Peaceful protester on Oct 1. Photo: Coconuts Media
Occupy Central has released a statement condemning the protesters who charged Hong Kong’s LegCo building in the early hours of this morning.
Police were forced to used pepper spray after a small group of masked demonstrators rammed a glass door with a metal barrier and momentarily gained entry to the building at around 1am.
Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), one of the leading forces behind Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, said those involved in the vandalism were acting on false information that had been disseminating among the crowds.
This false information was that the Legislative Council would today pass Internet Article 23 (as it is known), a controversial proposed law on the derivative use of others’ intellectual property for parody purposes.
OCLP claims that other protesters and the volunteer “Occupy marshals” called on the group to stop when the charging first began earlier on in the evening. After this, some of the rogue demonstrators apparently surrounded the stage at the Admiralty protest site and called for the marshals to be disbanded.
Protesters ram LegCo, 1am, Nov.19. Photo via Facebook
The OCLP statement points to the selfish nature of those present, describing how they “egged on other protesters to enter the LegCo building, but left themselves”. They go on to condemn the incident on two fronts:
1) Because the action was not discussed with other occupiers and sparked by false information.
2) Because the movement’s core principles of non-violent action and legal accountability were clearly lost on these radicals.
“This action uses force to damage public property, without heed to the safety of those present, inviting the forceful intervention of the police. A considerable number of organisers were masked and have no intention of shouldering legal responsibility, going against the principles of civil disobedience,” the statement reads.
It was also made clear that those involved in violent charging would not be provided with assistance from the Occupy Central legal team.
While conceding that the government’s inaction against Beijing’s decision to deny true universal suffrage in Hong Kong’s 2017 elections has provoked “great anger from protesters”, OCLP organisers urge participants to remember the original intention of the Umbrella Movement:
“To persist in non-violent resistance, to exercise calm judgment and not get drawn into similar confrontations.”
This, they say, will avoid weakening public support for the movement and giving the government an excuse to use violence while clearing the occupied sites.
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