New Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying was forced to abandon a town hall meeting and make a hasty exit under heavy police escort after activists stormed his meet-the-public session in Tuen Mun last night.
Leung was bundled into a car and driven away after being trapped for almost an hour at the On Ting Yau Oi Community Centre in Tuen Mun, after it was mobbed by dozens of activists.
The Tuen Mun meeting was part of a six-district tour yesterday that saw the new chief, on his second day in office, lead some of his cabinet members to meet locals and discuss district issues with them face to face.
The other five district meetings were held in Shau Kei Wan, Tseung Kwan O, Kwai Chung, Kwun Tong, and Tai Kok Tsui.
The unprecedented sessions, seen by some as a gesture to fulfil his election pledge of reaching out to the public, were largely uneventful until the Tuen Mun meeting, which Leung attended with education secretary Eddie Ng Hak-kim.
Yesterday's town hall meetings follow Sunday's July 1 rally that this year attracted its biggest attendance in years. Many marchers directed their anger directly at the new Leung administration. They expressed worries over perceived infringements of human rights and Beijing's influence in the rule of Leung, who won the chief executive election in March with Beijing's blessing.