《TAIPEI TIMES》 Rights advocates urge public to join rally for HK

BATTLE READY: A local church has collected more than 4,000 gas masks and 600 helmets to lend its support to pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong

By Chen Yu-fu / Staff reporter, with Reuters

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Civil rights advocates yesterday urged the public to show their support for the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong by taking part in a rally in Taipei on Sunday.

Participants are encouraged to wear black and bring laser pens, Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy member Michelle Wu （吳奕柔） told a joint news conference by several Taiwanese civic groups who are organizing the rally.

Hong Kong has been rocked by protests for more than three months, amid fears of erosion of the territory’s judicial independence after the Hong Kong government in mid-June proposed amendments that would allow residents to be extradited to China for prosecution.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam （林鄭月娥） has withdrawn the bill, but the protests have not abated, amid calls for wider freedom.

Democratic Progressive Party （DPP） Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia （羅文嘉） blasted statements by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office that the DPP and pro-Taiwanese independence supporters “are playing with fire and will get burnt” if they get involved in the protests.

Beijing’s attempts to suppress Hong Kongers and marginalize Taiwan would only bolster the will of Taiwanese to uphold democracy and support Hong Kongers striving for freedom, Luo said.

In related news, Che-lam Presbyterian Church in Taipei on Wednesday said it had collected more than 4,000 gas masks and 600 helmets to send to protesters in Hong Kong.

The church said it had experimented with donations which had to comply with aviation safety rules and found that construction-type helmets and gas masks arrived in Hong Kong without a problem, while a shipment of laser pointers was blocked.

The protests in Hong Kong have turned violent at times, with activists throwing Molotov cocktails at police and shining lasers in their eyes, to which police have responded with tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets.

“I think that the Hong Kong of today might be the Taiwan of tomorrow,” church administrative assistant Alex Ko said.

“Be it Taiwan or Hong Kong, we all must not forget that Beijing authorities do not care about human rights and reasons,” Ko said. “We must not have any faith in them. We have to make ourselves stronger and make friends with the world to face this problem together.”

“If Taiwan does not care about its democracy and its freedom, and sacrifices its own future to do business in China, I think it is very likely that Taiwan will find itself in a similar situation,” he added.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES