Hong Kong: Baptist University professor leaves Hong Kong after police allegedly contacted over 2019 protest article

Arts professor Justin Wong’s article analysed the role that visual elements – such as yellow umbrellas, “V for Vendetta” masks and a pig mascot – played in the 2019 protests.

A Hong Kong professor left the city after hearing that his university allegedly contacted the police over an article he had written about the 2019 protests, joining a growing number of artists and academics emigrating amid concerns about the city’s declining freedoms.

The university, however, has denied making any such report.

artvocate Justin Wong
Justin Wong. Photo: Supplied.

Justin Wong, who worked at Hong Kong Baptist University’s (HKBU) visual arts department, told HKFP that he left the city within days of hearing in November 2021 that police had allegedly been notified about the article produced for an academic magazine.

“The school did not tell me anything. I just heard from different unofficial channels that the police [were] called,” Wong, who is now in the UK, said.

Written in the wake of the anti-extradition bill protests, Wong’s article analysed the role that visual symbols – such as yellow umbrellas, the masks from dystopian film V for Vendetta and a pig mascot from popular forum LIHKG – played in the months-long demonstrations.

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Hong Kong Baptist University’s Lee Shau Kee Communication and Visual Arts Building. Photo: Hong Kong Baptist University.

The article’s design featured popular protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” with the characters replaced with abstract-looking blocks. The slogan has been criminalised under the national security law.

Wong told HKFP he had heard that the alleged decision to notify the authorities about the article was a “high-level” one made by HKBU top management. However, HKFP was unable to independently verify that a formal police report was made, and police said they could not locate the case.

Baptist University professor leaves Hong Kong after police allegedly contacted over 2019 protest article