1

Hong-Kong – Chinese Government Sends in its Mafia

ImageThe following is a report from an on-the-ground source in Hong Kong. – Editors

The government is mobilizing its mafia extensively. Since noon, the government has started mobilizing gangsters to provoke the public. It is hard to imagine that the government is lining up with the mafia but it now happens during the CY Leung’s administration. This is something expected and no need to be shocked about it.

Looking at the current situation, the government hopes to shift Occupy Central with Love and Peace into a massive riot and make the Hong Kong public angry with the protesters.

At the same time, they also have agents in the crowd planning to create serious casualties, hoping that the public opinion will change and justify the government’s action to disperse the public.

It is the Communist Party’s classic tactic to use one group of people against another group. Before this, they kept assigning people like Robert Chow to start a battle to shift public opinion. Now they have mobilized the gangsters and started violent fights. This tactic will cause no end of trouble, but this also means C.Y. Leung has no other tactics to play with.

The most urgent thing to do now is to continue to adhere to our principles. Protect our bases. Be persistent. Win public support. Tell them how the government is lining up with the gangsters. All these actions will not only make C.Y. Leung’s plan fail, but will also lead to backlash to his actions. The gangsters were paid to do their dirty work, but they cannot beat the persistence of hundreds of thousands of people. Stay until midnight so that we can start planning ahead and avoid another round of attacks.

We have been asked: Why are you so sure that they are from the mafia? Come and have a look and you will know. Here is the list of tactics they used to provoke people:

First, a gangster (possibly a woman) starts shouting to get attention.

Then another gangster, depending on the reaction at the scene, he may pretend to be an opponent or a supporter.

The public starts taking photos and among them there is always a video camera.

The gangsters continuously provoke the protesters and may last for up to two or three hours. The gangsters wait until the movement’s marshals come and ask the public to calm down – then they start harassing the marshal.

The gangsters do their very best to provoke a conflict – including pushing fences, pulling tents, attacking protesters.

They do the same thing on the other side of the occupied zone – use the same tactic.

Photos can be found here.

Strong Condemnation of Violence towards the Occupy Movement;

Support of Hong Kong Citizens Fighting for Universal Suffrage

Left 21 – 4th October, 2014 – a Statement from the Movement

Boycotts of classes by university and secondary school students initiated by the Hong Kong Federation of Students and Scholars begun on September 22 in the fight for genuine universal suffrage escalated to the full-blown Occupy Movement on the evening of September 26. Attempts by the government and police to evict protestors with violence on September 28 just triggered another wave of ever-expanding autonomous occupation across the territory.

On the evening of October 2, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government eventually responded to the Occupy Movement and the open letter of Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) by sending the Chief Secretary of Administration Carrie Lam to meet with HKFS. It is the first concession of the SAR government since the Occupy Movement started, and it is largely because of the anger of Hong Kong citizens against the earlier violent eviction by the police. In the meantime, Hong Kong citizens began occupying areas in the vicinity of Chief Executive Office, which is the political center of the SAR government. Authorities who wished to suppress the movement with violence have obviously been dragged into a prolonged battle by the people. Although we do not have high expectation on the negotiation with the government, such progress shows that our effort in the past 11 days have definitely not in vain.

Nevertheless, the SAR government is far from sincere to negotiate with the people. Today the peaceful Occupy Movement has been severely threatened by hooligans with destruction to the occupied areas and physical violence against participants, while the SAR government and the police turned a blind eye to the chaos. This is unacceptable and has to be strongly condemned. After the violent clashes in the occupied areas, HKFS has announced the suspension of talks with the government. Authorities managed to suppress the people with the legitimate power of the police and with huge amounts of money, but what we possess is merely flesh and solidarity. We need more people coming out to support the Occupy Movement, to urge the government to bring the suppression to an end, and to enforce universal suffrage.

We hereby urge the SAR and central government to:

1. Stop any kind of suppression to the Occupy Movement, which includes illegitimate force by the police and driving other social groups to disturb the occupying crowd with violence.

2. Hold Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying responsible for the violent eviction and force him to resign

3. Withdraw the National People’s Congress (NPC) resolution on political reform

4. Implement genuine universal suffrage with civil nomination and abolish functional constituencies of the Legislative Council.

5. Repeal all political prosecutions

We also call upon our fellow Hong Kong citizens to:

1. Continue participating in the Occupy Movement and pressuring the government with civil disobedience in order to fight for genuine universal suffrage

2. Convince as many people in your community as possible to join the democratic movement, so as to strength public pressure for universal suffrage and the resignation of Leung Chun-ying.

Photos can be found here

*Au Loong Yu is a Hong Kong activist. He is currently editor of China Labor Net and also has a column in Inmedia.