Tonight, a true David and Goliath story. We take you into the heart of the Hong Kong democracy protests, staring down Beijing. It's December 31st, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show. Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:02:09.540And in any moment, if you can help us, like the American people and President Trump, please help us.
00:02:17.000And I would like to have this chance to thank President Trump that speaks things in Hong Kong for us.
00:02:23.800Especially a few days ago, he spoke with a lot of powerful people in different countries about Hong Kong situation.
00:02:33.100And we appreciate that and thank you for him to help us speak out the hate situation in Hong Kong.
00:02:41.100And something we want to say to the American common people is that be careful of the Chinese business activity.
00:02:49.540Because actually they will slowly corrupt your whole country.
00:02:53.180The workers who are in the crew that joined the protest, China requests Cafe Pacific to give out a list of their crews that joined the protest.
00:06:27.660And the crowd almost immediately dispersed to get back to work.
00:06:31.420This is the Wall Street of Hong Kong, effectively.
00:06:33.680And these are not the typical protesters that you see wearing black and graffitiing the streets.
00:06:42.500These are people who sit at desks at work throughout the day.
00:06:46.000And they came out to protest and celebrate, even, the victory that the democracy movement had last night.
00:06:52.420And I think it seems like they were trying to get a reaction, trying to get people to break the law, to assault her even, so that she could act like a martyr, so she could show the world that these protesters are violent, vile people.
00:07:11.100They just shouted at her and booed her and exercised the liberties that they're allowed to exercise for the meantime, until 2047, when those liberties expire.
00:07:23.480We're standing here in the central district of Hong Kong, where their daily lunch protests, they call it, are happening.
00:07:29.800Now, what happens here is at 12.15 in the afternoon, they send out a text on Telegram saying where exactly it will happen.
00:07:37.180Yesterday, it happened on a street, sort of in their Wall Street area, their equivalent here in Hong Kong.
00:09:29.720And no one political party will forever be in power.
00:09:34.320All people like peace, but we also want justice.
00:09:38.940If justice is not done, how can people return to normal?
00:09:43.100Yeah, we want, but they need to stop the violence from the police first.
00:09:49.180I think it's more that things have been difficult recently, but this year has presented an opportunity for genuine reform and for things in Hong Kong to genuinely get better.
00:10:00.540Monday to Friday, we come out to speak to Carrie Lam, please satisfy our five demands.
00:10:08.680Unless she satisfies our demands, we will not rest.
00:10:13.320I believe government should work for the people and they should be scared of people, not the people who are scared of the government.
00:12:56.680And I don't want to say too much about it because I'm sure – well, I still have the SIM card on me.
00:13:02.840We're going to be bringing it back to Canada to analyze it.
00:13:05.540But I have it on good authority that this is something from what looks like a burner phone or it's something that could – it could trace a phone if it was in a device.
00:13:28.200It seems like a phishing attempt where you drop a SIM card and hope that the people who find it will put it in their phone out of curiosity.
00:13:36.300And when they do that, it could compromise the device.
00:14:15.380So we're going to look at it and see what we can find from it when we bring it back to Canada.
00:14:19.120We're here in Hong Kong today on Election Day.
00:14:21.700This is the day that Hong Kongers are coming to the polls to vote for their district councillors.
00:14:26.420It's pretty much the lowest level of government here in this city.
00:14:29.600But it's being taken by many as a referendum on the Free Hong Kong movement that we've seen grow over the past 36 weeks here in Hong Kong.
00:14:39.260The polling lines have gone around the block a few times actually.
00:14:42.740It's the longest polling lines I've ever seen.
00:14:45.420We've actually just interviewed a few of the candidates here, both pro-democracy and pro-Beijing.
00:14:51.380And as we were doing so, some police in full riot gear showed up.
00:14:55.160They had shields in the whole riot gear get up.
00:14:57.400Right now there's been no whispers of any sort of protests or demonstrations to be had.
00:15:02.560The protesters, we have it on good authority, they actually want to remain very cautious just yesterday and today because they don't want to get arrested.
00:15:09.600They could be detained to the point where they're not allowed to vote because poll stations could close and they would lose out on their opportunity.
00:15:16.380The protesters are very eager to vote.
00:15:18.740Like I said, the turnout here already, the polls have been open for just three hours and more than three times the usual amount of voters have showed up.
00:15:25.640It's about 160,000 people have already voted by now, the point of filming three hours into the polling day.
00:15:32.240We're going to throw to my interview here with Andrew Hsu.
00:15:34.600He was the pro-democracy candidate who actually lost an ear.
00:15:38.680A pro-Beijing hooligan actually came and bit it off while he was demonstrating with other Hong Kongers.
00:15:45.460In the early November, I was attacked by an attacker when I tried to protect the citizens, avoid the attacker's attack.
00:16:00.660If the time is, we have time machine and better at that moment, I would still come out to protect my Hong Kong citizens because actually it's a duty call as an elected representative in the constituency.
00:16:19.800As a Democrat, we understand that the Hong Kong government now is not responsive to Hong Kongers.
00:16:29.360They carry them and her government just responsible to the CCP and the Beijing authority.
00:16:37.240The new ambassador from Beijing to Canada just recently threatened the Canadian government that if they follow suit with the Americans with the similar bill that their Congress just passed, there will be severe repercussions.
00:16:55.760You can see that the Beijing government try to use their influence power all around the world and try to be gained from this influence.
00:17:12.500No matter, try to cover all those negative messages or evidence in the foreign countries or try to threaten the government or those politicians to just keep silence for the Chinese government's bad behavior.
00:17:37.580So, this is not a core values for our world.
00:17:46.180As a global citizen, we truly believe that democracy and freedom of expression is a very core values for human beings.
00:18:00.260And we cannot fear for this kind of threat and we must stay firm to support democracy and freedom.
00:18:14.340And I do hope that no matter if it's from Canada and the liberals around the whole world can continue to support our democratic movement in Hong Kong and stand with Hong Kong.
00:18:28.160Now, I want to compare that interview to a pro-Beijing candidate, his opponent, Andrew's opponent.
00:26:57.020Well, they want, A, they want to show you so that you can show the picture, see, oh, the military might.
00:27:01.980But then they also have people, the police here, gave an off-the-record briefing to the foreign press two or three days ago, saying, no need.
00:29:59.780So, I call on the international community, particularly the Canadian government, because I don't know whether you know, there are 300,000 Canadian citizens living and working in this city.
00:30:14.520So, Canada has a real interest here to make sure that peace is restored, that the government can enter into negotiation with the opposition and settle this amicably.
00:30:26.960Right now, we're in the middle of the demonstration outside of Pauley University.
00:30:31.740Pauley University is the campus where 20 students are holed up following eight days of being blockaded inside of the campus.
00:30:41.440Some say on Telegram that they've been contemplating suicide.
00:30:44.280Now, this crowd is gathered here in the aftermath of the election that happened on Sunday, where there's an overwhelming Democratic win.
00:30:51.080Now, that means that the pro-Beijing loyalist parties lost a ton of seats here in Hong Kong.
00:30:57.640And in light of that, all of these Hong Kong students and graduates have come to the periphery of the Pauley University campus and are chanting five demands, not one less.
00:31:10.360And now, if you look up there, we'll just point the camera up there.
00:31:14.960I'm not sure if you'll be able to see them, but there's police officers pacing along this walkway that goes straight into the campus from over here from the street, from the main market area right next to the campus, into the campus.
00:31:30.920There's police walking along there, and what we're seeing is the crowd is heckling them.
00:31:52.620Now, we were just over there where that flag is.
00:31:57.380And right where that flag is is the front line of this demonstration, where there's thousands of people here.
00:32:03.020That's the front line, and there's about two dozen police officers dressed up in full riot gear, shotguns, tear gas, the whole works, bear spray.
00:32:12.060And they're there guarding the entrance.
00:32:16.200There's a thin line of plastic that the media are pressing up against, and the protesters are pushing the media forward.
00:32:23.680And it's just getting closer and closer to the police officers.
00:32:26.560The tension here, you could cut it through the air with a knife.
00:32:30.660It's unbelievable what's going on here right now.
00:32:33.020No, it makes me think of protesters in Canada and the United States.
00:32:38.340I've been to many of these protests where Antifa is protesting in Portland and what have you.
00:32:43.540And it just, when you juxtapose their issues with what's going on here, it's like you cannot even compare Antifa to the five demands of these people.
00:34:57.440Well, they are concerned about whether the police will withdraw tomorrow.
00:35:03.260And then we hope that it's our wish that the police will withdraw tomorrow because, well, the authority of the university will go in tomorrow and then to take over the possession of the premises.
00:35:18.220When will the university statement come out?
00:35:55.040And then what we are going to do at the moment, we have to, like, pushing, we want to push in the, we want to push the university, the, to take over the university, not later by tomorrow, and then so the police will retreat.
00:36:38.100My guess is Beijing is going to want to throw the book at these students.
00:36:41.580They're going to want to make sure that they are crushed after they have stood up to Beijing, to Carrie Lam, and to the Beijing loyal government here in Hong Kong.