‘I was so naive’: 10 years after Umbrella protests…

Anniversary of pro-democracy demonstration takes place in city where protest has been largely criminalised and activists silenced

Today Hong Kong’s streets are quiet. Protest has been largely criminalised, and many of the leaders of the Umbrella movement have been exiled, jailed or otherwise silenced.

Looking back, Wendy* remembers the feeling of that first day of Occupy. She was 25 and believed in Hong Kong’s Basic Law, and its promise to deliver universal suffrage to the people now that the territory had been returned from British to Chinese control. But instead, China’s government announced that in elections people would only be able to choose from a few candidates handpicked by a mostly pro-Beijing committee.

“It seemed that the government wanted to break their promise,” Wendy tells the Guardian from Hong Kong. “So I went out.”…

Read the full article on The Guardian website