Activists Quickly Test Tolerance for Dissent

As police and cameras closed in around him early today, Hong Kong dissident Liu Shanqing was forced to choose between making himself the poster boy for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and making a quick exit.

Liu, organizer of a major anti-China protest at the site of the hand-over ceremony, opted against violent confrontation. But it took some pleading with police before he was allowed to grab a taxi and speed to another pro-democracy rally.

Liu and Democratic Party leader Martin Lee were among several dozen activists who lost no time in testing the new Hong Kong government’s tolerance for dissent.

The midnight tussle outside the Hong Kong Convention Center, just as the British flag was being lowered on a century and a half of colonial rule, was probably the closest Hong Kong activists came to violence. Its peaceful resolution dispelled fears that the emotionally charged hand-over might turn ugly.

But while both sides exercised restraint, such protests could be banned or sharply curtailed if they are deemed a threat to “national security” under new laws swiftly passed by the just-sworn-in, China-approved Provisional Legislature.

Throughout the last day of Britain’s rule Monday, an eclectic array of groups advocating everything from the release of China’s political prisoners to a ban on abortion took advantage of the presence of more than 6,300 foreign journalists to get their message out to the world.

But in the end, even Liu’s militant April Fifth Action Group, which had earlier declared its intention to test police blockades at the hand-over ceremony, chose emotional pleas and high theater to make their point: What Hong Kong residents really want to see, they said, is democracy in both Hong Kong and mainland China.

Liu spent a decade in a Chinese prison for his connection with the pro-democracy movement; he was freed in 1991. After a dramatic march to the front of the convention center, Liu and about a dozen other activists, accompanied by a human river of journalists and other observers, decided not to rush the chain of police that barred their way.

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Instead, the activists ended their rally beneath a huge banner bearing a likeness of the Goddess of Democracy statue that demonstrators defiantly raised in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Chanting anti-China slogans, the Hong Kong protesters torched several documents, including copies of the guilty verdicts against two prominent Chinese political prisoners and a roster of blacklisted dissidents.

They also burned an angry letter that they had hoped to deliver to Chinese Premier Li Peng, who was inside, calling for the release of political prisoners.

Law Yuk-kai, director of Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, said the police were under orders to concentrate on public safety issues and not “national security or political crimes.” Indeed, even when the crowds grew surly, the uniformed officers remained calm and polite.

Shortly after midnight, Lee strolled onto the balcony of the Legislative Council building--home to the now-defunct elected legislature--and made an eloquent plea to Beijing’s leaders not to take away the freedoms that gave “the Pearl of the Orient” its value to China and the world.

Lee, who delivered his emotional speech to a cheering crowd of 5,000, denounced China’s abolition of the old lawmaking body, of which he was a member.

He pledged to “fight to get democracy back,” winning wild applause from the audience, an incongruous mix of fervent activists, drunken revelers and curious sightseers.

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Eunis Shum, 21, a university student, described Lee as a “kind and brave man” who provided hope that people will stand up to Communist China if it breaks its promise of a “one country, two systems” stand toward the former British colony.

Shum said she joined the pro-democracy celebration to register her support for those brave enough to publicly criticize China. “I think they are very brave because they do all these things in very sensitive times,” she said.

Jackie Chan, 40, a Hong Kong hotel worker who attended the pro-democracy rally with his wife, agreed that Lee and other opposition leaders may be the only people still willing to criticize the Chinese leadership after today. “Everybody is trying to keep their mouths shut,” he said. “They dare not to criticize the government.”

But the Democratic Party was hardly alone Monday in reminding Beijing’s visiting political elite that freedom of speech is a right widely exercised here. Earlier in the day, members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China set up shop beneath the Goddess of Democracy banner.

Cheung Man-kwong and Szeto Wah, leaders of the pro-democracy alliance, sat under a tarp in the rain holding a sign that said: “I love China. I love HK. I love democracy. End one party dictatorship.”

Szeto, a veteran pro-democracy activist and former teacher, said: “Our slogan is the same as before, namely: Release democratic activists, vindicate the ’89 student movement, seek responsibility for the June 4th massacre, end one-party rule and build a democratic China. But we’ve added another point: not to forget those in prison on the occasion of the hand-over.”

Cheung had hoped that the Chinese government would show its commitment to a peaceful reunification by releasing the hundreds of political prisoners now in Chinese jails. He expressed disappointment that China has done no such thing, but he vowed to continue his fight, even if the new Provisional Legislature eventually makes it a crime to advocate democracy.

“I’ll still fight for democracy,” he said. “I’m not afraid.”

Times special correspondent Silvia Cavallini and Min Lee of The Times’ Hong Kong Bureau contributed to this report.