(AFP) Hong Kong
An elderly woman who disappeared in the middle of protests for democracy in Hong Kong last year resurfaced in the financial center on Saturday after a 14-month absence, saying she had been detained in mainland China.
Alexandra Wong said she was forced to give up her activism in writing, record a video statement saying she was not tortured and send her on a “patriotic tour” in the north of the country.
Known by his peers as the “Grandma Wong” and often seen waving the British flag, the 64-year-old participated in virtually every demonstration during the early days of the democracy movement. police accountability, which began in June 2019.
He disappeared last August and only had sporadic contacts with the local media in the former British colony.
She held a press conference in Hong Kong on Saturday and said that after joining an August protest, she was detained by Chinese police on the border with Shenzhen, the metropolis mainland where she has been living for 14 years.
His testimony was a vivid illustration of the opaque and party-controlled judicial system on the mainland that many Hong Kongers fear will one day come to their restless city.
Wong said Shenzhen authorities held her for “administrative detention” and “criminal detention” for a total of 45 days, without knowing what charges she faced.
“I was afraid of dying in the detention center,” he said.
When her stay in custody ended, she was asked to testify on camera that the mainland Chinese authorities had not tortured her and to promise not to take media interviews or protest again.
He was asked to confess in writing that his activism had been wrong.
“The worst thing I did in my life was write that confession … but I had nothing to negotiate with,” he said.
The confessions did not win her freedom immediately. She was later sent on a five-day “patriotic tour” of Shaanxi province, where she took a photo holding the Chinese flag and sang the national anthem.
After that, she was told that she would be released on bail pending trial for “provoking disputes and causing trouble,” a general term used by the government to attack dissidents.
But they did not provide him with written documents about the charges.
For a year after his release on bail, he was only allowed to return to his home in Shenzhen and was unable to return to Hong Kong. Those conditions expired at the end of September.
“I don’t have the courage to set foot in Shenzhen again, at least for now, unless there is a radical change in the political situation,” Wong told reporters.
After huge and often violent protests for democracy that convulsed Hong Kong last year, Beijing launched a crackdown on its opponents in the semi-autonomous city.
At the end of June, it also imposed a broad drafting security law that, among other restrictions, prohibited the expression of certain opinions.
“I won’t stop fighting,” Wong said. “After all, there will be sacrifice, otherwise … the authoritarian system would not change.”