VANCOUVER—As hundreds of protester staged a massive sit-in at the Hong Kong International Airport, a group of Canadian students are issuing pleas of their own.

For several weeks, Hong Kong residents have been protesting for democratic reforms and the withdrawal of an extradition bill that has now been suspended. Their demands include direct elections, the dissolution of the current legislature, and an investigation into alleged police brutality.

A Vancouver activist group called Vancouver Hong Kong Political Activists (VHKPoActs) is demanding that the Liberal government raise the risk level in its travel advisory to Hong Kong. The current status urges visitors to take “normal security precautions.” VHKPoActs members believe the advisory should warn Canadians travelling to the area to “exercise a high degree of caution.”

The group, led by 18-year-old Joel Wan, is made up of 12 students and recent graduates from across Metro Vancouver, and aims to “speak up against injustice and the erosion of basic human rights.”

Wan said changing the advisory would “ensure all the Canadian citizens are safe, (and) to warn them about what’s happening in Hong Kong right now.”

“From our past experience ... a lot of locals here, immigrants here, they kind of lost track of what’s happening in Hong Kong because there’s a lack of English (media) that mentions what’s happening Hong Kong,” he added.

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Wan said the Canadian government should also take into account the brutal attacks on civilians last Saturday at a subway station in the neighbourhood of Yuen Long, where he said the police demonstrated a “double standard” in enforcing the law.

Wan and others in the group echoed the sentiments shared by some citizens of Hong Kong who criticized the police response to the attack in Yuen Long as slow and ineffective in dispersing the mobs.

“The street gangsters attacked the citizens, but the police force didn’t properly respond to it,” said Bonnie Ho, a college student and member of VHKPoActs. “So we realized that if there are Canadians that go back to Hong Kong, they might be harmed because the police force failed to enforce their duty.”

This month, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said that allegations police had colluded with the assailants were “unfounded.”

As a result of the attacks, dozens were injured and six were arrested, with police alleging some had gang ties.

In past weeks, protesters in Hong Kong have also called on foreign consulates to issue a travel warning for the city after the Yuen Long attacks.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said the move is “an attempt to incite external forces to intervene in Hong Kong affairs.”

“I advise those who invite a wolf into the room to learn from history,” she said at a regular briefing Friday. “Has anyone in history met a good end after colluding with external forces and blaming their own country and people?”

Hua also addressed concerns that China’s People’s Liberation Army will get involved. A defence ministry official this week cited an article in Hong Kong’s Garrison Law, which allows army troops stationed in the city to help with maintaining public order at the Hong Kong government’s request.

Since forming VHKPoActs on July 11, the students have organized several forms of political protest around Metro Vancouver in solidarity with protests in Hong Kong. The group has created “Lennon Walls” bearing messages such as “Freedom HK” and “Save Hong Kong” in Gastown and Richmond.

The first “Lennon wall” started in Prague in the 1980s, after people wrote messages of dissent against the Communist government on a public wall featuring a painting of musician John Lennon. Taking inspiration from Prague, similar walls went up during the 2014 protests in Hong Kong, made up of sticky-note messages. The walls have sprung up once again in Hong Kong since the start of the protests.

Members of VHKPoActs say they are frustrated and disheartened that some of the walls created in Vancouver, like the one at Simon Fraser University (SFU) campus, have been destroyed.

“The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees us the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, and yet a lot of times, some people just can’t embrace those values,” said Jane Li, a member of VHKPoActs who visited the wall at the SFU campus shortly before it was destroyed.

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“These are fundamental rights that we have, even if we have different opinions … we can respectfully disagree with each other … but just doing acts of destruction I don’t agree with that,” she added.

The members of VHKPoActs vowed that there would be other forms of protest coming in response to the Lennon Walls being destroyed and said they would not back down.

With files from the Associated Press and Cherise Seucharan

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