A father and son named Lee, who rescued eight protesters during the “PolyU Defense” campaign, have recently gone into exile in the United States to seek political asylum for fear of retribution from the Chinese government.
In an exclusive interview with the Epoch Times, Mr. Lee said that he and his family chose to go into exile because they were worried about being reckoned with by the Chinese government, and turned themselves in after sneaking into the United States from Mexico to seek political asylum.
The movement began in June 2019, when police surrounded the Hung Hom campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on Nov. 13 and trapped Mr. Lee’s 16-year-old eldest son, A, on the campus after he and his friends participated in an anti-China protest. On Nov. 18, Mr. Lee entered the school in search of his son and brought out eight youths younger than A.
The clashes at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University were seen as the biggest humanitarian crisis since the “anti-China” movement in Hong Kong, and the confrontation between protesters and police lasted 16 days.
On November 18, 1,377 adult protesters were arrested and 318 underage protesters were asked to register their identities and personal information, making it the largest number of arrests in a single day of the movement.
The company’s main business is to promote the development of the company’s products and services. Mr. Lee said, “outside are blocked, children are very afraid, many are smaller than my son, I can take how much to take out, and finally took eight children (young people) to leave together.”
In order to break through the police siege, the protesters left the campus by dropping overpasses and climbing sewers. Mr. Lee took a few youths with him to escape the police during the night, but when they got off the overpass they met the police and were arrested directly. Although they were not beaten, they were verbally threatened.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Li were very supportive of the “Anti-Send China” movement. Although they were worried about their son’s safety on the street, they chose to respect their son.
On the night of the breakout at Polytechnic University, Mrs. Lee found that the father and son had not moved for more than an hour after leaving Polytechnic University, so she knew they might have run into the police.
The police intimidated the protesters with impunity, A said: “The police threatened to kill me and dump my body at sea. When we were sent to court from North Point police station, they (police) pushed and squeezed us (the detained protesters) hard, and we were scolded all the time when we were detained.” He believes that the Hong Kong police have become lawless and more terrifying than the triads.
Pictured, protesters try to escape arrest by riot police on the campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. (YE AUNG THU/AFP via Getty Images)
Eldest son suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome
Since the Umbrella Revolution in 2014, when Hong Kong people took to the streets to demand “genuine universal suffrage,” and until the “616 Anti-China March” in 2019, when 2 million people took to the streets, Mr. Lee’s family has never been absent from the civic movement in Hong Kong. Mr. Lee’s family has never been absent from the civic movement in Hong Kong.
Mrs. Li said, “I am really sad to see the situation in Hong Kong today. Seeing many young people being beaten up, we also discussed with our children and told them to take care of their own safety when they go out on the street.”
Mr. Lee is mostly involved in the “anti-Sino” activities of logistical support, he will use his time after work to participate in action. A, on the other hand, was at the front line of the “anti-China” clashes many times, and despite wearing a gas mask, he was still smoked by the tear gas, which was hot and stinging.
He said, “We saw the police drop the shells at the scene and found that they were made in China. Because of the seams on the warheads, you could see the welding pattern, if it was a foreign tear gas warhead there would be no seams, and many of the bullets had expired.”
A recalls one of the most horrific incidents he has ever encountered was being surrounded by police. About five dozen handlers were forced into a certain path where the police shot tear gas, pepper bullets, and plastic bullets nonstop. There was only one intersection in front of them where people could exit, but the police were stationed at the intersection and kept attacking, and whenever they broke out, they were beaten with batons.
In the end, A and two other friends escaped from the police by leaping over flowers and railings, but were left with post-traumatic stress syndrome, insomnia and nightmares every night, and even symptoms of fragmented disillusionment, which took about three months to gradually recover after counseling and treatment by a psychiatrist.
A also went on to study and get his medical emergency license late in the protest movement, as frontline protests often required timely medical attention, saying, “We had a lot of broken bones and injuries from tear gas.” He also found that there were also many girls on the front line, even braver than the boys, always defiantly turning back to save others.
Pictured are protesters arrested by Hong Kong police outside the Polytechnic University in November. (DALE DE LA REY/AFP via Getty Images)
Anti-“state religion” protest
Mrs. Li moved to Hong Kong from China in 1999, but before that her parents had been working in Hong Kong. I didn’t think there was any difference between Hong Kong and the mainland when I was a child, but when I arrived in Hong Kong, I felt the comparison,” she said. In fact, they all felt the difference before they had children too, but when it comes to education, they really realize that Hong Kong education is still better.”
Mr. Lee said, “In fact, when people tell you, you may not necessarily believe it, you really have to discover the differences yourself.” He gave an example, in Hong Kong, people will take the initiative to help strangers fall, and the other party will thank you; but if in China, people will be worried about being banged, blackmailed money, see passers-by fall, we all avoid.
The experience of living in Hong Kong made Mr. Lee begin to realize how bad the Communist Party is. If you do well, who will be against you,” he said. If it [the CCP] is good, who will be against it?”
Mr. Li’s desire not to have his children receive “state education” led him to take the path of civil disobedience in Hong Kong. He said, “The Chinese Communist Party wants to teach children that ‘father and mother are not as close as Chairman Mao’, and the brainwashing education that glorifies ‘the Communist Party is good’ makes Hong Kong people very disgusted.”
Mr. Li has three children, the eldest is 16, the second is 14, and the youngest is 5. For the sake of the education and future of the next generation, he has come out against the “national education” promoted by the Hong Kong government, and also started to pay attention to social issues in Hong Kong.
The implementation of “national education” in Hong Kong worries Mrs. Li, who said, “Many people see the illusion of ‘developed and rich’ Chinese society and are subconsciously deceived.” She believes that these so-called moral and national education are the brainwashing policies of the Chinese Communist government.
Originally from Guangdong, Mr. Li moved to Hong Kong after getting married in 2009. He began reading history books that he could not dabble in in the past in China, and gradually realized that the education he received as a child was false. In the past, Mr. Li had always thought that the Communists were winning against Japan and that the Kuomintang was dragging its feet, but only later did he realize that the truth was the exact opposite.
Mr. Li said that international schools in Hong Kong are now better, but if they are public schools, they can no longer criticize the Communist Party or say anything bad about the government, but can only praise it.
Teachers also instill patriotic and party-friendly education into children, which is basically exactly the same as on the mainland, and probably even better. English education in Hong Kong is not as valued as it was in the past, and although it is taught in Cantonese, students are required to speak Mandarin, and the local culture of Hong Kong is gradually being eroded.
“Exile and the Expectation of Hong Kong’s Rebirth
Both Mr. Lee and his eldest son, A, have been arrested by the police and are still at risk of being charged by the police at any time after being “kicked out on bail. The so-called “kick bail” means that the suspect refuses bail and the police have to decide within 48 hours whether to drop the case and prosecute the person concerned, otherwise the suspect does not need to renew bail and report to the police station.
However, “kick bail” is not free of worries, the police can still continue to investigate the case and prosecute the suspect; kick bail suspects can hardly predict when they will be prosecuted, in general, if the police will prosecute the suspect, they will inform each other when reporting and renewing bail.
Because the Hong Kong police arrested a large number of demonstrators involved in the activities, there is no spare capacity and manpower to investigate, so many people choose to kick bail. Mr. Lee said, “But the police can take their time to investigate the case and arrest people at any time, we are only temporarily released.”
After the implementation of the National Security Law, everyone in Hong Kong is at risk, and Mr. Li is worried that he may not be able to leave the country afterwards, or even that he and his eldest son will be sentenced to jail, so he is forced to leave Hong Kong with his family.
He choked up and said, “Hong Kong is where I live, our house has just been renovated and all the furniture is new. In fact, we really don’t want to leave Hong Kong, we really can’t let go.” But the tyranny is fiercer than a tiger, and in the face of the vicious power of the Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong government, Mr. Li had to start planning his escape and exile.
Mr. Li said, “One country, two systems is dead, now Hong Kong is simply one country, one system, there is no one country, two systems. Hong Kong’s administration and judiciary are not independent organs, and the police and customs have simply been reduced to the regime’s thugs. Hong Kong is no longer a democratic, free society.”
As far as Mr. Lee knows, flights from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom have been heavily scrutinized, and there are many plainclothes police officers watching. Asylum.
At around 2:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 10, Mr. Lee and his eldest son, A, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and surrendered to the U.S., where they were temporarily detained in an immigration prison to seek political asylum; his wife and two young sons are still seeking legal assistance, hoping that the U.S. will allow them to enter the U.S. without entering an immigration prison on humanitarian grounds.
Mr. Lee originally planned to arrive in the United States at the same time, but worried that the young children can not adapt to the environment of the immigration prison, but also worried about the group, the children’s weak resistance to infection, so finally decided to split up. He said, “We are starting from scratch, but stay in Hong Kong is a dead end, is a lot of worry, but still have to go.”
A believes that the current Hong Kong is like the Japanese occupation of 3 years and 8 months, but will eventually wait until the “day of re-glow”, he said: “We all think so, now is like Hong Kong against the Japanese period, I hope Hong Kong can survive this period.”
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