Hong Kong protest leaders will ‘stay to end’ as police swoop looms

FE Team | Published: December 11, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

HONG KONG, Dec 10 (AFP): Hong Kong's student protest leaders said Wednesday that they would "stay to the end" as police prepared to swoop on the city's main rally site after more than two months of mass pro-democracy demonstrations.
Setting up a final showdown with the authorities, pro-reform lawmakers said that they would join student protesters Thursday morning when police will clear the camp in Admiralty, central Hong Kong, which has been at the heart of the movement for fully free leadership elections.
The tent city, complete with supply stations and art installations, is entrenched along a kilometre of a multi-lane highway running through the semi-autonomous Chinese city's business district.
Although numbers have dwindled from tens of thousands, there are hundreds of tents and protesters still gather most evenings.
Student leaders were grim-faced as they spoke at the rally site.
"We have chosen to stay to face it (the clearance)," said Alex Chow of the Hong Kong Federation of Students.
"If you talk about a civil disobedience movement, it's a movement of disobedience until the end. Staying shows we do not give in to the government."
Joshua Wong, the teenage face of the movement who ended a four-day hunger strike Saturday, added: "Let everyone get arrested to show we are willing to bear the responsibility of civil disobedience."
Lawmakers and Occupy Central leaders have encouraged the students to retreat in the wake of violent clashes, but legislators said they would join the students Thursday in a united front.