ALLEN AU-YEUNG ALLEN.AUYEUNG@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Friday, 25 September, 2015, 6:30pm
UPDATED : Friday, 25 September, 2015, 6:42pm
(From left) Edward Chin, Kwok Ka-ki, Stephen Ng and Herman Tang issue their call today for fellow Hongkongers to gather for a rally on Thursday. Photo: Dickson Lee
Four democracy advocates including a lawmaker have urged Hong Kong people to join them at a National Day rally in Tsim Sha Tsui to defend the city’s core values against perceived encroachment by Beijing.
The campaigners, all working in professional fields, are asking residents to put their names to a petition and to be dressed in black as a sign of protest when they turn up at the Clock Tower at 11am on Thursday.
Civic Party legislator Dr Kwok Ka-ki, said he felt the city’s core values, such as judicial independence and transparency, were being eroded by incidents such as a delay in the University of Hong Kong’s appointment of pro-vice-chancellor and remarks by Zhang Xiaoming, director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong.
“Recent incidents and trends all point to escalating erosion of Hong Kong’s core values and intervention by the central government,” he said. “It’s shocking and disappointing to me.”
About two weeks ago, Zhang said Hong Kong’s chief executive had authority over the executive, the judiciary and the legislature. His statement triggered worries that he was trying to erode the value of separation of powers in the city.
Another of the organisers, hedge fund manager Edward Chin Chi-kin, said: “I have a countdown clock in my phone … 2017 is not far away … We have to be vigilant with our core values.”
Chin, convenor of a concern group called 2047 HK Monitor, was a core participant of the Occupy protests that took place last year.
The other two organisers of the rally are medical doctor Stephen Ng Kam-cheung of Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor and lawyer Herman Tang Wai-chung of the Hong Kong Democratic Development Network.
About 140 people had signed the petition and the police had approved of the planned rally, Kwok said.
When asked if their campaign might irritate Beijing, he said the intention of holding the protest on the national holiday was not to embarrass the central government.
“We are not trying to make [Beijing] look bad,” Kwok said. “We are just exercising our constitutional rights.”
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1861410/hongkongers-stage-pro-democracy-rally-tsim-sha-tsui-national
