Overview
2014 Hong Kong Protests, also known as Occupy Central With Love and Peace, refer to ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong against the Chinese government’s proposed electoral reform which would require the pre-approval of political candidates by a nomination committee before proceeding to a vote by the general population.
Background
On August 31st, 2014, several new regulations for the 2016 Legislative Council and 2017 Chief Executive Elections were set at the 10th Session of the Standing Committee in the 12th National People’s Congress, which imposed that a nominating committee should be formed to vet two to or three candidates by a simple-majority vote before they can contest in the general election. The decision was met by dissent from the citizens of Hong Kong, which has traditionally enjoyed universal suffrage under the principle of “one country, two systems” designated during the transfer of sovereignty from the British government to China in 1997.
“the method for selecting the Chief Executive by universal suffrage must provide corresponding institutional safeguards for this purpose.”
Notable Developments
On September 22nd, the demonstrations began with an assembly outside the government headquarters led by the Hong Kong Federation of Students and Scholarism. The protest quickly escalated into a violent clash by the evening of September 26th, when several hundreds of protesters breached a security barrier and occupied the front plaza of the Central Government Complex. They were subsequently removed by force on the next day.
Occupy Central with Love and Peace
On September 28th, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong, announced the official launch of a civil disobedience campaign to demand universal suffrage during an appearance on the stage of the student protests. That same day, the demonstrators began occupying several major hubs across Hong Kong, prompting the riot police to disperse the crowds with pepper spray, tear gas and water cannon following several hours of stand-off. However, the excessive use of force by Hong Kong Police only fueled the demonstrations to expand into a non-centralized Occupy movement, as thousands more began participating in the protests throughout the country.
Censorships
As the demonstrations continued to spread across Hong Kong, photographs and videos of crowds being dispersed by the riot police began to emerge on Instagram, Kakaotalk and other online photo-sharing services. On September 28th, the Chinese government began censoring the news coverage and witness reports from the scene by blocking access to certain social media accounts on Sina Weibo and blacklisting phrases “Tear Gas”, “Hong Kong Students” and “Occupy Central” on the country’s largest search engine Baidu.
Search Interest
External References
[1]Wikipedia- Occupy Central with Love and Peace
[2]Wikipedia – 2014 Hong Kong protests