October 11, 2014 9:40 AM EDT
Photographer: Lam Yik Fei/Bloomberg
Lester Shum, vice secretary general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, from left, Alex Chow, secretary general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, Joshua Wong, leader of the student group Scholarism, and Benny Tai Yiu-ting, co-founder of activist group Occupy Central with Love and Peace, speak on stage during a rally outside the Central Government Offices in Hong Kong, on Oct. 10, 2014.
Pro-democracy protesters rallied for a second night in Hong Kong to maintain pressure on the government after it scrapped planned talks with student leaders.
“What the students have done is to bring more people to support them, which will bring them more chances of success at the table,” Martin Lee, 76, founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party and a protest supporter, said by phone today.
The activists are trying to sustain a campaign for freer elections that has triggered Hong Kong’s worst political crisis since China regained the former British colony in 1997. The city’s No. 2 official, Carrie Lam, said today that the government can’t start talks unless the students recognize the legal framework that China has laid down for the 2017 vote.
The number of protesters on the streets, which had dropped to the hundreds from demonstrators’ estimates of as many as 200,000, picked up again yesterday as the government and students blamed each other for the collapse of talks.
Hundreds of tents have sprouted in the Admiralty district, where a protest stronghold encompasses the government’s headquarters and the Legislative Council. Crowds of protesters were gathered there tonight, many sitting or standing on a roadway.
Protest Tent
Student leader Joshua Wong, 17, the founder of a group called Scholarism, had urged a show of strength to maintain pressure on the government. Lam, the government official, suspended talks scheduled to take place yesterday after student leaders, pro-democracy politicians and the activist group Occupy Central with Love and Peace joined forces to call for a “wave of new civil disobedience.”
“I’m here because Joshua said we should stay here for a long time,” said Stormy Lo, 22, after he and his girlfriend pitched a tent near the government offices. “I will be here for this weekend at least.”
It’s not clear how the government will resolve a deadlock that leaves parts of the city paralyzed, disrupting traffic and driving down sales for some retailers.
Any government discussions with the students must be based on the legal framework laid out by the National People’s Congress and with the aim of helping Hong Kong achieve universal suffrage in 2017, Lam said today in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. Her comments were broadcast on Cable TV.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said yesterday in Germany that the central government’s policy toward Hong Kong “is not changed and will not change.”
Lam will be in Guangzhou today and tomorrow for a development and trade forum, according to a government statement. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying will be there tomorrow and Oct. 13.
In Admiralty, Saxon Lam, 23, a finance and economics student, said that he’d already been camping out since Sept. 23. “I will be here for as long as the movement requires me to,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Clement Tan in Hong Kong atctan297@bloomberg.net; Vinicy Chan in Hong Kong at vchan91@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Davis atabdavis@bloomberg.net Paul Panckhurst, Keith Campbell
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