Scholarism convenor Joshua Wong, Occupy co-founder Benny Tai, and Democratic Party founder Martin Lee will be honoured at Freedom House’s 75th anniversary event in the US on Thursday, RTHK reported.
The democracy activists received an invitation from the US-based pro-democracy and freedom monitoring organisation and will be attending the event at Washington D.C.
Martin Lee told Reuters that he has yet to see any evidence of Xi pushing for human rights reforms in China. He said that local students still support “one country, two systems” and are not advocating for Hong Kong to be independent. He also said that the central government should keep their promise and implement universal suffrage in Hong Kong.
“If China doesn’t deliver on democracy [for] Hong Kong, then your president ought to know that any agreement that he might enter into with Xi Jinping could end up the same way,” Lee told The New York Times.
Student leader Joshua Wong said that a list of the names of 200 Scholarism members were made public after their computers were hacked, causing 90% of them to be refused entry to the mainland and Macau, which could affect their future. In May, Wong was denied entry to Malaysia by immigration authorities.
The trio hopes to meet with the White House and discuss the situation of Hong Kong, but such arrangements have not yet been agreed. Their US trip coincides with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the US.
