Pro-democracy activists, who want to overturn the screening of nominees for chief executive, have mocked the plan as “fake democracy“, saying the 1,200-member nominating committee is stacked with Beijing loyalists.
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This handout picture released by Apple Daily shows members of the police force showing various items they seized at an abandoned television studio, as they stand outside the building in the east-coast district of Sai Kung in Hong Kong on June 15, 2015.
Nine Hong Kong residents – four women and five men aged 21 to 34 – have been arrested on charges of conspiracy to manufacture explosives.
Willy Lam, a political analyst based in Hong Kong, said more details about the arrests would need to be aired before conclusions could be drawn. But social media posts following questioned the timing of the raids.
They spoke a day after about 3,500 pro-democracy protesters joined a march to demand that lawmakers reject the bill in a vote. Hong Kong authorities, backed by Beijing, cleared the protests in late December, but the action left the territory deeply divided.
‘Hong Kong people trust the pan-democratic legislators will definitely veto the government proposal,’ Leong said.
It comes as a series of rallies take place before a vote expected Friday in Hong Kong’s legislature on a divisive roadmap for the city’s electoral system, which led to mass protests at the end of last year.
With an important decision on the southern Chinese financial hub’s political future days away, pro-democracy supporters were marching to city government headquarters to rally support for a veto of the government’s electoral reform package.
The suspects include a graduate student, a teaching assistant, a construction worker, a technician and three unemployed people, police sources said. The deal requires two-thirds of the 70-seat house, or 47 votes, to pass.
“We are back to square one, but, that’s the way it is”. “The government’s motion is unlikely to be approved”, she said in a separate interview. “We’ve been fighting for several decades, but still Beijing will not allow Hong Kong to have genuine elections, so that’s why it will be voted down, and will continue to struggle”. “All we have is a great deal of very volatile, high-pressure, high-stress circumstances that just await a spark to go off again, but this time much more violently”, DeGolyer said, citing income inequality and soaring property prices.
Michael DeGolyer, a Hong Kong Baptist University professor, said he was concerned that the discontent underlying last year’s protests could turn violent.
The luxury goods trade in the city has taken a massive hit from President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign and growth in tourist numbers are stalling as mainlanders respond to the backlash within Hong Kong, which erupted into ugly protests earlier in the year, and a reduction in import taxes on the mainland is making it less of a shopping destination.
“For the framework to be implemented, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council must vote to adopt it, and a vote is expected this week.
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