HONG KONG -- On June 9, Jason So joined the sea of people stretching from Hong Kong's Victoria Park to its seat of government at Admiralty. On that day, more than a million people took to the streets to protest against a proposed bill allowing criminal suspects to be deported from Hong Kong to the mainland, a law that many saw as emblematic of a wider, creeping erosion of the city's treasured civil liberties.
"I have enjoyed decades of freedom in Hong Kong," So, a 57-year-old taxi driver, said. "As a parent, I need to fight for the future of my kids and even my grandkids. If the Communist Party continues to invade our freedom, and people become too scared to express their honest views, the next generation will lose their ability to think independently."