Joshua Wong says Occupy protests should not end yet despite mass opposition
Scholarism leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung today said Occupy protests should not end yet, adding that the storming of the Legco building was "inappropriate".
Scholarism leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung today said the storming of the Legislative Complex on Wednesday was "inappropriate", but failed to give a clear answer on whether the offenders should be condemned for their actions.
In an interview with RTHK he said he believed the Occupy protests should continue, despite a fresh survey this morning that showed more than 80 per cent of Hongkongers want the demonstrators to go home.
Wong said he understood that a number of Occupy protesters were looking to escalate their action to break the current impasse with the government and Beijing, but that he believed storming the building and smashing windows was not appropriate.
"The basis for taking this level of action was not there," he said, speaking during an RTHK talk show on Thursday morning.
"There had been no planning, no explanation to other protesters and the public beforehand on what they were trying to achieve. The result was people feeling bad about the whole umbrella movement," Wong said.
"What I would condemn was a lack of accountablity among the masked protesters," he added.
"They broke a glass door and urged those from behind to move in while they stood aloof outside. They failed to look after the safety of the other protesters," he said.
Scores of masked protesters emerged early on Wednesday morning to storm the Legco building, battering a glass window with a metal barrier and lumps of concrete and injuring three police officers.
Responding to a Hong Kong university survey which showed nearly 83 per cent of Hongkongers want the Occupy Central protests to stop while more than two-thirds want the government to clear the protest sites, Wong said it was not yet time to pack up and go home.
He said there had to be an alternative way to continue the push for genuine universal suffrage before the Occupy protests were stopped.
He added that Occupy leaders were now thinking how to best continue the pro-democracy campaign outside of street protests.
