Pro-Hong Kong Messages Destroyed, Vandalized At Cornell University

Since 2019, Cornell University student and Hong Kong native Kinen Kao has been posting pro-Hong Kong messages around campus, and recently said that every time he posts a message supporting democracy, it is torn down or vandalized.

Kao, in an interview with The College Fix, said he would not stop putting up the signs even though they keep getting destroyed.

“Nothing will stop me from continuing to fight for freedom for Hong Kong, until either the day Hong Kong liberates, or the day I die,” Kao told the outlet.

The Fix reported that Kao hasn’t been able to return to Hong Kong “since China’s hostile takeover of his homeland in 2019.” Kao is also the co-president of the Society for the Promotion of East Asian Liberty (SPEAL), and posts posters, fluorescent sticky notes, and other signs around campus that say, “Free Hong Kong” or “Stand with Hong Kong, Fight for Freedom.” He’s done this at least 80 times, he told the Fix, and every time the signs are damaged.

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Fearing for his safety, Kao said he livestreams himself on Instagram each time he engages in his activism.

Kao and Samuel Kim, co-president of SPEAL, told The College Fix that they are surprised pro-Hong Kong posters have been met with such resistance in America and on campus, and believe Chinese Communist Party loyalists may be among Cornell’s community, but there is no proof and no formal investigation has been launched.

Over the last 18 months, the posters and sticky notes have been ripped down, painted over, and even burned, they said.

Kao and Kim attempted to get the Cornell student government to pass a resolution condemning those who kept destroying the signs and “acts of silencing freedom of speech.” The resolution never moved past the committee stage, which the students said effectively meant the student government rejected it.

“To see that the Free Hong Kong signs have been torn down, or, most recently, burned, is very disheartening,” Kim told the Fix. “At the same time, it gives me the strength and motivation to become more active in raising awareness in the Cornell community about the pro-democracy movement in East Asia.”

Kim, however, couldn’t tell the outlet for sure who was removing the signs.

“If it is the case that Communist Party-affiliated individuals did tear down these signs, it would fit a pattern of an increasing use of intimidation against pro-democracy activists,” he said.

As The Daily Wire’s Charlotte Pence Bond reported last week, China “moved to limit Hong Kong’s democratic process in an almost unanimous vote.” The vote was mean to “approve a policy that would broaden the power of an existing election committee in order to ensure that ‘patriots’ are elected to govern Hong Kong.”

Critics, however, insisted the vote was meant to crush dissent in Hong Kong, particularly to avoid a repeat of the 2019 protests in which citizens demanded their freedom.

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