Time to go, activists tell Hong Kong ralliers
HONG KONG — Three co-founders of a pro-democracy campaign that paved the way for civil-disobedience demonstrations in Hong Kong’s streets told protesting students Tuesday that it was time to go home, saying that the students’ beleaguered protest camps faced too many dangers of worsening violence.
The leaders of Occupy Central With Love and Peace urged the retreat a day after the main remaining street camp, in the Admiralty district, was shaken by clashes with the police after protesters’ unsuccessful effort to besiege the nearby city government offices. The police drove the crowds back and pushed into the area controlled by the protesters.
“Our young people have used their bodies to withstand the blows of police batons; their blood and broken bones have brought us the deepest sorrow,” said Benny Tai, an associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong who is the most prominent leader of Occupy Central, at a Tuesday news conference.
“We three urge the students to retreat, to put down deep roots in the communi- ty and transform the movement,” Tai said.
The call to retreat was the most forthright and prominent yet from older democracy advocates in Hong Kong, who while supporting the youthful protesters have voiced deepening fears that the street occupations were angering residents and risking clashes with the police and with organized opponents.
Occupy Central has been closely identified with the idea of using street-level civil disobedience to advance demands for democracy. The group was founded on the premise that if the Hong Kong government failed to heed demands for a fully democratic electoral system, residents should stage peaceful sitdown protests in Central, the city’s main financial district.
In the end, Occupy Central did not instigate the student-led protests that evolved into street camps across the city more than two months ago. But Tai endorsed the students’ sit-in at the city government’s offices, which expanded into the street occupations after a failed police operation to disperse the protesters.
Now he and two co-founders of Occupy Central, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-ming, have added their weight to those telling the protesters it is time to leave.
Two weeks ago, Chan, a sociologist, published a newspaper commentary urging the protesters to retreat and focus their energy on community mobilization and education. Public opinion surveys show that growing numbers of Hong Kong residents think the protests have gone on too long.
Last week, the police cleared the protest camp at Mong Kok, a crowded shopping and entertainment area, and for days afterward protesters have returned at night and clashed with the police. Apart from the main remaining protest site at Admiralty, protesters continue to occupy a patch of road at Causeway Bay, a retail area thronged by tourists from mainland China.
Tai said the police were increasingly aggressive against protesters, although the government has said that officers have used extraordinary restraint despite exhaustion and intense pressure.
“Some of the front-line officers seem to be out of control,” Tai said, speaking in a meeting room close to Admiralty. “At this very critical moment, we should protect ourselves and leave this very dangerous place.”
The leaders of the two student groups that instigated the failed siege of the city government offices Sunday night have expressed contrition for that decision, but they have given no public sign of abandoning their protest camps.
Joshua Wong, the most prominent of the student leaders, announced Monday night that he and two other young demonstrators would start a hunger strike to force the government to negotiate.
On Tuesday, Leung Chunying, the chief executive, or leader, of the government, said the hunger strike was unwise, especially as cold weather had set in, and he reiterated that the Hong Kong authorities would not deviate from election rules proposed by the Chinese government, according to a transcript on his website.
Those rules would require that before candidates for chief executive faced voters, they would have to win approval from a committee dominated by members loyal to the Chinese government. The protesters say screening candidates would make any election a sham.
“I’ve said before that any resistance is futile,” Leung said.
Tai and the other co-founders of Occupy Central said they would give themselves up to the police today, although the police have not been pursuing them.
“To surrender and bear the legal consequences is to respect the rule of law,” said the statement from the three men. “To surrender is not to fail, it is a silent denunciation of a heartless government.”