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Tag: hong kong elections
Police Arrest 511 After Hong Kong Democracy Rally

Police Arrest 511 After Hong Kong Democracy Rally

MCT

HONG KONG — Police in Hong Kong on Wednesday arrested at least 511 demonstrators who refused to leave city streets following one of the largest pro-democracy demonstrations in the former British territory since its return to Chinese rule in 1997.

Demonstrators were arrested for “participating in unauthorized assembly and obstructing police officers in an operation,” according to a statement released by Hong Kong police.

“The public meeting on Chater Road on July 1 should have concluded according to the finishing time stated in (the permit letter). After repeated advice and warnings by police including the display of warning banners, those refusing to leave in fact took part in an unauthorized assembly,” the statement said.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in the city’s financial district Tuesday afternoon, chanting slogans such as “Universal suffrage!” and demanding a larger say in who runs the city.

As night fell, a group primarily made up of students started a sit-in on Chater Road in the financial district to display their anger toward the city’s unpopular chief executive. The students are among the supporters of a civic group, Occupy Central with Peace and Love, that has been pressing for free elections for the chief executive position in 2017.

Tuesday’s demonstration and the subsequent sit-in were peaceful; pictures circulated on social media websites showed that many protesters held both hands up in an effort to convey to officers that they had no intention to be violent and to not give the police any reason to use force against them.

When the officers started to forcibly remove the demonstrators on Chater Road early Wednesday, some who were being taken away kicked and screamed but there was no reports of any serious injuries.

Police officials did not indicate how long they planned to hold those arrested. Lawyers were not allowed to meet immediately with the detainees, the local Sing Tao Daily reported.

Johnson Yeung Ching-yin of the Civil Human Rights Front, which organized the annual July 1 mass rally, told a cheering crowd in the financial district that an estimated 510,000 people participated in the demonstration, slightly more than the record crowd of half a million who took part in the 2003 event. That year, many local citizens were up in arms over a proposed piece of anti-sedition legislation that was later shelved.

But police in Hong Kong estimated that only 98,600 participants took part at the peak of Tuesday’s demonstration, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

Tuesday marked the 17th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong, a former British territory, to China; agreements between Britain and China’s Communist leaders promised to allow the region of 7 million a wide range of civil liberties and a large degree of autonomy for at least 50 years.

Local residents in Hong Kong have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the way the city’s government operates and how its chief executive is chosen. In June, nearly 800,000 participated in a volunteer, nonbinding referendum on how Hong Kong’s next chief executive should be elected.

Beijing has pledged to allow a citywide vote for the chief executive position, but has said any candidates must “love China and love Hong Kong.” The June referendum aimed at influencing rules for the election was illegal and invalid, Beijing has declared.

“The size of the protest or number of votes cast will not change the central government’s stance, which remains firmly on the side of universal suffrage in Hong Kong,” said Zhang Xiaoming, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong, the state-owned Global Times newspaper reported.

Tommy Yang and Nicole Liu in the Los Angeles Times’ Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

AFP Photo / Philippe Lopez

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Hong Kong Braces For Protests As Vote Fuels Pro-Democracy Movement

Hong Kong Braces For Protests As Vote Fuels Pro-Democracy Movement

By Julie Makinen, Los Angeles Times

HONG KONG — Nearly 800,000 people voted in a nonbinding Hong Kong referendum aimed at agitating for greater democracy, organizers said early Monday, and the semi-autonomous Chinese city was bracing for hundreds of thousands of people to march through the streets Tuesday to continue pressing their cause.

The 10-day vote in the former British territory — conducted online, via mobile phones, and in person — asked residents to cast ballots for one of three mechanisms for directly electing the city’s chief executive. About 787,000 people — more than 10 percent of the city’s population — participated, organizers said. Mainland authorities have denounced the balloting as illegal.

Under the “One Country, Two Systems” framework governing the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997, direct voting for the chief executive is to begin in 2017. Rules for the election have not been hammered out yet between Hong Kong officials and mainland authorities, but organizers of the referendum fear that the guidelines for the vote will be written so as to allow leaders in Beijing to screen out any potentially objectionable candidates.

All three proposals on the ballot called for some means of allowing Hong Kong residents to directly nominate candidates for the city’s top job. In addition, voters were asked whether the local legislature should veto any proposal that “cannot satisfy international standards allowing genuine choices by electors.” More than 87 percent of voters said yes.

China’s State Council, or Cabinet, on Monday released a statement rebuking the referendum, calling it “illegal and invalid,” adding that those who organized the referendum were pursuing “self-interests through breaching the rule of law, disturbing Hong Kong’s social order, and holding back the progress of universal suffrage.”

“Our standpoint is firm that the position of chief executive must be shouldered by one who loves both the country and Hong Kong,” the statement added, reiterating Beijing’s position that it may rule out any candidate it believes does not “love” China.

Since 1997, protest rallies have been held annually on July 1 in Hong Kong. Generally pro-democratic in nature, their emphasis has shifted from year to year. In 2003, an estimated half-million Hong Kong residents turned out to march after proposed anti-subversion legislation sparked heated debate among locals. After the massive turnout, the proposal was shelved indefinitely. Last year’s July 1 rally attracted about 93,000 participants, according to estimates from the University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Program.

This month’s 10-day referendum, organized by a group called Occupy Central with Peace and Love, has sparked fierce denunciations from Beijing authorities as well as from some business groups in Hong Kong. The voting website came under fierce cyber-attacks, and media outlets that expressed support for the vote experienced similar assaults.

Occupy Central leaders have proposed staging sit-ins and other forms of nonviolent civil disobedience at some unspecified date in the future in Hong Kong’s main financial district if the election rules fall short of what they call “international standards.”

Some businesses have expressed alarm at the possibility that the city’s financial hub could be paralyzed by such a protest. Last week, the local offices of the so-called big-four accounting firms took out ads in Hong Kong newspapers, saying they were concerned that Occupy Central “would have a negative and long-lasting impact on the rule of law, the society, and the economy of Hong Kong. We hope that the disagreements could be resolved through negotiation and dialogue instead.” On Monday, some employees of the companies took out advertisements of their own, saying they disagreed with their bosses’ ads.

Although Occupy Central leaders have not designated any particular time yet for a civil disobedience campaign, concern is growing that some supporters of the movement are preparing to launch such activities imminently.

On Monday, local broadcaster RTHK reported that two student groups that have been active in the Occupy Central referendum planned to stage overnight “rehearsal” sit-ins from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning to put pressure on authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong to accept the results of the 10-day vote.

“We believe we need a more progressive act to push the government to recognize our voice and our suggestion, and only through an act of civil disobedience could really propel or change the mind of the government,” secretary-general of the Federation of Students, Alex Chow, told RTHK.

Photo via WikiCommons

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