[NEWS] Hong Kong activist seeks U.S. support for pro-democracy protests – Loganspace AI

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong said on Saturday he became searching out the enhance of U.S. lawmakers for the demands of his fellow protesters who secure led months of streets demonstrations, at the side of a name for free elections.

Wong, who spoke to Reuters in Unique York sooner than a deliberate talk over with to Washington, led Hong Kong’s pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” in 2014 and has been on the forefront of basically the most modern protests, which started over a now-withdrawn extradition bill but grew into demands for elevated democracy and independence from mainland China.

“We hope … for bipartisan enhance,” Wong said of his day out to Washington, adding that U.S. lawmakers ought to unexcited inquire the inclusion of a human rights clause in ongoing U.S.-China commerce negotiations.

He said he also hoped to persuade individuals of Congress to dawdle the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which can perchance well require an annual justification of the actual treatment that for decades has been afforded to the metropolis-relate by Washington, at the side of commerce and commerce privileges.

The bill would also imply that officers in China and Hong Kong who undermined the metropolis’s autonomy would possibly perchance maybe well face sanctions. Democratic U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer said earlier this month that it’d be a precedence for U.S. Senate Democrats of their original session, which started on Monday.

Hong Kong returned to China from British rule in 1997 under a “one nation, two programs” system that ensures freedoms now not loved on the mainland.

China has accused international powers, especially the US and Britain, of fueling the unrest.

The most modern protests, on the total titillating violent clashes with police, secure roiled Hong Kong for bigger than three months. Hundreds of hundreds of other folk secure taken to the metropolis’s streets, even shutting down its airport for 2 days. Demonstrators’ demands comprise an unbiased inquiry into what they describe as police brutality and long-established suffrage.

China is interested to quell the protests sooner than the 70th anniversary on Oct. 1 of the founding of the Other folks’s Republic of China. The nation has now not fervent its militia in efforts to quash the protests.

Wong said the Hong Kong other folk would back combating for their trigger by the anniversary.

“We can continue our grunt with our route on free elections,” he said. “I gaze no clarification for us to renounce and it’s time for the arena to stand with Hong Kong.”