HK democracy activist Agnes Chow released from prison
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Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow after her release from the Tai Lam Correctional Institution yesterday. She spent nearly seven months in prison for her role in an unauthorised assembly during anti-government protests in the city in 2019.
PHOTO: REUTERS
HONG KONG • Pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow was released from prison yesterday after serving nearly seven months for her role in an unauthorised assembly during anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
The 24-year-old had been convicted together with her long-time activist colleague, Joshua Wong, for their involvement in an illegal rally near police headquarters in the Chinese-ruled city.
Wong, 24, remains in prison and the reason for Ms Chow's early release after being sentenced to 10 months in jail was not clear. The Correctional Services Department said it would not comment on individual cases.
Ms Chow, wearing a T-shirt displaying text saying "you are doing so great", was released from the Tai Lam Correctional Institution in Tuen Mun, in Hong Kong's New Territories, at about 10am.
Yesterday was also the second anniversary of the city's huge democracy rallies, during which thousands of protesters surrounded the city's legislature in an attempt to stop the passage of a Bill to allow extraditions to mainland China's judicial system.
Ms Chow did not speak to the media, and was ushered into a car with her friends and fellow democracy activists.
Supporters shouted "Agnes Chow add oil", a Cantonese expression of encouragement that was widely used at the protests that roiled the city.
Some supporters wore black T-shirts and yellow masks, and one held a yellow umbrella, a symbol of protests in the former British colony dating back to 2014.
She later thanked her friends in an Instagram post for braving the rain. "The painful half year and 20 days, it's finally over," she wrote.
"Now I need to take a good rest, let my body recuperate, because it has become too thin and weak during this period."
Ms Chow, along with Wong and Nathan Law, who has since been given asylum in Britain, came to prominence as teenage activists during the 2014 protests demanding universal suffrage.
The three founded the democracy group Demosisto in 2016, which dissolved hours after Beijing passed a contentious national security law for the city last year amid fears it could be targeted under the legislation.
The law has stifled the pro-democracy movement and raised concern about prospects for the autonomy that Hong Kong was promised under a "one country, two systems" formula when the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.
Protests have been all but illegal for the last year in Hong Kong.
Ms Chow was also arrested last year on suspicion of "colluding with foreign forces" under the security law but has not faced any charges related to that.
Fluent in Japanese, Ms Chow has a sizeable following in Japan, particularly on social media, and had travelled to the country frequently before her arrest.
She also often posted on Twitter in Japanese, and Japanese media has dubbed her a "goddess of democracy".
REUTERS
