HK protesters see virus fuelling movement

Bloomberg

Prominent activist Ventus Lau stood outside a restaurant, handing out surgical masks and asking recipients to shout pro-democracy slogans — including the popular rallying cry “Liberate Hong Kong! Revolution of our times!”
For Lau, who has organised some of the biggest anti-government protests since they began last June, the demonstrations are on hold as fear of a new coronavirus in neighbouring China keeps the city’s 7.4 million avoiding large crowds. But he says frustration over the government’s handling of the health crisis will fuel even more support for the protest movement after the virus scare subsides.
“It’s hard to separate the protests and the epidemic — they are in the same vein,” said Lau, who like other protest organisers, sees the disease as a new front in the broader struggle for more democracy. “The battle against the virus has helped us see the government’s incompetence and the failures of our system.”
Hong Kong’s protests erupted in June of last year in opposition to a since-scrapped bill allowing extraditions to mainland China. Even before coronavirus cases began emerging in recent weeks, the financial hub’s economy fell into recession after months of violent clashes between riot police and protesters.
The frequency of larger-scale protests began subsiding after a landslide win for pro-democracy forces in last November’s district council elections, followed by the Chinese New Year holidays and the virus scare.
Hong Kong’s government has come under fire for a shortage of surgical masks, choosing quarantine sites close to residential areas and a failure to quickly and fully shut its border with the
mainland. Residents have struggled to buy key staples, from rice to toilet paper, due to panic buying that retailers and the government say is unwarranted.