Hong Kong Labour Day protest called off after organizer’s brief disappearance · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Labour day protest, 2019. Photo: Jennifer Creery/HKFP. With permission.
The original version of the report was written by Lea Mok and published in Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) on April 26, 2023. The following edited version is published on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement with HKFP.
A planned Labour Day march in Hong Kong was scrapped after one of its organisers went missing for four hours on April 26, 2023. The event was set to take place May 1 to assert workers’ rights.
The rally application was filed earlier this month by activists Denny To and Joe Wong, former members of the now-defunct pro-democracy coalition, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU). They regularly released updates about their application status on the Facebook page, Hong Kong May Day.
On the morning of April 26, a statement on their Facebook page said that Joe Wong had disappeared from his home and had been unreachable since 7:30 am.
His family and friends suspect that Wong might have been taken away by the police for investigation or arrested. They have contacted lawyers to follow up.
Four hours later, Denny To released a statement on the Facebook page announcing that Wong had “regained his freedom” at 11:30 am and suffered an emotional breakdown due to the pressure and stress:
故事會如此發展，在決定申請時已有預料。情節雷同，實非巧合。[…]
Before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Hong Kong would see large-scale Labour Day demonstrations every year with participants from across the political spectrum promoting labour rights and protections.
On April 11, To and Wong filed an application to march from Victoria Park in Causeway Bay to the Central Government Offices in Admiralty at 3 pm on May 1, with the maximum size of the rally set at 500.
However, the two organisers said on April 22 that they had been interrogated by the Hong Kong police about where they got their funding for the proposed demonstration and how they would guard against violent groups “hijacking” the march.
Hong Kong’s security chief later criticised Wong and To for making “irresponsible” comments that played down the “safety risks” of public rallies. The duo had urged the police not to “exaggerate” the risk of demonstrations being hijacked and that they believed the police had the capability of preventing violence from taking place in the rally.
Meanwhile, the city’s director of public prosecutions warned that “words are weapons” and that those who used their words to incite others to commit an offence would be punished.
Both Wong and To were among the ex-HKCTU members taken by national security police to assist in an investigation after the former head of the union coalition Elizabeth Tang was arrested on suspicion of foreign collusion last month.
The HKCTU announced its decision to disband, citing threats to members’ safety in September 2021. It was among the 50-odd civil society groups that folded following the implementation of the Beijing-imposed national security law (NSL).
While some small-scale public gatherings have recently been granted police approval, they have been subject to stringent measures. At Hong Kong’s first authorised protest against a government policy in about two years, demonstrators were made to wear numbered tags and carry their own cordon lines to define the crowd during the rally.
In June 2020, Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution — bypassing the local legislature — following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts, which were broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure.
The move gave police sweeping new powers, alarming democrats, civil society groups and trade partners, as such laws have been used broadly to silence and punish dissidents in China. However, the authorities say it has restored stability and peace to the city.