Student leaders snub Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam’s ‘insincere’ second offer for meeting

Representatives from eight tertiary institutions vow not to meet city leader until she promises to exonerate those arrested during extradition bill protests

Lam says it would be against rule of law to grant amnesty ‘at this stage’, with investigations still ongoing and prosecutions not undertaken

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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has again invited students to meet. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 9:00pm, 9 Jul 2019Updated: 5:30pm, 10 Jul 2019

Student leaders have snubbed a new offer from Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to meet for an open dialogue, continuing to insist she address several conditions first.

It was the students’ second rejection of Lam, who first invited them to a closed-door meeting last Friday.

Students from eight tertiary institutions said on Tuesday they would not meet the chief executive, who made the renewed offer earlier in the day, unless she promised to exonerate all demonstrators arrested during the recent extradition bill protests.

The second invitation came as Lam also announced the unpopular bill was “dead” and vowed to revamp the Youth Development Commission.

At a press briefing before a weekly meeting with her advisers in the Executive Council, Lam said she had tried to set up a private meeting with student representatives from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Chinese University (CUHK) via their respective heads last week.