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1. I guess I’ve long come to accept as part of my life that friends just go in and out of jail. Here I am, again. I wish the same words and emotions don’t seem redundant, but the saddest thing is being so accustomed to it all. Nothing feels novel anymore.
2. Waking up early on June 17, 2019, I took a cab to the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre. I was so worn out from the day before by the historic demonstration of 2 million Hong Kongers, after which I lined up to mourn Marco Leung and stayed well past midnight around Admiralty.
3. But this was no ordinary Monday morning: @joshuawongcf was set to be released. I’d visited him several times over the preceding weeks, looking at his brown prison uniform through the thick glass that separated us and speaking over the handset for 15 minutes each round.
4. I hadn’t yet returned from Washington when he went in, so we last saw each other during @loktinau’s 2018 Legislative Council campaign. Now he finally got out. We were surrounded by reporters all over again, barely managing to enter our car with all the follow-up questions.
5. I accompanied him after lunch as he showed up to surprise students boycotting classes outside the government headquarters. Next, he did back-to-back press interviews (including with @RamyInocencio!) for the rest of the day. Rains fell intermittently on Victoria Harbour.
6. We were together in the early hours of June 21, when a spontaneous occupation of Harcourt Road spilled over to Arsenal Street nearby, where tens of thousands of people would arrive by midday to protest police brutality outside their headquarters.
7. Thus, the very week of his release, this was the “unauthorized assembly” that’d get him, along with @chowtingagnes and Ivan Lam, arrested in August. Then the whole cycle began anew: He was released on bail, having agreed to surrender his passport and report weekly to the cops.
8. Beijing and its puppet regime found in Covid-19 the perfect excuse to crush the opposition, banning rallies, canceling elections, and, finally, enacting the sweeping National Security Law throughout 2020. The pandemic, too, further delayed an already protracted legal process.
9. As more and more activists, prominent or otherwise, face different lawsuits, it can be very difficult to keep track of everything. Cases also pile on top of each other: In fact, Agnes was separately and suddenly rounded up three months ago for violating N.S.L. provisions.
10. So when Joshua told me a few weeks ago about reversing his decision to contest these charges, as he explained to the public yesterday, I understood: Pleading guilty in the face of an entire legal system rigged against you is the only hope for a more lenient jail term.
11. As he’s remanded in custody today, he awaits his sentence that will be handed down next Wednesday. How many months in — or maybe even over a year — is uncertain. What’s certain is that I won’t be there waiting for him the next time he gets out. Oh well. All the best, buddy.
