Joshua Wong says Occupy protests should not end yet despite mass opposition

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.

He failed to give a clear answer when he was repeatedly asked by the programme's host whether he thought the break-in constituted violence, but said only that the masked protesters were irresponisble.