Hong Kong Chief urges protesting crowds to leave

World Today

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has urged pro-democracy protesters to stop their campaign immediately.

Huge crowds still block the financial center in what’s being called Occupy Central.

The protesters want more freedom in selecting candidates for Hong Kong’s next leader. The protesters’ chief demand is that they don’t want Beijing to screen nominees for Hong Kong’s leadership elections.

Beijing has promised one person, one vote in the 2017 election. However, candidates need approval from the central government.

On Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry once again claimed the protests are illegal, and warned against any foreign interference on Hong Kong issues.

Protesters on Sunday evening spilled out onto some of Hong Kong’s busiest streets in the Central and Admiralty districts, paralyzing traffic.

Violent clashes have injured six police officers, according to Hong Kong police.

According to Radio Television Hong Kong, the city’s Hospital Authority said as of 9:45 pm Sunday, 26 people had been hospitalized due to the clashes, without identifying them.

Police said they were forced to escalate their action after several warnings and used pepper spray and tear gas to disperse activists intent on forcing their way past police cordons.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in August adopted a legal framework for ways to elect Hong Kong’s top leader by universal suffrage in 2017.

Some Hong Kong pro-democracy politicians and activists have expressed opposition to the plan for the nomination threshold as they fear it may bar them from running. They threatened to seal off the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district as they push their demands for a “genuine” democracy.

The Occupy Central protest was widely expected to begin on Wednesday, the 65th National Day, following a wave of class boycotts organized by university and secondary school students since September 22.

Over 60 people were arrested on Friday night at the student-led rally in support of the class boycotts after hundreds of protesters broke into a restricted area next to the government headquarters.

Report compiled with information from CCTV News and The Global Times.