HONG KONG -- On Thursday's fifth anniversary on the "709 Incident" -- the day when hundreds of human rights lawyers were arrested in mainland China -- a group of Hong Kong supporters planned a public screening of a documentary film about the crackdown. But the event had to be canceled as the Hong Kong government had not approved it.
The documentary "709 Companion" is the third in a series being commissioned by the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, an organization in Hong Kong supporting the affected Chinese lawyers. The two previous films -- "709 Fellows" in 2017 and "709 The Other Shore" in 2019 -- were shown without any issues.
