JULY 2, 2014 2:51 AMJuly 2, 2014 5:45 am
Marchers carried a scaled-down replica of the Goddess of Democracy, an icon of the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, during Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstration Tuesday.Credit Kin Cheung/Associated Press
Cecilia Ng was born seven years after the Goddess of Democracy statue in Tiananmen Square was destroyed during the bloody 1989 suppression of student-led protests. A quarter-century after the crackdown in Beijing, she and 10 of her friends made a smaller replica of the statue that on Tuesday was planted in the middle of one of central Hong Kong’s busiest streets.
Ms. Ng was one of the throngs of people who took part in the annual July 1 protest march in Hong Kong, which this year was focused on pressuring China to allow Hong Kong’s people to pick their leader in a way that meets international standards for free and fair elections.
Ms. Ng, 17, was born several months before Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997, under an arrangement that allowed it to retain a high degree of autonomy, including the civil liberties that made Tuesday’s protest possible. The demonstration was largely peaceful, even as people like Ms. Ng were engaged in a sit-in on a downtown street. Ms. Ng and some of her friends said they were ready to be arrested. Ashley Suen, also 17, said she planned to lie down when the police came to remove them, saying it would “increase the difficulty.”
After 3 a.m., Ms. Ng, Ms. Suen and their friends had left their creation sitting alone on Tamar Road, standing vigil between a Chanel store and the flagship hotel of the Mandarin Oriental chain. It wasn’t clear whether the two teenagers were among the 511 people whom the police arrested at the protests on Wednesday morning.
