Germany has granted asylum to a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist who fled after being arrested in relation to last year’s mass protests. The 22-year-old university student, who has not been named, was held by the Chinese authorities on suspicion of rioting and faced up to ten years in prison. She is the first person to be granted asylum by Germany in connection with the democracy protests which gripped the city for much of 2019. Hong Kong police have arrested more than 10,000 people in connection with ongoing democracy protests in the city, including the elderly and children as young as 12. “I am grateful to the German government for granting me asylum,” the unnamed activist said in a statement released by Haven Assistance , an activist group. She fled to Germany via Taiwan a few days after she was arrested at a protest last November, and did not tell her family. “It felt surreal, and I was very upset that I needed to leave Hong Kong like that as I knew I might never return,” she told Reuters news agency. The Chinese government denounced the decision to grant her asylum, saying that it was “always opposed to foreign interference in China’s internal affairs on the issue of Hong Kong”.
