor of the localist camp student group Studentlocalism. On 29 July 2020, he became the first political figure to be arrested on suspicion of violating the newly imposed national security law and has also been charged with money laundering and publishing seditious articles.
Apart from protests on 1 October—the Chinese National Day—most of the significant events of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests in October 2020 took place away from the streets, and many of them outside Hong Kong and China. The threat to protests posed by the national security law was exacerbated by continued uncertainty about the fate of twelve detainees who had attempted to escape to Taiwan by boat in August, and were held across the border in Shenzhen; on 10 October, Hong Kong police detained nine further individuals in relation to that incident. In addition, the Hong Kong government did not relax the four-person gathering limit that had been enacted in the course of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the police continued to strictly enforce it. Pan-democrats in the city considered the restrictive gathering limit to be a pretext for curbing protests, also given that other pandemic related restrictions were relaxed in the course of the month.
Hong Kong 12, or 12 Hongkongers, are the twelve Hong Kong protesters, previously arrested by the Hong Kong police, detained by the Chinese authorities in 2020 on sea after a failed attempt to flee to Taiwan.
The Hong Kong 47 are a group of 47 pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under the Hong Kong national security law.
The Hong Kong National Security Law is a piece of national security legislation passed on 30 June 2020 which was a major factor, besides the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying gathering regulations, in essentially ending the anti-extradition bill protests. The law established the crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign organisations. Implementation of the law entitles authorities to surveil, detain, search and extradite persons suspected under its provisions to Mainland China.
Few protests took place in December 2020 and there was no large-scale demonstrations in threat of the national security law. The imprisonment of Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam on 2 December aroused attention of the International community.
A dramatic manifestation of the far reach of the Hong Kong national security law was the mass arrest of 54 pro-democracy activists on 6 January. The arrested stood accused of subverting state power, a crime under the national security law, for their participation as candidates or in other capacities, in the 2020 Hong Kong pro-democracy primaries, which was part of a plan to increase pressure in parliament for democratic reform. Most of them were released on bail the following day. For the first time, the National Security Department of the police cited the national security law to block the website of HKChronicles. There were also several convictions in relation to the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests.
The city held its first National Security Education Day after the national security law had come into force. Chief Executive Carrie Lam emphasized that the law had helped Hong Kong to emerge from the "dark violence" of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. National Security Committee Adviser Luo Huining also gave a speech. Even very young children were photographed handling toy weapons, which drew criticism.
Few protests took place in June 2021 and there were no large-scale demonstrations in threat of the national security law. The anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre on 4 June saw only small crowds or single individuals engaging in vigils in the vicinity of Victoria Park – the venue of large vigils on the same occasion in past years – before police dispersed them. The pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily once again had its headquarters raided by police using the national security law; its executives were arrested. Security Bureau also froze the assets of three Apple Daily companies, which led the newspaper to print its final edition on 24 June. Many pan-democratic groups disbanded at the end of the month under pressure from the law.
After the 1 July police stabbing, Hong Kong police and the government characterized the incident as a "lone wolf" terrorist attack. Foreign media saw the stabbing as a sign of a steep decline of the reputation of the police in the eyes of some locals, a process that had begun with the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. They also considered the uncovering of a bomb plot on 5 July as evidence of a polarization in society, and pointed to the influence of diminishing legal ways to voice dissent in the year since the national security law came into effect. At the beginning of the month, the police arrested citizens who posted on the Internet for inciting others to kill the police. Later it persecuted members of the student union of Hong Kong University for having passed a motion, subsequently withdrawn, that had praised the "sacrifice" of the deceased attacker of 1 July.
Student Politicism was a student political group in Hong Kong. Founded on 26 May 2020, the group was one of only few pro-democracy organisations still existing in Hong Kong as of September 2021, before it was dissolved on 24 September 2021 after core members were charged under the National Security Law.
On 29 December 2021, Stand News, one of the few remaining pro-democracy media outlets in Hong Kong following the passage of the Hong Kong national security law in 2020, was raided by the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force. Media executives and journalists were arrested on the charge of "conspiring to publish seditious publications" on a large scale. As a result of the raid, Stand News ceased operations, the organisation's website and social media became inactive, and all its employees were dismissed. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, along with leaders in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and United States, condemned the raid.
