HONGKONG DEMO

[Balthazar]

Posted by: msc_de October 26, 2014, 09:47:00 PM

Last Active:   October 30, 2014, 10:05:03 AM

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

[Balthazar]

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

[msc_de]

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.

[msc_de]

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.

[msc_de]

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.

[MichaelBliss]

Posted by: msc_de October 26, 2014, 09:47:00 PM

Last Active:   October 30, 2014, 10:05:03 AM

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

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. 

[msc_de]

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.

[cryptocoiner]

[msc_de]

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.

[msc_de]

'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.

[msc_de]

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.

[msc_de]

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.

[arbitrage001]

Didn't pay too much to the news.

What is the demo all about?

[msc_de]

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.

[msc_de]

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.

[Balthazar]

[msc_de]

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.

[msc_de]

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.

[msc_de]

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.

[msc_de]

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.