'Grandma Wong' awaits trial after crossing border to join Hong Kong protests
A 63-year-old Hong Kong protester who disappeared from the rallies last August has said she is detained in China, barred from leaving the country and facing criminal charges.
Alexandra Wong, who is nicknamed “Grandma Wong,” has for years been a fixture at protests in Hong Kong, where she was born.
Ms Wong, who now lives in Shenzhen, a neighbouring Chinese city, would travel near-daily across the border to participate in political demonstrations in the former British colony, often waving a Union Jack flag to urge the UK government to do more to protect freedoms in Hong Kong.
She was last seen on Aug 11, surrounded by riot police at a Hong Kong subway station.
In two recent emails to the Telegraph, she said she was injured severely on Aug 11 by the riot police. She was then arrested on Aug 14 in Shenzhen and held under administrative detention for 15 days, before being sentenced to an additional 30 days under criminal detention.
“I am being on bail pending trial,” Ms Wong wrote to the Telegraph via email. “And I am forbidden to leave Shenzhen.” She said she was applying for permission to visit Hong Kong, and didn’t specify what criminal charges were being brought against her.
Two weeks later, she wrote: “Have been released from the small cage. Now!!! Be inside the big cage!!!”
Ms Wong also said she had spent a few days undergoing “patriotic education,” a practice that can include physical torture and Communist propaganda indoctrination, according to accounts from dissidents interviewed previously by the Telegraph.
“I cry everyday,” she said in her note, which appears to have been sent by email to a handful of journalists.
Ms Wong took great personal risk to participate in the protests in Hong Kong, given that she lived in mainland China, where state security and secret police operate with impunity, frequently detaining dissidents, human rights lawyers, even farmers who dare to challenge the ruling Communist Party’s authority.
Other Chinese nationals have also been detained in the mainland after traveling to Hong Kong in recent months.
Border security checks between mainland China and Hong Kong have stepped as as the protests grow in fervour and continue into a seventh month, affecting Chinese nationals, Hong Kong residents, and foreigners.
Some journalists and human rights activists, including Kenneth Roth, executive director Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, have also been denied entry.
Protests kicked off last June over an extradition proposal that would have sent suspects to face trial in mainland China, where Chinese Communist Party control of the courts leads to a 99.9 per cent conviction rate.
The demonstrations have since evolved into a greater civil disobedience movement aimed at curbing Communist influence in Hong Kong, which has long enjoyed freedoms unseen on the mainland and guaranteed under an agreement when the former colony was returned by the British to Beijing in 1997.
