Monday, March 1, 2021

A rare -- and remarkable -- scene outside the West Kowloon Magistrates Court today (Photo-essay)

 
 
At 8am, the crowd -- consisting of people who obeyed a call issued last night to wear black today -- was already sizeable.  And it still was so when I got there in the afternoon -- and stayed so until, at around 6pm, when the police came and removed the tape that was used to guide the queue of people officially waiting to get into the court and began hounding people to leave the area in front of the court complex.  For those seeking visual proof of the crowd size and such, here are some photos I took in the time that I was there:-
 
The lines of people stretched from inside the building 
to outside it and  around a corner hundreds 
of feet away from the building entrance...
 
...and they stayed put even as officers came over
to film and record the faces of those in the crowd

Loud cheers and chants (of "Hong Kong yan, ga yau"
and more) broke out after volunteers came around to 
give away free sandwiches and drinks to the waiting crowd
 
The chants and cheers got the police to whip out
 
Banner bearing the names of political prisoners and 
political messages hoisted inside the West Kowloon 
Magistrates Court building by someone waiting in line within
 
"Grandma" Alexandra Wong with her signs outside
 
 
I decided to call it at a day around 6.30pm, when the police started 
to clear people away from the area in earnest (and after hearing 
about Hong Kong than I did for much of yesterday and this morning

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