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Protesters: Hong Kong talks are off

October 3, 2014

Student leaders in Hong Kong have said they will shelve talks with the government, accusing it of failing to protect them from other gangs. The protesters said police "turned a blind eye" to attacks by "triads."

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Proteste in Hongkong
Image: Reuters/B. Yip

The Hong Kong Federation of Students on Friday said that they would not meet for talks with government officials, after their protests came under attack. The protesters claimed that paid thugs from "triad" criminal gangs were behind the unrest.

"There is no other option but to call off the talks," the student group said in a statement. "Everybody saw what happened today. The government and police turned a blind eye to violent acts by the triads targeting peaceful Occupy protesters."

Hong Kong's Beijing-backed political leader, chief executive Leung Chun-ying, offered talks with the protesters in a televised address on Thursday evening, with the students initially accepting the invitation. Leung had refused his opponents' demand that he resign, but offered the negotiations in a bid to stop street protests that have brought the semi-autonomous Chinese city to a standstill since Sunday.

Hongkong Carrie Lam und Leung Chun Ying
Leung's offer of talks was tabled less than 24 hours previouslyImage: AFP/Getty Images/A. Wallace

Police 'deployed a lot of manpower'

The demonstrators opposing the Occupy Central student movement sought to destroy the barricades and signs erected at two protest camps, in the Mong Kok and Causeway Bay districts.

"They came in a large group in the afternoon and tore down all our tents and ran at us trying to drive us away. That was when police came and a put a cordon line between us and them to protect us," a protester in Mong Kok, Yu Chun-tung, told the DPA news agency.

The police defended their handling of the situation, with superintendant Kong Man-keung telling reporters that the force had "deployed a lot of manpower to control the situation."

Protesters were dissatisfied, however, with the two arrests announced by police, saying that pro-Beijing thugs had been allowed to attack their camps unchecked.

China Hongkong Demonstration der Demokratiebewegung Polizei
Protests have centered around government offices and key commercial districtsImage: Getty Images/P. Bronstein

Appeal for calm

"I urgently want to express to all citizens, no matter what attitude you have towards Occupy, you still have to remain calm, and not use violence or disrupt order under any situation," Leung said in a televised message after the clashes.

Hong Kong's protesters are lobbying for fewer restrictions on the next elections in 2017, set to be the first with universal suffrage, a key part of the "one country, two systems" approach agreed when former colonial power Britain relinquished control of the financial hub. However, Beijing's plans to vet any would-be candidates for the job currently held by Leung have prompted protesters to call the upcoming vote "fake democracy."

The city returned to work on Friday following a two-day public holiday.

msh/glb (AFP, dpa)