Mr. Lee with his eldest son in Mexico. (Courtesy of Mr. Li)
On April 9 (Friday), Mr. Li was interviewed by the Epoch Times at the Mexican border. He and his family had to go into exile and seek asylum in the United States for fear of reprisals as the Hong Kong government accelerated the arrests of participants in the “anti-China” campaign.
Father and son arrested by police for breaking out of PolyU
On November 13, 2019, police surrounded the Hung Hom campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where Mr. Lee’s 16-year-old eldest son, A, was trapped because he and his friends were participating in a campaign against the Fugitive Offenders Bill, also known as the “anti-China” campaign. Mr. Li entered the school on November 18 to look for 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, with demonstrators and police confronting and fighting for 16 days. In the end, 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 cub (son), I can take how much to take out, and finally took eight children (young people) to leave together.”
Mr. Li (in red) and his son being filmed by overseas media during the breakout from the Polytechnic University on Nov. 18, 2019. (Courtesy of Mr. Lee)
In order to break through the police siege, protesters left the campus by dropping down overpasses and climbing sewers. Mr. Li 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 the child. 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.
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 two 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. Lee 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 forefront of the “anti-China” clashes many times, and despite wearing a gas mask, he was still smoked by the tear gas and stung, 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 can see the welding pattern, if the foreign tear gas warheads will not have seams, and many of the bullets have 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 many girls on the front line, even braver than the boys, always turning back to save others.
Anti-“national education” on the road to protest
In 1999, Mrs. Lee moved from China to Hong Kong, but before that her parents had always worked 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 started to compare. In fact, I didn’t think there was much difference before I had children, but when I encountered education problems, I really found that Hong Kong education was 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 now the international schools in Hong Kong are better, but if it is a public school, it is no longer possible to criticize the Communist Party or to say that the government is bad, but only to praise the government; teachers also instill patriotic and party-friendly education into children, which is basically exactly the same as on the mainland, maybe 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 have to speak Mandarin, and Hong Kong’s local culture 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 close 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 without worries, the police can still continue to investigate the case and prosecute the suspect. In general, if the police will prosecute a suspect, they will inform the other party when they report to the police station and renew their 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 are now being 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 waiting to start over, but stay in Hong Kong is a dead end, is a lot of worry, but still have to go.”
A believes that Hong Kong is now 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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