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Hong Kong student arrests kick-start plans to blockade city in fight for democracy
Sydney Morning Herald - September 28, 2014
The leaders of Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy movement, Occupy Central with Love and Peace, announced early on Sunday that the group would join a student "occupation" outside the government offices of chief executive Leung Chun-ying.
It was an abrupt change to expected plans to occupy the city's main financial district on Wednesday, to coincide with China's national day holiday.
The protest was brought forward after tens of thousands of supporters spontaneously gathered outside government headquarters to support student protesters who had been locked in a tense stand-off with police for two days.
The student demonstration showed the determination and courage of Hong Kong people to fight for their future, organiser Benny Tai said. "The courage of the students and members of the public... has touched many Hong Kong people," Occupy leaders said.
Violent clashes with police had resulted in dozens of young protesters being doused with pepper spray and arrested after they broke into the forecourt of the government headquarters on Friday night.
Police arrested more than 60 people, including Joshua Wong, the 17-year-old convener of Scholarism, and Federation of Students leaders Alex Chow and Lester Shum. They were denied bail.
The clashes were the most heated in a series of anti-Beijing protests that underscore the central government's challenge to stamp its will on Hong Kong.
Beijing last month rejected demands for people to freely choose the city's leader at the next chief executive election in 2017. Instead, a political reform framework outlined by China's legislative will mean Beijing retains tight control over who can be nominated for the chief executive role.
Occupy Central is demanding that the National People's Congress retract its decision on Hong Kong's electoral system, made on August 31, and that China resume talks to relaunch the political reform process.
The protests, which have been likened to the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, are considered extremely sensitive in Beijing and the reporting of the demonstrations has been restricted in the mainland's tightly controlled state media.
"It's high time that we really showed that we want to be free and not be slaves; we must unite together," Cardinal Joseph Zen, 82, a forme Catholic bishop of Hong Kong, told Reuters.
This demonstration, which has drawn thousands of protesters armed with goggles, masks and raincoats in preparation for a violent confrontation with police, is one of the most tenacious acts of civil disobedience in post-colonial Hong Kong.
Roads in a square block around the city's government headquarters were filled with people and blocked with metal barricades erected by protesters to defend against a possible police crackdown. (with Reuters)
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