Six Years On: The 721 Yuen Long Attack — Street Screening, Tokyo
- Project
- ACT-017
- Location
- Nakano Station, Tokyo, Japan
- Date
- 21 July 2025
- Reference
- 活動記録（日本語）— Lady Liberty Hong Kong
On 21 July 2025 — exactly six years after the Yuen Long attack — Lady Liberty Hong Kong held a street screening outside Nakano Station in Tokyo, showing footage of that night to passersby and sharing both what happened and what still has not been answered.
What happened on 21 July 2019. At Yuen Long MTR station in Hong Kong's western New Territories, a mob in white shirts indiscriminately attacked members of the public — commuters, a woman heading home, journalists reporting from the scene, and young people returning from a protest — beating them with metal rods and wooden clubs. More than 45 people were injured, several seriously. The assault ran for tens of minutes; despite repeated emergency calls, police did not appear, effectively leaving the violence unchecked. When officers finally arrived, they were widely criticised for questioning victims rather than arresting attackers. For many Hongkongers the night became a symbol of the collapse of the rule of law, and of suspected collusion between the police and organised crime.
Six years of impunity. To date only 13 people have been prosecuted; dozens of other attackers visible in that night's footage have never been arrested and remain free. The Hong Kong government has conducted no formal inquiry into who planned the attack, why the police ignored the calls, or whether there was collusion. The core questions remain sealed in the dark.
On the street in Nakano. Passersby who stopped to watch were visibly shaken — many lost for words that something like this could happen in a modern, civilised society. Alongside the screening, the team continued gathering signatures urging Seven & i Holdings to correct its labelling of Taiwan and Hong Kong, warning that improper corporate labelling risks endorsing Beijing's information control and its rewriting of history.
We keep speaking so that Hong Kong's pain is not allowed to fade, so that injustice is not made to disappear, and so that freedom and human dignity are defended.