Some members of the opposition camp on Sunday staged an illegal protest rally in Yuen Long and, intentionally or not, significantly boosted the risk of spreading the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong. Incidentally, the special administrative region government the same day reported 108 more confirmed cases of the disease, a new single-day record. There is no doubt a new wave of novel coronavirus infections is sweeping through the city, and local residents are already in danger and must follow personal hygiene and social-distancing rules to the letter to stay safe. By organizing unlawful activities in violation of quarantine rules, the opposition camp and radical groups in particular will achieve nothing except putting numerous people’s as well as their own supporters’ health and even lives in danger.
The illegal gathering on Sunday was held in the wake of another unlawful assembly of a much larger scale on July 11 and 12, when the opposition camp staged a so-called primary election to produce fake popularity for the candidates they favor for the September Legislative Council election. That political farce was not only devoid of a legal basis but also an insult to common sense, human intelligence and human dignity, as it was held despite that the city was under a new wave of attack by the coronavirus. The fact that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases rose dramatically in the past week and peaked on Sunday could be a result of the unauthorized poll, which allegedly collected a total of about 600,000 votes at more than 250 polling stations. Whether all those ballots were “clean” notwithstanding, that event certainly put a lot of people at risk of coronavirus infection.
The Sunday illegal rally and the “primary election” held on the previous weekend were further evidence that the political zealots prioritize partisan interests over Hong Kong residents’ health and lives, a move transgressing the loosest moral boundaries. Whoever is behind such illegal assemblies must be held responsible for violating the social-distancings rule and thus endangering public safety.
The illegal gathering on Sunday also featured separatist advocacy in addition to endangering public health. The culprits were blatantly challenging the new National Security Law. They must face the full force of the law.
