The video shows the moment in which Alexandra Wong, a longtime Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, is attacked by a young man who snatches her umbrella during a demonstration solidarity for the victims of the Urumqi firethe event that further exacerbated tempers by triggering the new wave of protests in China vs Beijing’s “Zero Covid” policy. The video shows the man stopped and escorted by the police while the woman is rescued by paramedics and taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Alexandra Wong is a popular character in the former British colony. The 66-year-old woman, known as “Grandma Wong” (Grandma Wong), made herself known for the first time in 2014 during the Umbrella Movement when, despite living in Shenzhen, she traveled to Hong Kong several times a week to participate to the demonstrations that shook local power and the control of the Chinese Communist Party over the city for 79 days. That revolt was over the “pasionaria” Alexandra to keep the torch of the claim of freedom burning returning every week alone to demonstrate with her umbrella in the Admiralty district in front of the government offices.
In 2019, when protests against the extradition law and in favor of democracy erupted, “Grandma Wong” came to international attention by waving a large British flag. Then her mysterious disappearance in August 2019 and her return to Hong Kong where she reported having been deported to Shaanxi and subjected to political indoctrination. Eddie Chu, a Hong Kong politician and activist said that the woman was repeatedly stopped by the Chinese authorities in Shenzhen on charges of “provoking discussions and problems”, a type of crime in the Chinese penal system. In July this year, Wong was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for attending two illegal assemblies in 2019 and calling the government an “authoritarian regime”.
Alexandra Wong continues her battle and is one of the dozens of protesters who have taken to the streets in central Hong Kong these days to show their support for the protests that have broken out in Shanghai, Beijing and other Chinese cities against the severe COVID-19 measures. 19. Before falling to the ground, she was heard shouting slogans such as “We don’t want authoritarianism!”
