HKU Students Mark Liberation Day, After Hiccups

Members of the University of Hong Kong Students' Union marked the Liberation Day anniversary on Monday, but not before they were stopped from approaching the City Hall Memorial Shrine and warned of breaching the social distancing rules by the police.

The ceremony was to mark the liberation of Hong Kong from Japanese occupation after the Second World War.

The Union president Jeh Tsz-lam said they had hoped to mark the day by visiting the garden in Central to pay tribute to those who died fighting the Japanese, but were shocked to see the place where the event is usually held was locked and blocked off by police.

She said they hadn’t called the public to join, and had planned to lay flowers at the memorial to mark the occasion.

Jeh said after police kept warning them about breaching the social distancing rule, they moved to the Cenotaph and paid tributes there.

Jeh said she didn’t know that the social distancing rule implemented to stop the outbreaks of the coronavirus would affect the right to hold memorial activities like this.

The group of around half a dozen students from the university had moved in pairs so as not to breach the restriction on gatherings of more than two people.

The Central and Western District Councillor Fergus Leung, who was also there to mark the day, said that there was “an additional meaning” to the day after last year’s anti-government protests. He said this was a chance to pay respect to all soldiers who died defending the city, but also to protesters who sacrificed for the city.

“We believe that we are here not only for those who lost their lives in the Second World War, but [also] to commemorate everyone who had sacrificed and lost freedom in last year’s movement, and fled overseas,” Leung said.