Tamar Siege On Friday If Demands Ignored: Students

The Hong Kong Federation of Students called on the protesters to surround the government’s headquarters in Tamar on Friday morning and initiate “civil disobedience” actions on their own if the officials fail to respond to their demands before Thursday 5pm.

The federation, which represents student unions of several universities, said their demands were for the government to withdraw the extradition bill, investigate police action during last Wednesday's protests, stop classifying the clashes as riot, release all those arrested over the protest, and drop charges against them.

The student leaders said they are also liaising with University of Hong Kong, Polytechnic University and Baptist University student unions as they are now not members of the federation.

"We are not asking [Chief Executive Carrie Lam] to come out and apologise. We are asking for real action," said Joey Siu, who is from the City University Students Union.

The student leader of Education University, Leung Yiu-ting, said that he thinks the protests will be peaceful.

Leung said people could think of different ways of staging protests, like delaying MTR services or surrounding the government headquarters, and the student federation will offer support to them.

Some internet chat groups had circulated the Thursday evening deadline overnight and their demands were also similar, though some of them had called for Lam's resignation as well.

The students at the press conference said Lam's resignation is no longer the key point or the priority for them now.

Meanwhile, a handful of protesters continued to stay in the Legislative Council’s protest area, saying they would not accept her apology over the contentious extradition bill.

About 20 people had stayed overnight and slept on the floor, to show their discontent over Lam’s failure to completely scrap the bill, not to prosecute any protesters, investigate alleged police violence and comply with other demands.

One of them, a university student, said he had skipped school since the first mass protest on June 9.

He said it’s important to stay on because Lam failed to address protesters’ demands. “I do have a couple of exams left,” he said. “I’d just study my notes on the phone.”

Another man, dressed in casual wear and flip flops, said he was a construction worker and he had also stayed overnight.

“My wife just brought me some food and I haven't gone to work since June 9,” he said. “It’s the endgame, I have to come out even though I don’t have any income during the period.”

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