HONG KONG: Thousands of Hong Kong university and school students boycotted class and rallied peacefully for democracy on Monday, the latest acts of defiance in an anti-government movement that has plunged the Chinese-ruled city into crisis.
The boycott followed a weekend marred by some of the worst violence since unrest escalated more than three months ago.
Thousands of students gathered on the hilltop campus of Chinese University under leaden skies, taking turns to make speeches from a stage with a black backdrop embossed with “Students in Unity Boycott for our City”.
They are seeking greater democracy for the former British colony which returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that guarantees wide-ranging autonomy, including the right to protest and an independent judiciary. There fear those freedoms are being slowly eroded by Communist Party rulers in Beijing, a charge China denies.
On the first day of the new school year, students were seen singing, chanting and forming human chains, some wearing hard hats and masks. Many primary schools were closed because of a typhoon warning.
China accuses Western countries of egging on the protests. It says Hong Kong is its own internal affair.
Protesters gathered after dusk fell next to the Hong Kong headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army, shining dozens of green lasers at a barracks building. Police used pepper spray to keep nearby crowds back.
The demonstrators showed blue fluorescent powder on their skin and clothes and on the ground which they said they thought had been dropped from a helicopter, perhaps to be used to identify them later.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” one told Apple Daily on TV. (Reuters)
