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Hong Kong activists prepare for mass action as Beijing election curbs loom
Sydney Morning Herald - August 28, 2014
Chinese lawmakers meeting in Beijing this week have agreed on a draft resolution which will cap the number of chief executive candidates to two or three, with each requiring at least 50 per cent support of a 1200-strong nomination committee, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post and RTHK radio reported.
If, as expected, the resolution is announced after a plenary session in Beijing on Sunday, Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai said the pro-democracy group will start its planned protest activities and elevate into a "full-scale, wave after wave" campaign, beginning with a demonstration outside the offices of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying on Sunday night.
Occupy Central has said it will mobilise at least 10,000 people to stage a sit-in in Hong Kong's financial district if its demands for universal suffrage aren't met. Thousands of university students are also expected to boycott classes in mid-September in protest.
"Civil disobedience campaigns require a continuous and long-term effort to arouse people's awareness of democracy," Mr Tai told RTHK. "I believe change will come when the demands reach a critical point."
Beijing is still expected to back the first ever direct election for Hong Kong's chief executive in 2017, but its insistence that all candidates require a majority backing from a nomination committee currently stacked with pro-Beijing loyalists effectively removes any realistic chance of opposition democrats getting on the ballot.
The issue of how its next leader is to be chosen has polarised Hong Kong, with large-scale street protests being held by both pro-democracy and pro-Beijing camps in recent weeks.
The threat of Occupy Central's civil disobedience campaign has drawn criticism from Chinese and Hong Kong officials as well as some business groups, who have warned the protests could turn violent and tarnish its reputation as a global financial hub.
But many in Hong Kong, already angered by the current government's pro-Beijing inclinations, fear the Communist Party's increasing influence since the former British colony's return to Chinese rule in 1997.
High among those concerns has been the perceived erosion of Hong Kong's freedom of the press.
On Thursday, anti-corruption officers swooped on the home of media mogul Jimmy Lai, owner of the Apple Daily newspaper and a staunch critic of the Communist Party.
Mr Lai, who like other prominent pro-democracy proponents has received death threats, has come under the spotlight after leaked emails revealed he had made large donations to pan-democrat politicians in Hong Kong.
Earlier this month, rival newspaper Oriental Daily ran a full-page faux obituary of Mr Lai, claiming he had died of AIDS and cancer, seen widely as a crude threat to his safety. (With agencies)
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