The tactic is a bid to thwart police, who now move swiftly against such gatherings to enforce antivirus restrictions. Under a deal signed with Britain ahead of the 1997 handover, authoritarian China agreed to let Hong Kong keep certain freedoms and autonomy for 50 years. Protests over the last decade have been fuelled by fears those freedoms are being prematurely curtailed, something Beijing denies. Analysts say the space for Hong Kongers to voice dissent has rapidly diminished in the last year. “I don’t think the passion has subsided much, but the problem is that many actions are now not allowed in the current circumstances,” Leung Kai-chi, an analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), told Agence France-Presse.

Source: Manila Times June 09, 2020 16:52 UTC