Removal of Tiananmen Crackdown Story Prompts Questions in Hong Kong
2015-02-03
Journalists and pan-democratic politicians in Hong Kong have hit out a decision by one of the city's most respected newspapers to cancel an article on the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square mass protests.
Staff at the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper, which removed former editor Kevin Lau last January, have asked the paper's editor-in-chief to explain why he chose to override a unanimous decision on Sunday by the paper's editorial board to run the story on Monday's front page.
The report was based on recently released diplomatic cables from Canada, and included a student's eyewitness account of the bloodshed that ensued when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) cleared the protests with tanks and machine guns.
Ming Pao editor-in-chief Chong Tien-siong has so far made no response to calls for an explanation, and repeated requests for an interview were met with the information that he wasn't in the office on Monday.
According to the paper's staff, Chong initially made no objection to the plan, but later ordered that the Tiananmen story be replaced with a feature about mainland Chinese Internet giant Alibaba as a role model for young, would-be entrepreneurs.
Ming Pao union leader Chum Shun-kin said the story that Chong pulled contained details about the contemporary history of the massacre, including eyewitness accounts of the killing of civilians.
"Maybe some people are thinking that, as editor-in-chief, he has the right to change the front page," Chum told RFA in a recent interview. "But the question is, whether it was reasonable to do so."
"If the entire editorial staff of the newspaper thought that this was a good story, why is he unilaterally ignoring them?"
Questionable judgement
Civic Party lawmaker Claudia Mo said Chong had shown questionable news judgement, and appears to be want to shield Beijing from embarrassment, instead of acting in the interests of the public and protecting their right to information, the Economic Journal reported.
Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau meanwhile called on Chong to explain his actions to staff and readers, as the incident could affect the Ming Pao's credibility.
Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA) spokeswoman Shum Yee-lan called on Chong to "communicate" with his own staff.
"He shouldn't use his power to make changes whenever he feels like it," Shum said.
The HKJA said it had been "concerned" about the Ming Pao after Chong replaced Lau.
"Now, not long after officially taking over, editor-in-chief Chong has suddenly changed the top story," it said in a statement on its website.
"This association believes that, in using his power as editor-in-chief to make unilateral and concrete decisions, Chong Tien-siong has taken leave of the current system in the editorial department," it said.
Erosion of freedoms
Under the terms of its 1997 handover to China, the former British colony was promised the continuation of its existing freedoms and a "high degree of autonomy."
But journalists and political commentators say Hong Kong's formerly free press is seeing its "darkest days" yet in what is likely a harbinger of further erosion of the city's traditional freedoms.
In a recent annual report, the HKJA pointed to a series of "grave attacks, both physical and otherwise in the past 12 months," including a brutal knife attack on former Ming Pao editor Kevin Lau, the sacking of Commercial Radio talk-show host Li Wei-ling and the removal of other prominent journalists from senior editorial positions.
Advertising boycotts by major companies and the refusal of licenses to pro-democracy media, and a major cyberattack on the Apple Daily website in June, have also been cited as reasons for concern.
A former Hong Kong talk show host who quit his job amid fears for his personal safety said last month that the threat to press freedom in the city had become apparent as early as 2004, seven years after the handover.
Albert Cheng, who once hosted the free-ranging political discussion show Teacup in a Storm, said he had been threatened physically that year, and later resigned from the show.
Frog in a saucepan
On Jan. 15, Cheng wrote in the South China Morning Post that the territory was like a frog in a saucepan of water that is heating up slowly.
"When the poor amphibian finally senses danger, it is too late to jump out," Cheng wrote in a response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.
"We in Hong Kong are acting like the metaphorical frog," wrote Cheng, whose raucous chat show with its jaunty theme tune and tea-pouring sound-effect was once a feature of daily life in the city.
"Self-censorship, physical intimidation, brutal attacks and pressure from the authorities are rampant in the local media arena," he wrote. "Freedom of speech and the press has been on a gradual, slippery slope."
"Our collective inability, or unwillingness, to react swiftly to such threats will only end in one result," Cheng wrote. "Before long, there will be a boiled frog in the pot."
Reported by Hai Nan for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Shi Shan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Topic: HONGKONG DEMO (Read 23559 times)
Hong Kong's Leader 'Can't Promise' Full Democracy Even by 2020
2015-02-02
In a fresh blow to the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement on Monday, Hong Kong's leader warned that there are no guarantees that the city's legislature will move towards full democracy by 2020.
Responding to demands from pan-democratic lawmakers, who hold 24 out of 60 seats in the Legislative Council (LegCo), chief executive Leung Chun-ying said his administration couldn't promise that all lawmakers would be directly elected by 2020, one election away from next year's scheduled poll.
"This isn't something that the current administration can promise," Leung told reporters, adding that Beijing's wishes would have to be obeyed amid huge popular pressure for universal suffrage.
Currently, 30 of LegCo’s 60 seats are directly elected from geographical constituencies, while the remainder is chosen by businesses, professions, labor unions, civic and religious groups.
The abolition of these "functional constituencies" and the direct election of all 60 seats were a key demand of the largely student-led Occupy Central movement last year.
Leung's comments came after thousands of pro-democracy protesters took to Hong Kong's streets on Sunday for the first time after the end of last year's 79-day mass protest and occupation calling for universal suffrage in the former British colony.
While the turnout was much smaller than the crowds that surged onto the streets at the height of the "Umbrella Movement," organizers said public feeling is still at loggerheads with Beijing's plans for future elections in the city.
Maintaining the status quo
Leung said the only alternative to following Beijing's election reform plan is to maintain the status quo, under which the chief executive is chosen by a 1,200-strong election committee handpicked by Beijing, and under which only half of Hong Kong's lawmakers are directly elected.
"That is one of only two options open to us—to make no headway at all," Leung said.
He said elections in 2017 to choose the next chief executive would be implemented according to the Aug. 31 framework laid out by the National People's Congress (NPC), which would permit only candidates vetted by a committee beholden to Beijing to run for the territory's top executive post.
Occupy Central campaigners, many of whom are students, have dismissed the plan as "fake universal suffrage," because pan-democratic candidates are unlikely to be selected.
Pan-democratic lawmakers have threatened to veto the government's electoral reform bill in LegCo in a bid to win further concessions on universal suffrage.
Leung's second-in-command Carrie Lam said there would be no horse-trading with lawmakers over the reform package.
"If we miss this opportunity, then it will actually be a lose-lose situation, because we will have lost the chance to elect a chief executive through universal suffrage," Lam said.
"We will also lose the opportunity to directly elect the whole of LegCo," she told a group of business leaders on Monday.
"To put it simply, you can rest assured that we be making no deals with the pan-democrats over the 2017 elections for chief executive," she said.
Reform plan
Democratic chairwoman and lawmaker Emily Lau called on civil society to reject the NPC's plan outright, and to get together to formulate their own reform plan.
Pan-democratic lawmaker Albert Ho said no talks had been held between government officials and pan-democrats, and that making public comments about possible concessions was a bad idea.
"If you tell people what concessions you might be prepared to make before anyone has even sought you out to discuss it, then people are going to think you'll be prepared to make a whole lot more," Ho said.
"This can't lead to a good outcome."
Meanwhile, political commentator Alex Lo, writing in the South China Morning Post newspaper, said the functional constituencies are "rotten boroughs" impeding the political development of Hong Kong.
"Beijing has drawn an explicit linkage between the functional constituencies in LegCo and the future nomination committee for the chief executive," Lo wrote.
He said the ruling Chinese Communist Party is very unlikely to abolish the functional constituencies, because the concept has inspired the principles on which the election committee is formed.
"If Beijing kills the functional constituencies, it would not only undermine the balance of power in LegCo [between pro-establishment and pan-democratic camps], but the raison d'être of the nomination committee," Lo wrote.
"Those rotten boroughs have become the main stumbling block to political reform."
China has resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong since the 1997 handover using the "one country, two systems" formula, which allows people in the city freedoms not enjoyed by mainland citizens.
While the territory's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal, Beijing's interpretation is at odds with that of pan-democratic politicians and democracy activists.
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2015-02-02
In a fresh blow to the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement on Monday, Hong Kong's leader warned that there are no guarantees that the city's legislature will move towards full democracy by 2020.
Responding to demands from pan-democratic lawmakers, who hold 24 out of 60 seats in the Legislative Council (LegCo), chief executive Leung Chun-ying said his administration couldn't promise that all lawmakers would be directly elected by 2020, one election away from next year's scheduled poll.
"This isn't something that the current administration can promise," Leung told reporters, adding that Beijing's wishes would have to be obeyed amid huge popular pressure for universal suffrage.
Currently, 30 of LegCo’s 60 seats are directly elected from geographical constituencies, while the remainder is chosen by businesses, professions, labor unions, civic and religious groups.
The abolition of these "functional constituencies" and the direct election of all 60 seats were a key demand of the largely student-led Occupy Central movement last year.
Leung's comments came after thousands of pro-democracy protesters took to Hong Kong's streets on Sunday for the first time after the end of last year's 79-day mass protest and occupation calling for universal suffrage in the former British colony.
While the turnout was much smaller than the crowds that surged onto the streets at the height of the "Umbrella Movement," organizers said public feeling is still at loggerheads with Beijing's plans for future elections in the city.
Maintaining the status quo
Leung said the only alternative to following Beijing's election reform plan is to maintain the status quo, under which the chief executive is chosen by a 1,200-strong election committee handpicked by Beijing, and under which only half of Hong Kong's lawmakers are directly elected.
"That is one of only two options open to us—to make no headway at all," Leung said.
He said elections in 2017 to choose the next chief executive would be implemented according to the Aug. 31 framework laid out by the National People's Congress (NPC), which would permit only candidates vetted by a committee beholden to Beijing to run for the territory's top executive post.
Occupy Central campaigners, many of whom are students, have dismissed the plan as "fake universal suffrage," because pan-democratic candidates are unlikely to be selected.
Pan-democratic lawmakers have threatened to veto the government's electoral reform bill in LegCo in a bid to win further concessions on universal suffrage.
Leung's second-in-command Carrie Lam said there would be no horse-trading with lawmakers over the reform package.
"If we miss this opportunity, then it will actually be a lose-lose situation, because we will have lost the chance to elect a chief executive through universal suffrage," Lam said.
"We will also lose the opportunity to directly elect the whole of LegCo," she told a group of business leaders on Monday.
"To put it simply, you can rest assured that we be making no deals with the pan-democrats over the 2017 elections for chief executive," she said.
Reform plan
Democratic chairwoman and lawmaker Emily Lau called on civil society to reject the NPC's plan outright, and to get together to formulate their own reform plan.
Pan-democratic lawmaker Albert Ho said no talks had been held between government officials and pan-democrats, and that making public comments about possible concessions was a bad idea.
"If you tell people what concessions you might be prepared to make before anyone has even sought you out to discuss it, then people are going to think you'll be prepared to make a whole lot more," Ho said.
"This can't lead to a good outcome."
Meanwhile, political commentator Alex Lo, writing in the South China Morning Post newspaper, said the functional constituencies are "rotten boroughs" impeding the political development of Hong Kong.
"Beijing has drawn an explicit linkage between the functional constituencies in LegCo and the future nomination committee for the chief executive," Lo wrote.
He said the ruling Chinese Communist Party is very unlikely to abolish the functional constituencies, because the concept has inspired the principles on which the election committee is formed.
"If Beijing kills the functional constituencies, it would not only undermine the balance of power in LegCo [between pro-establishment and pan-democratic camps], but the raison d'être of the nomination committee," Lo wrote.
"Those rotten boroughs have become the main stumbling block to political reform."
China has resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong since the 1997 handover using the "one country, two systems" formula, which allows people in the city freedoms not enjoyed by mainland citizens.
While the territory's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal, Beijing's interpretation is at odds with that of pan-democratic politicians and democracy activists.
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
No Tyananmen this time. China succesfully supressed the orange revolution. Good work China! =)))
Sad that in Ukraine ZOG have succeded.
Attackers Firebomb Home, Offices of Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Media Mogul
2015-01-12
Arson attacks against the home and newspaper offices of Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai on Monday sparked renewed fears for press freedom in the semiautonomous Chinese city following a string of attacks on outspoken media figures in recent years.
Unidentified attackers tossed petrol bombs outside two entrances of the Next Media offices in Hong Kong,and at Lai's luxury home on Hong Kong's Kadoorie Avenue in the early hours of Monday, his own newspaper reported.
The website of Lai's flagship Apple Daily newspaper showed clips from its own security camera footage, in which masked men throw a flaming bottle at Lai's mansion gates, and outside the main entrance of Next Media's headquarters, before driving away in a car.
In the footage from Lai's home, an explosion is seen as the bottle hits the ground.
A spokesman for Next Media, which owns the Apple Daily, said the attacks, which resulted in no casualties, were politically motivated.
"Violence and intimidation seem to be the ongoing currency for those opposed to democracy and free press. There is no other plausible explanation here," Next Media spokesman Mark Simon told Agence France-Presse.
"Anti-democratic forces in Hong Kong keep resorting to violence," he said. Lai reportedly went back to bed after being told what happened, and was unaffected by the attacks.
Apple Daily editor-in-chief Ip Yut-kin said the group will step up security measures following the attacks.
"Actually, we are pretty frightened, but I know that my colleagues will weather this," Ip told RFA on Monday.
"Naturally I condemn this violence, and call on people to behave in a more civilized manner," he said, adding: "We will probably be hiring more security guards now."
Senior Next Media union official Choi Yuen-kwooi said employees would likely take the attacks in stride. "This isn't the first time; previously, we were besieged in our headquarters [by a crowd of pro-Beijing activists]," he said. "We are used to weathering a storm."
Lai, 66, who founded Next Media, resigned from his positions as chairman and executive director after being arrested during police clearances of the 79-day occupation of Admiralty district by protesters campaigning for fully democratic elections.
Lai had made no secret of his public support for the "Umbrella Movement," that began on Sept. 28 and brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets at its peak, and said he was resigning to spend more time with his family and to concentrate on his "personal interests."
'Threat to press freedom'
The Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA) said Monday's attacks represent a "threat to press freedom."
"When the attackers threw those firebombs, they weren't just targeting Jimmy Lai," HKJA spokeswoman Shum Yee-lan told RFA. "Next Media is one of the most influential news organizations in Hong Kong."
"This attack ... is a threat to press freedom in Hong Kong, and the HKJA condemns such violence in the strongest terms," she said.
Pro-democracy lawmaker Frederick Fung agreed. "There have been a series of incidents targeting Next Media, which has a very different viewpoint to the government," he said. "How is this not connected [to press freedom]?"
He called on Hong Kong people to stand up in support of the territory's traditional freedoms.
"I hope Hong Kong people will unite against violence, and I call on the police to bring these violent perpetrators to justice as soon as possible," he said.
Hong Kong justice secretary Rimsky Yuen said the attacks, which come amid global fears for press freedom in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, wouldn't be tolerated.
"Regardless of who the victim of the attacks is, their social status, political background, or viewpoint, Hong Kong, as a city with rule of law, will certainly not tolerate this," Yuen told reporters.
"The police will carry out a full investigation, treating it like any other incident," he said.
But Hong Kong's Democratic Party called on the city's government to take more conspicuous action to protect press freedom in the city, which was promised a high degree of autonomy and the protection of its traditional freedoms under the terms of its 1997 handover from Britain to China.
"Following the terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo, world leaders stood up and walked the streets of Paris to participate in a protest against violence," the party said in a statement.
"The Democratic Party also urges officials to act to protect freedom of the press," it said.
Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau said there had been a number of attacks aimed at damaging Hong Kong's media organizations, and called on police to get to the bottom of the case.
"Are we going to send the message that there are no consequences for those who harm or attack [the media]?" she said. "Wouldn't that just be plain lawlessness?"
February rally
Meanwhile, a pro-democracy group on Monday announced plans for a major protest march on Feb. 1, the first mass rally since two months of Occupy Central protests ended last month.
The Civil Human Rights Front, which coordinates traditional mass protest marches on July 1, the anniversary of the 1997 handover, said the march would continue to call for fully democratic elections for the city's chief executive in 2017.
"We haven't come to the end of the road for the civil disobedience campaign for universal suffrage in Hong Kong, although police may have cleared the occupied areas," the group's convener Daisy Chan told reporters.
Chan said she didn't rule out the possibility of a spontaneous re-occupation of major streets and intersections in Hong Kong following the march, which ends at midnight.
The Occupy Central movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which will give the city's five million voters a vote each in the 2017 election, but will restrict candidates to just two or three approved by a pro-Beijing committee.
Beijing has said any reforms must stick to its Aug. 31 decree, and has slammed international support for the Umbrella Movement, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the handover arrangements is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2015-01-12
Arson attacks against the home and newspaper offices of Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai on Monday sparked renewed fears for press freedom in the semiautonomous Chinese city following a string of attacks on outspoken media figures in recent years.
Unidentified attackers tossed petrol bombs outside two entrances of the Next Media offices in Hong Kong,and at Lai's luxury home on Hong Kong's Kadoorie Avenue in the early hours of Monday, his own newspaper reported.
The website of Lai's flagship Apple Daily newspaper showed clips from its own security camera footage, in which masked men throw a flaming bottle at Lai's mansion gates, and outside the main entrance of Next Media's headquarters, before driving away in a car.
In the footage from Lai's home, an explosion is seen as the bottle hits the ground.
A spokesman for Next Media, which owns the Apple Daily, said the attacks, which resulted in no casualties, were politically motivated.
"Violence and intimidation seem to be the ongoing currency for those opposed to democracy and free press. There is no other plausible explanation here," Next Media spokesman Mark Simon told Agence France-Presse.
"Anti-democratic forces in Hong Kong keep resorting to violence," he said. Lai reportedly went back to bed after being told what happened, and was unaffected by the attacks.
Apple Daily editor-in-chief Ip Yut-kin said the group will step up security measures following the attacks.
"Actually, we are pretty frightened, but I know that my colleagues will weather this," Ip told RFA on Monday.
"Naturally I condemn this violence, and call on people to behave in a more civilized manner," he said, adding: "We will probably be hiring more security guards now."
Senior Next Media union official Choi Yuen-kwooi said employees would likely take the attacks in stride. "This isn't the first time; previously, we were besieged in our headquarters [by a crowd of pro-Beijing activists]," he said. "We are used to weathering a storm."
Lai, 66, who founded Next Media, resigned from his positions as chairman and executive director after being arrested during police clearances of the 79-day occupation of Admiralty district by protesters campaigning for fully democratic elections.
Lai had made no secret of his public support for the "Umbrella Movement," that began on Sept. 28 and brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets at its peak, and said he was resigning to spend more time with his family and to concentrate on his "personal interests."
'Threat to press freedom'
The Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA) said Monday's attacks represent a "threat to press freedom."
"When the attackers threw those firebombs, they weren't just targeting Jimmy Lai," HKJA spokeswoman Shum Yee-lan told RFA. "Next Media is one of the most influential news organizations in Hong Kong."
"This attack ... is a threat to press freedom in Hong Kong, and the HKJA condemns such violence in the strongest terms," she said.
Pro-democracy lawmaker Frederick Fung agreed. "There have been a series of incidents targeting Next Media, which has a very different viewpoint to the government," he said. "How is this not connected [to press freedom]?"
He called on Hong Kong people to stand up in support of the territory's traditional freedoms.
"I hope Hong Kong people will unite against violence, and I call on the police to bring these violent perpetrators to justice as soon as possible," he said.
Hong Kong justice secretary Rimsky Yuen said the attacks, which come amid global fears for press freedom in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, wouldn't be tolerated.
"Regardless of who the victim of the attacks is, their social status, political background, or viewpoint, Hong Kong, as a city with rule of law, will certainly not tolerate this," Yuen told reporters.
"The police will carry out a full investigation, treating it like any other incident," he said.
But Hong Kong's Democratic Party called on the city's government to take more conspicuous action to protect press freedom in the city, which was promised a high degree of autonomy and the protection of its traditional freedoms under the terms of its 1997 handover from Britain to China.
"Following the terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo, world leaders stood up and walked the streets of Paris to participate in a protest against violence," the party said in a statement.
"The Democratic Party also urges officials to act to protect freedom of the press," it said.
Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau said there had been a number of attacks aimed at damaging Hong Kong's media organizations, and called on police to get to the bottom of the case.
"Are we going to send the message that there are no consequences for those who harm or attack [the media]?" she said. "Wouldn't that just be plain lawlessness?"
February rally
Meanwhile, a pro-democracy group on Monday announced plans for a major protest march on Feb. 1, the first mass rally since two months of Occupy Central protests ended last month.
The Civil Human Rights Front, which coordinates traditional mass protest marches on July 1, the anniversary of the 1997 handover, said the march would continue to call for fully democratic elections for the city's chief executive in 2017.
"We haven't come to the end of the road for the civil disobedience campaign for universal suffrage in Hong Kong, although police may have cleared the occupied areas," the group's convener Daisy Chan told reporters.
Chan said she didn't rule out the possibility of a spontaneous re-occupation of major streets and intersections in Hong Kong following the march, which ends at midnight.
The Occupy Central movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which will give the city's five million voters a vote each in the 2017 election, but will restrict candidates to just two or three approved by a pro-Beijing committee.
Beijing has said any reforms must stick to its Aug. 31 decree, and has slammed international support for the Umbrella Movement, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the handover arrangements is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong's Pan-Democratic Lawmakers Stage Walk-Out
2015-01-07
Pan-democratic lawmakers in Hong Kong raised yellow umbrellas in the city's legislature on Wednesday in protest as the government announced a second round of public consultations on political reforms in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
Chanting "I want full universal suffrage," the 24 members of the Legislative Council (Legco) opened yellow umbrellas, the symbol of pro-democracy street protests that lasted for more than two months last year, before walking out.
Hong Kong's second-in-command Carrie Lam framed the consultation exercise as a public debate on the constitution of the controversial Beijing-approved election committee, which under an Aug. 31 ruling by China's parliament will vet candidates in the 2017 elections for the city's chief executive.
She said the reform package approved by Beijing would create a "solid foundation" for further reforms, including fully democratic elections for LegCo.
Umbrellas, yellow ones in particular, became the symbol of the Occupy Central movement for fully democratic elections in 2017 after protesters used them to ward off tear gas and pepper spray attacks from riot police on Sept. 28 that brought hundreds of thousands of citizens onto the streets in protest.
The Occupy movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which it calls "fake universal suffrage," and to allow publicly nominated candidates to run for chief executive in 2017.
But Beijing has said any reforms must stick to the Aug. 31 decree, and has slammed international support for the Umbrella Movement, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Vow to vote against
Pan-democratic politicians, who hold 24 out of 60 LegCo seats, have vowed to vote against the reform package, which will likely be put to a vote in mid-2015.
Lam said the pan-democrats aren't working in the best interests of Hong Kong's electorate.
"Anyone refusing to participate in the consultation, or even vowing to veto any constitutional development proposal ... is effectively depriving five million eligible voters of their opportunity to elect the chief executive by universal suffrage," she told lawmakers.
"I call on them to show some political courage and wisdom, and play a positive part in this debate, and not to boycott the consultation or the electoral reform package," Lam said.
"If the electoral reform proposals for the 2017 chief executive elections aren't passed, then that will leave no room for a directly elected LegCo in 2020," she said.
"In that case, we would have to wait until 2022 to directly elect the chief executive, and the development of democracy in Hong Kong will be delayed still further."
The Hong Kong government is inviting opinions on how the election committee should be constituted, how nominations should work, and other details.
Call to participate
According to China's National People's Congress (NPC) standing committee, the nominating committee should be based on the same principles as the election committee that voted in current chief executive C.Y. Leung in 2012, incorporating representatives of business, the professions, community groups, and politicians.
There is still some leeway for adjusting the number of members in each sector and exactly who will be allowed to vote for them, Lam said.
Leung on Wednesday also called on pan-democratic politicians to take part in the consultation process.
"It is better to have universal suffrage than not, and moving forward is always better than standing still," Leung said in a statement.
Pan-democratic lawmaker and Labour Party chairman Lee Cheuk-yan hit out at the NPC for "stripping Hong Kong people of their rights," however.
"This second round of consultations is going forward on the basis of the NPC's framework, so actually there is no room to move towards genuine universal suffrage at all," Lee said.
"If Carrie Lam wants to take away people's right to vote, then she should come out and admit the truth," he said.
'Fancy words and spin'
Occupy Central student leader Lester Shum agreed.
"It doesn't matter how much the government and the political establishment try to dress this up in fancy words and spin," Shum told reporters.
"Any electoral reform on the basis of the Aug. 31 decision ... will strangle the hopes of the Hong Kong people for the exercise of their political rights, including the equal right to nominate candidates," Shum said.
"We will be campaigning for LegCo members to veto this reform package," he added.
Fellow Occupy student leader Joshua Wong said that his academic activist group Scholarism is now in the process of collecting views from its student membership, and is spreading its message on Hong Kong's university and college campuses.
One of a handful of Occupy Central protesters who remained near LegCo on Wednesday called consultation process "meaningless."
"This is a waste of time, because they have already made up their minds," the protester, who gave only his surname Lau, told RFA.
"They are saying that the NPC's decision can't be altered at all, and that they don't care at all about the will of the people," he said.
He added: "I think we will be carrying out some more actions, because we are still as dissatisfied as we were before."
'Unhelpful'
But Tam Yiu-chung, chairman of pro-Beijing party the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said the pan-democrats' attitude was "unhelpful."
"They shouldn't carry out a boycott or other unfortunate actions; I don't think this will help the situation," Tam said.
Retired Chinese diplomat Chen Zuo'er, who headed Beijing's negotiating team ahead of the handover from British colonial rule in 1997, said the consultation process would probably benefit from having been delayed until after the 79-day occupation of major highways in Hong Kong ended last month.
"The majority of Hong Kong's citizens have learned a lesson from the illegal Occupy Central movement, as well as from the reflections of a number of scholars at [China's] National Research Council For Hong Kong and Macau," Chen told reporters.
"[They know now] how Hong Kong should proceed along the road to democracy, and how democracy should be furthered," he said.
Hong Kong police, who made dozens of arrests during the clearance of Occupy sites on the orders of the city's High Court last year, will target 32 core activists from the Occupy movement in a first round of arrests on public order and contempt of court charges, government broadcaster RTHK quoted unnamed sources as saying.
Those on the list include Occupy Central founders Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-ming, as well as outspoken Next Media boss Jimmy Lai, RTHK said.
Reported by Dai Weisen for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2015-01-07
Pan-democratic lawmakers in Hong Kong raised yellow umbrellas in the city's legislature on Wednesday in protest as the government announced a second round of public consultations on political reforms in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
Chanting "I want full universal suffrage," the 24 members of the Legislative Council (Legco) opened yellow umbrellas, the symbol of pro-democracy street protests that lasted for more than two months last year, before walking out.
Hong Kong's second-in-command Carrie Lam framed the consultation exercise as a public debate on the constitution of the controversial Beijing-approved election committee, which under an Aug. 31 ruling by China's parliament will vet candidates in the 2017 elections for the city's chief executive.
She said the reform package approved by Beijing would create a "solid foundation" for further reforms, including fully democratic elections for LegCo.
Umbrellas, yellow ones in particular, became the symbol of the Occupy Central movement for fully democratic elections in 2017 after protesters used them to ward off tear gas and pepper spray attacks from riot police on Sept. 28 that brought hundreds of thousands of citizens onto the streets in protest.
The Occupy movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which it calls "fake universal suffrage," and to allow publicly nominated candidates to run for chief executive in 2017.
But Beijing has said any reforms must stick to the Aug. 31 decree, and has slammed international support for the Umbrella Movement, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Vow to vote against
Pan-democratic politicians, who hold 24 out of 60 LegCo seats, have vowed to vote against the reform package, which will likely be put to a vote in mid-2015.
Lam said the pan-democrats aren't working in the best interests of Hong Kong's electorate.
"Anyone refusing to participate in the consultation, or even vowing to veto any constitutional development proposal ... is effectively depriving five million eligible voters of their opportunity to elect the chief executive by universal suffrage," she told lawmakers.
"I call on them to show some political courage and wisdom, and play a positive part in this debate, and not to boycott the consultation or the electoral reform package," Lam said.
"If the electoral reform proposals for the 2017 chief executive elections aren't passed, then that will leave no room for a directly elected LegCo in 2020," she said.
"In that case, we would have to wait until 2022 to directly elect the chief executive, and the development of democracy in Hong Kong will be delayed still further."
The Hong Kong government is inviting opinions on how the election committee should be constituted, how nominations should work, and other details.
Call to participate
According to China's National People's Congress (NPC) standing committee, the nominating committee should be based on the same principles as the election committee that voted in current chief executive C.Y. Leung in 2012, incorporating representatives of business, the professions, community groups, and politicians.
There is still some leeway for adjusting the number of members in each sector and exactly who will be allowed to vote for them, Lam said.
Leung on Wednesday also called on pan-democratic politicians to take part in the consultation process.
"It is better to have universal suffrage than not, and moving forward is always better than standing still," Leung said in a statement.
Pan-democratic lawmaker and Labour Party chairman Lee Cheuk-yan hit out at the NPC for "stripping Hong Kong people of their rights," however.
"This second round of consultations is going forward on the basis of the NPC's framework, so actually there is no room to move towards genuine universal suffrage at all," Lee said.
"If Carrie Lam wants to take away people's right to vote, then she should come out and admit the truth," he said.
'Fancy words and spin'
Occupy Central student leader Lester Shum agreed.
"It doesn't matter how much the government and the political establishment try to dress this up in fancy words and spin," Shum told reporters.
"Any electoral reform on the basis of the Aug. 31 decision ... will strangle the hopes of the Hong Kong people for the exercise of their political rights, including the equal right to nominate candidates," Shum said.
"We will be campaigning for LegCo members to veto this reform package," he added.
Fellow Occupy student leader Joshua Wong said that his academic activist group Scholarism is now in the process of collecting views from its student membership, and is spreading its message on Hong Kong's university and college campuses.
One of a handful of Occupy Central protesters who remained near LegCo on Wednesday called consultation process "meaningless."
"This is a waste of time, because they have already made up their minds," the protester, who gave only his surname Lau, told RFA.
"They are saying that the NPC's decision can't be altered at all, and that they don't care at all about the will of the people," he said.
He added: "I think we will be carrying out some more actions, because we are still as dissatisfied as we were before."
'Unhelpful'
But Tam Yiu-chung, chairman of pro-Beijing party the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said the pan-democrats' attitude was "unhelpful."
"They shouldn't carry out a boycott or other unfortunate actions; I don't think this will help the situation," Tam said.
Retired Chinese diplomat Chen Zuo'er, who headed Beijing's negotiating team ahead of the handover from British colonial rule in 1997, said the consultation process would probably benefit from having been delayed until after the 79-day occupation of major highways in Hong Kong ended last month.
"The majority of Hong Kong's citizens have learned a lesson from the illegal Occupy Central movement, as well as from the reflections of a number of scholars at [China's] National Research Council For Hong Kong and Macau," Chen told reporters.
"[They know now] how Hong Kong should proceed along the road to democracy, and how democracy should be furthered," he said.
Hong Kong police, who made dozens of arrests during the clearance of Occupy sites on the orders of the city's High Court last year, will target 32 core activists from the Occupy movement in a first round of arrests on public order and contempt of court charges, government broadcaster RTHK quoted unnamed sources as saying.
Those on the list include Occupy Central founders Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-ming, as well as outspoken Next Media boss Jimmy Lai, RTHK said.
Reported by Dai Weisen for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong Education System Should be More Patriotic: Chinese Officials
2015-01-08
Chinese officials have hit out at a lack of patriotism in Hong Kong's education system as a major factor behind the city's 79-day Occupy Central pro-democracy movement, in a move that is likely to reignite a heated debate over Beijing's "patriotic education" proposals for schoolchildren in the former British colony.
Former diplomat and government adviser Chen Zuo'er called on Thursday for Hong Kong's education secretary to be subject to scrutiny from the central government at all times, in a bid to prevent "noxious weeds" from coming through the system.
Chen, who led the Chinese negotiating team ahead of the 1997 handover to Beijing, warned that the secretary for education is "under the supervision of the central government and Hong Kong society at all times," and has sworn to uphold the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
Chen lamented a lack of nationalistic feeling among the semiautonomous territory's young people, blaming the city's school curriculum for failing to take into account issues of "national security and sovereignty."
"Why was the education sector in such a mess during Occupy Central?" Chen asked a youth forum in Beijing.
"How did these young men, who were just toddlers at the handover, turn into those people on the front line brandishing the UK national flag and storming into our military camps and government?"
"It is clear that there have been problems all along with education in Hong Kong," Chen said. "Many people have a distinct lack of national democratic and civic awareness, life goals, and knowledge in geography, history, and culture," he said.
'Noxious weeds'
He called on Hong Kong officials to eradicate "noxious weeds" from the education sector, and to allow "green shoots" to flourish.
The Occupy Central movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which will give the city's five million voters a vote each in the election, but will restrict candidates to just two or three approved by a pro-Beijing committee.
But Beijing has said any reforms must stick to its Aug. 31 decree, and has slammed international support for the Umbrella Movement, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the handover arrangements is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Hong Kong student groups played a leading role in the Umbrella Movement, which camped out on major roads and intersections amid an ongoing civil disobedience campaign for more than two months beginning on Sept. 28.
In 2013, they came out in force to protest plans to include "patriotic education" and Beijing-approved textbooks in Hong Kong classrooms. The plans have since been shelved.
Beijing is watching
Chan Sik Chee, convenor of the National Education Concern group, said Chen's comments appear to be a warning to education secretary Eddie Ng.
"It's as if he wants to put pressure on by saying 'the central government is watching you,'" she said. "This is going to make parents in Hong Kong very worried indeed."
"Are they saying that because Occupy Central happened, not enough has been done, and that they are going to push this curriculum, or reform it, to change the way people think?"
"That would be unwise, because young people now are even more independent-minded now that they were [before Occupy Central]," she said.
As if to prove her point, Joshua Wong, who heads the academic activist group Scholarism, waylaid Hong Kong's second-in-command Carrie Lam in the corridors of a radio station, criticizing the government's recent summing up of public opinion following the Occupy movement.
"I think you might want to take a look at these assessment criteria for high school students with regard to your public opinion summary," Wong told Lam, proffering a document telling teachers how to mark student assignments in liberal studies disciplines.
"Why would you say in your report that there is a consensus in Hong Kong that people want to proceed with universal suffrage under the framework of the Aug. 31 decision from the National People's Congress (NPC)?"
Lam defended the government's statement, but took the document.
End to academic freedom
Chinese University of Hong Kong sociology professor Chan Kin-man, one of the original three founders of the Occupy movement, said that if Chan's comments are heeded, it could mean the end of academic and other freedoms in the territory.
"People's fight for democracy does not mean they do not love the country," he told Hong Kong's English-language South China Morning Post newspaper.
Chen's comments came after Beijing University law professor Rao Geping, who advises the ruling Chinese Communist Party on Hong Kong affairs, said the city's government should try once again to introduce a system of "national education" into Hong Kong schools.
"Hong Kong hasn't done an ideal job of educating its youth about how to adapt to its status under 'one country, two systems'," Rao told a Hong Kong and Macau studies forum in Beijing on Wednesday, in a reference to the formula under which Hong Kong was handed back to China amid promises of "a high degree of autonomy."
He said the city's young people should be taught about "decolonisation," as its schools have inherited some issues from British colonial rule.
Hong Kong lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen, who represents the education sector in the Legislative Council (LegCo) and heads a major teachers' union, said Chen has no understanding of young people in Hong Kong, however.
"He sees the problem as being that young people aren't passively obedient, but I think the real conflict lies elsewhere, around a political system that Hong Kong people really want to see implemented," Ip said, in a reference to Occupy Central's campaign for public nomination of election candidates in the 2017 poll for chief executive.
"He really doesn't understand the attitudes of young people in Hong Kong," he said.
Reported by Dai Weisen for RFA’s Cantonese Service and Qiao Long for Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2015-01-08
Chinese officials have hit out at a lack of patriotism in Hong Kong's education system as a major factor behind the city's 79-day Occupy Central pro-democracy movement, in a move that is likely to reignite a heated debate over Beijing's "patriotic education" proposals for schoolchildren in the former British colony.
Former diplomat and government adviser Chen Zuo'er called on Thursday for Hong Kong's education secretary to be subject to scrutiny from the central government at all times, in a bid to prevent "noxious weeds" from coming through the system.
Chen, who led the Chinese negotiating team ahead of the 1997 handover to Beijing, warned that the secretary for education is "under the supervision of the central government and Hong Kong society at all times," and has sworn to uphold the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
Chen lamented a lack of nationalistic feeling among the semiautonomous territory's young people, blaming the city's school curriculum for failing to take into account issues of "national security and sovereignty."
"Why was the education sector in such a mess during Occupy Central?" Chen asked a youth forum in Beijing.
"How did these young men, who were just toddlers at the handover, turn into those people on the front line brandishing the UK national flag and storming into our military camps and government?"
"It is clear that there have been problems all along with education in Hong Kong," Chen said. "Many people have a distinct lack of national democratic and civic awareness, life goals, and knowledge in geography, history, and culture," he said.
'Noxious weeds'
He called on Hong Kong officials to eradicate "noxious weeds" from the education sector, and to allow "green shoots" to flourish.
The Occupy Central movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which will give the city's five million voters a vote each in the election, but will restrict candidates to just two or three approved by a pro-Beijing committee.
But Beijing has said any reforms must stick to its Aug. 31 decree, and has slammed international support for the Umbrella Movement, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the handover arrangements is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Hong Kong student groups played a leading role in the Umbrella Movement, which camped out on major roads and intersections amid an ongoing civil disobedience campaign for more than two months beginning on Sept. 28.
In 2013, they came out in force to protest plans to include "patriotic education" and Beijing-approved textbooks in Hong Kong classrooms. The plans have since been shelved.
Beijing is watching
Chan Sik Chee, convenor of the National Education Concern group, said Chen's comments appear to be a warning to education secretary Eddie Ng.
"It's as if he wants to put pressure on by saying 'the central government is watching you,'" she said. "This is going to make parents in Hong Kong very worried indeed."
"Are they saying that because Occupy Central happened, not enough has been done, and that they are going to push this curriculum, or reform it, to change the way people think?"
"That would be unwise, because young people now are even more independent-minded now that they were [before Occupy Central]," she said.
As if to prove her point, Joshua Wong, who heads the academic activist group Scholarism, waylaid Hong Kong's second-in-command Carrie Lam in the corridors of a radio station, criticizing the government's recent summing up of public opinion following the Occupy movement.
"I think you might want to take a look at these assessment criteria for high school students with regard to your public opinion summary," Wong told Lam, proffering a document telling teachers how to mark student assignments in liberal studies disciplines.
"Why would you say in your report that there is a consensus in Hong Kong that people want to proceed with universal suffrage under the framework of the Aug. 31 decision from the National People's Congress (NPC)?"
Lam defended the government's statement, but took the document.
End to academic freedom
Chinese University of Hong Kong sociology professor Chan Kin-man, one of the original three founders of the Occupy movement, said that if Chan's comments are heeded, it could mean the end of academic and other freedoms in the territory.
"People's fight for democracy does not mean they do not love the country," he told Hong Kong's English-language South China Morning Post newspaper.
Chen's comments came after Beijing University law professor Rao Geping, who advises the ruling Chinese Communist Party on Hong Kong affairs, said the city's government should try once again to introduce a system of "national education" into Hong Kong schools.
"Hong Kong hasn't done an ideal job of educating its youth about how to adapt to its status under 'one country, two systems'," Rao told a Hong Kong and Macau studies forum in Beijing on Wednesday, in a reference to the formula under which Hong Kong was handed back to China amid promises of "a high degree of autonomy."
He said the city's young people should be taught about "decolonisation," as its schools have inherited some issues from British colonial rule.
Hong Kong lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen, who represents the education sector in the Legislative Council (LegCo) and heads a major teachers' union, said Chen has no understanding of young people in Hong Kong, however.
"He sees the problem as being that young people aren't passively obedient, but I think the real conflict lies elsewhere, around a political system that Hong Kong people really want to see implemented," Ip said, in a reference to Occupy Central's campaign for public nomination of election candidates in the 2017 poll for chief executive.
"He really doesn't understand the attitudes of young people in Hong Kong," he said.
Reported by Dai Weisen for RFA’s Cantonese Service and Qiao Long for Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Surprise the protest is still on going.
Hong Kong Girl Released Under Strict Conditions Over Chalk Scrawl
2014-12-31
A judge in Hong Kong on Wednesday released a 14-year-old girl sent to a children's home after chalking a flower on the Lennon Wall pro-democracy site, but under strict curfew pending further hearings.
As embattled Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying presided with his family over the city's annual New Year countdown and fireworks display over the iconic Victoria Harbor, the girl, who has become known as Chalk Girl on social media, has been barred from leaving her home unaccompanied as a condition of her release, her lawyer said.
The would-be protester had chalked two flowers around a sticky-taped umbrella, symbol of the 79-day "Umbrella Movement" that occupied key highways and intersections in the semiautonomous Chinese city amid calls for fully democratic elections.
Her drawing sparked a rash of copycat chalk-drawing protests across Hong Kong, where police actions to clear protesters and an inflexible approach from local officials and the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing have left public anger simmering since protest sites were cleared earlier this month.
Under the conditions of her release, the girl must continue her studies and observe a curfew between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., as well as ensure she never leaves the house unaccompanied by her father, sister or a social worker.
Appeal hearing
The decision came after an emergency hearing of an appeal against the referral to a children's home under child protection laws lodged by top barrister and Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee.
The academic activist group Scholarism set up an online petition in protest at her detention and the continuing threat of separation from her father on Thursday.
The girl's detention in a children's home sparked visits from members of Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo) earlier on Wednesday, as well as a public outcry among concerned citizens and accusations of "white terror" leveled at police and government.
A spokesperson for Hong Kong's Justice Department said the child protection order had been applied for by police and been granted by the court.
A spokesperson for the Social Welfare department said only that the girl had "received appropriate care" while she was in the children's home.
Second detention
The girl's Dec. 23 detention under a child protection order is the second to be reported in connection with the Occupy Central movement.
In November, police detained arrested a 14-year-old boy during the clearance of a protest site in Kowloon. He has been allowed to stay with his parents while awaiting a hearing scheduled for Jan. 12.
Neither child has been charged with any crime, but their parents' ability to offer an adequate home is now under assessment by the authorities.
Umbrella-wielding protesters clustered among the regular crowds on Wednesday as Hong Kong began its countdown celebrations to usher in the New Year.
A post by Umbrella Movement protesters on Facebook called on pro-democracy movement followers to gather at 2 p.m. to protest the 14-year-old's detention.
"We want to show this power-crazed administration...that we stand with this 14-year-old girl," the post said.
It called on protesters to scribble chalk flowers and stick Post-it notes in protest at what it called an "abuse of power" by Hong Kong's police force.
Police are expecting some 380,000 people to turn out as crowds gather to usher in 2015, and hoping to forestall "walkabout" style democracy protests which have taken the place of the occupation sites in recent weeks.
Umbrellas, yellow ones in particular, became the symbol of the Occupy Central movement for fully democratic elections in 2017 after protesters used them to ward off tear gas and pepper spray attacks from riot police on Sept. 28, bringing hundreds of thousands of citizens out onto the streets in protest over police action in the days that followed.
The Occupy movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which it says is "fake universal suffrage," and allow publicly nominated candidates to run for chief executive in 2017.
An Aug. 31 decision by China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), decreed that while all 5 million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, they may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
Beijing has also criticized international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Reported by Dai Weisen for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2014-12-31
A judge in Hong Kong on Wednesday released a 14-year-old girl sent to a children's home after chalking a flower on the Lennon Wall pro-democracy site, but under strict curfew pending further hearings.
As embattled Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying presided with his family over the city's annual New Year countdown and fireworks display over the iconic Victoria Harbor, the girl, who has become known as Chalk Girl on social media, has been barred from leaving her home unaccompanied as a condition of her release, her lawyer said.
The would-be protester had chalked two flowers around a sticky-taped umbrella, symbol of the 79-day "Umbrella Movement" that occupied key highways and intersections in the semiautonomous Chinese city amid calls for fully democratic elections.
Her drawing sparked a rash of copycat chalk-drawing protests across Hong Kong, where police actions to clear protesters and an inflexible approach from local officials and the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing have left public anger simmering since protest sites were cleared earlier this month.
Under the conditions of her release, the girl must continue her studies and observe a curfew between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., as well as ensure she never leaves the house unaccompanied by her father, sister or a social worker.
Appeal hearing
The decision came after an emergency hearing of an appeal against the referral to a children's home under child protection laws lodged by top barrister and Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee.
The academic activist group Scholarism set up an online petition in protest at her detention and the continuing threat of separation from her father on Thursday.
The girl's detention in a children's home sparked visits from members of Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo) earlier on Wednesday, as well as a public outcry among concerned citizens and accusations of "white terror" leveled at police and government.
A spokesperson for Hong Kong's Justice Department said the child protection order had been applied for by police and been granted by the court.
A spokesperson for the Social Welfare department said only that the girl had "received appropriate care" while she was in the children's home.
Second detention
The girl's Dec. 23 detention under a child protection order is the second to be reported in connection with the Occupy Central movement.
In November, police detained arrested a 14-year-old boy during the clearance of a protest site in Kowloon. He has been allowed to stay with his parents while awaiting a hearing scheduled for Jan. 12.
Neither child has been charged with any crime, but their parents' ability to offer an adequate home is now under assessment by the authorities.
Umbrella-wielding protesters clustered among the regular crowds on Wednesday as Hong Kong began its countdown celebrations to usher in the New Year.
A post by Umbrella Movement protesters on Facebook called on pro-democracy movement followers to gather at 2 p.m. to protest the 14-year-old's detention.
"We want to show this power-crazed administration...that we stand with this 14-year-old girl," the post said.
It called on protesters to scribble chalk flowers and stick Post-it notes in protest at what it called an "abuse of power" by Hong Kong's police force.
Police are expecting some 380,000 people to turn out as crowds gather to usher in 2015, and hoping to forestall "walkabout" style democracy protests which have taken the place of the occupation sites in recent weeks.
Umbrellas, yellow ones in particular, became the symbol of the Occupy Central movement for fully democratic elections in 2017 after protesters used them to ward off tear gas and pepper spray attacks from riot police on Sept. 28, bringing hundreds of thousands of citizens out onto the streets in protest over police action in the days that followed.
The Occupy movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which it says is "fake universal suffrage," and allow publicly nominated candidates to run for chief executive in 2017.
An Aug. 31 decision by China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), decreed that while all 5 million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, they may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
Beijing has also criticized international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Reported by Dai Weisen for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Well, It seems there is no bloody massacre this time. Good work China!
Umbrellas, Activists Banned as China's President Visits Macau
2014-12-19
Umbrellas and pro-democracy activists were unwelcome in Macau on Friday as Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the former Portuguese enclave to mark the 15th anniversary of its return to rule by Beijing.
Journalists and visitors waiting at the Macau International Airport were provided with raincoats and asked not to hold umbrellas as Xi landed, across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong, where more than 10 weeks of pro-democracy protests have recently ended.
Umbrellas, yellow ones in particular, became the symbol of the Occupy Central movement for fully democratic elections in 2017 after protesters used them to ward off tear gas and pepper spray attacks from riot police on Sept. 28, bringing hundreds of thousands of citizens out onto the streets in the days that followed.
Activists colored in yellow a publicity photo of Xi holding an umbrella on an official visit last year, and the resulting cardboard cut-out became a key feature of the democracy movement's "Umbrella Square" on a main highway near government offices in Admiralty district.
A handful of activists, including some of those involved in launching the Occupy Central movement, tried to approach Xi's accommodation in Macau holding yellow umbrellas, while 14 others were turned away at the city's border with umbrellas and banners calling for universal suffrage.
The group, led by League of Social Democrats chairman and lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, known by his nickname "Long Hair," raised their yellow umbrellas on arrival at the Macau ferry terminal, but were denied entry on the basis of "strong evidence" that they would affect public safety in the city.
"Of course we wanted to take our protest to Macau; it's up to them whether or not they let us in," Leung told RFA. "But we have the right to express our opinions."
Leung said it wasn't the first time that Occupy activists had been denied entry to the city, however.
"During the Umbrella Movement of the past two months, a lot of people have been denied entry by Macau police," he said. "But it seems as if Macau's blacklist is having its greatest effect now that such a powerful personage as Xi Jinping is visiting."
Officials 'nervous'
Democratic lawmaker Au Kam San, one of just three pro-democracy legislators in the city, said the Macau government is clearly nervous.
"Naturally, the little bosses are going to get nervous when the big boss is in town," Au said. "Macau is a tiny place, and they have sealed off all the roads around the places Xi will visit."
"They are clear of cars on both sides, which is pretty inconvenient for Macau," he said.
Fellow Macau pro-democracy activist Sujia Hao said he is currently being followed by unidentified people, and his phone line is being monitored during Xi's visit.
"This began last Friday, and I told the media about it, and I didn't see it for a couple of days after that ... but of course it's happening today," Hao told RFA.
Four reporters with the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper were also prevented from entering Macau.
Arrival
Xi arrived on an Air China flight with his wife Peng Liyuan to be greeted by flag-waving schoolchildren and local officials, including Macau chief executive Fernando Chui.
Xi, who is making his first visit to the gambling hub, and who will attend Chui's inauguration on Saturday, threw his support behind embattled Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying, praising his handling of the Occupy Central protests, the last of which were cleared by police earlier this week.
"The central government will, as always, support you and the [Hong Kong] government in your work," Xi told Leung in Macau, in comments reported by Xinhua News Agency.
Over the past couple of months, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government and its police force have fulfilled their duty with courage, which resulted in improvement in the current situation in Hong Kong, Xi was quoted as saying.
"The central government has full trust in you and the SAR government, and highly recognizes your work," he told Leung.
Leung's administration and Beijing officials have hit out at Hong Kong's Occupy movement as "illegal," and a threat to the rule of law in the former British colony, which was promised a high degree of autonomy under the terms of its 1997 handover. Macau was handed back by Portugal in 1999.
Occupy movement
The Occupy movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which it says is "fake universal suffrage," and allow publicly nominated candidates to run for chief executive in 2017.
An Aug. 31 decision by China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), decreed that all 5 million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has also criticized international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Speaking in Macau, Xi said political reforms in Hong Kong should be "handled according to law."
In a five-minute speech on his arrival in Macau, Xi said the "one country, two systems" formula used to take back Macau and Hong Kong was working well.
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2014-12-19
Umbrellas and pro-democracy activists were unwelcome in Macau on Friday as Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the former Portuguese enclave to mark the 15th anniversary of its return to rule by Beijing.
Journalists and visitors waiting at the Macau International Airport were provided with raincoats and asked not to hold umbrellas as Xi landed, across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong, where more than 10 weeks of pro-democracy protests have recently ended.
Umbrellas, yellow ones in particular, became the symbol of the Occupy Central movement for fully democratic elections in 2017 after protesters used them to ward off tear gas and pepper spray attacks from riot police on Sept. 28, bringing hundreds of thousands of citizens out onto the streets in the days that followed.
Activists colored in yellow a publicity photo of Xi holding an umbrella on an official visit last year, and the resulting cardboard cut-out became a key feature of the democracy movement's "Umbrella Square" on a main highway near government offices in Admiralty district.
A handful of activists, including some of those involved in launching the Occupy Central movement, tried to approach Xi's accommodation in Macau holding yellow umbrellas, while 14 others were turned away at the city's border with umbrellas and banners calling for universal suffrage.
The group, led by League of Social Democrats chairman and lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, known by his nickname "Long Hair," raised their yellow umbrellas on arrival at the Macau ferry terminal, but were denied entry on the basis of "strong evidence" that they would affect public safety in the city.
"Of course we wanted to take our protest to Macau; it's up to them whether or not they let us in," Leung told RFA. "But we have the right to express our opinions."
Leung said it wasn't the first time that Occupy activists had been denied entry to the city, however.
"During the Umbrella Movement of the past two months, a lot of people have been denied entry by Macau police," he said. "But it seems as if Macau's blacklist is having its greatest effect now that such a powerful personage as Xi Jinping is visiting."
Officials 'nervous'
Democratic lawmaker Au Kam San, one of just three pro-democracy legislators in the city, said the Macau government is clearly nervous.
"Naturally, the little bosses are going to get nervous when the big boss is in town," Au said. "Macau is a tiny place, and they have sealed off all the roads around the places Xi will visit."
"They are clear of cars on both sides, which is pretty inconvenient for Macau," he said.
Fellow Macau pro-democracy activist Sujia Hao said he is currently being followed by unidentified people, and his phone line is being monitored during Xi's visit.
"This began last Friday, and I told the media about it, and I didn't see it for a couple of days after that ... but of course it's happening today," Hao told RFA.
Four reporters with the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper were also prevented from entering Macau.
Arrival
Xi arrived on an Air China flight with his wife Peng Liyuan to be greeted by flag-waving schoolchildren and local officials, including Macau chief executive Fernando Chui.
Xi, who is making his first visit to the gambling hub, and who will attend Chui's inauguration on Saturday, threw his support behind embattled Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying, praising his handling of the Occupy Central protests, the last of which were cleared by police earlier this week.
"The central government will, as always, support you and the [Hong Kong] government in your work," Xi told Leung in Macau, in comments reported by Xinhua News Agency.
Over the past couple of months, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government and its police force have fulfilled their duty with courage, which resulted in improvement in the current situation in Hong Kong, Xi was quoted as saying.
"The central government has full trust in you and the SAR government, and highly recognizes your work," he told Leung.
Leung's administration and Beijing officials have hit out at Hong Kong's Occupy movement as "illegal," and a threat to the rule of law in the former British colony, which was promised a high degree of autonomy under the terms of its 1997 handover. Macau was handed back by Portugal in 1999.
Occupy movement
The Occupy movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which it says is "fake universal suffrage," and allow publicly nominated candidates to run for chief executive in 2017.
An Aug. 31 decision by China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), decreed that all 5 million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has also criticized international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Speaking in Macau, Xi said political reforms in Hong Kong should be "handled according to law."
In a five-minute speech on his arrival in Macau, Xi said the "one country, two systems" formula used to take back Macau and Hong Kong was working well.
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong Police Clear Last Pro-Democracy Protests as Leaders Vow Movement Will Continue
2014-12-15
Hong Kong police on Monday cleared away the third and last of the pro-democracy encampments on major roads and intersections in the semiautonomous Chinese city, as the city's leader said the 78-day-old civil disobedience movement had come to an end.
Police arrested 20 protesters as they cleared the last remaining Occupy Central site outside a Japanese department store in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay, dismantling barricades, makeshift shelters and clearing away banners and symbols of the "Umbrella Movement."
"With the completion of clearance work at the occupation site in Causeway Bay, the illegal occupation that has lasted for more than two months...is over," Chief Executive Chun-ying Leung told reporters.
He said the protests had caused "serious" economic losses and "damaged the rule of law" in the former British colony.
"If we only talk about democracy, but not about the rule of law, that's not true democracy. It's just anarchy," Leung said.
Monday's operation also saw the end of a small camp outside Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo), and brought to 955 the number of people arrested in connection with the movement, which has campaigned since late September for fully democratic elections in 2017.
The clearance of the sites went off peacefully, with protesters removing their tents and personal belongings well ahead of police deadlines, although some remained behind to be removed by police in a public show of civil disobedience.
Unhappy with response
A Causeway Bay protester in his nineties who was frequently interviewed during the protests and became widely known as Uncle Wong, said he was unhappy with Leung's response to the protesters' demands.
"C.Y. Leung hasn't responded to our demands, even though hundreds of thousands of us have been sitting here for several months," Wong told RFA as the Causeway Bay camp was cleared. "He has totally ignored us, so we still want answers from him."
"I want to stay in jail if I can, to force him to pay for my keep."
Pan-democratic lawmaker Chan Ka Lok was also at the scene.
"They can take action against us today, and clear us away from Causeway Bay, but that's not the end of the dispute over political reforms," he warned.
Many of the arrests were for "obstructing a police officer in the course of duty," local sources said, adding that those arrested were put into police cars and taken to nearby North Point police station.
But the clearances came amid warnings from one of the original founders of the Occupy Central movement, which brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets at its height, after riot police used tear-gas, pepper spray and batons on umbrella-wielding protesters, most of whom were students.
Occupy founder Benny Tai told government broadcaster RTHK that the end of the occupation didn't mean an end to the Umbrella Movement or the campaign for full democracy in Hong Kong.
Tai said the movement could descend into violent riots if the government continues to ignore popular demands for public nomination of candidates in the election for chief executive and more direct representation in LegCo.
According to an Aug. 31 decision by China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all 5 million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
International support
Meanwhile, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has criticized international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.
Beijing has lauded the clearance operation, saying that it "fully agrees and firmly supports" the Hong Kong government and police.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong police commissioner Andy Tsang has vowed to pursue the instigators of the Occupy movement.
"Our aim is to complete this investigation within three months, including all of the processing of suspects," he said. "In particular, we want to bring to justice those who played a leading role."
But Tsang also told reporters that the force will investigate more than 1,900 public complaints against the police during the Occupy movement, many of them linked to allegations of abuse of police powers or authority.
He defended the police force's handling of the protests.
"Any use of force was only enough to achieve legitimate goals, and officers stopped using that force when those goals had been achieved," Tsang said.
"If people had left when they received the verbal warning from police that they should leave, and if they hadn't acted illegally or resisted or charged at police officers, the police wouldn't have needed to use any force at all," he said.
Continuing the movement
Student leaders have vowed to pursue their movement using means other than blocking roads, with student groups polling their members about potential rent and tax boycotts instead of physical occupation.
Student leader Lester Shum, a core member of the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), said many of the arrests during protest clearances were "influenced by political factors," and that he had been told he would have to wait until Monday to find out if public order charges against him would be dropped or pursued.
"Or perhaps they just wanted to keep us under surveillance," said Shum, who like many others was released on bail shortly after being arrested.
HKFS leader Alex Chow told local media that the movement would continue in some form for as long as the government continued to advocate "fake universal suffrage."
"The government will undergo a second round of public consultations [on electoral reform proposals] in January, and other proposals may be on the table," Chow said, adding that the final reform package wouldn't be presented to lawmakers until May or June.
He described the end of the Occupy movement as "neither victory nor defeat."
"I think in the future we will see many more people supporting our movement," he said.
An Occupy supporter surnamed Choi, who camped for weeks at the main protest site near government headquarters in Admiralty, said the movement isn't over.
"They may have cleared the occupation sites, but they can't clear away our minds," Choi said on Monday. "The seeds have already been planted."
"We will continue with this; we won't give up," she said. "We will just find other ways to continue the struggle."
Choi said she had joined the movement out of anger at Hong Kong's chief executive, who was elected in 2012 with just 689 votes from a 1,200-strong Beijing-backed committee.
"To begin with, I didn't really agree with [Occupy Central]," she said. "But the more I watched things unfold, the more I didn't like what I saw...If we don't stand up now, then there won't be any Hong Kong left at all."
Labour party chairman and lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan said the eventual clearance of the Causeway Bay site was inevitable, once the main Admiralty site had been cleared last week.
"This clearance operation doesn't signal the end of the movement, but a new beginning," Lee told RFA. "The movement will continue, if the special administrative region government and the central government refuse to give Hong Kong full democracy."
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin and Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2014-12-15
Hong Kong police on Monday cleared away the third and last of the pro-democracy encampments on major roads and intersections in the semiautonomous Chinese city, as the city's leader said the 78-day-old civil disobedience movement had come to an end.
Police arrested 20 protesters as they cleared the last remaining Occupy Central site outside a Japanese department store in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay, dismantling barricades, makeshift shelters and clearing away banners and symbols of the "Umbrella Movement."
"With the completion of clearance work at the occupation site in Causeway Bay, the illegal occupation that has lasted for more than two months...is over," Chief Executive Chun-ying Leung told reporters.
He said the protests had caused "serious" economic losses and "damaged the rule of law" in the former British colony.
"If we only talk about democracy, but not about the rule of law, that's not true democracy. It's just anarchy," Leung said.
Monday's operation also saw the end of a small camp outside Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo), and brought to 955 the number of people arrested in connection with the movement, which has campaigned since late September for fully democratic elections in 2017.
The clearance of the sites went off peacefully, with protesters removing their tents and personal belongings well ahead of police deadlines, although some remained behind to be removed by police in a public show of civil disobedience.
Unhappy with response
A Causeway Bay protester in his nineties who was frequently interviewed during the protests and became widely known as Uncle Wong, said he was unhappy with Leung's response to the protesters' demands.
"C.Y. Leung hasn't responded to our demands, even though hundreds of thousands of us have been sitting here for several months," Wong told RFA as the Causeway Bay camp was cleared. "He has totally ignored us, so we still want answers from him."
"I want to stay in jail if I can, to force him to pay for my keep."
Pan-democratic lawmaker Chan Ka Lok was also at the scene.
"They can take action against us today, and clear us away from Causeway Bay, but that's not the end of the dispute over political reforms," he warned.
Many of the arrests were for "obstructing a police officer in the course of duty," local sources said, adding that those arrested were put into police cars and taken to nearby North Point police station.
But the clearances came amid warnings from one of the original founders of the Occupy Central movement, which brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets at its height, after riot police used tear-gas, pepper spray and batons on umbrella-wielding protesters, most of whom were students.
Occupy founder Benny Tai told government broadcaster RTHK that the end of the occupation didn't mean an end to the Umbrella Movement or the campaign for full democracy in Hong Kong.
Tai said the movement could descend into violent riots if the government continues to ignore popular demands for public nomination of candidates in the election for chief executive and more direct representation in LegCo.
According to an Aug. 31 decision by China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all 5 million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
International support
Meanwhile, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has criticized international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.
Beijing has lauded the clearance operation, saying that it "fully agrees and firmly supports" the Hong Kong government and police.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong police commissioner Andy Tsang has vowed to pursue the instigators of the Occupy movement.
"Our aim is to complete this investigation within three months, including all of the processing of suspects," he said. "In particular, we want to bring to justice those who played a leading role."
But Tsang also told reporters that the force will investigate more than 1,900 public complaints against the police during the Occupy movement, many of them linked to allegations of abuse of police powers or authority.
He defended the police force's handling of the protests.
"Any use of force was only enough to achieve legitimate goals, and officers stopped using that force when those goals had been achieved," Tsang said.
"If people had left when they received the verbal warning from police that they should leave, and if they hadn't acted illegally or resisted or charged at police officers, the police wouldn't have needed to use any force at all," he said.
Continuing the movement
Student leaders have vowed to pursue their movement using means other than blocking roads, with student groups polling their members about potential rent and tax boycotts instead of physical occupation.
Student leader Lester Shum, a core member of the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), said many of the arrests during protest clearances were "influenced by political factors," and that he had been told he would have to wait until Monday to find out if public order charges against him would be dropped or pursued.
"Or perhaps they just wanted to keep us under surveillance," said Shum, who like many others was released on bail shortly after being arrested.
HKFS leader Alex Chow told local media that the movement would continue in some form for as long as the government continued to advocate "fake universal suffrage."
"The government will undergo a second round of public consultations [on electoral reform proposals] in January, and other proposals may be on the table," Chow said, adding that the final reform package wouldn't be presented to lawmakers until May or June.
He described the end of the Occupy movement as "neither victory nor defeat."
"I think in the future we will see many more people supporting our movement," he said.
An Occupy supporter surnamed Choi, who camped for weeks at the main protest site near government headquarters in Admiralty, said the movement isn't over.
"They may have cleared the occupation sites, but they can't clear away our minds," Choi said on Monday. "The seeds have already been planted."
"We will continue with this; we won't give up," she said. "We will just find other ways to continue the struggle."
Choi said she had joined the movement out of anger at Hong Kong's chief executive, who was elected in 2012 with just 689 votes from a 1,200-strong Beijing-backed committee.
"To begin with, I didn't really agree with [Occupy Central]," she said. "But the more I watched things unfold, the more I didn't like what I saw...If we don't stand up now, then there won't be any Hong Kong left at all."
Labour party chairman and lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan said the eventual clearance of the Causeway Bay site was inevitable, once the main Admiralty site had been cleared last week.
"This clearance operation doesn't signal the end of the movement, but a new beginning," Lee told RFA. "The movement will continue, if the special administrative region government and the central government refuse to give Hong Kong full democracy."
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin and Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong Occupiers Vow to Continue Actions Without Blocking Roads
2014-12-12
Smaller protests continued on Friday outside Hong Kong's legislature and in a busy shopping district after some 7,000 police moved in to clear the last protesters from the main Occupy Central on Thursday, arresting 247 people.
A handful of protesters remained encamped outside the semiautonomous Chinese city's Legislative Council (LegCo) in a bid to keep up the pressure on the government for fully democratic elections in 2017 and beyond.
LegCo chairman and pro-Beijing politician Jasper Tsang said he hadn't ruled out asking for police assistance to remove the protesters.
"The area in question...isn't a public space, and if people begin any sort of movement there, the secretariat will try to use their own efforts...to get them to see sense and move on of their own accord," Tsang told reporters.
"That way, we won't have to ask the police to help us."
Protesters vowed to stay until moved on, however.
"We are gathered here...[because] the Basic Law gives citizens the right of assembly and protest," one protester outside LegCo told RFA, in a reference to the former British colony's mini-constitution.
But he said he had no plans to resist if police tried to remove the group.
'We won't leave'
A second protester surnamed Tsik said protesters planned to stay until LegCo begins its session next week.
"We won't leave, unless the police come and force us to leave," he said. "But we will want to know what law we are supposed to have broken."
"Don't we have the right to make our views heard, to demonstrate?"
He said the Occupy movement will continue in spite of the loss of its main encampment near government headquarters in Admiralty district after Thursday's clearance operation.
"All we want are fully democratic elections," Tsik said.
Student leaders of the civil disobedience movement, which blocked key highways and intersections in Hong Kong for more than two months, said they would likely switch tactics and avoid blocking roads in future protests in the densely populated and congested city.
"Now that the road occupation has ended, students will now go into the community to publicize their ideas," Joshua Wong, who heads the academic activist group Scholarism, told government broadcaster RTHK.
"If there are occupy movements or other kinds of civil disobedience campaigns in the future, we won't allow them to drag on, but instead employ flexible strategies," said Wong, who has been criticized for his absence from the clearance when four other student leaders were arrested.
'More radical' protests likely
Meanwhile, Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai said "more radical" protests now look likely.
"If the government could not respond to the people's call for genuine universal suffrage, it is possible that more radical actions will appear in the future," Tai told reporters on Friday.
"This is something that the local government and Beijing should think about," he said.
He said even if Beijing's electoral reform package gets through LegCo, unrest could still lie ahead.
Small protests also continued in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island and in the Kowloon district of Mong Kok, where a protest camp was cleared last month amid widespread clashes with police.
A group of Christians carrying the now-familiar yellow slogans and umbrella logo gathered at the Times Square shopping mall, singing Christmas carols with the lyrics rewritten to call for greater democracy, photos and tweets posted to social media showed.
Determination
A Causeway Bay occupier, who gave only a nickname A Man, said he felt out of options at the imminent clearance of the last remaining occupation site in Hong Kong.
"I had hoped that we would still be allowed this place as a gathering place," A Man said, adding that he would likely take part in any future Occupy Central actions.
"If a lot of people turn out...when the Causeway Bay site is cleared, the government will understand the determination of the people to win universal suffrage," he said.
Hong Kong financial secretary John Tsang said the clearance of the Occupy sites was "good news" for the territory's economy, although a recent study failed to show any significant impact on the city's performance as a financial hub.
"Once the sites have been cleared, local shopkeepers and small and medium-sized businesses will start to feel that things are going better," Tsang said. "Now the traffic is flowing freely, people's lives can get back to normal."
"I'm sure that Hong Kong people are happy about that, and I think this is positive news for the economy," he told reporters.
According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
Control by Beijing
Meanwhile, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has hit out at international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.
Beijing on Friday lauded the clearance operation, saying that the ruling Chinese Communist Party "fully agrees and firmly supports" the Hong Kong government and police.
"The Occupy protest has not won the favor of the Hong Kong people," the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office under China's cabinet, the State Council, said in a statement.
"We have noticed that the clearance operation was well received and welcomed by the residents of Hong Kong," it said.
It called on Hong Kong to "learn from" the protests and build consensus around the territory's future political development.
"We hope that Hong Kong society will engage in rational and pragmatic discussions and accumulate consensus about its political development within the boundaries of the Basic Law and decisions adopted by the Standing Committee of National People's Congress," the statement, carried by the official Xinhua news agency, said.
It called on Hong Kong to follow the blueprint laid down in the NPC's Aug. 31 decision to "realize universal suffrage" in 2017.
The people of Hong Kong should have a better understanding and implementation of the "one country, two systems" principles, it said, referring to the formula agreed by Britain and China before the handover.
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2014-12-12
Smaller protests continued on Friday outside Hong Kong's legislature and in a busy shopping district after some 7,000 police moved in to clear the last protesters from the main Occupy Central on Thursday, arresting 247 people.
A handful of protesters remained encamped outside the semiautonomous Chinese city's Legislative Council (LegCo) in a bid to keep up the pressure on the government for fully democratic elections in 2017 and beyond.
LegCo chairman and pro-Beijing politician Jasper Tsang said he hadn't ruled out asking for police assistance to remove the protesters.
"The area in question...isn't a public space, and if people begin any sort of movement there, the secretariat will try to use their own efforts...to get them to see sense and move on of their own accord," Tsang told reporters.
"That way, we won't have to ask the police to help us."
Protesters vowed to stay until moved on, however.
"We are gathered here...[because] the Basic Law gives citizens the right of assembly and protest," one protester outside LegCo told RFA, in a reference to the former British colony's mini-constitution.
But he said he had no plans to resist if police tried to remove the group.
'We won't leave'
A second protester surnamed Tsik said protesters planned to stay until LegCo begins its session next week.
"We won't leave, unless the police come and force us to leave," he said. "But we will want to know what law we are supposed to have broken."
"Don't we have the right to make our views heard, to demonstrate?"
He said the Occupy movement will continue in spite of the loss of its main encampment near government headquarters in Admiralty district after Thursday's clearance operation.
"All we want are fully democratic elections," Tsik said.
Student leaders of the civil disobedience movement, which blocked key highways and intersections in Hong Kong for more than two months, said they would likely switch tactics and avoid blocking roads in future protests in the densely populated and congested city.
"Now that the road occupation has ended, students will now go into the community to publicize their ideas," Joshua Wong, who heads the academic activist group Scholarism, told government broadcaster RTHK.
"If there are occupy movements or other kinds of civil disobedience campaigns in the future, we won't allow them to drag on, but instead employ flexible strategies," said Wong, who has been criticized for his absence from the clearance when four other student leaders were arrested.
'More radical' protests likely
Meanwhile, Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai said "more radical" protests now look likely.
"If the government could not respond to the people's call for genuine universal suffrage, it is possible that more radical actions will appear in the future," Tai told reporters on Friday.
"This is something that the local government and Beijing should think about," he said.
He said even if Beijing's electoral reform package gets through LegCo, unrest could still lie ahead.
Small protests also continued in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island and in the Kowloon district of Mong Kok, where a protest camp was cleared last month amid widespread clashes with police.
A group of Christians carrying the now-familiar yellow slogans and umbrella logo gathered at the Times Square shopping mall, singing Christmas carols with the lyrics rewritten to call for greater democracy, photos and tweets posted to social media showed.
Determination
A Causeway Bay occupier, who gave only a nickname A Man, said he felt out of options at the imminent clearance of the last remaining occupation site in Hong Kong.
"I had hoped that we would still be allowed this place as a gathering place," A Man said, adding that he would likely take part in any future Occupy Central actions.
"If a lot of people turn out...when the Causeway Bay site is cleared, the government will understand the determination of the people to win universal suffrage," he said.
Hong Kong financial secretary John Tsang said the clearance of the Occupy sites was "good news" for the territory's economy, although a recent study failed to show any significant impact on the city's performance as a financial hub.
"Once the sites have been cleared, local shopkeepers and small and medium-sized businesses will start to feel that things are going better," Tsang said. "Now the traffic is flowing freely, people's lives can get back to normal."
"I'm sure that Hong Kong people are happy about that, and I think this is positive news for the economy," he told reporters.
According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
Control by Beijing
Meanwhile, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has hit out at international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.
Beijing on Friday lauded the clearance operation, saying that the ruling Chinese Communist Party "fully agrees and firmly supports" the Hong Kong government and police.
"The Occupy protest has not won the favor of the Hong Kong people," the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office under China's cabinet, the State Council, said in a statement.
"We have noticed that the clearance operation was well received and welcomed by the residents of Hong Kong," it said.
It called on Hong Kong to "learn from" the protests and build consensus around the territory's future political development.
"We hope that Hong Kong society will engage in rational and pragmatic discussions and accumulate consensus about its political development within the boundaries of the Basic Law and decisions adopted by the Standing Committee of National People's Congress," the statement, carried by the official Xinhua news agency, said.
It called on Hong Kong to follow the blueprint laid down in the NPC's Aug. 31 decision to "realize universal suffrage" in 2017.
The people of Hong Kong should have a better understanding and implementation of the "one country, two systems" principles, it said, referring to the formula agreed by Britain and China before the handover.
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong Occupiers Defiant But Peaceful as Police Clear Main Protest Site
2014-12-11
Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong chanted "We'll be back" as police and court bailiffs cleared their tents and barricades from a major highway in the semiautonomous Chinese city early on Thursday local time, putting an end to a two-month-long occupation.
Police arrested 209 people during the clearance of Harcourt Road near government headquarters in the former British colony's Admiralty district, while more than 900 people had their details noted and could still be charged, a spokesman said.
Among those arrested were student leaders of the Occupy Central, or "Umbrella," movement that began on Sept. 28, bringing hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets after clashes with riot police who used tear gas, batons, and pepper spray on umbrella-carrying protesters.
Pan-democratic politicians, protest leaders, and even a pop star were among those in the final sit-in who were arrested, with some walking quietly under police escort with plastic handcuffs and others being carried away by officers.
Police took away Democratic Party founder Martin Lee, Civic Party lawmakers Alan Leong and Audrey Eu, Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau, and media mogul Jimmy Lai, whose Apple Daily media group had covered the protests by live webcast and drone camera since they began.
Student leader Nathan Law, Cantopop star Denise Ho, and veteran activist Leung Kwok-hung, known by his nickname "Long Hair," were also held.
A major impact
Alex Chow said in an interview with RFA before the clearance operation began that the movement has already had a major impact on the territory's political life.
"The Occupy movement has been very effective in awakening our citizens," Chow told RFA. "We had such huge numbers; hundreds of thousands took part in the civil disobedience movement."
"Hong Kong people are willing to pay the price for democracy," he said. "We may not have gotten the result we wanted today, but ... people won't just give up on the movement now."
Chow said he still expects to see smaller but frequent protests greeting Hong Kong government officials as they try to persuade people to accept Beijing's electoral reform plan.
HKFS core member Lester Shum said both the HKFS and the academic activist group Scholarism would stick to principles of nonviolence.
"Everyone knows that the government isn't going to give way on electoral reforms, so we will have to work to put even more pressure on them in future," Shum said.
"A bigger weight of public opinion could force the government to make concessions," he said.
Jimmy Lai told CNN before being arrested that protesters know that the struggle for full democracy in Hong Kong will be a long-term one.
"We are not so naive," he said. "We know there will be many battles before we win the war."
'Unlawful assembly'
Some protesters and lawmakers had gathered in an area just outside the limits of a High Court injunction ordering the clearance of the area, brought by a bus company that complained the protests were hurting its business.
Many were arrested on suspicion of "unlawful assembly," with many demonstrators shouting slogans including "We'll be back!" or making the "mockingjay" rebel salute from Hollywood blockbuster movie The Hunger Games.
A protester surnamed Lam at the Admiralty site said that those who had camped there had already removed their tents and personal belongings on Wednesday.
"I don't think it's a good way to solve the problem by remaining here," Lam said. "But I hope to see the movement continue in our communities; that's the most important thing."
A second protester surnamed Lee said that the overwhelming trend seems to be to accept that the clearances are marking the end of the occupation.
"If a lot of people were staying, then I'd stay too," she said. "I'm not afraid of arrest."
"But there has begun to be a backlash among local people, now that so many have been here for such a long time," Lee said. "Why is our government like this?"
Demands still unmet
After the last protesters were taken away, taxis and minibuses began using the road, which was newly cleared of debris and washed down by water trucks to remove the last evidence of a vibrant protest community that once included impromptu art exhibitions, a "Lennon" message wall, first-aid stalls, makeshift study areas, and a trash disposal service all staffed by volunteers.
Hundreds of police officers posed for a group photograph outside the Admiralty Centre at the heart of the tent city and protest site that became known as "Umbrella Square."
But while their demands for full universal suffrage in the 2017 election for the next chief executive remained unmet following an edict from Beijing, most activists chose to leave the Admiralty site peacefully.
Police said they would clear a much smaller protest encampment in the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay at a later date.
The scenes at Admiralty were in sharp contrast to the violent clashes between police and protesters when a similar site across the harbor in Mong Kok was cleared last month, sparking widespread condemnation of excessive force from police, who reportedly attacked a number of journalists as well as protesters.
According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
Meanwhile, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has hit out at international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that it answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.
Reported by Xin Lin and Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2014-12-11
Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong chanted "We'll be back" as police and court bailiffs cleared their tents and barricades from a major highway in the semiautonomous Chinese city early on Thursday local time, putting an end to a two-month-long occupation.
Police arrested 209 people during the clearance of Harcourt Road near government headquarters in the former British colony's Admiralty district, while more than 900 people had their details noted and could still be charged, a spokesman said.
Among those arrested were student leaders of the Occupy Central, or "Umbrella," movement that began on Sept. 28, bringing hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets after clashes with riot police who used tear gas, batons, and pepper spray on umbrella-carrying protesters.
Pan-democratic politicians, protest leaders, and even a pop star were among those in the final sit-in who were arrested, with some walking quietly under police escort with plastic handcuffs and others being carried away by officers.
Police took away Democratic Party founder Martin Lee, Civic Party lawmakers Alan Leong and Audrey Eu, Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau, and media mogul Jimmy Lai, whose Apple Daily media group had covered the protests by live webcast and drone camera since they began.
Student leader Nathan Law, Cantopop star Denise Ho, and veteran activist Leung Kwok-hung, known by his nickname "Long Hair," were also held.
A major impact
Alex Chow said in an interview with RFA before the clearance operation began that the movement has already had a major impact on the territory's political life.
"The Occupy movement has been very effective in awakening our citizens," Chow told RFA. "We had such huge numbers; hundreds of thousands took part in the civil disobedience movement."
"Hong Kong people are willing to pay the price for democracy," he said. "We may not have gotten the result we wanted today, but ... people won't just give up on the movement now."
Chow said he still expects to see smaller but frequent protests greeting Hong Kong government officials as they try to persuade people to accept Beijing's electoral reform plan.
HKFS core member Lester Shum said both the HKFS and the academic activist group Scholarism would stick to principles of nonviolence.
"Everyone knows that the government isn't going to give way on electoral reforms, so we will have to work to put even more pressure on them in future," Shum said.
"A bigger weight of public opinion could force the government to make concessions," he said.
Jimmy Lai told CNN before being arrested that protesters know that the struggle for full democracy in Hong Kong will be a long-term one.
"We are not so naive," he said. "We know there will be many battles before we win the war."
'Unlawful assembly'
Some protesters and lawmakers had gathered in an area just outside the limits of a High Court injunction ordering the clearance of the area, brought by a bus company that complained the protests were hurting its business.
Many were arrested on suspicion of "unlawful assembly," with many demonstrators shouting slogans including "We'll be back!" or making the "mockingjay" rebel salute from Hollywood blockbuster movie The Hunger Games.
A protester surnamed Lam at the Admiralty site said that those who had camped there had already removed their tents and personal belongings on Wednesday.
"I don't think it's a good way to solve the problem by remaining here," Lam said. "But I hope to see the movement continue in our communities; that's the most important thing."
A second protester surnamed Lee said that the overwhelming trend seems to be to accept that the clearances are marking the end of the occupation.
"If a lot of people were staying, then I'd stay too," she said. "I'm not afraid of arrest."
"But there has begun to be a backlash among local people, now that so many have been here for such a long time," Lee said. "Why is our government like this?"
Demands still unmet
After the last protesters were taken away, taxis and minibuses began using the road, which was newly cleared of debris and washed down by water trucks to remove the last evidence of a vibrant protest community that once included impromptu art exhibitions, a "Lennon" message wall, first-aid stalls, makeshift study areas, and a trash disposal service all staffed by volunteers.
Hundreds of police officers posed for a group photograph outside the Admiralty Centre at the heart of the tent city and protest site that became known as "Umbrella Square."
But while their demands for full universal suffrage in the 2017 election for the next chief executive remained unmet following an edict from Beijing, most activists chose to leave the Admiralty site peacefully.
Police said they would clear a much smaller protest encampment in the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay at a later date.
The scenes at Admiralty were in sharp contrast to the violent clashes between police and protesters when a similar site across the harbor in Mong Kok was cleared last month, sparking widespread condemnation of excessive force from police, who reportedly attacked a number of journalists as well as protesters.
According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the 2017 poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
Meanwhile, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has hit out at international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that it answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.
Reported by Xin Lin and Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong Gears Up to Clear Pro-Democracy Occupiers From Highway
2014-12-08
Hong Kong authorities on Monday issued an order to clear the main pro-democracy encampment on a major highway near government headquarters in the semiautonomous Chinese city, paving the way for police intervention to end the 10-week-long protests.
The civil injunction was granted to a bus company by the High Court in the former British colony, but police are widely expected to assist court bailiffs in clearing the road, as they did in the Kowloon district of Mong Kok earlier this month.
The injunction covers about one-fifth of the Admiralty protest area. However, connecting sections of road were also cleared by police during the Mong Kok clearance operation.
Some 7,000 police officers will be deployed to clear the main Occupy Central site later this week, government broadcaster RTHK reported.
But police and lawyers for the All China Express bus company said they would ensure those who wished to leave ahead of the clearance had plenty of time to do so.
Student leaders also said on Monday they would make arrangements for more vulnerable protesters to leave before clearance operations begin.
"I think we will need to make arrangements for high-school students and some older people to leave, leaving volunteers to carry out the civil disobedience protest," Joshua Wong, leader of the academic activism group Scholarism, told reporters.
He said that while Scholarism and the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) had no plans to offer any resistance to police, leaders were urging students to bring homemade shields to ward off blows from police batons.
He said students also have no plans to leave the site until forced to do so.
A protester at the Admiralty site surnamed Tam said she is camped in an area not covered by the injunction, and had few concerns about the clearance operation.
"It shouldn't be a problem, because the injunction doesn't come up as far as the bridge," she said. "So I will be staying."
Hong Kong's embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying on Sunday repeated his view that the Occupy Central movement is an "illegal gathering."
"There are fewer and fewer people taking part, but their actions are becoming more and more extreme," Leung said. "We must make proper preparation, mentally and physically, for the clearance operation."
"It is likely that police will meet with furious resistance."
Hunger strike
Hundreds of protesters have remained encamped on Admiralty's Harcourt Road since clashes with riot police on Sept. 28 brought hundreds of thousands of supporters onto the streets at the height of the "Umbrella Movement."
The news of the court order came as two out of five students gave up a hunger strike they began last week, including Joshua Wong, who had fasted for 108 hours.
Scholarism member Eddie Ng ended his hunger strike after nearly 120 hours. Both did so on the advice of doctors, they said, prompting supporters to launch a "relay" hunger strike to carry on their protest.
Scholarism activist Gloria Cheng was the only remaining continuous hunger striker by Monday night.
An activist surnamed Tai said he had signed up for the relay hunger strike, in which each protester fasts for 28 hours.
"We all want to show our support for the hunger striking students, and go some of the way with them," Tai said. "While 28 hours isn't very long, we at least want them to know they aren't alone."
He said the aim of the relay hunger strike remains the re-opening of dialogue with the Hong Kong government over electoral reform.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has hit out at international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void," and that it answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.
According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
'Hold them accountable'
Former U.S. consul general to Hong Kong Stephen M. Young, writing in the South China Morning Post newspaper, said world leaders should continue to make it clear that they are watching developments closely, however.
"We must hold them accountable for their actions to undermine Hong Kong's desire for a representative government whose leaders they can choose themselves," Young, now retired, wrote in a personal commentary published on Monday.
Hong Kong police are facing growing criticism over the use of excessive force against demonstrators in Mong Kok.
Hundreds of parents, teachers and social workers marched to Hong Kong police headquarters in Central on Monday, shouting "Criminal police! For shame!" and holding up large prints of news photos showing police using batons on the crowd.
Veteran pan-democrat and founding chairman of the Democratic Party Martin Lee called on China's President Xi Jinping to "clear up confusion" over comments by Chinese officials in London on the status of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
Beijing last week blocked a delegation of British MPs from entering Hong Kong on a fact-finding mission, a move lauded by pro-establishment politicians as a legitimate prevention of foreign interference in Hong Kong's affairs.
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2014-12-08
Hong Kong authorities on Monday issued an order to clear the main pro-democracy encampment on a major highway near government headquarters in the semiautonomous Chinese city, paving the way for police intervention to end the 10-week-long protests.
The civil injunction was granted to a bus company by the High Court in the former British colony, but police are widely expected to assist court bailiffs in clearing the road, as they did in the Kowloon district of Mong Kok earlier this month.
The injunction covers about one-fifth of the Admiralty protest area. However, connecting sections of road were also cleared by police during the Mong Kok clearance operation.
Some 7,000 police officers will be deployed to clear the main Occupy Central site later this week, government broadcaster RTHK reported.
But police and lawyers for the All China Express bus company said they would ensure those who wished to leave ahead of the clearance had plenty of time to do so.
Student leaders also said on Monday they would make arrangements for more vulnerable protesters to leave before clearance operations begin.
"I think we will need to make arrangements for high-school students and some older people to leave, leaving volunteers to carry out the civil disobedience protest," Joshua Wong, leader of the academic activism group Scholarism, told reporters.
He said that while Scholarism and the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) had no plans to offer any resistance to police, leaders were urging students to bring homemade shields to ward off blows from police batons.
He said students also have no plans to leave the site until forced to do so.
A protester at the Admiralty site surnamed Tam said she is camped in an area not covered by the injunction, and had few concerns about the clearance operation.
"It shouldn't be a problem, because the injunction doesn't come up as far as the bridge," she said. "So I will be staying."
Hong Kong's embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying on Sunday repeated his view that the Occupy Central movement is an "illegal gathering."
"There are fewer and fewer people taking part, but their actions are becoming more and more extreme," Leung said. "We must make proper preparation, mentally and physically, for the clearance operation."
"It is likely that police will meet with furious resistance."
Hunger strike
Hundreds of protesters have remained encamped on Admiralty's Harcourt Road since clashes with riot police on Sept. 28 brought hundreds of thousands of supporters onto the streets at the height of the "Umbrella Movement."
The news of the court order came as two out of five students gave up a hunger strike they began last week, including Joshua Wong, who had fasted for 108 hours.
Scholarism member Eddie Ng ended his hunger strike after nearly 120 hours. Both did so on the advice of doctors, they said, prompting supporters to launch a "relay" hunger strike to carry on their protest.
Scholarism activist Gloria Cheng was the only remaining continuous hunger striker by Monday night.
An activist surnamed Tai said he had signed up for the relay hunger strike, in which each protester fasts for 28 hours.
"We all want to show our support for the hunger striking students, and go some of the way with them," Tai said. "While 28 hours isn't very long, we at least want them to know they aren't alone."
He said the aim of the relay hunger strike remains the re-opening of dialogue with the Hong Kong government over electoral reform.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has hit out at international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void," and that it answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.
According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
'Hold them accountable'
Former U.S. consul general to Hong Kong Stephen M. Young, writing in the South China Morning Post newspaper, said world leaders should continue to make it clear that they are watching developments closely, however.
"We must hold them accountable for their actions to undermine Hong Kong's desire for a representative government whose leaders they can choose themselves," Young, now retired, wrote in a personal commentary published on Monday.
Hong Kong police are facing growing criticism over the use of excessive force against demonstrators in Mong Kok.
Hundreds of parents, teachers and social workers marched to Hong Kong police headquarters in Central on Monday, shouting "Criminal police! For shame!" and holding up large prints of news photos showing police using batons on the crowd.
Veteran pan-democrat and founding chairman of the Democratic Party Martin Lee called on China's President Xi Jinping to "clear up confusion" over comments by Chinese officials in London on the status of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
Beijing last week blocked a delegation of British MPs from entering Hong Kong on a fact-finding mission, a move lauded by pro-establishment politicians as a legitimate prevention of foreign interference in Hong Kong's affairs.
Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
make your bets...
i bet first corpses in january-febraury
ZOG will not leave it like this =)
i bet first corpses in january-febraury
ZOG will not leave it like this =)
soon...
Predictably the HK demo fizzles through. The Chinese govt is not easy to intimidate, as it turns out.
'It's Impossible Not to be Reminded of Tiananmen'
A commentary by Hu Ping
2014-12-04
Where is the [Occupy Central] movement headed? When will the fight for genuine elections withdraw from the occupied areas and channel itself into other forms of protest? This is an urgent problem facing the participants, but also the current focus of attention in Hong Kong.
[A few weeks] ago, I wrote an article calling for the establishment of an exit mechanism. Judging from the situation on the ground, they haven't so much set up an exit mechanism as an anti-exit mechanism.
As early as Oct. 12, Lester Shum of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) told a ...TV program that any motion to withdraw from the Occupy sites would be defeated for as long as any one of the student leaders opposed it.
According to my understanding, the majority of student leaders of Occupy Central have supported leaving in a number of recent votes, and only a minority want to stay. Nonetheless, the motion has been rejected.
This seems pretty ridiculous on the face of it. How could a group holding high the banner of a democratic mass movement willingly fall into the trap of accepting minority rule? Doesn't this look a lot like an anti-exit mechanism?
It's impossible not to be reminded of the events of 1989 [in Beijing].
On May 19, 1989, student representatives met with leaders of the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party. Student leader Wu'er Kaixi told [then] Chinese Premier Li Peng: "The issue isn't about persuading us to leave the Square. We want to tell the students to leave the square, but right now the 99.9 percent is following the wishes of the 0.1 percent."
"If a single hunger-striking student remains on the Square, then the thousands of other hunger-striking students won't leave either," he said.
Winning or losing together
How did such a strange situation come about in both the [1989] Tiananmen Square protests and Occupy Central, such that the majority were willing to obey a small minority, making a timely exit impossible?
One of the reasons is very simple. It is that the majority, who want to leave, feel that they can't in good conscience leave the minority, who want to remain, behind to weather the elements and bear all the risk alone.
So they have no choice but to bow to the wishes of the minority and to stay at their posts, in order to share their suffering.
But those who do not learn from historical experience can easily wind up repeating the mistakes of their predecessors. It seems that Occupy Central haven't drawn the necessary lessons from the Tiananmen Square protests, and are just repeating its mistakes, and their exit mechanism has become an anti-exit mechanism.
Even now, some of the Occupy Central leadership speak of "leaving or going together." This means that if a single person refuses to leave, then everyone stays to keep them company, even if those wishing to stay are a very small minority, and a very large majority wishes to leave.
Euphemistically, this is known as "Winning or losing together." Never mind if the bar to winning is so unrealistically high that it's unattainable. If we can't win, then at least we can all wait to lose together.
The question is, whom does such a strategy benefit? Clearly, only the [Chinese] dictatorship. Certainly not the people of Hong Kong, nor democracy. How did things come to such a pass?
The student leaders said they did not intend to surrender, but would rather wait to be arrested in police clearance operations.
Occupy founder Chu Yiu-ming strongly disagreed. He said that waiting to be arrested during clearance operations would make the Occupy movement look weak, whereas quitting while they were ahead would give the impression that there was still some energy in the movement, and pose a real threat to the government.
This is where the problem lies. There will be no closing banquet for those who hang on, but there is such a thing as active or passive withdrawal. There is a difference between withdrawal at a time of rising momentum and withdrawal on the wane, and the effects of each are totally different.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
Hu Ping is the New York-based editor of the Chinese-language monthly Beijing Spring, and is a member of the board of directors of Human Rights in China.
A commentary by Hu Ping
2014-12-04
Where is the [Occupy Central] movement headed? When will the fight for genuine elections withdraw from the occupied areas and channel itself into other forms of protest? This is an urgent problem facing the participants, but also the current focus of attention in Hong Kong.
[A few weeks] ago, I wrote an article calling for the establishment of an exit mechanism. Judging from the situation on the ground, they haven't so much set up an exit mechanism as an anti-exit mechanism.
As early as Oct. 12, Lester Shum of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) told a ...TV program that any motion to withdraw from the Occupy sites would be defeated for as long as any one of the student leaders opposed it.
According to my understanding, the majority of student leaders of Occupy Central have supported leaving in a number of recent votes, and only a minority want to stay. Nonetheless, the motion has been rejected.
This seems pretty ridiculous on the face of it. How could a group holding high the banner of a democratic mass movement willingly fall into the trap of accepting minority rule? Doesn't this look a lot like an anti-exit mechanism?
It's impossible not to be reminded of the events of 1989 [in Beijing].
On May 19, 1989, student representatives met with leaders of the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party. Student leader Wu'er Kaixi told [then] Chinese Premier Li Peng: "The issue isn't about persuading us to leave the Square. We want to tell the students to leave the square, but right now the 99.9 percent is following the wishes of the 0.1 percent."
"If a single hunger-striking student remains on the Square, then the thousands of other hunger-striking students won't leave either," he said.
Winning or losing together
How did such a strange situation come about in both the [1989] Tiananmen Square protests and Occupy Central, such that the majority were willing to obey a small minority, making a timely exit impossible?
One of the reasons is very simple. It is that the majority, who want to leave, feel that they can't in good conscience leave the minority, who want to remain, behind to weather the elements and bear all the risk alone.
So they have no choice but to bow to the wishes of the minority and to stay at their posts, in order to share their suffering.
But those who do not learn from historical experience can easily wind up repeating the mistakes of their predecessors. It seems that Occupy Central haven't drawn the necessary lessons from the Tiananmen Square protests, and are just repeating its mistakes, and their exit mechanism has become an anti-exit mechanism.
Even now, some of the Occupy Central leadership speak of "leaving or going together." This means that if a single person refuses to leave, then everyone stays to keep them company, even if those wishing to stay are a very small minority, and a very large majority wishes to leave.
Euphemistically, this is known as "Winning or losing together." Never mind if the bar to winning is so unrealistically high that it's unattainable. If we can't win, then at least we can all wait to lose together.
The question is, whom does such a strategy benefit? Clearly, only the [Chinese] dictatorship. Certainly not the people of Hong Kong, nor democracy. How did things come to such a pass?
The student leaders said they did not intend to surrender, but would rather wait to be arrested in police clearance operations.
Occupy founder Chu Yiu-ming strongly disagreed. He said that waiting to be arrested during clearance operations would make the Occupy movement look weak, whereas quitting while they were ahead would give the impression that there was still some energy in the movement, and pose a real threat to the government.
This is where the problem lies. There will be no closing banquet for those who hang on, but there is such a thing as active or passive withdrawal. There is a difference between withdrawal at a time of rising momentum and withdrawal on the wane, and the effects of each are totally different.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
Hu Ping is the New York-based editor of the Chinese-language monthly Beijing Spring, and is a member of the board of directors of Human Rights in China.
Fasting Hong Kong Democracy Protester Weakens, Vows to Continue
2014-12-04
Student democracy movement leader Joshua Wong vowed on Thursday to continue his hunger strike despite warnings about his health and concern over the future of the two-month-old Occupy Central movement.
Wong, who has been fasting along with two other members of his activist group Scholarism, and who was joined by two other student hunger strikers on Wednesday, says he wants the Hong Kong government to reinstate talks with protesters over their demands for fully democratic elections in 2017.
Wong appeared very weak on Thursday, but apologized after being given glucose when his blood sugar levels plummeted, on advice from a medical team caring for the hunger strikers.
Hong Kong's secretary for food and health Ko Wing-man warned the fasting students, who pledged to drink only water and eat no food, that hunger striking is bad for their health.
"From a medical point of view, any sort of fast, including that in which nothing is eaten or in which only liquids or water are taken, are all bad for health," Ko told reporters.
In Taiwan, Wang Dan, a former student leader in the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Beijing, called on the five Hong Kong students to end their hunger strike.
"As long as the mountains are green, there will always be fuel for the fire," Wang wrote on Facebook on Thursday. "It doesn't matter if you lose a battle; winning the war is more important."
Worsening condition
A Scholarism volunteer identified only by his nickname Ernest told RFA that the five hunger strikers' conditions had already worsened, and that the three who began refusing food on Monday were the weakest.
"There are medical staff who monitor their health at regular intervals, so as to make sure they're not in danger," he said.
As the hunger strike continued, the ruling Chinese Communist Party warded off growing international criticism of its refusal to allow the public nomination of candidates in the 2017 elections for the territory's chief executive.
According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying hit out at calls from U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel on Wednesday for Beijing to exercise restraint and flexibility in dealing with the wishes of Hong Kong people.
"The Chinese side resolutely opposes any interference in any form by any foreign country," Hua told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
She repeated Beijing's claim that the Occupy movement in Hong Kong was incited by "some individuals and forces."
Last week, Ni Jian, deputy Chinese ambassador to Britain, told British officials that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration "is now void and only covered the period from the signing in 1984 until the handover in 1997."
Ni's comments were reported during a parliamentary debate on Tuesday by Richard Ottaway, chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.
Hua responded: "Britain has no sovereignty over Hong Kong that has returned to China, no authority and no right to oversight."
The next move
The influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) said on Thursday that student protest leaders are now considering whether to continue occupying major highways and intersections near government headquarters in the Admiralty district and busy Causeway Bay shopping district.
Students have continued "shopping tour" walking protests around the former Occupy site in Kowloon's Mong Kok district after the site was forcefully cleared by riot police using tear-gas spray and batons last week.
HKFS spokeswoman Yvonne Leung told a local program on Hong Kong's Commercial Radio that students could decide within a week whether to remain in place.
"Some protesters have expressed a wish to stay until police clear the sites, but we also need to think clearly about what purpose a continued occupation would serve," she said.
She said the HKFS would gather opinions and views from protesters before making "a concrete decision."
A student occupier surnamed Lee told RFA on Thursday that there is now a clear split within the ranks of occupiers between those who want to stay and those who want to call an end to occupation.
"I will respect whatever decision the federation makes, but I won't leave if they do," said Lee, who added that he didn't agree with the hunger strike as a strategy for boosting popular support for the pro-democracy movement.
"There's a limit to how much public sympathy the hunger strike can win," he added. "It would be better to take good care of oneself so as to better resist police violence."
Reported by Wong Lok-to and Ho Shan for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2014-12-04
Student democracy movement leader Joshua Wong vowed on Thursday to continue his hunger strike despite warnings about his health and concern over the future of the two-month-old Occupy Central movement.
Wong, who has been fasting along with two other members of his activist group Scholarism, and who was joined by two other student hunger strikers on Wednesday, says he wants the Hong Kong government to reinstate talks with protesters over their demands for fully democratic elections in 2017.
Wong appeared very weak on Thursday, but apologized after being given glucose when his blood sugar levels plummeted, on advice from a medical team caring for the hunger strikers.
Hong Kong's secretary for food and health Ko Wing-man warned the fasting students, who pledged to drink only water and eat no food, that hunger striking is bad for their health.
"From a medical point of view, any sort of fast, including that in which nothing is eaten or in which only liquids or water are taken, are all bad for health," Ko told reporters.
In Taiwan, Wang Dan, a former student leader in the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Beijing, called on the five Hong Kong students to end their hunger strike.
"As long as the mountains are green, there will always be fuel for the fire," Wang wrote on Facebook on Thursday. "It doesn't matter if you lose a battle; winning the war is more important."
Worsening condition
A Scholarism volunteer identified only by his nickname Ernest told RFA that the five hunger strikers' conditions had already worsened, and that the three who began refusing food on Monday were the weakest.
"There are medical staff who monitor their health at regular intervals, so as to make sure they're not in danger," he said.
As the hunger strike continued, the ruling Chinese Communist Party warded off growing international criticism of its refusal to allow the public nomination of candidates in the 2017 elections for the territory's chief executive.
According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.
China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying hit out at calls from U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel on Wednesday for Beijing to exercise restraint and flexibility in dealing with the wishes of Hong Kong people.
"The Chinese side resolutely opposes any interference in any form by any foreign country," Hua told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
She repeated Beijing's claim that the Occupy movement in Hong Kong was incited by "some individuals and forces."
Last week, Ni Jian, deputy Chinese ambassador to Britain, told British officials that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration "is now void and only covered the period from the signing in 1984 until the handover in 1997."
Ni's comments were reported during a parliamentary debate on Tuesday by Richard Ottaway, chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.
Hua responded: "Britain has no sovereignty over Hong Kong that has returned to China, no authority and no right to oversight."
The next move
The influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) said on Thursday that student protest leaders are now considering whether to continue occupying major highways and intersections near government headquarters in the Admiralty district and busy Causeway Bay shopping district.
Students have continued "shopping tour" walking protests around the former Occupy site in Kowloon's Mong Kok district after the site was forcefully cleared by riot police using tear-gas spray and batons last week.
HKFS spokeswoman Yvonne Leung told a local program on Hong Kong's Commercial Radio that students could decide within a week whether to remain in place.
"Some protesters have expressed a wish to stay until police clear the sites, but we also need to think clearly about what purpose a continued occupation would serve," she said.
She said the HKFS would gather opinions and views from protesters before making "a concrete decision."
A student occupier surnamed Lee told RFA on Thursday that there is now a clear split within the ranks of occupiers between those who want to stay and those who want to call an end to occupation.
"I will respect whatever decision the federation makes, but I won't leave if they do," said Lee, who added that he didn't agree with the hunger strike as a strategy for boosting popular support for the pro-democracy movement.
"There's a limit to how much public sympathy the hunger strike can win," he added. "It would be better to take good care of oneself so as to better resist police violence."
Reported by Wong Lok-to and Ho Shan for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
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