Hong Kong: Daredevil Alain Robert — dubbed the ‘French Spiderman’ — climbed a Hong Kong skyscraper on Friday and unfurled a “peace banner” as the financial hub is rocked by historic political unrest.
The 57-year-old adventurer, who specialises in unsanctioned ascents of tall buildings, shimmied up the 68-storey Cheung Kong Center in Hong Kong’s main business district in hot and humid conditions on Friday morning.
During the climb he attached a banner featuring the Hong Kong and Chinese flags, as well as two hands shaking.
Prior to the ascent Robert put out a statement saying the message of his climb was to make “an urgent appeal for peace and consultation between Hong Kong people and their government”. “Perhaps what I do can lower the temperature and maybe raise a smile. That’s my hope anyway,” Robert said in his media statement.
Robert has regularly come to Hong Kong to scale buildings in a city that boasts the highest concentration of skyscrapers in the world. He has climbed the Cheung Kong Center twice before.
Last August he was banned by a Hong Kong court from making any more climbs after he was charged over a 2011 illegal ascent of the 27-floor Hang Seng Bank building. At the time he vowed to return to Hong Kong as soon as the ban expired. In January he was arrested after climbing a 47-storey tower in Manila. (AFP)
