Far-right Ukrainian activists say they were ‘only in Hong Kong for protest tourism’ as concerns grow they could help authorities delegitimise movement
- The four men posed in front of riot police, a burning railway station and at Polytechnic University, the scene of a 13-day siege in November
- They also visited Ocean Park where they took videos of pandas and rode on roller coasters
Four far-right activists from eastern Europe were spotted at a recent protest in Hong Kong, sparking concerns they may help bids to delegitimise the movement despite their claims of only being in town for “protest tourism”.
But two local scholars argued they could hardly undermine the anti-government protest in Hong Kong, now into its sixth month, which had been leaderless so far.
The four men – from Ukrainian activist group Gonor – were seen at a march in Tsim Sha Tsui on Sunday. They included Ihor “Maliar”, a former veteran previously involved in resistance against Russian expansion in Ukraine, and Serhiy Filimonov, a former head of a branch of far-right party National Corps in Kiev.
The US State Department categorises National Corps as a “nationalist hate group”, which has been accused of attacking and destroying a Romany camp in Kiev in June 2018.
Filimonov denied the incident was violent. Maliar was previously involved in a racist attack at a football match in Kiev in 2015.
Both are also veterans of the far-right Azov Battalion that has fought against Russia and its proxies since 2014. Critics have linked some members of the battalion to neo-Nazi ideology.