Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters declare ‘We are back’ in poster campaign from Victoria Park to Admiralty on fifth anniversary of Occupy movement

Protesters on Saturday put up thousands of posters across downtown Hong Kong, many declaring “We are back” to the government on the fifth anniversary of the Occupy movement. The anti-government activists started by building a so-called Lennon Wall at Victoria Park at around 3pm. They continued to stick posters – on walls, escalators, footbridges and the pavement – all the way from Causeway Bay to government headquarters in Admiralty, some 2.7km away. Some protesters formed human chains along sections of roads. Posters pasted up in Causeway Bay recounted all the major protests since June 9, the date of the first major demonstration against the now-withdrawn extradition bill. Other posters listed the protesters’ demands to the government, while others promoted upcoming protests on Sunday and National Day on October 1. In Admiralty, a spiral staircase outside government headquarters – the site of the original Lennon Wall created during the 2014 Occupy movement – was again plastered with a colourful mosaic of posters and Post-it-notes with pro-democracy messages, anti-government slogans and various works of protest art. The Occupy movement was a failed 79-day blockade in Central that protesters used to call for universal suffrage in Hong Kong. Five years after Occupy, Hong Kong is riven by conflict and chaos Mike, an organiser of Saturday’s demonstration, said the Lennon Walls were a defiant response to Junius Ho Kwan-yiu, a pro-Beijing lawmaker who last week called for the protest sites to be torn down across the city. “We have freedom of speech,” Mike said. “We want to voice our opinions in a peaceful way.” He said it took the protesters two days and a sleepless night to organise the Lennon Walls in Admiralty. They prepared 10,000 posters, by his estimate, but many protesters brought their own self-made signs. The symbol of the Occupy movement – a yellow umbrella – was seen everywhere, including on posters, T-shirts and a huge banner unfurled from a footbridge on Harcourt Road that read “We are back”. The banner was a nod to a similar sign that declared “We will be back” at the same spot five years ago on the last day of the Umbrella movement. The police on Saturday took the banner down within an hour. Wong, 30, a black-clad protester who helped unfurl the banner, said many in the protest camp looked back on the Occupy movement with regret. “To be honest, we failed,” he said. “We were fighting so hard for universal suffrage back then, and we still don’t have it now,” he said. “But as we have seen throughout this summer, we Hongkongers will never give up. We said we would be back five years ago – and today here we are.” A demonstrator in his 20s, surnamed Ho, was less optimistic. “It’s not worth celebrating the anniversary, especially because we still need to come out and fight for freedom five years on,” he said. Some passers-by showed their support, shouting “Hongkongers add oil”, and drivers honked the horns of their vehicles to show solidarity. But not all Hongkongers approved of the protesters and their tactics. “This is not environmentally friendly,” said a 35 year-old woman surnamed Wan. “Of course peaceful protests are better than violence, but there are other ways … like using social media. This is a waste of paper.” Some shops closed early in Causeway Bay, including Starbucks on Fashion Walk and the Apple store at Hysan Place. Ms. Pang, a housewife in her 40s, was waiting for a bus outside Southorn Playground in Wan Chai. “I don’t support them, their violence has affected my life,” she said. Protesters unfurl a huge yellow banner that reads "We are back" from a footbridge on Harcourt Road in Admiralty to mark the fifth anniversary of the Occupy movement. #hongkongprotests Video: SCMP/Nectar Gan pic.twitter.com/1wilRloxGD — SCMP Hong Kong (@SCMPHongKong) September 28, 2019 “They destroyed facilities at the MTR, which has a big impact on our daily life. Yes, they are putting up the posters peacefully now, but if you try to tear the posters off, there will be brawls.” Donald Keung, a 15-year-old student, said he believed some of the violence was forced by the police. “We got tear gas and rubber bullets for our peaceful demonstration. There is no inquiry into police violence yet, so I reckon our action might have been too conservative,” he said. “Compared to protests in other countries, our protests are less violent.” Another protester, a 29-year-old surnamed Chin, said: “We still don’t have universal suffrage, and the police are getting worse. What we learned from the [‘umbrella movement’] is the Hong Kong identify, which is vital to us. He continued: “Hong Kong is a very special city, a mix of Eastern and Western cultures, we should stick to that and keep this identity.”