Taiwanese Sunflower activists ‘denied entry to Hong Kong’ ahead of July 1 march

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Taiwanese Sunflower activists ‘denied entry to Hong Kong’ ahead of July 1 march

Trio were among leaders of movement which occupied legislature in Taipei in March; 'deliberate suppression by Communist Party and Hong Kong government' says group

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 25 June, 2014, 3:27pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 25 June, 2014, 4:31pm

Lai Ying-kit and Patrick Boehler

Students occupy the Legislative Yuan in March, including Lin Fei-fan (with microphone). Photo: AFP

The Hong Kong Immigration Department has barred three leading members of Taiwan’s “Sunflower Movement” from entering Hong Kong ahead of large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations expected next week, the activists say.

The trio – Chen Wei-ting, Lin Fei-fan and Huang Kuo-chang – are part of the movement which occupied Taiwan’s legislature in March to force its government to withdraw a service trade pact with the mainland.

The three had been planning to join the annual July 1 march in Hong Kong, which marks the anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, and to attend a seminar jointly held by Hong Kong and Taiwan pro-democracy activists.

The three activists tried to apply for an entry permit to the city via the Immigration Department’s online system on Monday, but their applications were rejected, Huang wrote in an e-mail.

Asked about the incident, the department said it did not comment on individual cases.

The notice informing Huang Kuo-chang that his application for an entry permit had been rejected.

Huang, an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, said he has visited Hong Kong twice, most recently in the summer of 2011.

He suggested that the Hong Kong government held a “blacklist” of certain people who are barred from entering the city, in a statement on his Facebook profile.

“It is pretty obvious that I am on some kind of a ‘list’,” Huang wrote.

In an e-mail, he added that he had no criminal conviction that would warrant barring him from entering the SAR.

His wife tried to apply for the same permit via the online system and succeeded, he said.

Taiwan March, an activist group in Taiwan in which Chen Wei-ting is active, said the decision showed that Hong Kong and the central government in Beijing were suppressing civil exchange between Hong Kong and Taiwan.

“The three have no records of violating any related regulations,” the group said. “We have reason to believe that this was a deliberate suppression by the Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong government.”

Chen Wei-ting. Photo: Ben Chang

The three were among leaders of the three-week occupation of the Legislative Yuan in March, intended to force Ma Ying-jeou’s government to withdraw a new service trade pact with the mainland.

They planned their visit days ahead of the July 1 march – which in the past has drawn tens of thousands of participants.

This year’s rally comes amid heated debate over how to implement universal suffrage for the chief executive election in 2017.

The pro-democracy Occupy Central campaign has threatened to stage a mass sit-in in Central if the government fails to deliver a proposal for the election that would guarantee voters a genuine choice between candidates.

The organisers say it would be a non-violent protest; the government says it could descend into violence and chaos.

Officials and some business leaders have also argued the protest would undermine the city’s economy and reputation.

An unofficial poll that started last week about how the 2017 election should be carried out has drawn 740,356 votes by 1pm on Wednesday.

Beijing has called the poll “illegal”, while the Hong Kong government also said the exercise has no legal basis.

Lin Fei-fan. Photo: Ben Chang