World Press Photo Contest exhibition, featuring shots of Hong Kong protests, finally opens doors to the public

The exhibition was initially scheduled to open on March 1, but original host Baptist University pulled the plug after a pro-Beijing news site accused it of inciting violence

A series of photos from the 2019 Hong Kong protests by Nicolas Asfouri of Agence France-Presse took first prize in the ‘General News, Stories’ category

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The 2020 World Press Photo Contest exhibition opened its doors to the Hong Kong public on Sunday. Photo: Handout

Published: 8:38pm, 28 Mar 2021Updated: 1:27pm, 29 Mar 2021

An exhibition of the winning entries in the 2020 World Press Photo Contest – including five shots taken during Hong Kong’s 2019 anti-government protests – opened its doors to the public on Sunday, a month after Baptist University abruptly backed out of hosting the prestigious annual show.

The Amsterdam-based World Press Photo Foundation and its local partner, the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association, will be presenting a total of 157 photographs by 44 photojournalists from around the world at theDesk, a co-working space in Admiralty, through April 10.

The Hong Kong photos, by Nicolas Asfouri of Agence France-Presse, took first prize in the “General News, Stories” category. The main image selected for the exhibition shows a group of teenage girls in school uniforms crossing a road while holding hands after participating in a so-called human chain protest against the now-withdrawn extradition bill in September of 2019.

Other images by Asfouri include a shot of a female protester walking down a street holding an umbrella and a sign with the English word “Love” in Causeway Bay on National Day in 2019, and one showing a protester being held down by riot police.

A photo by AFP’s Nicolas Asfouri showing Hong Kong schoolgirls at a protest in 2019 is displayed at the World Press Photo Contest exhibition in Admiralty. Photo: Handout

Asfouri’s are the only Hong Kong photos in the exhibition. The other winning works include spot news photos of major events from across the world, as well as longer-term features about social and environmental issues, some of them from photojournalists who spent years on the projects.