Student Leaders Weigh Pullback as Tactics Frustrate Public, Fail to Sway Officials
HONG KONG—Student protesters demanding greater democracy for Hong Kong said Thursday they are more seriously weighing a retreat from the roads they have occupied for more than two months.
The remarks were the latest sign of the narrowing options that the protesters face as police have increased their efforts to remove the demonstrators from the streets and public support for the occupation of busy city thoroughfares has faded significantly.
The Hong Kong Federation of Students, a group of university students at the helm of the protests, and Scholarism, a teenage student protest group, could issue a decision over whether to retreat from the encampments within the next week, according to student leaders.
Yvonne Leung, a spokeswoman for HKFS, made the remarks on a local radio program. Eighteen-year-old Scholarism leader Joshua Wong separately told The Wall Street Journal that his group, which works closely with HKFS, is also considering a retreat. Mr. Wong is in the third day of a hunger strike, along with four other teen members of his group.
Protesters are calling for the right of citizens to select their own candidates for the city’s top leadership post, not those vetted by Beijing as per a decision handed down by the National People’s Congress in August. Those calls have been rejected by the government as nonnegotiable under Hong Kong’s Basic Law, a “mini-constitution” held with Beijing. The city will vote in 2017 for its next chief executive, a five-year appointment.
A street cleaner pushes her cart between rows of tents at the pro-democracy movement's main protest site in Hong Kong's Admiralty district. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Student leaders for weeks have grappled with how to proceed with the protest but have been hesitant to leave the streets without a strong concession from the government. City leaders have repeatedly dismissed the protesters’ demands as unreasonable, and new clashes in recent days between protesters and police have further eroded public support. A government spokesman on Thursday reiterated that the protesters should retreat from the protest area as soon as possible because the assembly is illegal under Hong Kong law.
“For me, I think it’s time to adjust tactics,” said one student leader. “Retreat doesn’t necessarily mean failure.”
A large encampment in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district, home to the city’s main government offices, is largely what remains of the demonstration after a separate site in the Mong Kok neighborhood was dismantled last week by thousands of police on a court order. Dozens of protesters continue to agitate for their cause nightly there, disrupting shopping and playing cat-and-mouse with police. Tents are still standing and roads are still blocked at a third, much smaller site in the city’s Causeway Bay neighborhood.
Weather in the subtropical city has turned harsher this week, posing another challenge for the occupation. Temperatures on Thursday fell as low as 13 degrees Celsius, or 55 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Hong Kong Observatory. Protesters at the Admiralty site Thursday wore down jackets and scarves. Some die-hard protesters said they also agreed it was time to retreat and focus on other tactics.
“Occupying here doesn’t put enough pressure on the government,” said 18-year-old student Timothy Sun, who said he has camped at the site since the demonstration began in late September. “If it put enough pressure, we wouldn’t be here two months.”
He said he believes canvassing the city and educating the public on their cause is the best way to proceed with the demonstration. “In the end, we didn’t get what we want, but this movement inspired people that we can’t live like this anymore.”
In a statement Wednesday evening, Hong Kong’s chief executive’s office said, “Expressing views on constitutional reform through illegal and confrontational means is bound to be futile. We hope the students who are undergoing hunger strike could take good care of their health.”
Another major pro-democracy group effectively ended its support for street protests on Wednesday when the founders of the group, Occupy Central with Love and Peace, attempted to surrender to police. Three middle-aged founders of that group this week urged the students to leave the streets and said their offer to surrender was in response to escalating violence. Police on Wednesday declined to arrest them.
A court injunction on Monday called for police to clear part of the main protest site in the Admiralty district on Hong Kong island. A judgment on the injunction, filed by a bus company claiming the protest has led to financial losses, is expected to be issued Friday.
—Chester Yung and Fiona Law contributed to this article.
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