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HONG KONG, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- As Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement enters its second month, participants are realizing the penalty for their protest. Some protesters, including three student leaders, have been denied entry into mainland China.
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Alex Chow, a 24-year-old leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, was traveling with two protest leaders to Beijing on Saturday to meet with Chinese government officials when they were told at the airport that their travel permits, required for travel into China, had been cancelled.
"A boy wants to go back to his motherland, but he is refused. Why? How can this make us love China?, Chow asked from a makeshift stage Saturday night, addressing several thousand protesters in the city's Admiralty district.
It seems that protest leaders are not the only ones being singled out for their pro-democracy activity. One young design student told the Washington Post that she was stopped at the border on her way to buy material in China last week because she had been filmed at a protest and was now considered a threat to national security.
"At first I just couldn't believe it," she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of additional government reprisal.
She and the student leaders are among an unspecified but growing number of protest participants being denied entry into China.
Protests began Sept. 26 to voice objection to Beijing's plans to allow only approved candidates to run for office in Hong Kong's 2017 elections, regarding the move as a violation of China's "one country, two systems" agreement providing Hong Kong with a specified but ill-defined "high degree of autonomy."
