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Please support Hongkong     https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=799902.new#new

RT @imrika1874: This is #HongKong !!!! Please share to the world!!!!! #hk926 #hk928 #HKDemocracy #HKStudentStrike pic.twitter.com/a7TJcfxtWD

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bynwnr-CYAEVrMn.jpg

Oh yeah, please support another bunch of dumb puppets which are manipulated in order to achieve financial and political interests of the very limited share of population. The results of their activity will have nothing in common with democracy, there are really a lot of examples.

Lol, when you people will start thinking instead of simply reacting? :D  In case of success all these "protesters" will be thrown into trash can just like used condom. Because it's their true function, to serve as condom while government is being fucked by oligarchs.

You mean like Ukraine? Yeah, I know what you mean.

What's happening in HK virtually uncommented by mainstream media given the distraction that ISIS provides is a huge test case for democracy and civil liberties already tough situation in the region

ISIS aren't a threat to democracy, they're a bunch of psychopaths bent on killing us all that managed to form a state.

It's better to support Pakistan.

http://salmanlatif.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pti.jpg

Massive riots during last 40 days, people are trying break down a "tyranny of the corrupt PM". I'm not surprised to see that there is no Fox, BBC, CNN or forum trolls coverage. Because protesting against US puppet is not democratic by definition. People are allowed to install the puppet... But any attempt to remove it will be an undemocratic crime against the statehood, which doesn't worth any coverage in free & democratic press. ;D

support HK

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByvojUsCYAE-Jgn.jpg

Nothing serious will happen unless something drastic is done during the protest.

Another colored revolution

Ha, it would make sense the pro-KKKremlin crowd would support the suppression of free will and speech.

After all, Russia and China are blood soaked totalitarian regimes that worship at the same blood drenched altars.

But why would the KKKRemlinites support the Chi-Coms? China is POISED to take Siberia from you.

Asia is for ASIANS, not Russian carpetbaggers. Stay the FUCK OUT.

We should get some donations for these people... Is it possible for those people to give up using government issued money and use bitcoin instead?

I guess in that case many government function will stop working, since their money are not accepted anywhere, they can't control many entities using printed money anymore

They did not manage to form a state!  Where do you get your information?

I hope they are safe.

Cost of living is extremely high in Hong Kong. People there need to have 2 jobs just to survive.

Surprise the protest didn't happen a lot earlier.

They have formed a state dumbass, just because they aren't recognised by the other countries doesn't mean they haven't, much like how the Kurds are holding their own in Iraq and have their own territory I recognise that as a state even if Americans won't, ISIS even have their own financial centre and healthcare supposedly, of course, all of the money is plundered from the U.S lol but they're using the oil they captured and are selling it to other countries to fund themselves.

白宫就香港抗议“我们人民”请愿之回复
请看博讯热点：占领中环
(博讯北京时间2014年10月01日 来稿)
   
   
     收到白宫white house来信，标题是Response to We the People Petition on the Protests in Hong Kong（就香港抗议“我们人民”请愿之回复），我看试着翻译了一下，并已发布在推特上。全文内容如下。


   
    英文：
    Response to We the People Petition on the Protests in Hong Kong
   
    We are watching the situation in Hong Kong closely. Around the world, the United States supports internationally recognized fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. We urge the Hong Kong authorities to exercise restraint, and for protestors to express their views peacefully.
   
    The United States supports universal suffrage in Hong Kong in accordance with the Basic Law and we support the aspirations of the Hong Kong people. We believe that an open society, with the highest possible degree of autonomy and governed by the rule of law, is essential for Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity -- indeed this is what has made Hong Kong such a successful and truly global city. We have consistently made our position known to Beijing, and we will continue to do so.
   
    We believe that the legitimacy of the Chief Executive will be greatly enhanced if the Basic Law's ultimate aim of selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage is fulfilled and if the election provides the people of Hong Kong a genuine choice of candidates representative of the voters' will.
   
    我的中文译稿：
   
    我们密切关注香港局势。在全世界范围内，美国支持国际认同的基本自由，包括和平集会自由与表达自由。我们敦请香港当局保持克制，以保障抗议者和平地表达他们的观点。
   
    美国支持港人依《基本法》规定进行普选，我们支持香港人民的雄心壮志。我们相信，一个最大程度地自治和实施法治的开放社会，于香港而言是至关重要的——事实上，正因如此，香港得以获得成功并成为国际化都市。我们已经一贯如此向北京表达我们的立场，并将继续这样做。
   
    我们相信：如果通过普选得以实现《基本法》选举特首之最终目标，如果选举提供给港人真实选择权、以选出反映投票者意愿之代表，则特首的合法性将大大提升。
   
    ——全文翻译完毕，请大家指正完善。也欢迎哪位IT高手把全文制成图片，予以传播。
    一边翻译，一边感叹美国政府的措辞了得！一方面，批评此前特首之产生不够合法；另一方面，将普选作为特首合法性的前提，无懈可击——虽然表达方式委婉含蓄——党国又要说这是美帝干涉中国内政了。
   
    肖国珍20140930 [博讯来稿]

Done, hope the protesters get some of the things they want and stay safe

電於民!
Power to the people!

Just because someone calls themselves "the State of _____", doesn't make them a state!   I asked you: where do you get your information from?   Because it sounds like you believe exactly what ISIS says.   And I'm the dumbass?  LOL

State's aren't formed on another countries say so, they're just formed, the fact that you 'need' information from another government just shows you don't understand that, do I need to go into the intricacies of Scotland and Catalonia to explain all this to you? Or are you just going to ignore history?

If I have to, I guess I should talk about the United States being originally part of the British Empire, or are you claiming that they needed acknowledgement from Britain before they became a nation state?

It's not even about them calling themselves a "State of...", the western media/politics officially named them a 'State'.

ISIS = Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

And the same media/politics call Bitcoin "the preferred currency of drug dealers".   Does them saying so make it true?   Honestly, if you get your information from sources like the western media, you're going to be so full of shit that informed people won't bother wasting their time on you, a hopeless case.

Anyway - I'm sorry to derail from the topic, Hong Kong protests. 

Occupy Central, (和平佔中 or just 佔中 in media reports) is a civil disobedience campaign initiated by Benny Tai Yiu-ting, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong, the founder of Occupy Central with Love and Peace (organisation) to pressurise the PRC Government into granting universal suffrage and civil nomination in Hong Kong’s electoral reform in 2017 as promised according to the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 45. The campaign was originally planned to launch on 1 October 2014, National Day of the People's Republic of China to respond Beijing's decision on the framework of Hong Kong electoral reform in 2017.[2]

However, Occupy Central with Love and Peace announced the commencement of Occupy Central earlier on 28 September 2014 in the midst of the heated week-long class boycott[3] organised by Hong Kong Federation of Students(referred as HKFS below) and Scholarism to encourage secondary students’ engagement in political and social affair discussion. The student strikes developed into a wave of strikes in other industries, demonstration of police’s excessive use of force, civil disobedience and occupy movement in an unprecedented scale that led by Hong Kong Federation of Students, Scholarism, Occupy Central and Pan-democratic parties. The method of Hong Kong Police in dispersing demonstrators received wide condemnation and criticism.

Occupy Central gradually developed into a non-centralised, self-generative occupy movement spreading in different area of Hong Kong that largely governed by citizen’s voluntary helps and self-discipline.[4]

resource> wiki

Background:
The pro-democracy camp petitioned the Hong Kong government and Beijing for the full implementation of universal suffrage as indicated in the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 45, which delineates the requirements for electing the chief executive.[5] Members also cited[citation needed]language in Annex I in support of universal suffrage:

“   "The chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People's Government.[6]"   ”
“   "The method for selecting the chief executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.[6]"   ”
In December 2007, the National People's Congress Law Committee officially ruled on the issue of universal suffrage in Hong Kong:[7]

“   that the election of the fifth chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the year 2017 may be implemented by the method of universal suffrage; that after the chief executive is selected by universal suffrage, the election of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may be implemented by the method of electing all the members by universal suffrage...   ”
The Asia Times wrote in 2008 that both proposals for the Legislative Council (LegCo) and for the chief executive were "hedged in with so many ifs and buts that there is no guarantee of Hong Kong getting anything at all... "[8]

CY Leung, the incumbent chief executive of Hong Kong, was to submit the local government's recommendation to Beijing on how to proceed with democratisation in the territory following consultations. As of July 2014 a round of consultations ended in early 2014, and another round of consultations was to take place in the second half.[9] Chinese political leaders have since repeatedly declared that the chief executive, which is to be elected by universal suffrage in 2017, "must conform to the standard of loving the country and loving Hong Kong".[10] To that end, the government of Hong Kong, strongly backed by the PRC government, reiterated that CE nominees be screened by a "broadly representative nominating committee", and that there was no provision for civic nominations.[10] The position was reaffirmed in a State Council white paper from June 2014.[11]

Objectives:
On 16 January 2013, Benny Tai, Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong, published an article in the Hong Kong Economic Journal in which he proposed an act of civil disobedience carried out in the Central, the business and financial centre of Hong Kong, to put pressure on the government if its universal suffrage proposals proved to be "fake" democracy.[12]

The OCLP states that it would campaign for universal suffrage through dialogue, deliberation, civil referendum and civil disobedience (Occupy Central);[13] it also demands that the government proposal should satisfy the "international standards" in relation to universal suffrage, i.e. equal number of vote, equal weight for each vote and no unreasonable restrictions on the right to stand for election, and the final proposal for the electoral reform to be decided by means of democratic process. OCLP claims that any civil disobedience would be non-violent[13] though it cannot guarantee Occupy Central will be peaceful.[14]

You specifically asked Lethn where did he get the information from (ISIS being a state), so I kindly pointed out that this information is presented EVERYWHERE in the media, it's encoded in the fucking name: ISIS.

Protestors:
Occupy Central initially organised and promoted by Occupy Central with Love and Peace, HKFS and Scholarism. Participants are usually groups of concerned citizens and students who are engaging in discussion of political reforms, democratic progress and social issues. On 27 - 28 September, the excessive use of violence in dispersion of demonstrators by Hong Kong Police has antagonised and frustrated general public feelings, and yet student’s spirits appeared to inspire more citizens rally under the same banner. By Monday morning, 29 September, Admiralty and Central, the artery of Hong Kong’s financial centre is paralysed by tens of thousands of protesters, by the same evening, the movement spread out to other major thoroughfares of Hong Kong including Mong Kok, Causeway Bay.[15]

Organisation
Although the demonstrators were gathered by HKFS and Scholarism, the unprecedented scale of demonstrators and multiple congregation locations soon changed the Occupy Central movement into a non-centralised, self-managed horizontal structure. News, distribution of resources and tactics exchange is viral on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp, largely urged the protests remained calm, not to be incited or provoked and gave out instruction on handling tear gas and pepper spray.

Despite several nationalist newspaper described protesters as radical activists and extremists,[16] global news media generally have an affirmative altitude of protester’s discipline and organisation. The Independent said Occupy Central “could be the most polite demonstration ever”.[17] Protesters volunteered in distributing food and water, picking up rubbish and cigarette butts, recycling and sorting plastic bottles and used raincoats. According to BBC news, "many agree that the world hasn't seen organised and tidy protests quite like this before.”[18] In size of such protest, no damage of civilian properties, looting or vandalism has hitherto filed.

Apart from the surprising self-discipline and well-conducted civil behaviours, apology notes can be seen on the barricades for causing inconvenience. A widely reported apology note is found on the windshield of a vandalised police van, written “Sorry I don’t who did this but we are not anarchists - We want democracy.”[19]

Deliberation

See also: 2014 Hong Kong electoral reform
The three sessions of deliberation day were held on 9 June 2013, 9 March 2014, and 6 May 2014 respectively.

On 5 February 2014, the Democratic Party swore to take part in the Occupy Central campaign at Statue Square despite the risk of being jailed. Some more radical democrats, mostly People Power disrupted the oath-taking ceremony. The 20-member group of pan-democratic lawmakers condemned the radicals at a joint press conference afterwards.[20]

On the third deliberation day, the Occupy Central participants voted on electoral reform proposals put forward by different organisations for the civil referendum. A total of 2,508 votes were cast in the poll, all three selected proposals contain the concept of civil nomination, which the mainland China officials had said did not comply with the Basic Law. The proposal by student groups Scholarism and Hong Kong Federation of Students which allows for public nomination, received 1,124 votes – 45 percent of the vote. People Power's proposal came in second with 685 votes, while that from the three-track proposal by Alliance for True Democracy consisting of 27 pan-democracy lawmakers got 445 votes. The proposal from Hong Kong 2020 received 43 votes, while the civil recommendation proposed by 18 academics got 74 votes.[21]

The three proposals chosen by the members of Occupy Central deliberation panel were considered to be more radical. The League of Social Democrats and People Power lawmakers, despite being part of the Alliance for True Democracy, urged their supporters to vote against the alliance's proposals.[22] More moderate pan-democrats that avoided the notion of civic nomination were effectively squeezed out.[23][24] Civic Party lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah, who saw his moderate plan rejected in a poll believed "the Occupy Central movement has been hijacked by radicals". He believed that the poll results would make it harder to find a reform package Beijing would agree to and that wins over the five or so pan-democrats it will need for a two-thirds majority in LegCo. He also believed Occupy's plan to block streets in Central would be likely to go ahead.[22] This, and the decision of People Power and the League of Social Democrats to go back on pledges to support the alliance's proposals, and of People Power to make its own proposal that included civil nomination, pointed to a split in pan democrat ranks.[23][25]

Civic referendum


The Occupy Central movement commissioned the University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme (HKUPOP) to run a poll on three proposals – all of which involve allowing citizens to directly nominate candidates – to present to the Beijing government. It ran from 20 to 29 June 2014.[26] A total of 792,808 people, equivalent to a fifth of the registered electorate, took part in the poll by either voting online or going to designated polling stations,.[27] The two referendum questions were "For CE Election 2017, I support OCLP to submit this proposal to the Government: 1. Alliance for True Democracy Proposal, 2. People Power Proposal, 3. Students Proposal, or Abstention" and "If the government proposal cannot satisfy international standards allowing genuine choices by electors, LegCo should veto it, my stance is: LegCo should veto, LegCo should not veto, or abstain" respectively.

The proposal tabled by the Alliance for True Democracy, a group comprising 26 of the 27 pan-democratic lawmakers, won the unofficial "referendum" by securing 331,427 votes, or 42.1 per cent of the 787,767 valid ballots. A joint blueprint put forward by Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students came second with 302,567 votes (38.4 per cent), followed by a People Power's proposal, which clinched 81,588 votes (10.4 per cent).[28][29] All three call for the public to be allowed to nominate candidates for the 2017 chief executive election, an idea repeatedly dismissed by Beijing as inconsistent with the Basic Law. However, the Alliance's "three track" proposal would allow the public, the nominating committee, as well as political parties, to put forward candidates. Under their plan, candidates can be nominated by 35,000 registered voters or by a party which secured at least five per cent of the vote in the last Legco election. It did not specify on the formation of the nominating committee, only stating that it should be "as democratic as it can be". The two other proposals would only allow the public and a nominating committee to put forward candidates.[29] 691,972 voters (87.8 per cent) agreed that the Legislative Council should veto any reform proposal put forward by the government if it failed to meet international standards, compared with 7.5 per cent who disagreed.[29]

The unofficial "referendum" infuriated Beijing and prompted a flurry of vitriolic editorials, preparatory police exercises and cyber-attacks. As the poll opened, it was quickly hit by what one US-based cyber-security firm called the "most sophisticated onslaught ever seen". "[The attackers] continue to use different strategies over time," Matthew Prince, the chief executive of CloudFlare, a firm that helped defend against the attack, told the South China Morning Post. "It is pretty unique and sophisticated." The firm could not identify the origin of the attack.[26] Mainland officials and newspapers have called the poll "illegal" while many have condemned the Occupy Central, claiming it is motivated by foreign "anti-China forces" and will damage Hong Kong's standing as a financial capital.[26] On Tuesday, Zhang Junsheng, a former deputy director of Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong, called the poll "meaningless". The state-run Global Times mocked the referendum as an "illegal farce" and "a joke". The territory's chief executive, Leung Chun-Ying, said: "Nobody should place Hong Kong people in confrontation with mainland Chinese citizens." Mainland censors have meanwhile scrubbed social media sites clean of references to Occupy Central.[26]

Before the referendum, the State Council issued a white paper claiming "comprehensive jurisdiction" over the territory.[30] "The high degree of autonomy of the HKSAR [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] is not full autonomy, nor a decentralised power," it said. "It is the power to run local affairs as authorised by the central leadership." Michael DeGolyer, director of the transition project at Hong Kong Baptist University, said: "It's very clear from surveys that the vast majority of the people voting in this referendum are doing it as a reaction to this white paper – particularly because they see it as threatening the rule of law ... That's not negotiating on the one country two systems principle, that's demolishing it."[26]

Legalit

The OCLP has pointed out the participants in Occupy Central could be guilty of "obstructing, inconveniencing or endangering a person or vehicle in a public place" under the Summary Offenses Ordinance. Also under the Public Order Ordinance, Occupy Central could be considered as unlawful assembly, i.e., "when three or more people assemble... to cause any person reasonably to fear that the persons so assembled will commit a breach of the peace or will by such conduct provoke other persons to commit a breach of the peace, they are an unlawful assembly." The Hong Kong Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok stated that the government will "take robust action to uphold the rule of law and maintain safety and order."[14]

Reaction:
SAR government
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying warned that the Occupy Central movement is bound to be neither peaceful nor legal and that actions will be taken to maintain law and order.[31]

Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok warned that the radical elements of Occupy Central may cause serious disturbances like the violent incident during the meeting for funding the northeast New Territories new town in Legislative Council; he reminded the participants to consider their own personal safety and legal liability.[14]

Commissioner of Police Andy Tsang Wai-hung said that any attempt to block major thoroughfares in Central will not be tolerated and warned people to think twice about joining the Occupy Central protest, adding "any collective act to hold up traffic unlawfully" would not be tolerated.[32]

PRC government
Official's response
Wang Guangya, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, when asked if he believed the Occupy Central plan was beneficial to the city, said "I think Hong Kong compatriots don't want to see Hong Kong being messed up. Hong Kong needs development."[33]

Qiao Xiaoyang, chairman of the National People's Congress Law Committee, was quoted as accusing the "opposition camp" of "fuelling" the Occupy Central plan. Qiao said the plan was only "partly truthful", "complex" and a "risk-everything" proposition.[33]

In October 2013 the party-controlled Global Times objected to Occupy organizers meeting with Democratic Progressive Party figures such as Shih Ming-teh in Taiwan, saying that the DPP, the main opposition party to Taiwan's governing KMT, was "pro-independence." In a piece titled "HK opposition at risk of becoming enemy of the State," Occupy organizers were warned that "collaborating with the pro-independence forces in Taiwan will put Hong Kong's future at the risk of violence," and advised that "if they collaborated... massive chaos might be created, which will compel the central government to impose tough measures to maintain Hong Kong's stability."[34] A few days later the paper said that Occupy Central was a "potentially violent concept" and asked "Why are Benny Tai Yiu-ting, who initiated the Occupy Central campaign and his supporters so bold as to challenge the central government with a bloody proposal over the issue of chief executive election procedures?"[35]

Censorship
Occupy Central protests has been censored in mainland China news media. On nationalist newspaper, Occupy Central is described as an "illicit campaign" which will "jeopardise the global image of Hong Kong" and "erode the authority of the rule of law". The demonstrators are described as "radical opposition forces" and a small minority of extremists who are not capable of mobilising the mass towards revolution.[36] In all state mouthpiece, the general opinion in editorials and commentary is trivialising the scale, significance and the unlikelihood of Occupy Central's success, reassurance of the Communist party's complete power over Hong Kong's affairs and painting a picture of majority of Hong Kong people welcome the 2017 political framework.

On Sunday 28 September, the state-controlled news channel Dragon TV broadcast the images of few thousand people jubilantly waving Chinese flags, participating in a celebration of the upcoming 65th anniversary of China National Day in Tamar Park whilst the coverage on student protest was missing. Interviewees overwhelmingly welcomed China's framework and decision for Hong Kong's 2017 election.

On 28 September, Popular photo-sharing app Instagram was blocked in Mainland China after the photos and videos of the use of tear gas went viral online. Phrases like "Tear Gas", "Hong Kong Students" and "Occupy Central" are censored on the largest search engine in China Baidu, Sina Weibo (China Twitter).[37] Experts reported that he received "hundreds of complaints from people on Twitter saying their Weibo accounts had been either blocked or deleted, most because they talked about the Hong Kong issue."[38] Mobile messaging service providers KakaoTalk also reported disruptions of their service,[39] which protestors circumvented via the peer-to-peer app FireChat.[40][41]

Pro-democracy camp
Civic Party lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki said he saw the ideas as "the last resort" to pressure Beijing and the SAR administration to introduce universal suffrage. "If Beijing breaks its promise of universal suffrage," he added, "we will have no option but to launch such a civil disobedience movement."[42]

Albert Ho Chun-yan of Democratic Party claimed he would resign from his legislator post to grant Hong Kong people the opportunity to vote in a de facto referendum to pave way for the Occupy Central movement, just as the pan-democrats launched the by-election in 2010 for universal suffrage in 2012.[43][unreliable source?]

The pan-democrats' reactions were not uniformly supportive. Wong Yuk-man has expressed fears that the movement would deteriorate,[44] while Wong Yeung-tat was strongly opposed to the movement.[45]

Pro-Beijing camp
Cheung Kwok-kwan, vice-chairman of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, questioned whether Hong Kong could "afford the negative impact of people staging a rally to occupy and even paralyze Central for a universal suffrage model". He noted that it was "a mainstream idea" in the SAR not to resort to radical means to fight for democracy.[42] Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, a National People's Congress Standing Committee member, feared the occupation would adversely affect Hong Kong's image.[46] National People's Congress Deputy and Executive Councilor Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fan urged the opposition camp to show respect for each other through a rational and pragmatic debate over the issue. She added that there was no need to resort to "extreme action" and claimed that it was not too late to begin consultations next year.[46]

In mid-July, after the civic referendum, the Alliance for Peace and Democracy (APD) initiated a petition against the occupation from 18 July to 17 August.[47] There were criticisms that no identity checks were carried out and that there were no steps to prevent numerous multiple signatories.[47] According to the Wall Street Journal and South China Morning Post, employees faced pressure to sign petition forms that were being circulated by department heads in some companies, including Town Gas, a major public utility.[48][49] The APD claimed in excess of a million signatures were obtained.[50] The organisers said they obtained signatures from many supporters including children, secondary school and university students, the elderly, office staff, celebrities and maids.[47] Official endorsements include chief executive CY Leung and other top Hong Kong officials.[50][51] The APD organised a "march for peace" on 17 August intended to undermine the Occupy movement.[50] It was attended by tens of thousands of marchers. There were widespread claims that organisations had paid people to attend the rally or had given other inducements; the media reported pro-establishment organisations (namely the Federation of Trade Unions) had put on cross-border transport to bring in marchers[52] and that some 20,000 people may have been bussed in from across the border.[53] An editorial in The Standard noted "it's obvious that Beijing spared no effort in maximizing the turnout... Beijing has demonstrated its ability to swiftly mobilize the masses over a relatively short period".[53]

Business and professional groups
Eight major local business groups signed a statement condemning the Occupy Central movement and its founders meeting with Taiwanese independence activists in October 2013. Signatories included Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Hong Kong Industries, Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong and Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong . The Law Society of Hong Kong quickly followed.[54]

In June 2014, Executives and brokers including tycoons Li Ka-shing and Peter Woo, and also the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and the Hong Kong Bahrain Business Association were joined by the Canadian, Indian and Italian chambers of commerce in Hong Kong published an advertisement on newspapers that said the demonstrations may "cripple" businesses.[55]

In late June 2014, Hong Kong's four biggest accounting firms issued a statement condemning the Occupy Central movement arguing that the blockade could have an "adverse and far-reaching impact" on the local legal system, social order and economic development. Employees of the firms who called themselves a "group of Big Four employees who love Hong Kong" took out an advertisement saying their employers' statement "does not represent our stance."[56]

On 29 September 2014, Hong Kong Bar Association released a press statement, strongly denouncing “the excessive and disproportionate use of force by the Hong Kong Police” [57] and the misjudgement of Police’s escalated use of force antagonised and frustrated public feelings.

Declaring that despite the disagreement over political views and allegedly criminal offences, the “repeated, systematic, indiscriminate and excessive use of CS gas” [57] on the unarmed, peaceful and well-conducted demonstrators can not be justified even in names of maintaining public order or prevention of public disorder, such use of force does not abide by law and out of common decency on unarmed civilians.

Others
Leo F. Goodstadt, who served as adviser to Chris Patten, the last British-appointed governor of Hong Kong, and chief adviser for the Central Policy Unit of the colonial government, said that it would be normal for protesters to "paralyze Central" because "it is part of their right to protest" and Hong Kong residents already possessed the right to criticise the government through protests since the colonial era. In response to concerns that the Occupy Central campaign would hurt Hong Kong's status as an international financial center, Goodstadt cited the frequent mass protests in New York and London, two leading international financial centres, as having a minimal effect on the business environment there.[58]

Cardinal Joseph Zen has given his conditional support to the campaign, but stated that he would not participate in the movement for an indefinite period.[59] The incumbent bishop Cardinal John Tong Hon expressed that he did not encourage followers to join the movement, suggesting that both parties should debate universal suffrage through dialogue.[60]

Reverend Ng Chung-man of the Evangelical Free Church of China publicly denounced the Occupy Central plan in his church's newsletter. Ng wrote that while "some Christians are advocating...occupying Central to force the governments to give in to their demands...civil disobedience is acceptable biblically only...when people's rights to religion and to live are under threat". He exhorted believers to pray for those in authority, in an act of "active subordination" to "relatively just governments".[61]

On 27 September, Human rights watchdog Amnesty International swiftly responded to the use of pepper spray in dispersing the peaceful demonstrators on the night before, declaring Hong Kong Police's immediate resolve to use violence and riot police dispersing the crowds violated Hong Kong citizens’ freedom of speech and freedom of assembly of demonstration as constituted in Article 27 of Hong Kong Basic Law, which bound by International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[62] Amnesty International urged the authorities to fulfil their obligation abide by International and domestic law, to release people who had been detained solely on exercising their human rights, and to ensure a peaceful environment for demonstrators.

Basically they're protesting against proposed changes to the elections procedure. And it's very funny because these changes are proposed to make elections more transparent and democratic. So they're protesting against own freedom.  ;D

If you don't know, Chief Executive elections are performed in three steps:

1) Candidates are submitting their requests to participate in elections;
2) Chinese government chooses a few candidates;
3) Hong-Kong Election Committee chooses between these candidates.

This order is declared in the Basic Law of the Hong-Kong Special Administrative Region. People's Assembly of China (chinese parliament) passed the bill allowing to remove the Chinese government from election process and perform next elections directly using Single Transferable Voting system... It will be the first such experience because direct Chief Executive elections have never held at any point of history of Hong-Kong. It would seem that it's time for the party, but idiots aka "politically active students" are unable to understand their happiness.  Grin

Anybody who "helps" or "supports" them is an idiot too. It's really just as simple as that.

EDIT: Recover acidentally removed message.

Official launch:
On 28 September 2014 at 1.40am Hong Kong time, Benny Tai announced the official start of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace civil disobedience campaign on the stage of the student protests outside Hong Kong's Central Government Complex.[63]

On Sunday night, 28 September 2014, the scenes in Central and Admiralty became more dramatic, as the police employed tear gas, pepper spray, and batons in their attempts to disperse the protesters. The use of tear gas was a significant move in Hong Kong, as it had not been used in the SAR since 2005.[64] This did not deter the crowds, as thousands more began to occupy Causeway Bay and Mongkok instead. On Monday, the government withdrew the riot police and there were massive traffic disruptions as buses and vehicles were diverted.[65] The police requested that the protesters free up the roads to allow commuters to get to work. However, the protesters reiterated their requests to speak with a government official, in order to begin negotiations for democratic reforms.[66] The tear gas used has been identified by Campaign Against Arms Trade as being manufactured by Chemring Group.[67]

International reaction:

The demonstration grew so unprecedentedly huge that Hong Kong received wide news coverage and headlines on major international news outfits—including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, BBC News and Reuters—for days. The demonstration has been widely referred to as the "Umbrella Revolution".[68]

The self-organised Facebook group Global Solidarity with Hong Kong was established on 13 September 2014, providing a platform for Hong Kong citizens who live in different corner of the world to organise protests in their own cities. Various protests sprang up across different cities with solidarity to support the on-going demonstration and to condemn the Hong Kong Police's excessive use of force in Hong Kong.

Australia
In Australia, 250 students wore black shirts and gathered peacefully outside of Chinese Consulate in Perth on 29 September 2014, condemning the excessive use of violence in dispersing peaceful demonstrators and supporting Hong Kong's pursuit of full democracy.[69]

Canada
In Vancouver, British Columbia, a large group wearing yellow gathered in front of the local Chinese Consulate to support the movement in Hong Kong. This began on September 28, and is expected to continue.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird wrote on Twitter, "Aspirations of people of Hong Kong are clear. Canada supports continued freedom of speech and prosperity under the rule of law." His press secretary added, "Canada’s position is clear. We are supportive of democratic development in Hong Kong and believe that the ongoing adherence to the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ policy has contributed to and remains essential for Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity [...] Canada reiterates its support for the implementation of universal suffrage for the election of the Chief Executive in 2017 and all members of the Legislative Council in 2020, in accordance with the Basic Law and the democratic aspirations of the Hong Kong people."[70]

The New Democratic Party, the Official Opposition, also expressed solidarity with protesters, stating "New Democrats believe that freedom of expression and association, including the right to peaceful protest, are fundamental rights. We stand in solidarity with all people who aspire for democracy, peace and the protection of human rights." They also called on Chinese authorities to "exercise restraint."[70]

New Zealand
On 1 October 2014, ~300 people protested along Auckland's main street in support of the Occupy Central. Protests were also staged in Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Palmerston North[71].

Taiwan
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou urged mainland authorities to listen to the voices of the people of Hong Kong and deal with the matter in a peaceful and cautious manner. He also urged Hong Kong residents to use peaceful and rational means to express their views. Ma expressed his understanding and support for Hong Kong residents' demand for universal suffrage, and said the realization of universal suffrage will be a win-win scenario for both Hong Kong and mainland China.[72]

United Kingdom
A statement from the Foreign Office called for the rights of those demonstrating to be protected. The Foreign Office said that it was important Hong Kong preserved the right to demonstrate within the law, adding that it is monitoring events "carefully". Britons have been advised to avoid public demonstrations in Hong Kong, and to monitor local media and transport companies for information.

United States
On 29 September 2014, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a press briefing that the United States government supports the "universal suffrage in Hong Kong in accordance with the Basic Law” and "the aspirations of the Hong Kong people.” They believe that "the basic legitimacy of the chief executive in Hong Kong will be greatly enhanced if the Basic Law's ultimate aim of selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage is fulfilled,” [73]

Timeline:
16 January 2013 – Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong, Benny Tai Yiu-ting wrote an article 公民抗命的最大殺傷力武器 (Civil disobedience's deadliest weapon) in Hong Kong Economic Journal suggesting an occupation of Central.[12]
24 March 2013 – Qiao Xiaoyang, chairman of the Law Committee under the National People's Congress Standing Committee stated that chief executive candidates must be persons who love the country and love Hong Kong, who do not insist on confronting the central government.[33]
27 March 2013 – Organisers of the "Occupy Central" movement, Benny Tai, Reverend Chu Yiu-ming and Chinese University's Sociology professor Chan Kin-man officially announced at a news conference that they will start promoting the protest in 2014 if the government's proposals for universal suffrage fail to meet international standards.[74]
9 June 2013 – First Deliberation Day.[75]
9 March 2014 – Second Deliberation Day.
6 May 2014 – Third Deliberation Day.
4 June 2014 – The 1989 Tiananmen Square protest Memorial draws a 180,000 crowd in light of the massacre's 25th anniversary.[76]
22 June 2014 – Civil referendum.
29 June 2014 – The civil referendum ends with 787,767 valid e-votes, or about 22% of registered Hong Kong's registered voters.[77]
1 July 2014 – The annual 1 July marches on the 17th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule draws 100,000 protesters (500,000 according to organizer), and over 500 arrests.[78][79]
18 July to 17 August 2014 - Alliance for Peace and Democracy (APD) "Anti-Occupy Central" petition campaign collected over 1,500,000 signatures.
17 August 2014 - APD "Anti-Occupy Central" march was attended by 193,000, according to organisers.[53]
2014 Hong Kong protests
Main article: 2014 Hong Kong protests
28 September 2014 - Benny Tai announces that Occupy Central is launched.[80] The police uses pepper spray, tear gas and batons to disperse protesters near Tamar Park.[81]
29 September 2014 - Thousands of protesters occupy part of Causeway Bay and part of Mong Kok.[82] Riot police have retreated from various areas.[83] Many banks on Hong Kong Island are closed. Schools in Wan Chai District and Central and Western District are suspended.[84]
30 September 2014 - Schools in Wan Chai District and Central and Western District remain suspended.[85]

Anonymous視頻全文：

Greetings world. We are Anonymous. It has come to our attention that recent tactics used against peaceful protestors here in the United States have found their way to Hong Kong.

To the protestors in Hong Kong, we have heard your plea for help. Take heart and take to your streets. You are not alone in this fight. Anonymous members all over the world stand with you, and will help in your fight for democracy.

To the Hong Kong police and any others that are called to the protests, we are watching you very closely and have already begun to wage war on you for your inhumane actions against your own citizens. If you continue to abuse, harass or harm protestors, we will continue to deface and take every web-based asset of your government off line.

That is not a threat. It is a promise. Attacking protestors will result in releasing personal information of all of your government officials. We will seize all your databases and e-mail pools and dump them on the Internet.

This is your first and only warning. The time has come for Democracy for the citizens of Hong Kong. The line has been drawn in the sand. The police are to protect, not trample on, the freedoms and democracy of their citizens. Until justice prevails hack and protest will replace it. The cause of security and democracy will be grounds for the assault on your virtual infrastructure.

Take this opportunity to stand down while we give it to you, or it will get a lot worse. Operation Hong Kong engaged.


http://img.epochtimes.com.tw/upload/images/2014/10/02/107378_medium.jpg

We Are Anonymous. We Are Legion. We do Not Forgive. We do Not Forget. Government of Hong Kong, expect us.

Hell yeah. Here here. Support the Hong Kong folks

Everyone has the right to freedom.

Government was established to serve the people, not vice versa.

@IsabelWJourno:  PLA trucks drove pass the East Gate of HKU on Bonham Rd. Can't confirm if it's to do with   #OccupyCentral  pic.twitter.com/Hx7L87xdJM

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/By856YaCEAAFrkv.jpg

Keep the faith brothers, and keep your backs covered.

http://www.crossmap.com/uploads/images/1/80/18023.jpg

Hong Kong wants to declare itself as an independent state? I support them, but is not going to happen. China will declare war on them.

@PhelimKine：human rights boot-camp:
#OccupyCentral protesters cite Nuremberg Principles to prevent police crackdown    pic.twitter.com/RvRGe0QorE


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/By-n3ylIUAAa33w.jpg

英国留学生绝食宣言
   
    自警察于九月廿八日，对手无寸鐡的示威者施暴后，那些越洋而来的文字和图片，令千里以外的海外港人震怒了，痛哭了。远在彼邦，我们可以做的，就是告诉身在香港的朋友亲身到现场支持，或聚集一众海外港人作支援。尽管如此，无力感依然挥之不去。是以，我们两位留学英国的香港人──有刚抵英国就读伦敦艺术大学，兼香港兆基创意书院毕业生叶霭瑶，及在华威大学读电影研究的硕士生陈力行──自发决定于十月一日，在伦敦中国大使馆门前的集会开始时，连续绝食二十四小时。
   
    我们都是学习艺术的年青人，也明白到艺术和创意能够走进日常生活、社区，并从中学会为不公义的事发声──任何艺术创作，都离不开一种人文关怀的精神。看到创意书院学生在校舍挂起「生之为人，不忍沉默」，我们更深深体会到，艺术家（乃至任何人）必须要有铮铮风骨。我们只想以一种坚定、温柔、不亢不卑的方法，来激发更多海内外的人士，敢于站出来声援这场波澜壮阔的民主运动。从反高铁、反国教、反新界东北发展，再来到这一刻，我们多么希望回到香港，与各位共同进退。
   
    最后，我们想跟父母说一些话。你们辛苦挣钱供我们出国读书，我们定必会好好认真学习。这次我们用身体以示决心，无疑会失去了宝贵的学习机会；但这一切，与吃过胡椒喷雾、催泪弹和警棍苦头的香港学生、市民，着实不堪比拟。即使我们和你们的政见或许存有不同，甚至分歧，我们却多么希望得到你们的尊重和支持。恳请不要为我们感到担心，我们会懂得好好照顾身体，我们会为自己负责。希望你们也能明白到：我们纵然身在海外，终究不能独善其身───我们和香港的命运是一体的。
   
    我们仅以绝食者的坚定意志，支持学联与学民思潮提出的四大诉求。没有公民提名，我们公民抗命！
   
    但愿我们学成归来之时，自由之花能在我城灿烂盛放。
   
    九月三十日，伦敦
    叶霭瑶　陈力行
   
    Hunger Strike Manifesto -- from HongKongers Studying in the UK
   
    28th September 2014, a day that will go down in history. It was the day when the Hong Kong Police brutally suppressed unarmed pro-democracy protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray. It was the day when millions of Hong Kongers around the world were heartbroken. Many of us yearned to be in Hong Kong but we couldn't; still we try our best to play our part in the Umbrella Movement: we organise ​​sit-ins around the globe as a sign of moral support; we utilise social media to raise awareness. Yet, a sense of helplessness lingers. This is the reason why we, Jobie Yip and Daniel Chan, have decided to go on a 24-hour hunger strike. Hong Kong, we stand as one amid the pain .
   
    Jobie has graduated from HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity and is now studying at the University of the Arts London. I, Daniel Chan, am reading a Master degree of Film Studies at the University of Warwick. As young artists-to-be, we understand how art and creativity are intertwined with our daily lives and the society. We have learnt to stand up to injustice with the help of art. Having endured the suchlike of the Hong Kong Express Rail Link controversy and the Anti-National Education protests, the time has finally come for HongKongers to make history. Inspired by a sign hung in Jobie's alma mater – “As humans we cannot bear to be silent” – we are determined to appeal to the world through a form of protest that is humble yet confident ; tender yet firm.
   
    Last but not least, we would like to say a few words to our parents. Mom and Dad, we are forever grateful, for without your support we wouldn't have been here in London today. ​​Mom and Dad, we promised you that we would work hard; we understand your concerns about our health. But Mom and Dad, compared to what the students protesting in Hong Kong have been confronted with, the hunger that we are enduring seems trivial. Even though we have differing political views, Mom and Dad, please, we need your respect and support.
   
    We fully support the four appeals raised by the Hong Kong Federation of Students and Scholarism. Without civil nomination, we will resort to civil disobedience!
   
    We hope that our city will be blossoming with the flowers of freedom and democracy upon our return after graduation.
   
    2014.9.30
    Jobie Yip Daniel Chan
   
    来源：香港独立媒体

James Nachtwey in HongKong today  pic.twitter.com/9AJZgsI8mT

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzBuGzgCAAA94vQ.jpg

"Blue ribbons" attacks Peaceful Protesters HD
youtu.be/wmjffo8JDDk
Mong kok is such a mess and... fb.me/1KoPJwNEv
8:58am - 4 Okt 14

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/twbvO7ItMcPFh7wztxsvgNsyUScA6HQxEsk2GVBFnf21nCyn_ClQFTw3JcLwN-85KK1H


教育界譴責政府縱容暴力聯署聲明 Urgent Appeal to Educators and Teacher Bodies Overseas against the Allowing of Violence in Hong Kong on 3/10
我們是來自大學、專上院校、中學、小學、幼稚園、特殊學校的教育工作者，對於近日有暴徒毆打、非禮包括學生在內的和平示威者，並破壞、搶掠示威者的物品感到痛心及憤怒！我們更對警察於多處縱容暴徒行兇，執法不公，表示強烈失望！
鑑於目前的局勢，責任全在政府，全在梁振英。我們教育界同人，認為政府已經失去管治的正當性，梁振英必須辭職下台，為社會的亂局承擔責任。

請大家聯署，表達你對香港學生及市民遭受暴力對待的關注。你亦可以向特區政府（警務處：pprb@police.gov.hk；教育局：psed@edb.gov.hk）致函，譴責暴徒惡行，並要求特區政府竭力保護市民的集會及言論自由。

－－－－－－－－

We are the teaching staff of universities, post-secondary institutions, secondary schools, primary schools, kindergartens, and schools of special education. We are extremely agonized and angered when the peaceful pro-democracy students and protesters were being attacked by the opposition mob who beat students and protesters, sexually molested some, tore down tents and robbed supplies of the peaceful protesters.

We are further distressed and furious when the government and the police have done very little to stop the violence and even allow it to happen.

Solemnly we condemn the violence of the opposition mob and the tolerance of our police force.

We appeal to your concern of the issues and the violence against the students and other citizens. Please send appeals to Hong Kong S.A.R. Government (Hong Kong Police Force: pprb@police.gov.hk ; Education Bureau: psed@edb.gov.hk) urging the government to protect the personal safety and the rights of assembly and to express of Hong Kong people.


－－－－－－－－

聯署團體 Organizations：
進步教師同盟（Progressive Teachers Alliance）
教育工作關注組（Education Concern Group）
保衛香港自由聯盟

聯署人 Individuals：
施安娜（中學教師）
陳為建（中學教師）
戚本盛（香港教育學院兼任講師）
盧日高（中學教師）
周子恩（中學教師）
許漢榮（大專講師）
孔令暉（中學教師）
梁曉勁（中學教師）
何萬寶（大專講師）
趙文俊
張展閩（小學教師）
梁德賢（中學教師）
梁根源
陳子通（中學教師）
高文傑（大學講師）
陳智聰（中學教師）
蔡奕豪（中學教師）
呂素雯（中學教師）
葉訊邦（香港教育學院項目助理）
溫威駿（中學教師）
邢嘉怡（中學教師）
簡仲威（中學教師）
鄒威寶（小學教師）
姜麗明（中學教師）
劉家俊（中學教師）
黃淑嫻（學前教育發展主任）
Taft Wong (Secondary School Teacher)
吳永輝（中學教師）
陳偉雄（小學教師）
黄敬斌（中學教師）
曾瑞明（中學通識教師）
陳穎怡（中學教師）
梁永達（中學教師）
姚智勇
趙欣珮（中學教師）
鍾海雯（中學教師）
chan ho yue
曾智勇（中學教師）
曾思敏（中學教師）
巫凱婷（中學教師）
李耀章（中學教師）
Tiffany Lo (Secondary School Teacher)
Li Yuen Man (Secondary School Teacher)
李芷筠（小學教師）
Tony Chow（英文科補習導師）
陳家祺（中學教師）
李嘉賢（中學教師）
陳淑怡（中學教師）
黎萬紅（大學教授）  
霍竣暘（補習社教師）
鄧琳（大專助理教授）
Chan Yuen Yi (Primary School Teacher)
韓連山（退休教師）
莊志恒（中學教師）
李駿康（大學講師）
陳艷玲（中學教師）
文日初（中學教師）
劉偉明（中學教師）
袁嘉駿（中學教師）
邱小香
Pierre Lien (Teacher of English and Literature)
張雋彥（中學教師）
朱婉玲（中學教師）
李經諱（大學助教）
Wong Suk Mei (Primary School Teacher)
鄭俊昇（中學教師）
梁斯妍（中學教師）
Lam pak wing (Teacher)
吴思敏（中學教師）
梁慕靈（大專教師）
曾錦昌（中學教師）
鄭偉良（中學教師）
陳鐘耀（中學教師）
區陪芝（中學教學助理）
張美鳯（大專教師）
Elsa Cheung
何寶顔（中學老師）
林川瑩（小學教師）
羅瑞蘭（中學教師）
Alan Chan (Secondary School Teacher)
周佩雯（市民）
李錦銓
陳家怡（小學教師）
梁醒標（中學教師）
Perscilla Lam (Primary School Teacher)
李潤良（中學教師）
Cheng Shiu Tsun
梁德華（大學講師）
蕭廷峰（中學教師）
胡曉筠（中學教師）
李維敏（中學老師）
黃耀堃（退休教師）
甘廣偉（小學課程顧問）
陳貝瑩（中學教師）
梁嘉裕（中學教師）
陳青雲（小學教師)
Tsui kit yee（小學教師）
Sung Yee Ki（中學教師）
郭蓓琳（中學教師）
潘偉杰（中學教師）
梁偉康（中學老師）
何國健（中學教師）
鄺梓桓（大學講師）
Helena Yau (Primary School Teacher)
Winnie Tsang
Helena Yau (Primary School Teacher)
Lau Wendy (Primary School Teacher)
Li Kin Chung (Citizen)
周麗兒（中學教師）
朱美玲（中學老師）
MI belle Chan (Secondary School Teacher)
Lam Hoi Shan (Primary School Teacher)
陳志鴻（中學教師）
梁家熙（中學教師）
曾少蓮（退休教師）
李凱欣（中學教師）
林德育（小學校長）
陳仲偉（小學教師）
王漢秋
Lee Vivian
葉家威（大學講師）
嚴至誠（大學講師）
衞敏英（中學教師）
Chan Ho Man (Teacher )
Tsui Yuet Ching
Ng Pan Yiu (Teacher to be)
Connie Lai (大專講師)
盧錦茵(中學教師)
Amanda Tang (secondary school teacher)
張浩恩（中學老師）
蕭廷峰 (中學教師)
葉傑強(中學教師)
許頌聲（中學教師）
陳藹婷（中學教師）
蔡怡（中學教師）
邱秀鳳 (中學教師)
方嘉茵（中學教師）
Sze Siu Yu (Secondary School Teacher)
Wong Kam Wah (Teacher)
蘇家儀（小學老師）
嚴天樂（小學教師）
謝玉明（前小學教師）
Chan Yee Wan
蔡嘉詠
Jean Mak (Secondary School Teacher)
楊示明（中學教師）
劉錦達（遊戲教師）
Sin Chun Yeung (Primary Teacher)
Choi ching ha (Secondary School Teacher)
盧錦茵（中學教師）
徐成亨（中學老師）
Michelle Chan (Secondary School Teacher)
黃家欣（小學教師）
劉瑯朗（小學教師）
吳卓均（中學教師）
Eunice Wong (parent)
何焯明（退休教師）
尹重儀（中學教師）
梁玉寶（退休教師）
蔡逸傑（中學教師）
黃文詩（中學教師）
Chan Kam Lai (Secondary School Teacher)
黃慧（中學教師）
rick chow
Chung Lai Yi (Primary School Teacher)
Fung Pui Ling
蔡惠清（小學教師）
吳兆謙（補習社教師）
劉洛姍（中學教師）
Chau Chiu Sing (Secondary School Teacher)
龐寶如（文員）
羅晧章（小學教師）
蔡明翰（中學教師）
Yeung Man Lung (ex-University Instructor)
林詠琪（小學老師）
梁嘉敏（幼稚園教師）
莊榮傑（中學教師）
Vinson Wong (Secondary School Teacher)
陳振超（中學教師）
Li Wai Man
林詠琪（小學老師）
葉紹儀（中學老師）
Liu Sheryl (former secondary teacher)
Wong Kiu Mei
李嘉敏（獨立教育工作者）
戴詠然（中學教師）
周敏莉（幼稚園老師）
Tai wai sze Alice (secondary school teacher）
Wong Man Kwan (primary school teacher)
葉嘉銘（中學教師）
郭敬業（中學教師）
楊貝詩（小學老師）
陳志宏（大學講師）
廖嘉程（中學教師）
何經綸（大學）
Chiu Kwok Chu (Secondary School Teacher)
Johnny Wong
Kwan Ka Lee (Secondary School Teacher)
Yubay Yukex（小學教師）
Kwan Ka Lee (Secondary School Teacher)
胡少恩（中學教師）
馮世權（中學教師）
Renee Chan (Secondary School Teacher)
鄭莉君（小學教師）
Lai yu lim james (senior practicum coordinator)
Ng pan wai（中學教師）
李兆基（中學教師）
CARMEN LI（中學教師）
陳珮琪（中學教師）
莊景婷（中學教師）
陳自立（中學教師）
Charles Cheng （中學教師）
Au-Yeung Ching Wan (Primary School Teacher)
黃詩琦
陳嘉健(中學教師)
Angel Poon （小學教師）
黃嘉慧（中學教師）
區敏華（中學教師）
Lam Anita(Secondary  school teacher)
劉彥君（中學教師）
林漢傑（中學教師）
李敬蕙 (中學教師)
鄧綺晴（小學教師）
張鳳娣（小學教師）
Lam kaying （中學教師）
Or Tin Lok (Citizen)
Cindy Leung (Secondary School Teacher)
李愷茵（中學教師）
李浩政 （中學教師）
吳慧儀（中學教師）
鄧潔雯(中學教師)
盧寶玉（中學教師）
胡裕星(中學教師)
鄺琬彤（中學教師）
Chan Pui Yuk (Primary School Teacher)
唐本烽 （大專講師）
Chan Pui Yuk (Primary School Teacher)
方景樂（中學教師）
鄧潔雯(中學教師)
何美燕（中學教師）
卜易（中學教師）
Ryan Yip
Kelvin Lau (secondary school teacher)
Fione Chiu (大專講師)
Kei Wing (Primary Teacher)
黃嘉豪 (小學教師)
Irene Ku (Secondary school teacher)
Hayley Lam (Primary Teacher)
Irene Ku (Secondary school teacher)
范少華(中學教師)
何焯華（退休教師）
J. Lau (secondary school teacher)
廖淑嫺（中學教師）
Kate LEUNG (Lecturer)
Helen Lee (secondary school teacher)
梁竹健(中學教師)
梁慧嫦(小學教師)
Mak Wing Yee (Secondary School Teacher)
廖文英（中學教師）
李達顯（中學職員）
Cheung ka yin ( primary school teacher)
Lydia Chan(Primary School Teacher)
Jasmine Lau (secondary teacher)
周浩然 (中學教師)
wilson yik (part-time lecturer)
萬浚明（小學教師）
Chow Ngan Yiu (primary school teacher)
陳凱兒（中學教師）
Yuki Tam (IVE)
LEE KWOK KIU( 小學教師)
吳姍姍(中學教師)
洪昭隆(中學教師)
王瑞英（大學講師）
石玉輝 (中學教師)
HF Tse (Secondary School Teacher)
Mary Ma (Music Trainer)
謝國棟(中學教師)
王立憲(中學教師)
Li wai man Janice (secondary school teacher)
黃栢熙 (中學教師)
李國文（中學教師）
Yee fung pin(secondary school)
高慧虹 （小學教師）
KK Lai (NGO Education Officer)
李輝(中學教師)
孫詠珊(小學教師)
黎比傑 (中學教師)
翁凱雯（獨立教育工作者）
孫詠珊(小學教師)
謝秀明 （小學教師）
Jonathan Yau (Secondary School Teacher)
林靜雯(中學教師)
Candy Liu (Seconday School teacher)
Ma Wai Lam (primary school teacher)
李國亮（小學教師）
Crystal Yiu (primary school teacher)
伍麗嫺（幼稚園老師）
梁佩茹(小學教師)
Cheung Wing Ki (teacher)
杜振鋒（幼稚園老師）
李鳳萍（小學教師）
Freeman Yeung(primary school teacher)
Wong Siu Ping (Primary school teacher)
羅嘉敏 (中學教師)
Lau Yim Ying (Primary School Teacher)
Choi Mei Lok(Secondary School Teacher)
林樹仁 (大專講師)
王嘉雯(中學教師）
Joan Lau (secondary sch teacher)
許劭峪（中學教師）
Lo Chui Yee ( secondary teacher)
Sandy Kwan (獨立教育工作者)
Kung Wing Yee(Secondary School teacher)
黎士機（小學教師）
岑慶麟 （中學教師）
劉榮泰(退休教師)
Irene Ng (Kindergarten teacher)
陳振昌(小學教師)
許燦霖（小學教師）
安中玉（中學老師）
edwin lee (retired teacher)
劉敏儀 （中學教師）
邵梓煒(中學教師）
許秀興（中學教師）
甄錦儀
Lai Wai Ming (Secondary school teacher)
劉婉瑩（中學老師）
Poon Ying Ying (Primary school teacher)
Lee Wing Yu ( sec sch teacher)
張斯華(中學教師)
郭煒森（特殊學校教師）
K.S. Cheung(中學教師)
Michelle Cheng(secondary school teacher)
羅舜文 （大專講師）
蔡建誠  (大專講師)
Lam Ting Yin
鄧正然（中學教師）
林灝 (中學教師)
Yeung Sheung Fong (Primary School Teacher）
謝振彪 (中學教師)
Wong Kwok Ho, Benson (Secondary School Teacher)
譚子慧(幼稚園老師)
Cheng Chun Ying (secondary school teacher)
趙磊（中學教師）
姚素珍(大學講師)
蔡劍平（中學教師）
彭偉超(小學社工)
Wong Wing Hang ( kindergarten teacher )
司徒政華 （課程講師）
何志豪(城大學生)
Victoria Ma (secondary teacher)
雷楚盈(幼稚園老師)
余珮賢（中學教師）
Law Hoi Yan ( Secondary Teacher)
Chan Chun Kit Desmond（小學教師）
曾澤文 （中學教師）
Kan Yuen Yui (secondary school teacher)
Tsoi wing kun（secondary school teacher）
暨燊樺(中學教師)
Cecilia Wong (Secondary School Teacher)
Law Shuk Ping
林友謙（中學教師）
余惠冰
Chan Ching Ching (小學老師)
Ng Wing Man (Secondary school teacher)
Daniel Tang ( Seconday school)
郭詩詠（大專講師）
anita io (secondary sch teacher)
Wong Sze Man (Primary School)
Wilson Lam (Former Secondary School Teacher)
Chan Siu Ling (Primary School Teacher )
Carmen Hui (Primary school)
Lee Shui Lin (Kindergarten Teacher)
Cheung wing ki (primary school)
陳海欣（中學教師）
麥沛琪（小學教師）
Chan Hoi kei (Secondary School teacher)
鄭建成 (小學教師)
Wong Ka Lai (Primary school teacher）
馮素霞（教育工作者）
張歷君（大學教授）
陳思銘 (小學教師)
Samuel Kwan (Prlmary school teacher)
Kwok Wai Leung (Secondary School Teacher)
陳卓瑤（講師）
邱達明 (小學老師)
Leanne Pang (Secondary School Teacher)
WONG CHUI HANG (Registered Teacher)
Kwok Man Yee (Special Education)
Yau Kwok Wah(教學助理)
葉瑞貞 (小學教師）
蘇欽華（大學助教）
高鳳宜 (小學教師)
賴筑芹 (中學教師)
許敬文（中學教師）
Niki Law (secondary school teacher)
Chan Yi Wah
何瑞歡（中學教師）
林偉龍 (中學教師)
余震宇（中學教師）
蘇淑玲 (中學教師)
胡少蘭 (中學教師)
鄭浩來（中學教師）
Lee Wai Shan (primary sch teacher）
Tam Chong Yiu (Secondary School)
陳桂馨 (中學教師)
許愛琳（中學老師）
范嘉卿 (小學老師)
Lee Wing Yan
彭嘉恩（中學教師）
Ma Milen (primary school teacher)
Cheung Siu Ling(primary school teacher)
吳國輝(退休教師)
梁穎雯(退休教師)
Benjamin Lo
Chan Wing Sze(Secondary school teacher)
周秀嫻（中學教師）
劉梓峰（中學教師）
方富潤 (中學教師)
麥梓偉 (中學教師)
吳國輝 (退休教師)
黃慕儀（小學教師）
Ho Wai Fan (Primary School Teacher)
譚業厚（中學教師）
Man Mei Yee (Secondary School Teacher)
陳翠明 (小學教師)
楊添平 (中學教師)
江斌（中學教師）
Lai Ka Yan Vanessa (Secondary School Teacher)
梁穎雯(退休教師)
Ip Ming Wai
高子翔（中學教師）
廖家汶（中學教師）
曹詠恩（小學教師）
鄧漢新 （中學教師）
Yip Ching Yee (primary school teacher)
陳天盈(獨立教育工作者)
鍾德輝(小學教師)
吳美蘭 (中學老師）
Cheung Wai Hing (Teacher)
劉愛萍（中學教師）
Phoebe Tsang (中學教師)
cheng mei yee
黃慧玲（中學教師）
Celine Tsui (Secondary School Teacher )
Raymond Li (中學教師)
李健安 (中學教師)
Wong Po Ki (secondary school teacher)
何慧怡（中學教師）
李樂華（幼稚園教師）
Chan Chin Yeung ❨Primary School Teacher❩
楊國維 （中學教師）
林崢（中學老師）
Wong Chun (教育學院學生)
Wong Po Ki (secondary school teacher)
cheung yin har (中學教師)
黃翠玲 (小學教師)
鍾玉蘭 (中學教師)
朱建忠（中學老師）
Carrie Hui (primary school teacher)
Kamby Chan (Secondary school teacher)
emme tang (secondary teacher)
馮德華 (中學教師)
Chow Lai Ying(Secondary school)
林幼玲（小學教師）
Pak Sau Ting (secondary school teacher)
鄧如玉 (中學教師)
Yu chi ho (primary school teacher)
Yip Leung Lai Ngor (Speech Therapist)
施錦輝（中學教師）
李惠心(中學教師)
Ho Pui Sze (Primary school teacher)
E Lam (secondary school teacher)
Mabel Chan
李俊賢(中學教師)
Siu pui sha( primary school teacher)
羅啟政（中學教師）
Yasmin Chong (Secondary school teacher)
彭清良（小學教師）
Joyce Wong (Secondary School Teacher)
Wong Hong Yan
林幼玲（小學教師）
Kong Ngai Shan(Secondary school)
陳志偉 （中學教師）
王君妮（中學教師）
Esther Sham
何錦雄 (退休教師)
譚詠詩（中學老師）
曾曉敏 (幼稚園老師)
何雪雯 (小學教師)
梁靄雯（小學教師）
陳淑儀 (大學講師)
Leung Hay (secondary school teacher)
WY Tsang (secondary school teacher)
伍偉洪 (中學教師)
陳秀儀（中學教師）
吳凱瑩（中學教師）
Dennis Tse (Secondary School Teacher)
戴碧儀 (退休教師)
Hong Man Shuen (Primary school teacher)
George Lin (secondary school teacher)
Lam Ka Man（小學職員）
郭文英
黎海婷（中學教師）
Emily Tang (Teacher)
Lam Ka Man（小學職員）
袁浩恩（大專講師）
伍珮瑜 (行政文書助理)
唐金輝 （中學教師）
邱劍虹（中學教師）
Chan Pak Kan (Secondary School Teacher)
李麗英 (中學教師)
ho fai ling (primary school teacher)
Ho wing sum
Ng Hiu Sze (Kindergarten Teacher)
Chan Kam Hon
吳雯靜 (中學教師)
Leung Joy See (Secondary School Teacher)
許忠（小學教師）
Anita li (special education)
Karen Cheung (secondary school teacher)
林靄茵（中學教師）
Sin Oi Sze (小學教師)
Jacqueline Tjia (primary school teacher)
古錦秀 (小學教師)
陳凱珊 （中學教師）
羅慧芬（小學教師）
Au Yue Hin (IVE Teacher)
邱卓智（大專講師）
Law Ka Yin (primary school teacher )
lo ka fung (secondary school teacher)
Christina Wu (secondary school teacher)
張嘉兒（中學教師）
林育鋒（小學教師）
Lee Mei Ling (Secondary school teacher)
任君慧 （言語治療師）
程敏儀（小學教師）
Derrick Lok( secondary school teacher)
Elaine Tsang (primary teacher)
Lam Kwan Hung (Speech Therapist)
林文傑(中學教師)
黃詠詩（中學教師）
李綺雯(小學教師)
莫家偉 （特殊學校教師）
岑永忠（小學教師）
Ma Kit Yan (secondary sch teacher)
廖玉蓮(幼兒教師)
梁寶玲 （中學教師）
Ching Man Yee (primary school teacher)
Lai King Yiu Linda (Primary School Teacher)
黃詠詩（中學教師）
杜秀瑛（小學教師）
Ian Ho  (primary teacher)
蘇麗珊 (大專講師)
林康娟（小學教師）
Tsang sin wai
劉漢峯 (中學教師)
Lai King Yiu Linda (Primary School Teacher)
張積榮 前中學教師
Lam Yanny (primary school teacher)
李嘉琪（小學老師）
Mok Loi Yan (Kindergarten teacher)
Fiona Kwai (Primary School Teacher)
區鳳翎(中學教師)
Tsui Mung Sze (Teaching Associate)
蘇素嫻（中學教師）
Lee Chee Ling(Primary School Teacher)
Winnie Ng （市民）
李芷珊（中學教師）
Kwok suk mei (school teacher)
馮沛盈（中學教師）
Lau Chi Wing ( secondary school teacher)
陳上城（中學教師）
Yan Mo Lan (secondary school teacher)
岑嘉智 (中學教師)
Chan Yuk Ling (primary school teacher)
李景成（小學教師）
鄺燕華 (小學教師)
黃美寶（中學教師）
Lo Yuk Ha (primary school)
李妙玲（中學教師）
廖嘉寶（小學教師）
李沅錡（中學教師）
周曉恩（中學教師）
蘇愷晴 (小學教師)
蕭偉宗 (中學教師)
Lo Yuk Ha (primary school teacher)
吳冬梅  中學教師
梁艷貞 (小學教師)
鄧佩珊 (中學教師)
許偉龍（特殊學校教師）
陳志明（中學教師）
NG HAU KIT （Primary schoo teacher ）
談穎妍 (中學教師)
姜曉霞 (小學教師)
周詠妍 (中學教師)
黎寶華 (小學老師）
林楚光 (中學教師)
李景成（小學教師）
張冰儀（中學教師）
盧健凌 (中學教師)
麥家斌 (中學教師)
J Yeung (Secondary School Teacher)
jackie lai ( secondary school teacher)
馬美珍(中學教師)
何影雅（小學教師）
Chen Wei(Secondary School Teacher)
Dion Cheng(kindergarten teacher)
巫曉齡(小學教師)
Cheng po yee(Primary School Teacher)
魏海琳（小學教師）
宋芷婷（中學教師）
Lai Wing Yi(Primary teacher)
鄭美鳳（中學教師）
Cheng po yee(Primary School Teacher)
葉惠珊（中學教師）
盧錦洪（中學老師）
岑明珠（前大專講師）
Julianne Yu (Primary School)
Leung Kin Wa (Primary School Teacher)
Laurie Lau (secondary school teacher)
Cheng Sau Lin, Charis (primary school teacher)
Laurie Lau (secondary school teacher)
wai cheuk yan secondary sch teacher
譚曉思(中學教師)
劉淑蓮
黃倩怡（中學教師）
阮沛熙 (特殊學校教師)
劉淑蓮（幼稚園教師）
袁紫華 (小學教師)
王家敏(中學教師)
劉潔雯（中學教師）
Marlon CHOI （中學教師）
陳穎瑜(幼稚園教師)
陳禮儀(幼師)
鄭國威 (中學教師)
Yuen Wing Han （secondary school teacher)
黃美萍（前小學老師）
張慧敏（小學教師）
曾穎思（中學教師）
葉子康（小學教師）
Shum Ka Yee(Secondary School Teacher)
麥苡玲（小學教師）
wong pui ling(nursery school teacher)
wai cheuk yan secondary sch teacher
吳汶鍾(小學教師)
李嘉欣 （中學教師）
Wong Fei (Secondary School Teacher)
何彤欣(幼稚園教師)
Tam Wing Yin (Primary School Teacher)
Su Yin Mak (University Professor)
黎慶維 (小學教師)
Ken Lau (University Lecturer)
温姿晴(小學老師)
Ip Hoi Ka (Primary School Teacher)
KC Ho (secondary school teacher)
何梓桐 （小學教師）
李翠(中學教師)
張俊晗(中學老師)
黃永強(小學教師)
Wong man kit (primary school teacher)
Yeung Nga Kei (secondary school teacher)
馮姹媛 （中學教師）
Poon Wai Man ( Secondary School Teacher)
li ka wing(kindergarten teacher)
Lai, Connie( former secondary teacher)
Lun Chi Wai (Electrician)
袁雅雯（小學教師）
盧皓慧(中學教師)
張學邦（小學教師）
衞曉暉（中學教師）
郭庭芝(幼稚園教師)
CHAN MAN KI(SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHER)
Chu Hiu Ching (Kindergarten Teacher)
曾詠雯(小學教師)
羅恩瀚 (中學教師)
Phoebe Wong (Educator)
陳慕晶（中學教師）
CHO  SAU HING
Helga Lo (Post-secondary institute teacher)
Ray Leung (Secondary school teacher)
李翠珊 （小學老師）
黄志培(中學教師)
何盛圖(中學教師)
雷婉華(小學教師)
吳悅聰 （中學教師）
Chung Chee Ling (Primary School Teacher)
丘梓媛(中學教師)
Chung Man Yee ( primary school teacher)
段俊而 （特殊學校教師）
鄭斌斌(小學教師)
袁慧琴（中學教師）
林家華（特殊學校中學教師）
林卓瑩(中學教師)
Yvonne Kwan(Secondary School Teacher)
黃凱婷（中學教師）
劉雯慧(中學老師)
Yvonne Kwan(Secondary School Teacher)
李伊善（中學教師）
Justine Chong (Primary School Teacher)
黃志文（中學教師）
Leung Ki Man (secondary school teacher)
Etern Chung (primary school teacher)
郭世民（中學教師）
李偉強（中學教師）
周雪熙(小學老師)
李安淇（中學教師）
麥松年(大專導師)
梁嘉怡（中學教師）
黃志文（中學教師）
黎紅 （中學教師）
Mok Ming Kei (primary school teacher)
Choy Ma Li (Child care worker)
陳偉倫（小學教師）
盧惠燕 ( 小學教師 )
Christopher Tsui (secondary school teacher)
楊學深（中學教師）
林振雄 （中學教師）
古運疆(中學教師)
Wong May Hang (secondary school teacher)
MOK PUI YEE （Secondary School Teacher）
David Ma
David Ma
Anna Fung (Secondary school teacher)
Joe Hui （生態教育導師）
葉偉民（中學教師）
Eva Ng (elementary school teacher)
Karen Lai primary school teacher
Venus Lee（KG ）
Wong Hau Kam (Secondary School Teacher)
Wong Wai Ming (Secondary school teacher)
江穎(中學教師)
林卓瑩(中學教師)
Chung Man Yee ( primary school teacher)
陳鎮明（中學教師）
韓芝蘭（幼稚園教師）
陳嘉豪（大學講師）
梁展慶 (大專教師)
Tsoi Yiu Chung (Secondary school teacher)
屈啓賢（中學教師）
W.F.Cheung (kindergarten teacher)
鄧依萍（小學校長）
Szeto Yat Chun(中學教師)
黃學準(小學教師)
何麗文(幼稚園教師)
Chung cheuk kwong (University staff)
何麗文(幼稚園教師)
Leung Wing Ying (Primary Teacher)
梁建恒 (小學教師)
唐子慧（小學教師）
岑偉雄 (中學教師)
阮穎詩（中學教師）
Fan Yuen Kwan (primary school teacher)
吳雙揚(中學教師)
Sun Yi Shan (Primary school teacher)
任靜怡 (中學教師)
Samuel Wong (primary teacher)
Chan Ka Ming (Secondary School Teacher)
施昉（中學教師）
陳國培(中學教師)
Yeung Sze Man(primary school teacher)
Lam Ka Man（小學職員）
黃正夫(中學教師)
Chan Yuet Wa(Primary School Teacher)
劉啟翔（中學教師）
鄺曉彤（小學教師）
Law Mei Fung (former secondary teacher)
李澤文（中學老師）
Lam Ka Man（小學職員）
陳岳豐（小學教師）
李愛惠（中學教師）
Florence Leung (兩位孩子的媽媽)
Hui Wang Hung (Social Worker)
何麗文(幼稚園教師)
黃正夫(中學教師)
黃小玲 （幼稚園老師)
何麗文(幼稚園教師)
梅嘉燕（幼稚園教師）
盧英敏(中學教師)
chan hoi nap (secondary school teacher)
郭子寧（中學教師）
Rachel Siu (Secondary School Teacher)
郭綺珊 (中學教師)
Crescent Lau (Lecturer)
Chan Wai Tik (Secondary Teacher)
胡永言（小學教師）
Cheuk Hiu Shan, Gary (Secondary School Teacher)
林祈殷 （中學教師）
楊潔儀(中學教師)
Karen Li ( kindergarten teacher)
朱加偉（小學老師）
馬偉健 （中學教師）
陳志傑（中學教師）
何國鴻(中學教師)
蘇鴻德（中學老師）
柯陽明 （中學教師）
黃靜儀（中學教師）
魏少紅（小學教師）
Connie Choi (Secondary School Teacher)
Leung Sin Tsz (Secondary school teacher)
王詩棋(幼稚園老師)
柯陽明 （中學教師）
李嘉鴻(中學教師)
Kenneth Kan (Biology Teacher)
陳詠琪(幼稚園教師)
錢德順(中學教師)
Wong Yuen Yee (Secondary school teacher)
梁仲勤（中學教師）
鄧珮珊（小學教師）
葉瑞蓮(大學教師)
翁志明(中學教師)
唐子樑 （小學教師）
Fung Sze Wa（生崖規劃助理）
陳樹鳴 中學教師
許于翔（小學老師）
Leung Siu Ping(Secondary Teacher)
林德琪（幼稚園教師）
吳丹妮（幼稚園老師）
Phoebe Tang (Kindergarten teacher)
TAM CHI WAI
蕭新泉 (中學教師)
陳巧麗 (幼師)
陳家寶（小學教師）
Peter Wong (大專講師)
張紫瑤 （中學教師）
Chuh An Tung Antonio (University Associate Professor)
韋振邦（中學教師）
Chan kinying (secondary schooI teacher)
李詠莊（小學教師）
劉永康(小學教師)
Ng Wun Ling (Primary School teacher)
梁司樂（中學教師）
KamingPoon (幼稚園教師)
唐詠欣（學生輔導人員）
屈紀恒（中學教師）
Kwan Wai Chi (secondary school teacher)
陳譜堯（中學老師）
Nelson Fung (Secondary School Teacher)
郭佩貞（中學老師）
余洛雯 (大學行政人員)
羅寶欣 (Tutor)
卓漢程（中學教師　）
陳穗(教育幹事)
Li Nga Yuen ( Kindergarten Teacher)
Leung Nok Him（Secondary School Teacher）
Ginger wong
張泳雯 (中學教師)
Samuel Tse(Special Sch.)
Annie lee (sec sch teacher)
黎佩芝 (中學教師)
蒙若菁（小學教師）
羅文慧(中學教師)
任婉嫺(大專講師）
林世杰 (中學教師)
林漢傑（中學教師）
Christy Ng (前中學教師)
施映而（小學教師）
Tse Chun Ho( primary school teacher)
陳昌盛(中學老師)
袁雅雯（小學教師）
林秋霞 (中學教師)
李海明（中學教師）
Alfred Chan (Secordary school teacher)
彭婉華（中學教師）
杜雯琪(小學教師)
Kong Chung Kwan(primary school teacher)
Connie Fan (Primary Teacher)
Kong Chung Kwan(primary school teacher)
韓詠姿(小學老師)
林兆霆(中學老師)
Lam Wai Man (lecturer)
陳麗興（小學老師）
Musso Chan (Primary School teacher)
Candy Li （小學教師）
Lorraine Wong(secondary school)
杜天蕊 （中學教師）
tang choi yin
潘浩威（小學教師）
Cheung Ho Cheung
羅鳯珍（中學教師）
Kenny Law
鄧耀華(小學教師)
莊嘉恩（中學教師）
岑鉅文（中學教師）
梁麗莊(中學教師)
余健峰（中學教師）
邱振豪（中學教師）
Leung Ho Yin ( Primary School Teacher)
Chan Chu Yi(Kindergarden Teacher)
王麗櫻（小學教師）
Carol Chung (secondary school teacher)
Tsang Ving Yin (Primary School Teacher)
Edward Ho (secondary school worker)
Carol Chung (secondary school teacher)
Winnie Siu (secondary teacher)
劉彩蓮(中學教師)
Echo Lai (Secondary School teacher)
Wong Suet Ying(中學教師）
吳美娟（小學教師）
Andy Seng (Secondary School Teacher)
Chuk Chi Leung(中學教師）
Edith Chan (secondary school teacher)
Guiovanna Alarcon (tertiary lecturer)
譚君祥 (中學教師)
Henry Yuen (Secondary School Teacher)
許奕偲（中學教師）
Yuki Cheung(Teacher)
Jacky Ko (Secondary school teacher)
Daniel Kwong
黃德鳴(中學教師)
郭偉民（小學教師）
Jeremy Tay (Secondary School Teacher)
張慧雄  (退休教師）
李陽(香港大學）
林子競 (小學老師)
梁淑蓓(中學教師)
周楚焜（中學教師）
彭素雯（小學教師）
Kwong Tat Yiu(市民)
Wong Ho Ki Lai（小學老師）
Florence chow (Tin Shui Wai Methodist College)
李佩珊 (中學教師)
Jacky Ko (Secondary school teacher)
周綺玲 （補習教師）
陳嘉文（中學教師）
Tiffany Ho (secondary school teacher)
wan pui ying (school social worker)
Kwong Wing Bun(Secondary School Teacher)
黃小玲（小學老師）
Katherine Law (小學教師)
賀家輝(中學教師)
何寶欣（中學教師）
鄧蕙菁(特殊幼兒教師)
TO Ka（小學教師）
Choi Wai Wan (primary school teacher)
Martin Ma (OU Tutor)
曾婉盈(中學教師)  
黃廷偉(中學老師)
Lai Kit Man (Secondary School Teacher)
Fu Bik Wan ( Secondary School Teacher)
沈雪盈（中學教師）
劉碩偉(中學教師)
林莉莎（小學教師）
Lo Man Sze (Teaching Associate)
林璇（中學教師）
Jacky Ko (Secondary school teacher)
劉雅慧 （中學教師）
Leung Wing Man (Primary School Teacher)
曾楚凝（小學教師）
李德昌(中學教師)
江玉儀(中學教師)
Lau Man Man ( teacher)
何潔怡(小學社工)
Chu Sok Va
蔡婉儀(中學教師)
蔡煥杰 (中學教師)
鄭合華(小學教師)
古名純 （中學教師）
黃樂心(中學教師)
陳潔盈 (中學教師)
蔡婉儀(中學教師)
Fion Fung （中學教師）
潘永昌 （中學教師）
伍惠卿(小學社工)
郭子威(小學老師)
鄭愛遠(小學教師)
Lau Cheuk Fai (小學教師）
鄭競寰(中學教師)
李祥輝(中學教師)
黃啟儀（小學教師）
Chris Wan (secondary school teacher)
盧兆麟
錢愛倩（小學老師）
任慧敏（中學教師）
Shirley Leong (幼稚園教師)
KK Tsang (lecturer)
張進思 (小學老師)
黃曙光(中學教師)
李寶珊(中學教師)
陳家倫（中學教師)
范敬歡（小學教師）
陳惠蓮(小學教師)
Tse Wai Nam(小學教師）
張冬屏 （中學老師）
Wong Yee Chun (Primary Teacher)
黃穎盈（小學教師）
鄺少權 （中學教師）
劉天明（中學教師）
Chan Chun Ping(Secondary school teacher)
張家娸（小學教師）
Chi Wai Ying ( Kindergarten Teacher)
張永賢(小學老師)
鄧俊敏 (大專教師)
鄭國强（小學教師）
Jenny Chan (secondary school teacher)
Li Wai Hong (Secondary School Teacher)
黃子通（獨立音樂教育）
Tracy Ip ( secondary school teacher )
CHIU YU PUN(教學助理)
Wong Yim Fong(Primary School Teacher)
Nikki Ho (Primary School Teacher)
Mak Nga Man (kindergarten teacher)
王凱華（中學教師）
Sze Hung Hung(Primary School Teacher)
Ida Chan (Secondary school teacher)
Mak Nga Man (kindergarten teacher)
Agnes Au （teacher）
張裕婷（小學支援老師）
鄧&

Freedom to express oneself without disturbing other or harm other.

Unfettered freedom is what get US into the situation it is in today.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

多個親中團體派出百多人包圍蘋果日報總部。 "@BBCCarrie: MT @Badcanto: Apple Daily surrounded by anti-OC supporters pic.twitter.com/X5V0rJBIGt"

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzPdDUYCAAEjWps.jpg

But the Chinese state media, the People's Daily said the protest action is only a minority that have undermined the rule of law in Hong Kong. "The behavior is extreme and breach of the peace will ultimately lead to disruption in the social order," writes the media in the comment section on its website.

That's what any establishment party says when they're confronted by a protest LOL :P The language the Chinese Communist Party uses isn't all that different from what we face over here, they like to pretend we're just one or two crazies yelling at the government.

齐泽克撑香港。 pic.twitter.com/TdtEBx4DHy"

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzMlItICcAEj8ow.jpg

Thos Chinese..  >:(

Is the revolution finished yet?   Seriously, you are delusional if you think you can change anything this way.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/06/tiananmen-square-repeat/

Alas I have to agree.. only war and victory can change anything.

There is no revolution, just another attempt of "democratic" coup which was inspired by Washington obkom D.C. :D

Btw, I'm ready to bet 1 BTC that it will fail before the spring. :) China and Hong-Kong are neither Ukraine nor Honduras.

power ratio

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzU9EJmCcAAx30L.jpg

http://futuristrendcast.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/ukraine-isil-ebola-hong-kong-the-us-traveing-circus-of-chaos/

It's kind of sad really.   Watching so many people put their energy into a lost cause - you know the result will be despair, and a loss of hope, once this is inevitably crushed.   It reminds me of Obama's first campaign of Hope and Change that you knew were designed to destroy Hope and Change for good.

Each childish Facebook uprising makes the world more totalitarian, showing the powers that be that the population have NOTHING in terms of tactics that can break the status quo's power.

I don't agree that giant demonstrations necessarily will be powerless without violence by the way!  What is needed is a threat of action, behind the protests.   The threat doesn't have to be violent; the people can remove their labour and block ports etc, to bring the government to their knees.

But this would take courage, that I do not think exists in Hong Kong in abundance - let's be honest it, they are not exactly famous for their bravery and anti-authoritarianism!   Twitter revolutions are all about entitlement, foreign (U.S.) meddling, and lack of efficacy.  How can this possibly turn out any different?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzYrMmgCIAA3MI7.png

a HK police senior officer showed his support

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=799902.200


no freedom of speech? The post about HongKong Demo on chinese board was locked today.

SHAME ON YOU , CHINESE BOARD MODERATOR ! ! ! ! ! ! !

I DOUBT THAT THE CHINESE BOARD MODERATOR IS CONTROLLED BY CHINA GOVERNMENT, OTHERWISE  WHY HE OR SHE LOCKED THE POST ABOVE MENTIONED TODAY ?!

@tomgrundy:78 awesome photos of #OccupyHK:   latimes.com/world/la-fg-ho…
h/t @JeromeTaylo:r pic.twitter.com/L66PLCjqE0

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzfAlmpCQAA_8in.jpg

update
http://www.hrichina.org/en/hong-kong-preserving-rights-honoring-promises

RT@frostyhk:Hong Kong protest is far from over. Huge crowd tonight after govt pulls out of democracy talks #OccupyCentral pic.twitter.com/WXB9ItemQV

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bzlf0oyCUAEbPad.jpg

@leungfaye:
    #hk1011 3:15am Protesters asleep outside the Legislative Council in Admiralty #OccupyHK #UmbrellaRevolution


more photos visit:  http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410111154.shtml#.VDkN6SfenP4

@fion_li
    Student leader Joshua Wong shows the yellow umbrella birthday cake on Facebook #OccupyHK #OccupyCentral
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
     @jj_ngo: Students issue open letter to Chinese lead Xi Jinping #OccupyHK #UmbrellaMovement More @SCMP_News
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    Student leader Joshua Wong early birthday celebration at Tim Mei Avenue #OccupyCentral #OccupyHK
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @scharlt
    The causeway bay protest site has become part campsite, part open air art exhibition #hongkong
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    Scholarim Joshua Wong says on fb he respects Agnes Chow's decision to resign. #OccupyCentral #OccupyHK
   
    @fion_li
    Student leader Joshua Wong early birthday celebration at Tim Mei Avenue #OccupyCentral #OccupyHK
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    #OccupyHK Business Opportunities: Selling fresh coconut, watermelon juice on Nathan Road, Mong Kok #OccupyCentral
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    Yesterday was chatting w/ Agnes Chow. Today the 17-yr old resigns as spokesman due to pressure from umbrella movement
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    Kids building a castle of cardboard on Nathan Road, Mong Kok #OccupyHK #OccupyCentral
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    "It's an era without heros. I just want to be a human being" -- on an umbrella in Mong Kok #OccupyHK #OccupyCentral
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    Two-seat sofas on Nathan Road - youth looks relaxed #OccupyCentral #OccupyHK
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    Chairman Mao, Kwan Gung and Bob Marley at Mong Kong #OccupyHK #OccupyCentral
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @shayyoung: admiralty camp ground. hundreds of tents now pitched. 10:42 pm festive mood
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @mattsheehan88: Admiralty's house band tonight
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    Empty bunker bed in Mong Kok, voicing out Hong Kong's housing problems #OccupyCentral
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @fion_li
    Green Ribbon movement shd have nothing to do w/ greenpeace. #OccupyCentral #OccupyHK in Mong Kok
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @inmediahk someone took a trolley of fish balls to Mong Kok and gave them out for free to #OccupyCentral supporters
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @once
    New installation art at #Occupy #CausewayBay: "#PepperSpray vs. #Umbrella". @megmaggio88, ur next collection found!
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @mattsheehan88
    Street origami classes at occupy admiralty in Hong Kong
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @ChuBailiang
    The autonomist undercurrent in Mong Kok: "Student Federation does not represent me.
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
     @chinhon
    Interesting that James Nachtwey is photographing #OccupyCentral instead of the Ebola crisis
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @ChuBailiang
    Occupy Mong Kok also claims SpongeBob as its own.
   
    香港占领中环第14天:学联 学民思潮联合致信习近平(视频 104图)


   
    @yyfcxo
    冰雪：【我在现场】今晚金鐘現場人比昨晚少了約一半左右。現在正放映美國前民主運動电影。市民是無組織的，有時間自願參加。

http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410120203.shtml#.VDltqifenP4   

i hope this not end with tragedy.
china gov is always use violent to handle issue like this.

Don't be delusional, it's just a uniform on the hanger.

HERE IS THE ORIGINAL  INFORMATION  RESOURCE:
@liuyun19989:一名警司級人員，近日在制服上扣上黃絲帶，並將照片上載facebook表明心迹表示，自己對人大的敷衍看不過眼、對梁振英的管治十分不滿。hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/art/20141…  pic.twitter.com/yYGGovqzcu

UPDATE ！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！
http://www.thestandard.com.hk

update
http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410130944.shtml

。“@hrichina: Street art from #UmbrellaRevolution
More photos of #OccupyHK #hk1013 on.fb.me/1ytEVka pic.twitter.com/3O8MRXeccW”

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz1Hd9pCYAEeFJ4.jpg

chinese version update
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=816191.0

Have a feeling we gonna se something rude here.

I think the demo is not a new thing in the world, they are trying to convey their aspirations on the streets, it is not possible in this case because the channel to convey their aspirations are already covered in the parliament, which is important when they deliver their aspirations, they do not do anarchists that could harm their own even others demo ... hopefully I can run smoothly without the anarchic and violent acts ...  8)

17th day hk demo
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410141126.shtml#.VD0C5yfenP5

update
http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410141241.shtml

update
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410150216.shtml

http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410150757.shtml

HK police cleaned up street and arrested more protesters ....

After seeing Ukraine i have my doubts that stuff like these actually work or not ! the only thing that's certain is bloodshed . china is too bog to fall . :-\

LIVE – HK Occupy Central Live
http://hongwrong.com/occupy-central-live/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz8_ACvCIAACSGv.jpg



hk police bullshit



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz8n79SCcAAlTtS.jpg

HK  HERO

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz_O2LPCEAAM0jq.jpg

update
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410160308.shtml#.VD7e7ifenP4

way to go.
show those communist pigs that Hong Kong will not take their bullshit dictatorship.
you are much braver then the American pussies in the so called land of the free.

thank you, today update:
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410161045.shtml

[Press Release by OCLP Secretariat] 16 October 2014: Don't Forget Our Original Intention -- We are all outraged by the extrajudicial punishment dished out on protesters by the police. Today the police finally decided to suspend from duty the seven police officers who allegedly carried out the attacks, and will conduct a criminal investigation. OCLP is paying close attention to the progress of the investigation and urges the authorities to make the results of the investigation public as soon as possible, as well as the investigations into excessive force used by the police in dispersing the protesters in Lung Wo Road.

Since the police used excessive force in the clearance operation in the early morning of the 15th of this month, some 'sporadic acts of occupation' and obstruction of traffic sprang up in Lung Wo Road yesterday, which shows the increasing tension between demonstrators and frontline police officers. Although OCLP finds the abuse of power by individual police officers to be hateful, we urge every occupier not to forget our original intention, that is to fight for a democratic political system with love and peace. Our target should be the dictator who ignores public opinion. We should not misfire and give the government an excuse for repression.

We urge the occupiers to continue to safeguard the 'Umbrella Square'. If someone chooses to further block the road or extend the occupation area, that will surely intensify the conflict among citizens, which is what Leung Chun-ying would love to see. It also gives the government a reason for clearance due to rising 'public resentment'. More importantly, for civil disobedience to be successful, understanding and support from the public have to be sought.

We strongly condemn the police officers for abusing their power. However, we also call for protesters to show understanding and sympathy if the police are carrying out their duties lawfully. They have simply been pushed into the position of our opponents by an unjust system and the hardliners in the government. We hope all protesters not to forget what it was we set out to do - to resist a dictatorial government with love and peace.


http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sd24nk

China - not Ukraine, there is love peace and order.
Glory China. Fuck protesters  :D

Russian  bitch you only need  middlefinger

Yeah, I had no doubt that tolerance, pluralism and intelligence are the natural attributes which are possessed by demotards. Useful fool tries to demonstrate his significance, what a joke. :D

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday Britain should stand up for the rights of people in Hong Kong, a former British colony, after more than two weeks of protests over Chinese restrictions on how the island chooses its next leader in 2017.

Answering a question in parliament about the unrest, Cameron said it was important people in Hong Kong were able to enjoy freedoms and rights set out in an Anglo-Chinese agreement before Britain handed it back to China in 1997.

"It is important that democracy involves real choices," Cameron said, stressing the importance Britain attached to the agreement.

"It talks about rights and freedoms, including those of person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, and, indeed, of strike.

"These are important freedoms, jointly guaranteed through that joint declaration and it's that which, most of all, we should stand up for."

Cameron was speaking after pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong clashed overnight with police. Footage of police beating a protester has gone viral on the Internet, sparking outrage from some lawmakers and the public.

(Reporting by William James; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKCN0I41C620141015?irpc=932

without democracy  and freedom you have no chance to enjoy real tolerance and pluralism in dictatorship  nations.

that is why HK people hold street demonstration  for more than 2 weeks.

Not HK people. Protesters are not supported by the majority of the population. -> It is doomed to failure. And it's great that the government can protect people from the radicals.
At this time, the world moneylenders failed to arrange another revolution....

http://www.last-thursday.de/wp-content/uploads/last-thursday/2009/11/mauerfallg1.jpg

money is not workable for all

20th  HK DEMO DAY
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410171110.shtml#.VECWESfenP4
香港占领中环第20日：民众重新占领旺角（39图）

How can they talk about democracy when a handful of people demonstrate and the majority just don't care.

This is disguised  replacement of concept.

please look at the photo above about berlin wall fall,  I don't think the majority people of east berlin all showed up in the demonstration.

but it was still Democratic  revolution against east Germany Communist  government.

There is no such thing as real democracy only puppets that are paid to speak on behalf of a committee of rich and powerful people. As you know politicians are from well off backgrounds so it's jobs for the boys and how many times you hear a politician promise one thing before getting elected and suddenly gets changed after?

RT @makechoice: 各位要小心呀！
每次差人一走，黑社會就混入人群架喇。
STAY ALERT!
EVERY TIME WHEN POLICE RETREATS, TRIADS/THUGS BLEND IN THE CROWD.
BE CAREFUL!
#OccupyCentral
6:14pm - 17 Okt 14

See for yourself:
https://i.imgur.com/rOZFvim.jpg

Replace "protestors" with "5th column run by NED" and it will be fine :D

update:
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410180246.shtml#.VEHAOifenP4

Do someone believe these protests aren't organized from an outside of hon-kong?

snowden did you mean

Hong Kong official shares fake photo of beaten-up cop

In response to Wednesday's news that Hong Kong police allegedly beat a pro-democracy protester, Hong Kong's top media official decided to remind people of the other side of the story. The problem? His story was fake.

Andrew Fung, media adviser to Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong's leader whom the protesters have asked to resign, posted a photo to his Facebook account Wednesday allegedly depicting a cop who had been beaten in a clash with protesters and was covered in blood.

Pro-police group shares picture of "allegedly" wounded cop, turns out to be photo from HKTV drama about zombie cops pic.twitter.com/0hUKSAS9sg — Yuen Chan (@xinwenxiaojie) October 15, 2014
"Everybody who uses violence is wrong," Fung allegedly wrote on his Facebook page. "If the police get hurt, you should have sympathy. The idea of democracy includes love."

What the pro-democracy side didn't love, though, is that the photo wasn't from a clash with protesters at all — it was a still from a new TV show, Night Shift, featuring a zombie cop. HKTV, the network that will air Night Shift, confirmed Wednesday that the photo was from the show. - - Meghan DeMaria

http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/270018/speedreads-hong-kong-official-shares-fake-photo-of-beaten-up-cop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9sFyY9LN0M

^ Kremlin troll detected  ;D

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X46IV2TP_X4/U6c_JFqTIiI/AAAAAAAAFPg/YCWiG9EYcD0/s1600/1391186049_64c5df6924f2.jpg

vs.


==>

Maidummie clown detected. :D

@breakandattack
    Hey, we've got another badass granddad on the case. #UmbrellaRevolution #OccupyHK

http://boxun.com/news/images/2014/10/201410190250taiwan140.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKEJlErHSFc

Pro-democracy protest in Odessa.

update:
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410190632.shtml

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0WFKdMCAAAXUWv.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0WDb22CAAA0aKe.jpg


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0WFRH8CcAAYlGF.jpg

good morning HongKong

RT@siuseehung: Door of HK economic&trade office in London #OccupyCentral #UmbrellaRevolution #solidarity pic.twitter.com/eTOzVQLdLq

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0VFMnyIMAADb9X.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0cIr6RCQAA1Bnj.jpg

today dialog between students and hongkong  government

All links from U.S. most of them Virginia,colored revolution no doubt,same matrix of the same lords (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=826734.msg9271257#msg9271257)

http://s2.postimg.org/w427nlrxl/smithmorpheus.jpg

poor naive kids...

You are welcome.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/2c/35/46/2c3546c0d05957b0617b7a2da863b6b8.jpg

What's in virginia?

CIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency)  ;)

Update:
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410212238.shtml

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/8/85165/1814286-neo.jpg

freedom always win

You see education is bad too much books and you think your god  ;D

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0fljIhCEAEwJyd.jpg

2014 Hongkong  umbrella  revolution  chronicle

Funny when Western agents, which are not supported by local population,  declare  the revolution.
The Chinese authorities are too kind to you....

wrong, vice versa!!!

More than 600 HongKong medical personnel have jointly signed a statement published in the press today accusing the police methods in handling the recent demonstrations





https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0b7ImGCEAIChwK.png

the girl is cute  ;)

update：
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410230154.shtml

https://twitter.com/GlobalSolidHK

Hong Kong Students Call For Direct Talks With Beijing Officials on Democracy
2014-10-22

 Hong Kong residents protest Leung Chun-ying's comments that a full democracy would place too much power in the hands of those who earn less than U.S. $1,800 a month, Oct. 22, 2014.
Occupy Central supporters say the government's offers aren't concrete and that protests will continue.
A student leader of a mass pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong called on Wednesday for direct talks with the ruling Chinese Communist Party following a live televised debate on Tuesday in which local officials offered minor concessions but rejected protesters' demands for genuine universal suffrage in 2017 elections.

Alex Chow, leader of the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), told RFA that student leaders of the Occupy Central campaign, which has blocked major highways in the semi-autonomous city since Sept. 28, want to know exactly how far Beijing would let Hong Kong go.

He said the protesters have no plans to leave the occupied sites any time soon, but called for direct dialogue with Chinese officials instead, possibly with a member of China's National People's Congress (NPC) standing committee.

"I'm talking about ... allowing citizens to question them directly," Chow said. "Hong Kong officials say they can't [make concessions], but can they really not? Can this be at least on the table?"

Protesters have repeatedly called on embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying to resign, and want an open nomination process for elections for his replacement in 2017.

An Aug. 31 ruling by Beijing said Hong Kong's five million-strong electorate will each get a vote in the poll, but that their options will be limited to two or three "patriotic" candidates approved by a nominating committee likely to be stacked with pro-China and pro-establishment members.

Leung's second-in-command Carrie Lam on Tuesday said the 2017 poll must stay within the framework laid down by the NPC standing committee that controls China's rubber-stamp parliament, which has had the final power to interpret Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, since the 1997 handover.

But she said the government, which ignored calls for public nominations in a July report to Beijing, would file a fresh report to Beijing and consider further changes to election procedures after 2017.

She also invited the students to take part in a "platform" for the exchange of views on further constitutional and political change, post-2017.

Students respond

But the students said Lam's offers were too vague, and pledged to continue the Occupy movement and to boycott classes.

"About whether there will be talks in the future, this is something that isn't decided," Chow told reporters on Wednesday.

"The government has to come up with some way to solve this problem, but what they are offering does not have any practical content," Chow said.

He said it was hard to see the point of a fresh report from the Hong Kong government to Beijing, as it is unlikely to affect the NPC standing committee's Aug. 31 edict.

Joshua Wong, head of the academic activism group Scholarism, said he had no intention of taking part in Lam's "platform."

"We're not even done talking about 2017 yet, so why are they thinking about a platform to discuss the post-2017 political framework?" he said.

"Who else would take part in it? What would it discuss? I think that the government needn't bother inviting us if this platform won't be discussing the 2017 political reforms," Wong said.

The students' comments came as sporadic clashes erupted once more between frustrated taxi-drivers and protesters who have barricaded themselves into a major intersection in the bustling working-class district of Mong Kok.

Police stepped in to prevent physical violence after scuffles and slanging matches broke out.

File for injunction

Meanwhile, a bus company and two transportation industry associations filed a writ with Hong Kong's High Court, in an attempt to win an injunction ordering protesters camped in hundreds of tents on Harcourt Road in Admiralty district to leave.

The Court has already granted injunctions brought by the transportation industry in Mong Kok, but it remains to be seen whether its bailiffs feel able to enforce them.

"This isn't the first time people have come to protest and if they try to demolish our barricades today, we will take measures to stop them," an Occupy protester surnamed Lee told RFA. "They are using recent court injunctions as an excuse to try to clear the barricades."

He added: "We will only accept [the injunctions] if the government agrees to public nominations."

A fellow Mong Kok protester, also surnamed Lee, said many local people claim they are suffering economic losses from the blocked roads.

"But this is a very short-sighted view," she said. "I'm not afraid, even if the government were to move in suddenly and arrest me."

"Freedom is priceless; it can't be bought with money."

Anger over comments

Dozens of protesters marched to Leung's residence, once the home of British colonial governors, on Wednesday in anger at his comments to overseas media in which he said full democracy would give too much power to those "who earn less than U.S. $1,800 a month."

Pan-democratic lawmaker and trade unionist Lee Cheuk-yan said Hong Kong's electorate will gain very little from Beijing's proposed electoral framework and that the nominating committee will likely represent the interests of the current political elite, as it always has.

"It has always been about the four main sectors," Lee said. "Everyone can see that this isn't about balanced participation."

He said Beijing had already ensured that this bias is written into Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, which has laid down the territory's political framework since the 1997 handover.

"Leung made this very clear; it's biased to exclude poor and low-income people. The dominant ideology of Leung, the ideology in the Basic Law, is about ensuring that the majority don't get to decide elections," he said.

He said the promise of a fresh government report to Beijing would only be meaningful if it was considered by the NPC standing committee, with a view to amending its ruling.

Taking sides

A recent opinion poll found a modest increase in popular support for Occupy Central, compared with before the campaign began.

Hundreds of thousands of people had taken to the streets in anger in early October at the police use of tear gas and pepper spray on protesters on the first day of the occupation campaign, Sept. 28.

A total of 37.8 percent of 802 respondents polled in early-to-mid October said they supported the pro-democracy movement, compared with just 31.1 percent in early September, a Chinese University of Hong Kong poll found.

"Mathematically speaking, neither side has really represented the majority," pollster Francis Lee told the South China Morning Post newspaper.

"Also it does not show that public opinion has become more polarized and extreme than before," he said.

The poll also found that 42.2 percent of respondents thought police tactics during clashes with anti-Occupy protesters were inappropriate, while 26.7 percent said police had acted appropriately.

And 53.7 percent of people said it was inappropriate of the police to have used tear gas, while just over 22 percent said it was appropriate.

Opposition to the Beijing-backed electoral reform plan polled at just over 48 percent, while some 36 percent supported it.

Party stance

Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily on Wednesday reported the dialogue in its overseas edition, saying Hong Kong people were hoping that the talks would end the Occupy Central movement which has "disturbed" the city.

It quoted analysts as saying that the Occupy movement had been a protest movement from the start, and had never aimed at dialogue, repeating its claim that "foreign forces" are trying to instigate a "color revolution" in Hong Kong.

Joseph Cheng, politics professor at Hong Kong's City University and leader of the Alliance for True Democracy campaign group, expressed skepticism over Lam's proposal for a fresh report to Beijing.

"Everyone is very doubtful that this additional report on popular opinion will do any good at all," Cheng said. "Everyone knows that President Xi Jinping already gets daily reports from Hong Kong."

He said expectations of the "platform" were equally low. "The government's behavior at the last round of public consultations was very disappointing, and they were very unfair," Cheng said.

"The views of the pan-democratic camp were totally neglected."

Reported by Wen Yuqing and Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Did you getting pais for this? How does it feel to betray you own coutry?

everyone in the world has the right to fight against dictatorship  nations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   you you sb

Hahah what a clown here.

http://victims.org.uk/s08zhk/images/warrior.jpg

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73443000/jpg/_73443466_021396215-1.jpg

http://www.sott.net/image/s8/178323/full/putin_hitler_2013.jpg

what  a clown here

UN Human Rights Body Backs Hong Kong Calls For Public Nominations
2014-10-23

 
The United Nations human rights body on Thursday called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to allow the people of Hong Kong to nominate candidates for elections, as pro-democracy protesters occupied stretches of the semiautonomous city's streets for a fourth consecutive week.

A panel of 18 independent experts working for the U.N. Human Rights Committee said Beijing's insistence on vetting electoral candidates in the 2017 race for the post of Hong Kong's chief executive was in violation of international human rights treaties.

Hong Kong has signed and ratified the U.N.'s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, passed by the General Assembly in 1966, while Beijing has signed but not ratified it.

"The need to ensure universal suffrage ... means both the right to be elected as well as the right to vote," committee chairman Konstantine Vardzelashvili told the panel in Geneva on Thursday.

"The main concerns of committee members were focused on the right to stand for elections without unreasonable restrictions," he said in comments concluding the meeting.

Hong Kong Democratic Party chairwoman and lawmaker Emily Lau welcomed the statement from the committee.

"The committee was clear that what is proposed by China is not compliant with the Covenant," Lau told Reuters. "It is not universal suffrage."

"One person, one vote, but the problem is the people who will stand is very limited," she said.

Panel member Christine Chanet said the committee is against the filtering of election candidates.

"The problem is that Beijing wants to vet candidates ... We have now put some pressure, but not too heavily, as we absolutely need China's cooperation," she told Reuters.




Ongoing protests

Pan-democratic politicians and Occupy Central campaigners in Hong Kong have dismissed an Aug. 31 edict by China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), ruling out public nomination of candidates as "fake universal suffrage."

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Hong Kong since Sept. 28, calling for the resignation of embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying and for the NPC ruling to be withdrawn.

Student leaders held live televised talks with Hong Kong officials on Tuesday, but have dismissed government offers of minor changes to a 1,200 nominations committee as "too vague," vowing to remain in occupation of streets near government headquarters in Admiralty and in the busy Kowloon shopping district of Mong Kok.

Hong Kong civil servants made an anonymous statement via Facebook in support of the Occupy Central movement, which has also garnered growing public support since it began, recent opinion polls showed.

Officials from the government information service, the police and the judiciary posted pictures of their ID cards with their names blacked out, after a group of 1,300 civil servants said they disagreed with the public sector union's criticism of the movement.

As hundreds of protesters geared up for another night behind the barricades on the Occupy protest sites, a group of climbers unfurled a giant banner from Kowloon's iconic Lion Rock.

The huge yellow banner bearing an umbrella logo and the slogan "I want genuine universal suffrage" was unfurled by climbers abseiling down the cliff face, a video posted by protest group "Hong Kong Spidie" to YouTube showed.

Group spokesman Andreas told local media that more than a dozen people had taken part in the operation, which took a week to prepare.

"What can we see when we look with the spirit of Lion Rock?" he told government broadcaster RTHK, in a reference to the rock's symbolism of Hong Kong's "can-do" spirit.

"What we see is an opportunity slipping away; it's clearly not in keeping with the spirit of Lion Rock," he said.

"We want people to know that this movement is very important to the people of Hong Kong ... because it represents a chance at fairness."

 


Kenny G

Meanwhile, China hit out on Thursday at U.S. smooth jazz musician Kenny G, who is hugely popular in China, after he tweeted about his visit to the site of Occupy Central protests in Admiralty on Wednesday.

"Kenny G's musical works are widely popular in China, but China's position on the illegal Occupy Central activities in Hong Kong is very clear," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing.

"We hope that foreign governments and individuals will speak and act cautiously and not support the Occupy Central and other illegal activities in any form," she added.

The saxophonist, whose real name is Kenneth Gorelick, later claimed via social media that his visit hadn't been intended to show support for the protests, a claim refuted by those who met with him, the South China Morning Post reported.

"I was in Hong Kong as a stop on my way to perform at Mission Hills and happened to walk by the protest area as I was walking around Hong Kong as a tourist," he wrote.

"Some fans took my picture and it's unfair that I am being used by anyone to say that I am showing support for the demonstrators."

"I am not supporting the demonstrators ... Please don't mistake my peace sign for any other sign than a sign for peace," he said.

China's official media has also repeatedly called for homegrown Hong Kong celebrities who publicly supported the Occupy protesters to be banned from working in mainland China, across the internal border.





Injunctions

Several hundred protesters remained at Occupy sites late on Thursday, ready to stay in spite of High Court injunctions brought by public transportation groups ordering them to remove obstructions to traffic.

"We will carry on like this, occupying this place," a student protester who gave the name Simon told RFA. "This has nothing to do with the injunctions."

"I have already been here a long time, and this is already a civil disobedience movement that breaks the law," he said. "I just think this is a feint on their part, but ... I am prepared to accept being found guilty by the court."

Senior police superintendent Steve Hui once more called on protesters to comply with the injunctions, although the police have no mandate to enforce them.

"The injunctions are a civil matter, so the police won't directly enforce them," he said.

And legal expert Eric Cheung said enforcing the injunctions could be difficult, because it is hard to sort out exactly who among protesters and bystanders is responsible for the barricades.

Reported by Lin Jing and Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan and Yang Jiadai for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
<

Thanks for confirmation of your speciality. ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv641C-Qz8E

leck mich

What's that? Awful chineese curse?

Gäbe es eine Skala für Hässlichkeit, du warst drüber. Fick dich ins Knie.

Nope, he's projecting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection). :D

Stop with you sexual gay fantasyes with Putin and answer the question: Why did you betray you own country?

I'm ready to bet even more. The only question is how and when it will fail. I have a feeling we gonna see a lot of blood there. January-february 2015 I think. Waiting for unknown snipers =)

I think that they don't want to dispose the government at this time. There is only one reason, China is a biggest holder of US state debt. All what they need is a good reason to impose sanctions on China, like this happened before. Sanctions would allow them to freeze this part of debt and revive own economy...

update:
http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/10/201410242329.shtml

up


http://boxun.com/news/images/2014/10/201410242329taiwan33.jpg

freedom you never understand

http://boxun.com/news/images/2014/10/201410242329taiwan81.jpg

Anothern proof that you're just dumb puppet. Living in germany and talking about freedom, what a joke  ;D

I hate to say that but Germany is not a country since 1945, it is even not allowed to have real government and constitution. So-called Federal Republic of Germany is registered as non-commercial organization, where Merkel is CEO and citizens are employees. And we have so-called "Grundgesetz" instead of constitution, which directly declares lack of sovereignty. Enjoy your freedom, motherfucker.

what you said fully  prove that you are 100% motherfucker.

As I said earlier, enjoy your "freedom".

Occupy Supporters in Hong Kong to Vote on Next Move Amid Protests
2014-10-24

 Pro-democracy protesters gather at the main protest site in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong on Oct. 24, 2014.
The poll will run for three hours at the main protest site in Admiralty to gauge views on recent talks with officials.
Organizers behind the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong will hold a ballot among protesters to decide how to respond to last week's talks with government officials after four weeks of continuous sit-ins and rallies for genuine universal suffrage.

The move comes after veteran pan-democratic politicians threw their support behind continued dialogue and negotiation with the government, as opposed to continuing the mass civil disobedience campaign for public nomination of candidates in 2017 elections for the semiautonomous Chinese city's chief executive.

Protesters at the main site blocking a major highway near government headquarters in Hong Kong's Admiralty district will be polled on Sunday, student leaders and Occupy Central leaders said on Friday.

Occupy Central was launched on Sept. 28 amid growing frustration after China's parliament on Aug. 31 ruled out public nominations of candidates for elections for Hong Kong's chief executive.

Under the current proposals, candidates must be "patriotic" and will be vetted by a committee stacked with Beijing's supporters, a plan which pan-democratic politicians have dismissed as "fake universal suffrage."

Government offers 'too vague'

Talks between student leaders and top government officials led by chief secretary Carrie Lam ended with no indication of a breakthrough on Tuesday, with students dismissing government offers to send fresh recommendations to Beijing and to hold discussions on post-2017 electoral as "too vague."

But Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee said on Friday that the students should keep an open mind about the government's offers, in spite of repeated warnings by Hong Kong officials and official Chinese media that Beijing won't go back on the Aug. 31 ruling.

"Beijing and the Hong Kong government shut the door to dialogue with students in the past," he said. "Now there is a crack between the door and its frame. Why don't we put a foot there and see what we can get?"

Sunday's poll will run for three hours at the Admiralty site, which has been dubbed "Umbrella Square" after umbrellas used to fend of pepper spray attacks from police became the symbol of the movement.

Voters will be asked whether they support the position of the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), which has been largely dismissive of further dialogue and has vowed to continue the occupation protests at Admiralty, Causeway Bay, and the busy Kowloon shopping district of Mong Kok.

"The vote can quantify the people's demand that the government give us a real response," HKFS leader Alex Chow told reporters on Friday.

New calls to resign

In a fresh blow for embattled chief executive C.Y. Leung, pro-Beijing lawmaker James Tien has echoed repeated calls from Occupy protesters for him to resign.

While protesters want his resignation over the use of tear gas and pepper spray on Sept. 28, Liberal Party leader Tien said Leung should go because there is now a general lack of trust in the ability of his administration to govern the former British colony.

"Hong Kong is now on the verge of becoming ungovernable," Tien told government broadcaster RTHK.

And former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa called on protesters to quit their occupation and go home.

"We need to end this occupation because not only ... is it hurting the livelihood of people, but it's a gross violation of the law," Tung told reporters in his first public comments on the protests.

But retired shipping magnate Tung, who had Beijing's blessing as the first post-colonial city chief after the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, also said the ruling Chinese Communist Party would never use force to clear the protests.

Hong Kong current affairs commentator Poon Siu-to said Tung's reassurances don't necessarily reflect Beijing's eventual decision on the protests, as the party held its fourth plenary session of the 18th Party Congress this week.

"It's likely that there are differences of opinion in Beijing over how to deal with this," Poon told RFA. "[Tung] only represents one shade of opinion."

"There are also likely to be people [in the party] who are arguing for a much greater deployment of force to clear the protests, even for bringing in the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the other faction is against it, which is why he has come out saying this now," he added.

Banner on Lion Rock

Sporadic clashes broke out on Friday in Mong Kok between anti-Occupy groups, who tried to remove makeshift barricades protecting occupying protesters, and police and occupiers, who tried to stop them.

A photographer for the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper said he was punched in the face by a man wearing a mask during scuffles. His alleged attacker was later detained by police.

A couple of miles away, government rescue workers had already removed a huge yellow banner calling for universal suffrage that was hung from Kowloon's iconic Lion Rock by abseiling Occupy supporters on Thursday.

Photographs of the banner, which read "I want genuine universal suffrage," suspended from the ear of the "lion," spawned a series of online memes and copycat banners across Hong Kong.

In Admiralty, protester Pui Yee said many in the territory had found the Lion Rock banner "very moving."

"There was a singer called Roman Tam [1950-2002] who sang a song called 'Under Lion Rock,' and I wasn't even born back then," Pui said. "But this song really stands for Hong Kong, because people here have a thing called the Lion Rock spirit."

"I was really very moved [by the banner]," she added. "I think Hong Kong people are awesome."

U.N. calls rejected

Meanwhile, Chinese and Hong Kong officials rejected calls by the United Nations human rights committee for Beijing to allow public nomination of candidates, on the basis that China's insistence on vetting them is in violation of international human rights treaties.

Hong Kong has signed and ratified the U.N.'s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, passed by the General Assembly in 1966, while Beijing has signed but not ratified it.

Lam Woon-kwong, who convenes Hong Kong's cabinet, the Executive Council, said the government would peruse the U.N. committee's recommendations.

"I have dealt with their well-intentioned suggestions in the sphere of human rights before," Lam said, adding: "I will take a look at them."

But he said the forthcoming electoral reforms will be implemented within the framework of Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

"They don't lie within the remit of the U.N. Human Rights Committee," Lam said.

China's foreign ministry on Friday said Beijing "is not a party" to the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights.

"The covenant takes effect only via Hong Kong's own laws ... [and] isn't a benchmark by which to measure Hong Kong's political reforms," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing.

China's party mouthpiece the People's Daily meanwhile hit out at student demands for changes to the Basic Law, repeating the official line that the Occupy Central protests are illegal.

Reported by Wen Yuqing and Dai Weisen for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.


http://english.rfa.org/english/news/china/move-10242014142635.html/hk-admiralty-oct2014.gif

Unknown snipers is somewhere out there already... get your anus ready, China...

China is a serious country, but who knows what could happen

A lot of blood in Hongkong will happen. Most probably around january 2015. Prepare your anus. Second Tiananmen Square is coming.

China Holds Dozens of Activists Who Supported Hong Kong Protests
2014-10-16

 Police cordon off an area where pro-democracy demonstrators have gathered in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong, Oct. 13, 2014.
Some traveled to the former British colony to join the Occupy Central movement
As Hong Kong's mass civil disobedience movement entered its 19th consecutive day on Thursday, authorities on the Chinese mainland have detained more than 60 people for openly supporting the move for universal suffrage, rights activists and lawyers said.

According to the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group, which collates reports from rights groups inside China, 23 people are being held under criminal detention, three have received administrative sentences, while 35 have been held under some other form of police custody.

Authorities in the southern province of Guangdong, just across the internal border from Hong Kong, detained four people on Tuesday on public order charges after they were accused of trying to join the protests in Hong Kong on Sept. 30.

Among those detained were Ye Liumei, Liang Zhuosen and Guo Huizhen, who were held in Guangdong's Foshan city by officers from the Tongji police station, their relatives and lawyers told RFA.

Ye's husband, who gave only his surname Chen, said the charges against the three activists remain unclear.

"I went to the police station to enquire...and found out that they are under criminal detention, and that they've been moved to a detention center," Chen said.

"[Police] were asking them about their trip to Hong Kong on Sept. 30," he said.

Chen said the three activists were detained at the border as they tried to cross into Hong Kong to join the pro-democracy protests.

"They never got there, because the immigration officials wouldn't let them leave the country," he said.

"The Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong is extremely sensitive right now," Chen added.

Chen Qitang, also known by his pen-name Tian Li, was handed a 10-day administrative sentence by police in Foshan's Shunde district soon after the other three activists were detained, CHRD said.

And Foshan-based activist Jia Pin is also being held in the city's Nanhai district, his lawyer told RFA.

"I went to try to see him this morning," lawyer Wu Kuiming said on Thursday. "This is a state security police case, so they wouldn't let me visit him."

"The most recent information I have is that I will be allowed to meet with him, but not until 48 hours have elapsed," he said.

Fellow Hunan activist Ou Biaofeng, who has shaved his head in support of the Occupy movement, said Jia was taken away on Oct. 9.

"I think this has to do with the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong," Ou said.

He said police in Hunan's Yueyang city are also holding activist Liu Donghui after he traveled to Hong Kong to join the protests.

"But we don't know for sure if it's because of Occupy Central," he added. "He's been criminally detained, and the charges are picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

Criminal detention

Meanwhile, police in the Chinese capital are holding rights lawyers Yu Wensheng and Song Ze under criminal detention, CHRD said in an e-mailed statement.

In Beijing's Songzhuang Artists' Village, police also detained Tibetan artist Kuang Laowu and Zhang Haiying, it said.

In total, 13 people have been detained at Songzhuang for their involvement in a poetry recital in support of Occupy Central, it said.

Beijing police have also criminally detained writer Kou Yanding, as well as outspoken college professor Chen Kun, Beijing University poetry editor Xue Ye and Huang Kaiping, a colleague of detained Transition Institute founder Guo Yushan, CHRD quoted local reports as saying.

And Gansu-based rights activist Hou Minling was detained at Beijing's Daxing District Detention Center on Oct. 3 after taking part in a pro-Occupy demonstration with fellow activists in Beijing on Oct. 1.

Many of those detained are being held on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a catch-all charge that is frequently employed to detain activists and outspoken government critics.

In the northeastern province of Liaoning Province petitioner Jiang Jiawen has been criminally detained on the same charge, also in Daxing District Detention Center, CHRD said.

Also in Beijing, Ling Lisha and Zhang Qibin Oct. 2 are being held under criminal detention at the Beijing No. 1 Detention Center after they posted signs in support of Hong Kong on the campus of Beijing University.

And activist Xie Wenfei was reportedly tortured and mistreated in Guangzhou's Yuexiu District Detention Center, CHRD said.

"Xie's arms and legs were each shackled eight centimeters away from iron rings, with his legs fastened together, in total for over 100 hours," the group quoted Xie's lawyer Wu Kuiming as saying.

"He was given periodic access to water, the bathroom and allowed to sleep and change cloths, except for a 20-hour stretch when he was kept shackled," it said.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Grace Kei Lai-see for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

@ChuBailiang
    Mong Kok signs shows why occupy is so averse to coordination. "This is a people's movement that belongs to no group."

http://boxun.com/news/images/2014/10/201410270101taiwan32.jpg



http://boxun.com/news/images/2014/10/201410270101taiwan52.jpg

@miriambasco:
    Uncle Xi proudly promotes the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong #OccupyCentral #OccupyHK

http://boxun.com/news/images/2014/10/201410270101taiwan104.jpg

Hehehe, what's happened? The NED stopped paying your internet bills? ;D

Yep, it seems that spreading the democracy is too boring without NED's money.

Hong Kong's Occupy Movement Calls For Dialogue With Beijing


2014-11-06

The influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) stepped up calls for direct talks with officials in Beijing over protesters' demands for full democracy in the former British colony, saying the group isn't looking for trouble.

Student leaders of the five-week-long pro-democracy movement, which is encamped on major highways and intersections in downtown Hong Kong in a bid to win public nomination of candidates in 2017 elections, have been discussing a visit to Beijing all week, though concrete plans have yet to emerge.

"If the Hong Kong government believes that this problem can't be resolved here in Hong Kong, and that only Beijing can address [the isssue], then I think a trip to Beijing is absolutely necessary," said Alex Chow, leader the HKFS—the most popular political grouping in the city.

But he said protest leaders want to send a positive message, and may avoid Beijing during the leaders' meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which ends on Nov. 13.

"Our purpose is to have a dialogue, and not provocation," Chow said. "That's why everyone thinks it might be acceptable to go to Beijing after APEC is over."

The move comes as the Occupy Central protesters, who have blocked three sections of highway in downtown areas of Hong Kong since Sept. 28, say they won't leave unless Beijing withdraws an Aug. 31 ruling by China's National People's Congress (NPC) on Hong Kong's electoral reforms.

Some protesters are also calling for the resignation of embattled chief executive C.Y. Leung over the use of tear gas and pepper spray on umbrella-wielding protesters, after which the Occupy protests swelled to hundreds of thousands at their height.

Leung also raised hackles last month when he said the system must be weighted to prevent people on a low income from dominating Hong Kong politics.

The NPC announcement said that while all five million Hong Kong voters will cast a ballot in the election for Leung's successor, they will only be allowed to choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.

The 1,200-strong election committee, which voted Leung to power in 2010 with just 689 votes, has just 7.5 percent representation of pan-democratic politicians, far less that the broad popular support those groups enjoy.

Current pan-democratic lawmakers in the territory's Legislative Council (LegCo) were voted in with some 56 percent of the popular vote, compared with just 44 percent won by pro-Beijing politicians.

Broker

Students are currently trying to find a highly placed pro-Beijing intermediary to broker the trip on their behalf, Chow said.

The students have repeatedly rejected government offers following a live televised debate with Hong Kong officials last month to become more involved in consultation over future reform, and to consider ways to tweak the election arrangements without rejecting the Aug. 31 ruling.

A split is reportedly emerging between the founders of the Occupy movement, who are scholars and lecturers, and the protests centered around the students, many of whom are still in their teens.

Next Media tycoon and long-time pro-democracy supporter Jimmy Lai warned that Beijing wouldn't agree to a meeting unless students steered clear of public protest while in the Chinese capital.

"If they go there and attack them, so as to bring this issue to the attention of even more people, so China will be further condemned by others...what sort of a result will they get?" Lai said.

"You would need a very strong momentum across the whole movement to be able to afford such an aggressive move," he said.

And Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader of the 1989 pro-democracy movement on Tiananmen Square, said Hong Kong's "Umbrella Movement" has already won a major victory in the hearts and minds of voters.

"A lot of people won't talk about the Umbrella Revolution for fear of antagonising the central government, but I think the revolution has already happened," Zhou told RFA.

"An entire generation has been revolutionized; they may have had some vague ideas in the past, but now they have the experience of this movement behind them, they are much more aware about the nature of their own power and of political power," he said.

"In particular [this is true of] the younger generation."

Beijing visit 'unnecessary'

 Across the internal border in Guangzhou, Leung said there was "no need" for the students to visit Beijing, however.

"The central government has a clear grasp of the different opinions in Hong Kong, so a visit to Beijing is unnecessary," Leung said.

"It won't be lost on everyone that they keep bringing this up, and I think that will start to have a negative effect on the impact of the Occupy Central movement," he said.

"And that will just get worse and worse."

Anti-Occupy protesters say they are gaining wider support among the general public, who have said they wish to see a return to business as usual.

Meanwhile, protesters face the possibility of forced eviction from their campsites, should police move to clear barricades from the highway following civil injunctions brought by the transportation industry.

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.

Call For Pressure On China Over Detention of Hong Kong Protest Supporters
2014-11-07





As world leaders gear up to travel to Beijing for an economic summit on Monday, rights activists and democracy activists hit out at the ruling Chinese Communist Party for its continued detention of dozens of people who publicly supported the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong.

Chinese authorities are holding "scores" of people around the country for publicly supporting Hong Kong's "Umbrella Movement," which has been encamped on three major highways and intersections in the city in a campaign for universal suffrage in 2017 elections, Amnesty International said.

In a statement on its website, the London-based rights group called on world leaders to put pressure on China to release the Occupy supporters, who number "at least 76," it said.

"APEC leaders must end their recent silence on the crackdown against mainland Chinese activists expressing support for Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters," the group's East Asia research director Roseann Rife said in a statement on the group's website on Friday.

"Political convenience should not trump principled action," Rife said.

"The leaders should ... urge President Xi to ensure all those detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are immediately and unconditionally released," she said.

Amnesty said it had been able to confirm the continued detentions of 76 people, mostly in Beijing, the eastern province of Jiangsu, and the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which border Hong Kong.

Rights lawyers previously told RFA "more than 100" people had been detained, often for posting photos online of themselves holding a banner, or with a shaved head, in support of the Occupy Central protests that have gripped Hong Kong for nearly six weeks.

Others have been detained for traveling to Hong Kong, giving interviews to the media, or held after the authorities found out they were planning such a trip, activists say.

China's tightly controlled state media has dubbed the Occupy movement an "illegal protest," while pro-Beijing politicians said on Friday the movement could "harm the city's security," although they didn't elaborate.

The government's army of Internet censors have deleted photos and blocked any positive comment on the protests on China's social media platforms, as well as blocking the BBC website and Instagram since protests began.

'Rule of law'

The detentions came as the ruling party issued a communique following its Fourth Plenum last month, announcing it would implement the "rule of law" in a bid to improve its record.

But Rife said the authorities don't appear to have changed their approach to human rights.

"[The crackdown] makes a mockery of Xi's recent claims that the rule of law and human rights will be fully respected in China by 2020," Rife said.

Hong Kong-based rights groups have also called for the release of mainland-Chinese Occupy supporters.

Hong Kong's Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, the Catholic Diocese's Justice and Peace Commission, the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, and the Independent Chinese PEN Center marched to Beijing's representative office in the former British colony on Wednesday, brandishing yellow umbrellas and calling for the release of the prisoners.

The groups said in a statement that the Umbrella Movement has "frightened the Chinese Communist Party," calling on China's leaders to improve the country's rights record.

"The world leaders at the APEC meeting in Beijing should demand China fulfill its international obligations and respect human rights," Alliance deputy chief Richard Choi told reporters.

Meanwhile, student leaders of the Occupy protests presented a letter to former chief executive Tung Chee-Hwa, the first leader of the city to be approved by Beijing after the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, asking him to arrange an audience with top-level officials in Beijing.

Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Freedom Now," the students presented the letter outside the wrought-iron gates of Tung's private residence.

Tung, who is a vice-chairman of the parliamentary advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, has previously made a personal appeal to those occupying Hong Kong's streets to go home.

Demand for meeting

The influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) wants a meeting with Beijing officials to circumvent the administration of embattled Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying, whose officials say China will never back down on the issue of electoral reform.

HKFS leader Alex Chow told reporters they are prepared to meet with Chinese officials either in Beijing or Hong Kong, after the group dropped plans to show up in Beijing during the APEC summit.

But he warned that future protests would continue to arise if China refuses to listen to the people of Hong Kong.

"In going to Beijing we would hope to send the message that the Aug. 31 decision must be knocked down, if our umbrella movement is not to be replayed over and over again," Chow said.

"Even if the occupiers left today, they would be back again another day, but would Hong Kong be able to cope with them when they did?"

He said the students are seeking a long-term solution to the standoff.

"At the root of the problem is the fact that Hong Kong people must have a true voice under 'one country, two systems'," Chow said, referring to the formal promises of a high degree of autonomy and continued traditional freedoms made by Beijing under the terms of a 1984 Sino-British treaty.

He hit out at Hong Kong and Chinese officials for "misrepresenting" public opinion in the Special Administrative Region.

"This is the main cause in the weakening of 'one country, two systems,'" he said.

Many protesters remain in tents clustered near government headquarters in Admiralty, and at major intersections in the shopping districts of Causeway Bay and Mong Kok, saying they won't leave unless Beijing withdraws an Aug. 31 ruling by the National People's Congress (NPC) that protesters and pan-democratic politicians have dismissed as "fake universal suffrage."

Some protesters are calling for the resignation of Leung over the use of tear gas and pepper spray on umbrella-wielding protesters, after which the Occupy protests swelled to hundreds of thousands at their height.

Leung also raised hackles last month when he said the system must be weighted to prevent people on a low income from dominating Hong Kong politics.

Choosing candidates

The NPC announcement said that while all five million Hong Kong voters will cast a ballot in the election for Leung's successor, they will only be allowed to choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.

The 1,200-strong election committee, which voted Leung to power in 2010 with just 689 votes, has just 7.5 percent representation of pan-democratic politicians, far less that the broad popular support those groups enjoy.

Current pan-democratic lawmakers in the territory's Legislative Council (LegCo) were voted in with some 56 percent of the popular vote, compared with just 44 percent won by pro-Beijing politicians.

However, recent polls suggest that wider public support for the Umbrella Movement is on the wane, confirming claims from anti-Occupy protesters that they are gaining momentum.

Meanwhile, protesters face the possibility of forced eviction from their campsites, should police move to clear barricades from the highway following civil injunctions brought by the transportation industry.

A student protester surnamed Yip, who remains at the Occupy site in Admiralty, said he didn't pay much attention to opinion surveys.

"I think that it's mostly fake, because these media [that report the polls] are already under [China's] influence, and they are just putting out some propaganda," Yip told RFA on Friday.

He said the HKFS wasn't a key factor in many of the protesters' decision to maintain the mass civil disobedience movement.

"There's no chance that we will leave just because the federation of students tells us to," he said. "The only way to get us to leave is to change the NPC proposals."

"That is what the people want now."

Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Hong Kong's Students Waver Over Beijing Trip, Plan Local March Instead
2014-11-05



Student leaders of Hong Kong's six-week-long pro-democracy movement on Wednesday backed away from plans to make a trip to Beijing during a key economic summit, as Chinese officials hit out at the former British colony's last colonial governor for "inciting" the Occupy Central movement.

Former governor Chris Patten, who handed back control of Hong Kong on July 1, 1997 under the terms of a Sino-British bilateral treaty, told a parliamentary foreign affairs committee that Beijing's recent ruling on the 2017 election for the city's chief executive had likely breached its mini-constitution.

"Article 45 [of the Basic Law] specifies how the chief executive should be selected, with a goal that it should be by 'universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee,'" Patten testified to the committee.

"One thing you can't say is that election committee is broadly representative," he said. However, he admitted that Britain had done a poor job of introducing democracy to Hong Kong in the 150 years of its colonial rule there.

"Our introduction of democracy, if I could put it politely, is not a good one," Patten told the committee, which is holding an inquiry to mark the 30th anniversary of the Sino-British Joint Declaration that sealed Hong Kong's fate and set out the terms of the transfer of sovereignty.

But he said the treaty was the best deal that London could have made with China at the time.

Patten called on the administration of embattled chief executive Leung Chin-ying to show more leadership to resolve the standoff with Occupy Central protesters, who have occupied three sections of highway in downtown areas of Hong Kong since Sept. 28.

The protesters are calling for Leung's resignation, and for an Aug. 31 ruling by China's National People's Congress (NPC) to be withdrawn.

The NPC said that while all five million Hong Kong voters will cast a ballot in the election for Leung's successor, they will only be allowed to choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.

"What is happening in Hong Kong is that there is an extraordinary lack of leadership," Patten said. "[The government] needs to get into serious negotiation with the protesters."

The 1,200-strong election committee, which voted Leung to power in 2010 with just 689 votes, has just 7.5 percent representation of pan-democratic politicians, far less that the broad popular support those groups enjoy, Patten said.

Current pan-democratic lawmakers in the territory's Legislative Council (LegCo) were voted in with some 56 percent of the popular vote, compared with just 44 percent won by pro-Beijing politicians.

China reacted angrily to Patten's comments on Wednesday, accusing him of "inciting the illegal Occupy Central Movement in Hong Kong."

"As the last governor of Britain's colonial rule of Hong Kong, he should have awareness of his role and get a clear understanding of the change of time," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

"The month-long Occupy Central movement is illegal," Hong said. "No foreign government, organization or people have the right to interfere in Hong Kong's affairs."

Students waver on envoys

Back in Hong Kong, the influential Federation of Students (HKFS) said it might not necessarily send envoys to Beijing in time for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leadership summit next week.

But it said it would join academic activist group Scholarism and the pro-democracy Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF)—the organization behind Hong Kong's mass July 1 political marches—in a march to Beijing's Hong Kong liaison office on Sunday afternoon.

HKFS deputy leader Lester Shum said the march would be "a start" in the next phase of the Occupy movement, amid an apparent stalemate in the wake of talks last month with Hong Kong officials, who offered limited concessions that the students said were "too vague."

"We want the voices of Hong Kong people to be heard directly by representatives of the central government in Hong Kong," Shum told reporters.

But he said a trip to Beijing by federation members, Hong Kong students and citizens was still a possibility.

"We will go straight to Beijing ... if the central government refuses to withdraw the Aug. 31 decision," Shum said.

He said the students have written to former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa and NPC standing committee member Rita Fan, asking them to act as mediators for the trip.

The CHRF, which represents a number of civil and rights groups in Hong Kong, has been a long-term supporter of the "Umbrella Movement."

"We have just one collective aim: we want the NPC standing committee to rescind its Aug. 31 election framework," CHRF spokewoman Chan Tsim-ying told reporters. "We also hope for a positive response to requests for a meeting between the student federation and central government leaders."

Determined protesters

Chan said protesters are determined to remain encamped near government headquarters in Hong Kong Island's Admiralty district.

"We hope ... people will maintain the territory they have already occupied," she said.

She said the organizers expect a few hundred people to march to Beijing's Liaison Office, where they plan to tie yellow ribbons to its gates.

Meanwhile, former security chief and pro-Beijing politician Regina Ip has called for the students to be represented on the controversial election committee, as well as more women, government broadcaster RTHK reported.

Occupy protesters are still encamped in Admiralty, Causeway Bay and the busy Kowloon shopping district of Mong Kok, but numbers have dwindled from a peak of hundreds of thousands after tear gas was deployed on Sept. 28, while anti-Occupy protesters say they are gaining wider support among the general public.

Protesters also face the possibility of forced eviction from their campsites, should police move to clear barricades from the highway following civil injunctions brought by the transportation industry.

Hong Kong was promised a "high degree of autonomy" under the terms of the handover, but rights activists and journalists say the city's traditional freedoms of expression have been under threat from self-censorship and intimidation of journalists in recent years.

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.

LOL.  Rubbing it in?  The NED deserves it, but should we even be angry with the dupes though?  I'm sure most have legitimate aspirations etc, Is it their fault they believe this can lead to something good for them?  I think we're pretty much all on the same side.   Just thinking out load if we can support the legitimate aspirations of the students in HK while at the same time condemning the foreign interference aspects?  I admit it is hard to make excuses for such gullibility about western backed "revolution" in this, the information age. 

China's President Slams Hong Kong Democracy Movement As Police Prepare to Move


2014-11-12

Chinese president Xi Jinping on Wednesday denounced the pro-democracy Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong as an "illegal" campaign, in his first public comment on the protests that have blocked major highways in a bid for genuine universal suffrage over the past six weeks.

"Law and order must be maintained according to law in any place, not just in Hong Kong, but anywhere in the world," Xi said during a joint news conference with visiting U.S. President Barack Obama that wrapped up the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leadership summit.

Xi also repeated allegations of "foreign interference" in the protests, a claim that has been made repeatedly by commentators in the ruling Chinese Communist Party's tightly controlled media.

Obama denied any U.S. involvement, although he said Washington will continue to make the case for fair and transparent elections in the former British colony, which was promised a "high degree of autonomy" under the terms of its 1997 handover to Chinese rule.

"I was unequivocal in saying to President Xi that the U.S. had no involvement in fostering the protests that took place in Hong Kong," Obama told reporters after their formal talks.

"These are issues ultimately for the people of Hong Kong and China to decide," he said.

In Hong Kong, student leaders of the Occupy Central protests said they would extend their occupation to roads surrounding the city's British consulate in anger at a lack of support from London since the campaign began on Sept. 28 with police using tear-gas and pepper spray.

Hong Kong officials have told the protesters to leave, saying that Beijing won't withdraw an Aug. 31 decision ruling out the public nomination of candidates in the 2017 election for chief executive.

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), said that while Hong Kong's five million voters will cast a ballot to elect the next chief executive, they may only choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.

Protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who currently only have around seven percent of the nominating committee vote compared with 56 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative election, have dismissed the proposed electoral reforms as "fake universal suffrage."

Hong Kong activists are angry at the British government for failing to stand up to Beijing over what they say are breaches of a 1983 treaty setting out the terms of the handover.

"We are angry at the way that the British government has for many years denied that China has actually breached the declaration by interfering with Hong Kong politics," Anna-Kate Choi, coordinator of the Occupy British Consulate group, told Agence France-Presse.

"They have the responsibility to make sure that the joint declaration has been implemented properly and that democracy and the high degree of autonomy of Hong Kong have been protected," Choi said.

British consulate

Activists have put up large posters around the protest areas announcing the consulate occupation on Nov. 21. The British consulate has declined to comment on the plan.

Some posters for the British consulate occupation read: "China breaches the [1984] Joint Declaration: U.K. government respond now!" with the pro-democracy movement's umbrella symbol emblazoned with the British flag.

Hong Kong's High Court has extended civil injunctions calling for the removal of barricades and other obstructions at two out of three sites where Occupy protesters are encamped in tents and have vowed to remain until the Aug. 31 ruling is rescinded.

Some are also calling for the resignation of embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying, now deeply unpopular over the use of tear gas on Sept. 28 and his comments about preventing those with low incomes from dominating Hong Kong politics.

Police have been authorized to arrest anyone obstructing court bailiffs, who are expected to start a clear-out operation on specific stretches of highway in Kowloon's Mong Kok shopping district and near government headquarters in Admiralty district.

Local media reports say thousands of police officers have been put on standby over the weekend after transportation industry groups successfully extended the injunctions, saying they are losing business because key tram and bus routes are blocked.

Public support

Meanwhile, anti-Occupy protesters say public support is growing for an end to the protests.

Last week, the anti-Occupy Alliance for Peace and Democracy handed a petition containing 1.83 million signatures of Hong Kong citizens who oppose the protests, saying it reflects mainstream public opinion and a desire for the restoration of public order.

But Kwok Ka-ki, a lawmaker who represents Hong Kong's medical profession, said many of the signatures collected were dubious, including obviously joke names.

"I don't have much faith in this poll," Kwok told RFA on Wednesday. "It's not accurate, not scientific, and those who signed it don't represent Hong Kong people."

He said the basic desire of Hong Kong for genuine universal suffrage had been largely ignored by the city's political establishment.

"To take these signatures as support for the 'fake universal suffrage' proposals of Aug. 31 is to mislead the public and the citizens of Hong Kong," Kwok said.

Pan-democratic lawmaker Leung Yiu-chung said pro-democracy campaigners still have other options open to them and called on the government to include such actions in future reports to Beijing.

"We can vote, we can march and stage political actions," Leung said. "I don't think that petition was representative of the voice of the majority in Hong Kong."

"The students and other citizens are using the Occupy movement in the hope that Beijing will understand and respond to their demands."

Attack on media mogul

Meanwhile, anti-Occupy protesters threw rotting animal parts at pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, whose outspoken Apple Daily newspaper has already been repeatedly targeted by hacker attacks, an eyewitness told RFA.

Three men ambushed Lai, cursed at Lai and told him to "drop dead" before they threw several bags of animal organs at his head.

"Some people threw some stuff at Mr. Lai," an eyewitness told RFA. "It really stank; it was rotten offal."

"Then they left, and the police chased after them."

A police spokesman said two men had been slightly injured in the assault, and one had been taken to the hospital, but that no arrests had been made.

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.

China Bars Hong Kong Student Leaders From Boarding Flight to Beijing

2014-11-15

China on Saturday revoked the travel permits of three leaders of Hong Kong's six-week-long pro-democracy movement, effectively denying them permission to board a plane to Beijing in a bid to speak to leaders of the ruling Chinese Communist Party about their demands for free elections.

Alex Chow, leader of the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) and two fellow HKFS activists, Eason Chung and Nathan Law, were unable to board the Cathay Pacific flight at Hong Kong's International Airport.

"Airline officials informed [them] they did not have the required travel documents to get on the plane," Lester Shum, deputy secretary general of HKFS, told reporters.

A Cathay Pacific staff member told the three students that their travel passes—issued to citizens of Hong Kong and Macau wishing to cross the internal border into mainland China—had been canceled, footage aired by Hong Kong's Cable TV showed.

"We have received information from relevant departments on the mainland that the Home Return Permits of the passengers in question have been canceled," the staff member said.

Afternoon flight

The three had booked on a flight departing Hong Kong at 3.00 p.m. local time, but were told their documents had been revoked after exiting Hong Kong and before entering China, Chow told Cable TV.

"The police asked us to come back into the exit hall to deal with our tickets," he said.

"After that, a staff member of the airline told us that our Home Return Permits had been revoked, and that they therefore couldn't issue us with boarding passes," Chow was quoted as saying on the broadcaster's website.

While the permits are available to all citizens of Hong Kong and Macau, China has previously denied entry to outspoken critics of Beijing who are carrying them.

The student leaders had gone to the airport amid large numbers of supporters of the Occupy Central movement, also known as the Umbrella Movement, waving yellow umbrellas and banners calling for "genuine free elections."

Call to explain

Chow told reporters before attempting to board the plane: "Dialogue is important for resolving the current situation, but it depends on whether Beijing has the initiative to start talks with the students."

After the failed bid to travel to Beijing, he called on the government to explain the cancelation of their permits.

"Perhaps the authorities really don't want to hear the voices of the next generation," Chow told Cable TV. "It seems as if the door to dialogue has been closed."

Hong Kong and mainland China operate separate immigration and border controls, under the terms of the city's 1997 return to Chinese rule.

Hong Kong immigration officials appeared to have played no part in preventing the student leaders from leaving the former British colony.

However, airlines generally check the immigration status of passengers before allowing them to board, under international aviation agreements and local legislation.

Dangerous message

Vice-chairman of the League of Social Democrats Avery Ng, who was among the Occupy supporters at the airport on Saturday, said Beijing had sent a potentially dangerous message by denying entry to the three students.

"Hong Kong people will continue to feel great anger and frustration, and the pressure will continue to build up in the next few months," Ng warned.

"If Beijing continues with this hard-line attitude, social tensions in Hong Kong will reach breaking point."

And an unnamed Occupy protester said he had held out little hope for the Beijing trip, however.

"Initially I thought it was within the bounds of possibility, but later, when I saw that the pro-establishment didn't want to act as go-betweens, [I changed my mind]," the protester said.

"But it would have shown Beijing that people here in Hong Kong can stand up and speak rationally with them, neither servile nor aggressive."

Meanwhile, protest organizers on Saturday called on the Occupy Central movement to continue with non-violent protest as a means to call for public nomination of candidates in 2017 elections for Hong Kong's chief executive.

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), ruled on Aug. 31 that while all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast a ballot in the poll, they will only be able to choose between two or three candidates pre-selected by Beijing.

'Fake' democracy

Occupy protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who won 54 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative elections, have dismissed the proposed reform package as "fake universal suffrage."

Protesters have been encamped on three major highways and intersections since Sept. 28, when an initial bid to clear the area by police wielding tear-gas and pepper spray failed.

However, Hong Kong's High Court has granted civil injunctions to transportation industry associations who are losing money from blocked bus and tram routes, and police have been authorized to prevent anyone from interfering with attempts to clear barricades around protest sites.

Clearance of the areas listed in the injunctions is expected to start next week.

Speaking after warnings from Hong Kong's police chief that protesters shouldn't interfere with the clearance operations, Occupy co-founder Benny Tai said police are trying to use the civil injunctions as an excuse to clear the Occupy protest camps.

"I hope that, when the clearance operations begin, Occupy protesters will still to the principle of non-violence," he said.

"If the police were resolute about clearing the camps, then they would already have sufficient authority under [current law]," Tai told reporters.

"This is proof that the police and the Hong Kong government know that they have very limited power to deal with what is happening," he said.

The 'real' question

Hong Kong police commissioner Andy Tsang ducked questions on Saturday about whether police would resort to further force, if protesters obstructed the removal of barricades.

"The real question here is, are the protesters prepared to abide by the law?" he told reporters.

"Or will they continue to pay no heed to the law, and to wreak havoc with Hong Kong's rule of law?"

Protesters have said repeatedly they won't leave until Beijing withdraws its Aug. 31, while others call for the resignation of embattled chief executive C.Y. Leung.

Hong Kong was promised a 'high degree of autonomy' and the preservation of traditional freedoms of speech and association under the terms of its 1997 handover from Britain to China.

Many Occupy protesters have said they aren't just fighting for public nominations, but against the steady erosion of the city's core values and freedoms.

Journalists' groups have hit out at a slew of recent attacks—physical and online—on pro-democracy media outlets and websites in recent months.

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.

'No Room' For Further Dialogue With Students: Hong Kong Government


2014-11-11

The Hong Kong government on Tuesday ruled out further dialogue with student leaders of a mass pro-democracy protest that has blocked major roads in the former British colony for six weeks, as a court gave the green light to police to arrest anyone blocking roads it has ordered cleared.

Carrie Lam, second-in-command to embattled chief executive C.Y. Leung, called on protesters who remain encamped on the highway near government headquarters in Admiralty, as well as those occupying busy intersections in the shopping districts of Causeway Bay and Mong Kok, to leave peacefully.

She hit out at the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) for "hardening" its stance following the live televised debate during which Lam and fellow officials offered to file a fresh report to Beijing taking the Occupy Central movement's call for universal suffrage into account.

"The [Hong Kong] government went into the two-hour dialogue on Oct. 21 with sincerity, and promised to work to move things forward," Lam told a news conference. "The student federation didn't show the same level of sincerity; in fact their position hardened after the debate."

She said the students' insistence that China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC) withdraw an Aug. 31 decision ruling out the public nomination of candidates in 2017 elections for the chief executive "is not in keeping with" Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

"So I don't think that there is any room for dialogue with us for the time being," Lam said.

Cold water

Lam also poured cold water on plans by the HKFS to send a delegation to meet with officials in Beijing.

"Even if the students insist on traveling to Beijing, officials there will only reiterate the same position they have held all along, so it seems unnecessary," she said.

But she invited the students to submit any "fresh" proposals to a second round of public consultation on the government's electoral reform proposals.

"We will keep the door open for communication regarding the student federation's participation in the working group on [post-2017] political reforms," she added.

The Aug. 31 NPC standing committee ruling said that while all five million Hong Kong voters will cast a ballot in the election for Leung's successor, they will only be allowed to choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.

The 1,200-strong election committee, which voted Leung to power in 2010 with just 689 votes, has just 7.5 percent representation of pan-democratic politicians, far less that the broad popular support those groups enjoy.

Current pan-democratic lawmakers in the territory's Legislative Council (LegCo) were voted in with some 56 percent of the popular vote, compared with just 44 percent won by pro-Beijing politicians.

Won't leave

Many of the protesters who remain in tents at the three Occupy Central sites say they won't leave unless Beijing withdraws the ruling, which protesters and pan-democratic politicians have dismissed as "fake universal suffrage."

Other activists are calling for Leung to resign over the use of tear gas and pepper spray on umbrella-wielding protesters on Sept. 28, after which the Occupy protests swelled to hundreds of thousands at their height.

Leung also raised hackles last month when he said the voting system must be weighted to prevent people on a low income from dominating Hong Kong politics.

Amid polls suggesting growing support for anti-Occupy protesters, the protesters now face forced eviction from their campsites, after Hong Kong's High Court ruled that police could take action to clear the roads under civil injunctions brought by the transportation industry, which is losing business due to the blockage of regular bus and tram routes.

Student union leader and HKFS committee member Tommy Cheung denied that the students had "hardened" their stance in the wake of the dialogue, however.

"There has been no hardening of our position," Cheung told RFA. "That has always been our position, all along."

"We just didn't think that the government's offer of a new report on public opinion and a discussion platform [for post-2017 reforms] was much of a concession," he said. "Perhaps we should aim for talks with central government officials now."

At the Admiralty protest site, a technical college student surnamed Ho agreed.

"If anything, we thought that the HKFS was in a bit too much of a hurry to resolve things," Ho said. "They went into it with plenty of goodwill. It was the government's position that was hard-line, with no room for compromise."

Hong Kong's High Court has extended injunctions against occupiers in Mong Kok and Admiralty, and Lam warned the protesters that police would arrest anyone obstructing court bailiffs clearing the roads of barricades.

Some 7,000 police officers could be deployed in a major operation to help bailiffs enforce the injunctions which relate to a parts of Nathan Road and Argyle Street in Mong Kok and the area outside Citic Tower, government broadcaster RTHK reported.

But police won't be deployed to clear protesters from areas not covered by the injunctions, it said, adding that clearance operations will take place on Thursday "at the earliest."

'Zero chance'

Priscilla Lau, a Hong Kong delegate to the NPC said on Monday that a meeting between students and Beijing officials has "zero chance" of becoming reality.

Hong Kong political affairs commentator Poon Siu-to said Lam's comments showed the government is keeping its options open in the hope of an end to the standoff.

"Their handling of the movement has been terrible, what with tear gas and so on, which not only didn't solve the problem but brought even more people out onto the streets," Poon said. "Their use of force drove people to the side of the Occupy Central movement."

"Now they are looking for an exit strategy that has a legal basis," he said. "They want to use the injunctions as a pressure point to achieve a breakthrough."

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.

Occupiers Pull Back as Barricades Are Removed at Hong Kong Protest Site

2014-11-18

Workers and protesters have removed some of the barricades near a major Occupy Central pro-democracy encampment in Hong Kong, meeting no resistance from pro-democracy campaigners after an initial debate was resolved.

In the first of a series of actions aimed at enforcing civil injunctions granted by the former British colony's High Court, workers began cutting plastic ties holding metal barricades together, while protesters removed barricades on their side, taking them away for future use.

"Please could anyone who remains within the area covered by the injunction please immediately pack up their things and leave," the bailiff told protesters through a megaphone, adding that anyone who failed to comply could be held in contempt of court.

However, protesters had already moved their tents before the bailiff arrived, and had gathered to watch proceedings, making no attempt to obstruct the removal of barricades, online video of the incident showed.

Meanwhile, pan-democratic lawmaker Albert Ho negotiated with lawyers from Golden Investment, the joint venture controlled by Chinese state-owned Citic Group, which owns the 33-storey Citic Tower building opposite government headquarters in Admiralty district.

After winning lawyers round to his point of view, Ho told local media he was pleased to have avoided a conflict between workers and student activists campaigning for full democracy in 2017 elections for the territory's chief executive.

He said pedestrians and vehicles can now enter the area, fulfilling the terms of the court injunction. Any further action by the authorities would be "politically motivated," he told the South China Morning Post newspaper.




Some barricades remain

However, injunctions remain unenforced in the busy shopping districts of Mong Kok and Causeway Bay, while injunctions applying to roads elsewhere in Admiralty—at the heart of the main site known as "Umbrella Square"—may yet be granted.

Joshua Wong, leader of the academic activist group Scholarism, said on Monday that protesters are willing to restore access to the main entrance of the building.

"That is now open, but if they want to remove any more of the barriers, that I think that would be politically motivated, and the bailiffs should do something about it," he told RFA.

A protester who asked to remain anonymous said the remaining barricades are important as a way of preventing cars from approaching the main encampment on Admiralty's Harcourt Road.

"We'll stay as long as we can, and take it day by day," the protester said.

Meanwhile, Alex Chow, leader of the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), said protesters wouldn't allow total clearance of all protest sites, where campaigners have been encamped since riot police tried to disperse them with tear gas and pepper spray on Sept.
28.

The crackdown by police swelled protest numbers to the hundreds of thousands in the days that followed.

"Our members will stay with other protesters to the last minute," Chow told reporters, adding that many protesters were ready to risk arrest.

Police told reporters that bailiffs were unlikely to move to clear the Mong Kok injunction area before Thursday at the earliest.




Call to leave the sites

The Occupy Central movement began after China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), ruled on Aug. 31 that while all five million of Hong Kong's voters can cast ballots in elections scheduled for 2017 for Hong Kong's chief executive, they will only be able to choose between two or three candidates preselected by Beijing.

Occupy protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who won 54 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative elections, have dismissed the proposed reform package as "fake universal suffrage."

But Occupy Central co-founder and sociology professor Chan Kin-man on Tuesday called on protesters, now mostly students, to leave the main sites or consider scaling back their protest.

The chances that Beijing could have a change of heart are slim, and public opinion has clearly turned against the Occupy movement, Chan wrote in a newspaper article published in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

"The priority now should be to minimize the disturbance the movement is causing to people's daily lives in order to win their support," Chan wrote.

A survey by the Chinese University of Hong Kong conducted last weekend found that more than two thirds of respondents think it is time to end the protest.

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.

China Arrests Activist For Supporting Hong Kong Democracy Movement

2014-11-20

Police in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou have formally arrested a third activist on subversion charges after he publicly supported the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.

Wang Mo has been formally arrested on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" after he took part in an activity in support of Hong Kong's Occupy Central movement, which has taken over sections of highway in the former British colony in a campaign for free elections in 2017.

His family received notification from police on Monday, a fellow activist who gave only a nickname Xiao Biao told RFA on Thursday.

Wang is currently being held in the Guangzhou No. 1 Detention Center.

Guangdong authorities are also holding Foshan-based activist Su Changlan on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" after she took part in Hong Kong-related activities in the province.

Su was criminally detained on Oct. 27 and is currently being held at Guicheng Police Station in Foshan city.

Also in Foshan, activist Jia Pin has been placed under tight surveillance by police the city's Nanhai district after being held under criminal detention for more than a month, according to fellow activist Yang Chong.

And in the eastern province of Shandong, Occupy Central supporter Sun Feng is also being held under criminal detention.

Sun was criminally detained on Nov. 17, and is being held in an unknown location in Shandong's Zibo city, the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group reported on Thursday.

"These are definitely linked to Hong Kong," Xiao Biao said.

Documented cases

The CHRD says it has documented 104 cases of detention by Occupy Central supporters across the internal border in mainland China.

Of those, at least 31 individuals remain in some form of police custody.

"Police have harassed and intimidated countless others by visiting their homes and issuing warnings, or putting them under house arrest," the group said in a statement on its website.

It said several activists have gone into hiding, the statement said.

‘Fake’ reform package

Hong Kong's Occupy Central protests, also known as the Umbrella Movement after protesters used umbrellas to protect themselves from tear-gas during Sept. 28 clashes, have taken over stretches of major highways in protest at China's plans for electoral reform in the territory.

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), ruled on Aug. 31 that while all five million of Hong Kong's voters can cast ballots in elections scheduled for 2017 for Hong Kong's chief executive, they will only be able to choose between two or three candidates preselected by Beijing.

Occupy protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who won 54 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative elections, have dismissed the proposed reform package as "fake universal suffrage."

China's ruling Communist Party is extremely nervous that citizens in mainland China could gain inspiration from the movement to launch a popular movement of their own.

In response, it has assiduously censored reports, tweets and photos of the protests on its side of the Great Firewall.

"They want to send a warning to Occupy Central, for fear that the movement breaks across the border into mainland China and creates an impact here," Xiao Biao said.

"That's why there have been so many of these arrests; maybe the ones who are formally arrested are the ones who have the strongest attitude," he added.

Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Qiao Long for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Didn't pay too much to the news.

What is the demo all about?

Democracy Campaigners Condemn Smashing of Hong Kong's Legislature
2014-11-19

Leaders of Hong Kong's long-running pro-democracy movement on Wednesday condemned an overnight attempt by unidentified men to break into the city's Legislative Council (LegCo).

Student leaders of the Occupy Central protests, which have taken over stretches of major highways in the former British colony since Sept. 28, and pan-democratic politicians said they were "heartbroken" by the attempt to smash through the glass-paneled entrance of the building in the early hours of Wednesday by protesters wielding broken paving stones.

"The violent acts have violated the principle of peace and nonviolence underlying the Umbrella Movement," Civic Party leader Alan Leong told reporters, in comments translated in the South China Morning Post newspaper.

"We feel the [break-in] will have a negative impact on the movement. We're heartbroken," Leong said.

Labour Party lawmaker Fernando Cheung told local media he saw several masked men smashing the glass doors of the building with metal barriers.

He said the attack on the building could have been the result of rumors that an Internet censorship bill would be debated on Wednesday, adding that no such meeting would take place.

Police made six arrests at the scene at around 3:00 a.m. local time.

'Tired of waiting'

One of the men arrested said at the time that activists had grown tired of "waiting around for the police to clear the protests."

"We wanted to seize back the momentum ... because even though we're causing an obstruction to others, that's the only way you can achieve anything," the unnamed activist said.

But Occupy supporter Wong Wing-kei, who also witnessed the attack, said those who carried it out didn't look like typical democracy activists, and didn't represent the rest of the protesters.

"There was a gang of more than 20 people with no respect for the law," Wong said, adding that they were tattooed and looked like criminal gang members.

"They took paving stones and threw them, one after the other, at the glass," he said.

"[At Occupy Central], we like to express our views in a safe and peaceful manner," Wong said. "If we were going to commit acts of violence, we'd have done it a long time ago."

Bewildered by violence

One protester in Hong Kong's Umbrella Square, where campaigners have been camping peacefully on a major highway near government headquarters in a bid for free elections in 2017, said the attack had left him bewildered.

"I don't understand why they have suddenly carried out such an attack, and a violent one at that," the student occupier surnamed Loh told RFA.

"Our movement has always emphasized using peaceful methods of protest."

However, a second protester said there should be some escalation of the protest, which has dwindled since peaking in the hundreds of thousands after police used tear gas on protesters on Sept. 28.

"We haven't escalated the protests in more than a month now," the student, surnamed Wong, told RFA. "We should have done it much earlier."

'An act by rioters'

The Hong Kong government strongly condemned the violence, describing it as "an act by rioters."

Justice secretary Rimsky Yuen said nobody should think they can escape after breaking the law.

And Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) spokesman Lester Shum said the activists had acted on the basis of "false reports."

"When they were done smashing the glass, they scattered, with no regard for any of the other activists," Shum said.

"We have no wish to see actions like this," he said.

Hong Kong police chief superintendent Steve Hui said officers at the scene had been forced to use a "minimum amount of force" after protesters ignored police warnings to stop their activities.

Three police officers were injured in the clashes, while others had helmets and a baton stolen, Hui said.

The Occupy Central movement began after China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), ruled on Aug. 31 that while all five million of Hong Kong's voters can cast ballots in elections scheduled for 2017 for Hong Kong's chief executive, they will only be able to choose between two or three candidates preselected by Beijing.

Occupy protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who won 54 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative elections, have dismissed the proposed reform package as "fake universal suffrage."

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.

Police Fire Tear-Gas to Clear Hong Kong Democracy Protesters

2014-11-25

Riot police in Hong Kong sprayed tear-gas and pepper spray on hundreds of pro-democracy protesters on Tuesday as they stepped in to assist court officials in clearing a section of highway in the busy Kowloon district of Mong Kok.

Protesters wearing construction helmets and face masks formed a shield-wall of umbrellas against police, in what has become the icon of the Occupy Central movement, which is calling for more democracy than Beijing has said it will allow in the semiautonomous Chinese city.

Thousands of police were deployed to the scene, while a police spokesman said officers had arrested 32 protesters.

Police shouted warnings by megaphone: "You must stop causing an obstruction or impeding the bailiffs and those assisting them."

"This will be the last warning issued by police, who will use the minimum amount of force, if necessary," it said.

Other warnings said that any who continued to block the streets being cleared under a High Court order would be arrested "on suspicion of contempt of court."

Three police officers were injured in the clashes, while many protesters were hit by tear-gas sprayed from high pressure hoses from step-ladders, a police statement said late on Tuesday.

Earlier, workers had dismantled wooden barricades from the street, while protesters responded by peacefully packing up their tents and belongings.

'Things got chaotic'

An eyewitness surnamed Lam who said he has been to the Mong Kok camp daily since the first day of protests, said it was only later that the mood became more tense.

"When the police came, the protesters got up and left peacefully; the young people behaved in a very orderly manner," Lam said.

"[Then] things got pretty chaotic," Lam said. "The police treated protesters very roughly and rudely. They were very unfriendly."

As the operation proceeded, Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) leader Yvonne Leung questioned court officials over whether police were enforcing the clearance of streets beyond the area covered by the injunction, brought by a bus company that said the blockages were hurting its bottom line.

However, the majority of protesters shouted slogans, but made no attempt to resist arrest, and several were taken away in one of dozens of police vans parked in nearby streets, local media reports said.

Photos of the stand-off posted on Twitter showed a number of uniformed high-school students in helmets and masks, at the center of the crowd.

Argyle Street near the busy shopping drag of Nathan Road was cleared of occupiers and their tents, although several hundred protesters continued to gather in nearby Portland Street, online live video feed by the Apple Daily media group showed.

Likely to stay

Embattled Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying, who has faced repeated calls from protesters for his resignation, said activists who remained encamped on sections of Nathan Road which looks set to be cleared later this week, should go home.

Lam said he believed many protesters would remain at the site nonetheless.

"Young people are unhappy with the current government," he said. "We want to fight for freedom, justice and an equitable society."

"I have been here for 59 days, and I have seen everything that has happened in Mong Kok," said Lam, who is retired.

"I'm a bit older, so I don't take part; but I come every day to see what's going on."

Police spokesman Kong Man-keung said police lines blocking Argyle Street, the focus of the court injunction, should be respected.

"We appeal to those who are illegally assembled there to exercise restraint, and not to try charging the police lines," Kong told reporters.

A second Occupy protester at Mong Kok surnamed Soong said protesters are still concerned that existing encampments in Mong Kok will be targeted next.

"But if we leave, then Hong Kong will have no future," Soong said. "So I will be staying. Because if the chief executive isn't elected by us, then they can do exactly as they please."

"We have a duty to protect Hong Kong," he said.

Meanwhile, some protesters said they were already planning to move their tents and belongings to the main Occupy site near government headquarters in Admiralty, on Hong Kong Island.

Two months of protests

The gritty working class district of Mong Kok has seen sporadic clashes and mob violence since the Occupy movement was launched on Sept. 28, often between anti-Occupy protesters accused of criminal gang connections and the occupiers, many of whom are students.

Occupy Central protesters have been encamped on three major roads and intersections in Hong Kong since Sept. 28, when police use of tear-gas and pepper spray against umbrella-wielding protesters brought hundreds of thousands of citizens onto the streets at the movement's height.

But Hong Kong officials have repeatedly told the protesters to leave, saying that Beijing won't withdraw an Aug. 31 decision ruling out public nomination of candidates in the 2017 election for the chief executive.

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), said that while Hong Kong's five million voters will cast a ballot to elect the next chief executive, they may only choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.

Protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who currently only have around seven percent of the nominating committee vote compared with 56 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative election, have dismissed the proposed electoral reforms as "fake universal suffrage."

Hong Kong activists are also angry at the British government for failing to stand up to Beijing over what they say are breaches of a 1984 treaty setting out the terms of the handover.

On Tuesday, a group of British MPs canceled a planned visit to Shanghai after one of their number was denied a visa after organizing a parliamentary debate on Occupy Central, the Guardian newspaper reported.

Conservative MP Richard Graham had called for a probe into possible breaches by Beijing of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration promising the territory a high degree of autonomy.

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 Student Leaders Slam Police Violence, Mull Further Action

2014-11-27

Hong Kong's police force came under fire on Thursday in the wake of its clearance of a pro-democracy camp in Mong Kok, as student leaders said they were subjected to violent treatment during arrest on public order charges.

Joshua Wong, 18, who heads the academic activist group Scholarism, told reporters after being bailed out from his arrest for contempt of court, that police who dragged him away from the Mong Kok street held by Occupy Central protesters until early this week had used violence.

"Around 10 police officers, including those in blue uniforms and helmets, rushed towards me and pushed me to the ground, so as to limit my range of movement," Wong said. "I was injured in the neck and elsewhere."

"They hurt me six or seven times, including in my private parts."

Wong, who has become one of the key figures in the Occupy Central movement since it began on Sept. 28, hit out at the use of violence, saying that police had also taunted and cursed at him during his overnight stay in Kowloon's Kwai Chung police station.

Wong, who was also pelted with eggs by two unidentified men outside the court, is now banned from entering the area that was the scene of Wednesday night's clashes, during which at least two journalists were arrested and one beaten, as a condition of his bail.




Similar experience

Fellow student leader Lester Shum, who was arrested at the same time, reported a similar experience.

"I was carried away by several police officers, who punched me and kicked me," Shum told reporters after being bailed out. "Some of them pulled my hair and pinned me to the ground."

Pan-democratic politicians also criticized the operation.

Labour Party chairman and lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan said the government, which ruled out further dialogue with students earlier this month, should have worked harder to find a political solution to the stand-off.

"Political problems shouldn't be resolved with police violence," Lee said in a statement.

And lawmaker Dennis Kwok, who represents the legal profession in Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo), said police had failed to comply with correct procedures by not explaining the High Court injunction to people when they and court bailiffs began clearing barricades and encampments at the start of a two-day operation that saw at least 148 people arrested.

"I think the police action has not followed the procedures ... to explain the gist of the injunction order to the people at the scene, before they start the arrests," Kwok told reporters.

The Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) said the operation was a bid by the government of embattled chief executive C.Y. Leung to clear protests in the name of a civil injunction brought by transportation groups.

Leung's administration had "attempted to borrow the name of the injunction to carry out what is in effect a clearance," the group said.





Police entitlement?

But Hong Kong justice secretary Rimsky Yuen defended the clearance operation, saying that police were entitled to carry out their duties in accordance with other ordinances aside from those stipulated in the High Court.

"If there is any person who takes the view that the bailiffs are not performing their duty properly, I am sure they can take the matter to the appropriate venue," Yuen said.

Some 6,000 police officers have been assigned to the cleared streets and nearby areas in Mong Kok until Sunday to prevent any attempt to re-take the area by Occupy Central protesters, the English-language South China Morning Post reported.

Official Chinese media applauded the clearance of Mong Kok.

"There was some inevitable confusion at the site, but the clearance was conducted as smoothly as expected," the tabloid Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, said in an editorial.

"With its goals appearing ridiculous and public support quickly diminishing, the Occupy Central campaign has failed," the paper said.

"Their radical illusion of reshaping Hong Kong is like tilting at windmills," it said. "It will never come to pass."




'Further actions'

Meanwhile, student leaders threatened to target government buildings in response to police violence in Mong Kok.

"I think we have made it very clear that if [the police] continue the violent way of clearing up the place, we will have further actions,"
HKFS spokeswoman Yvonne Leung told government broadcaster RTHK.

"The further actions include a possibility of some escalations pointed at government-related buildings or some government-related departments," she said.

Leung, who also heads the University of Hong Kong students' union, said further details would be released soon.

The students' plans appear to be increasingly at odds with the strategies proposed by the three older founders of Occupy Central, Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-ming, who have said they plan to turn themselves in to police next month in a sacrificial gesture to win public support for the movement they started.

More radical protesters have called for further escalation of protests in a bid to put further pressure on the government to give in to Occupy Central's core demands.

Occupy Central, or the "Umbrella Movement," began on Sept. 28, when police use of tear-gas and pepper spray against umbrella-wielding demonstrators brought hundreds of thousands of citizens onto the streets in protest at the movement's height.

But Hong Kong officials have repeatedly told the protesters to leave, saying that Beijing won't withdraw an Aug. 31 decision ruling out public nomination of candidates in the 2017 election for the chief executive.

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), said that while Hong Kong's five million voters will cast ballots to elect the next chief executive, they may only choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.

Protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who currently only have around seven percent of the nominating committee vote compared with 56 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative election, have dismissed the proposed electoral reforms as "fake universal suffrage."

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.

China Fires Journalist Who Tweeted In Support of Occupy Central
2014-11-24   

A journalist on a newspaper controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party has been fired after he spoke out in support of Hong Kong's Occupy Central pro-democracy movement.

Wang Yafeng, who wrote editorials for Communist Party mouthpiece the Jiaxing Daily in the eastern province of Zhejiang, lost his job after sending out tweets highly critical of state media's line on the Hong Kong protests on his personal microblog account.

"People who, without understanding the situation, launch their invective at Hong Kong's citizens' protest deserve to spend the rest of their lives as slaves," Wang tweeted last week.

His tweet was quickly deleted, but not before he was reported by large numbers of pro-government paid commentators known as the "50-cent" brigade, Hong Kong's English-language South China Morning Post reported.

Wang also tweeted that "to follow the party is to go down a road of no return."

According to a former colleague, Wang had kept a low profile since joining the paper four years ago, but had been fired for "crossing a red line."

"We have already terminated his employment contract," the employee, who declined to be identified, told RFA on Monday. "He made some inappropriate comments on his verified microblog account."

"You can read about this yourself in Chinese media reports; the reason for it is explained very clearly," the employee said.

A second member of the editorial staff at the Jiaxing Daily who also asked to remain anonymous said they weren't surprised by the response.

"You probably don't understand this there in Hong Kong, but here in China, there are some things that it's not permissible to say," the employee said.




Occupy Central

Hong Kong's Occupy Central protests, also known as the Umbrella Movement after protesters used umbrellas to protect themselves from tear-gas during Sept. 28 clashes, have taken over stretches of major highways in protest at China's plans for electoral reform in the territory.

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), ruled on Aug. 31 that while all five million of Hong Kong's voters can cast ballots in elections scheduled for 2017 for Hong Kong's chief executive, they will only be able to choose between two or three candidates preselected by Beijing.

Occupy protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who won 54 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative elections, have dismissed the proposed reform package as "fake universal suffrage."

Beijing is extremely nervous that citizens in mainland China could gain inspiration from the movement to launch a popular movement of their own.

In response, it has removed reports, tweets and photos of the protests on its side of the "Great Firewall," a complex system of blocks, filters and human censorship of online content.

At the same time, tightly controlled state media outlets have repeatedly styled the movement "illegal," and instigated by "hostile foreign forces."

More than 100 activists in mainland China have been detained in connection with their support for the movement, while least 33 are still believed to be in detention, according to overseas rights groups.




'Spouting nonsense'

Sichuan-based rights activist Huang Qi, who founded the Tianwang rights website, said the administration of President Xi Jinping has been strengthening the role of the official media as party mouthpiece since taking power in 2012.

"It's as if a lot of people working in the Chinese media live double lives, spouting a lot of fake nonsense against their will, and suppressing their true knowledge of events and opinions about them," Huang said.

In Hong Kong, independent journalist Oiwan Lam, co-founder of the Inmediahk news website, said Wang is by no means the first person to feel the wrath of Beijing over public support for the Occupy movement across the internal border in Hong Kong.

"The censorship has been very strict indeed, and even the microblog accounts of very famous people have been shut down," Lam said.

"At the same time, there is anti-Occupy splashed across the pages of all the pro-Beijing media and across the Internet," she said. "Under such tight controls, it's very hard to say whether the Chinese public is genuinely against the Occupy Central movement."

Under the terms of its 1997 handover to Beijing, Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy and the preservation of its existing freedoms of speech and association, as well as continued judicial independence.

But Beijing has recently added Occupy Central student leaders to a blacklist, revoking their travel passes that enable Hong Kong citizens to visit mainland China.

Reported by Ho Shan for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Fresh Clashes in Hong Kong As Protesters Converge on Government Buildings

2014-11-30

Hundreds of pro-democracy activists clashed with police in Hong Kong on Sunday after student leaders of the Occupy Central movement called on supporters to encircle government buildings in the former British colony.

Protesters wearing hard hats and masks chanted "Surround Government HQ!" and "Make Way! Make Way!" as they converged on Central Government Offices in the semiautonomous Chinese city, while police fired pepper spray in a bid to disperse the crowd.

More people began streaming towards the entrances and fire exits of the government building after a call from Nathan Law of the academic activist group Scholarism to supporters to join in.

The ubiquitous umbrellas, which became a symbol of the "Umbrella Movement" because of their widespread use to ward off pepper and tear-gas spray, were once more out in force.

The crowd had swelled to "several thousand," by 10.00 p.m. local time, according to RFA journalists at the scene, after Hong Kong Federation of Students leader Nathan Law addressed the main occupation site on nearby Harcourt Road, calling on them to join in.

But Scholarism's Oscar Lai warned protesters to stick to the principle of non-violent action, and not to provoke or charge at police.

"We can't provoke the police or charge at them, because we are fighting for their basic right to vote and to seek election as well," Lai said.

"They are Hong Kong people too," he told the crowd in a speech as the action was launched in "Umbrella Square."

"I want today's action to be a mass action, not a dozen people hanging around at a street corner," he said. "If that happens, it's much harder for us to support you and ensure your safety."

He added: "Today's protest has an aim; and that is to force the government to pay attention to the will of the people."



Police warning defied

Sunday's protest came in spite of a police warning against such a rally, after which some 3,000 officers were deployed to the scene.

"If anyone obstructs the police in carrying out their duty, charges the police line violently, or tries to blockade central government offices, police will take resolute action," police spokesman Kong Man-keung told reporters.

A City University student surnamed Ng said she would be swelling the ranks of Sunday's protests, in spite of police warnings.

"I probably won't stand right on the front line, because my family are very worried about my safety," Ng said. "So I'll find a spot a little further back."

"The more of us there are, the safer it will be," she said.

The renewed stand-off came after police cleared a seven-week-old occupation of the bustling shopping district of Mong Kok last week, acting to enforce a civil injunction brought by the transportation industry over the blocking of a major highway.

Police arrested 28 people in clashes on Friday and Saturday in Mong Kok, as hundreds of crowds attempted to retake the cleared site on Kowloon's Nathan Road, without success.

The Occupy movement began on Sept. 28, when police use of tear-gas and pepper spray against umbrella-wielding demonstrators brought hundreds of thousands of citizens onto the streets in protest at the movement's height.

But Hong Kong officials have repeatedly told the protesters to leave, saying that Beijing won't withdraw an Aug. 31 decision ruling out public nomination of candidates in the 2017 election for the chief executive.

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), said that while Hong Kong's five million voters will cast ballots to elect the next chief executive, they may only choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.




'Fake universal suffrage'

Protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who currently only have around seven percent of the nominating committee vote compared with 56 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative election, have dismissed the proposed electoral reforms as "fake universal suffrage."

Meanwhile, the high-profile student leaders of the movement appear to be increasingly at odds with its founders, three middle-aged academics, who appear to favor more symbolic forms of resistance.

Law said that while not all Occupy protesters are students and not everyone agrees with the students' actions, the HKFS has a clear vision on which to base its next move.

"At the start of the year...the federation collected the opinions of students from Hong Kong's eight universities, and arrived at the consensus that everyone wants public nomination of election candidates," Law said.

He said students also overwhelmingly support the abolition of industry-based seats in Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo), known as "functional constituencies."

"The federation started out as a student organization that was there for students," Law said. "Now, it is there for the public as a whole."

Several hundred protesters remain in occupation on a major highway not far from government headquarters and at the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay, on Hong Kong Island.

They say they won't leave until the government responds to their demands, some of which include the resignation of embattled chief executive C.Y. Leung and the withdrawal of Beijing's Aug. 31 decision.

Reported by RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Students Stage Hunger Strike to Demand Full Democracy in Hong Kong

2014-12-01

Updated at 6:00 p.m. EST on 2014-12-1

Hong Kong student leaders said they have begun a hunger strike in a bid to pressure Beijing into allowing full democracy for the city after thousands of pro-democracy activists forced a temporary closure of the government headquarters following clashes with police.

The student leaders announced their "indefinite" hunger strike hours after Hong Kong's leader Leung Chun-ying warned that police would take "resolute action" against protests now into their third month.

On Monday, police used pepper spray and batons on students trying to storm government headquarters, in some of the worst violence since the rallies began in September after Beijing refused to allow a free vote for electing Hong Kong’s leader.

Joshua Wong, 18, who heads the academic activist group Scholarism said that he and two other student activists would begin fasting to attempt to force the Hong Kong government to respond to their demands for free elections in the semi-autonomous Chinese city in 2017.

"We, Scholarism, announce that now I, Joshua Wong, Wong Tsz-yuet and Lo Yin-wai, the three representatives, will go on an indefinite hunger strike," Wong told protesters on stage at the main Occupy Central protest site in the former British colony's Admiralty district.

"Living in these troubled times, there is a duty," Wong wrote in a statement on Facebook after the announcement, and which was also signed by Lo, 18, and Wong Tsz-yuet, 17.

"Today we are willing to pay the price, we are willing to take the responsibility," the statement said. “We want to take back our future.”

Previous hunger strikes in Hong Kong have tended to be carried out by large groups of people in shifts.

But the three students said they would fast "indefinitely" unless the Hong Kong government, which has ruled out further talks with students and called on them to end their "illegal" protests, reopens dialogue, and Beijing withdraws an Aug. 31 decision on electoral reform.

The three wrote that they had “tried everything,” including a student strike, surrounding the chief executive's office, dialogue with the government, and occupation of key areas in Hong Kong—Admiralty, Mong Kok, Causeway Bay and Tsimshatsui.

"Our bodies are tired, but spiritually we feel as if we have endless energy," the students wrote.

"We feel that we won't be wasting our young lives if we stake them on the progress of democracy in Hong Kong," they said.

"We are afraid, but we won't run away."




Monday clashes

The announcement followed the forced closure of Hong Kong’s government headquarters in the Admiralty district by thousands of Occupy Central activists on Monday morning, amid conflicting visions for the future of the movement in support of full democracy.

Government headquarters reopened on Monday afternoon after numbers thinned, and police were able to regain access after using water hoses and pepper spray against the crowd, forcing those who remained back to their encampment on nearby Harcourt Road.

Dozens of people were arrested after protesters barricaded roads and blocked entrances to the central government office building in the early hours of Monday.

Leung warned that arrests on public order charges could affect the future of protesters, the majority of whom are university students and young professionals.

"We do not wish to arrest people in site clearance ... as they will have criminal records, which will affect their chances in studying and working overseas," Leung said.

But he warned that police restraint shouldn't be mistaken for incompetence.

"Please do not take tolerance as incapability in handling the issue ... do not think the police are weak," Leung said.

Alex Chow, who heads the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) told reporters on Monday that the bid to escalate the civil disobedience campaign hadn't worked.

"The aim was to disrupt the government," Chow said. "We can say we were successful for a short time. But it ultimately failed and there is room for improvement."

"We will have discussions in the Occupy area in the following days on how the movement should go ahead," he said.





Violent confrontation

One protester surnamed Lui said he had witnessed violent scenes during the clashes, in which dozens were reported injured by local hospitals.

"They used batons, as if they had gone crazy ... Some people were injured by their beatings, and there was a lot of blood," he said.

"The police were trying to arrest people, but we managed to pull a few people to safety," Lui said, adding that he thought the "escalation" plan hadn't been planned in great detail.

"I don't think this really counts as an escalation," he said.

According to the government, "violent radicals" were among the crowds and repeatedly shoved police officers and charged police lines.

"The police took resolute action by using appropriate force to stop these illegal acts and disperse and arrest those involved," a spokesman said, adding that at least 11 police officers were injured in the clashes.

The clashes came amid growing differences within the Occupy Central movement, whose founders are calling on occupiers to go home after they symbolically turn themselves in to police.

However, activist groups Scholarism and HKFS say they won't leave unless the decision to do so is unanimous.

Meanwhile, more radical voices within the movement are calling for an escalation of protests to force the government to take action on their demands.




Occupy movement

The Occupy movement began on Sept. 28, when police use of tear-gas and pepper spray against umbrella-wielding demonstrators made international headlines, bringing hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets in protest at the movement's height.

But Hong Kong officials have repeatedly told the protesters to leave, saying that Beijing won't withdraw an Aug. 31 decision ruling out public nomination of candidates in the 2017 election for the chief executive.

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), said that while Hong Kong's five million voters will cast ballots to elect the next chief executive, they may only choose between two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee.

Protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who currently only have around seven percent of the nominating committee vote compared with 56 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative election, have dismissed the proposed electoral reforms as "fake universal suffrage."

Labour party chairman and lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan called on Monday for more discussions about the future of the movement.

"When protesters escalate their actions, police also escalate their violence," Lee said in comments reported by the South China Morning Post newspaper.

"Because of such differences ... it'll be more difficult to remain peaceful and non-violent while escalating action."

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's High Court on Monday barred pro-democracy protesters from occupying Harcourt Road—the site of the main encampment—Connaught Road Central, and most of Cotton Tree Drive.

The court claimed the protesters right to demonstrate was "not absolute and subject to limitation," saying it had to be balanced against the public's right to use the roads.

A student protester at Admiralty surnamed Shuet said he planned to remain until the police moved him from the site.

"We will definitely remain in occupation, and if they come here, we will think about leaving then," Shuet told RFA. But he added: "I hope there won't be too big a backlash."

Reported by Wen Yuqing and Pan Jiaqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin and Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Only thing you need to support are hot spots all over the world.

Occupy Movement Founders to Surrender to Hong Kong Police

2014-12-02

The three founders of Hong Kong’s Occupy Central civil disobedience group aimed at pushing for political reforms said Tuesday that they would surrender to police and called on student activists to end their street protests to prevent violence.

Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP) founders professors Benny Tai Yiu-ting and Chan Kin-man and pastor Chu Yiu-ming said they would turn themselves in Wednesday to take responsibility for the protests that have shut down parts of the Asian financial center for more than two months.

They “will hand themselves in tomorrow at 3 p.m. at Central Police Station,” according to a tweet by the movement.

Another tweet by the non-violent movement, which demands a fully democratic government in Hong Kong, said citizens hadn’t abandoned their democratic aspirations, although there may be different ideas about whether continued occupation was a way to achieve them.

The movement’s founders also tweeted: “There are different strategies in a democratic movement. We're very clear our role was to help students. What's changed now is violence from the government.”

Although the announcement came shortly after student leaders of the protests, also called the umbrella movement because students used umbrellas to shield themselves from rain and pepper spray, said they would regroup, Tai urged them to retreat in light of authorities’ recent attacks on them.

“In the past two weeks, the police have cracked down hard on protestors in the occupied sites,” Tai, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, told a news conference on Tuesday.

“Our young people have used their bodies to sustain the blows of police batons. Their black and broken bones have brought us the deepest sorrow.

“We respect the students’ and citizens’ determination to fight for democracy, but we are furious at the government’s heartless indifference.

“A government that uses police battalions to maintain its authority is a government that is beyond reason.

“For the sake of the occupiers’ safety and for the sake of our original intention of love and peace, as we prepare to surrender, we three urge the students to retreat, to put down deep roots in the community and transform the movement to extend the spirit of the umbrella movement.”





Hunger strike

On Monday, student leaders said they would begin a hunger strike in a bid to pressure Beijing into allowing full democracy for the city after thousands of pro-democracy activists forced a temporary closure of the government headquarters following clashes with police.

The student leaders announced their "indefinite" hunger strike hours after Hong Kong's leader Leung Chun-ying warned that police would take "resolute action" against protests.

Police used pepper spray and batons on students trying to storm government headquarters in some of the worst violence since the rallies began in September after Beijing refused to allow a free vote for electing Hong Kong’s leader in 2017.

Despite calls by Occupy Central founders to end the protests, some students said they would continue the mission.

“Now they talk about retreat,” a 24-year-old protestor named Raymond Tsang told Agence France-Presse.

“It is a betrayal of what we have insisted on all along. We should not consider an end to the campaign until there is a solid achievement.”

But Tai said at the press conference: “Surrendering is not an act of cowardice. It is the courage to act on a promise. To surrender is not to fail; it is a silent denunciation of a heartless government.''




Into the background

Tai along with Chan and Baptist minister Chu founded the Occupy Central movement in early 2013 to push for political reforms in the semi-autonomous city, but faded into the background as more radial student leaders stepped to the forefront of the pro-democracy protests.

The main protest camp remains along a stretch of highway in the Admiralty district in central Hong Kong.

Previous attempts to further the movement’s cause through dialogue failed.

Talks between demonstrators and the Hong Kong government had ended in an impasse in October.

In November, three student representatives from the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students—

Alex Chow, Eason Chung and Nathan Law—planned to travel to Beijing to address Chinese Communist Party leaders about their demands for free elections, but they were prevented from from boarding the plane after authorities revoked their travel permits.

Reported by RFA’s Cantonese and Mandarin services. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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.

'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.

Predictably the HK demo fizzles through. The Chinese govt is not easy to intimidate, as it turns out.

soon...

make your bets...

i bet first corpses in january-febraury
ZOG will not leave it like this =)

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.

update:

http://boxun.com/news/gb/taiwan/2014/12/201412112318.shtml#.VInMlDEk3AY

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.

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.

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.

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.

Well, It seems there is no bloody massacre this time. Good work China!

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.

Surprise the protest is still on going.

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.

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.

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.

No Tyananmen this time. China succesfully supressed the orange revolution. Good work China! =)))
Sad that in Ukraine ZOG have succeded.

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.

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.