New | It's 'anti-democracy', says People's Daily in latest commentary on Occupy Central

Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily continued with its overbearing criticism on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests today by calling it “anti-democracy”.

The column entitled “Occupy Central is backtracking democracy” argued that a minority of people have invaded the public interest for their own political views, which tramples on the principle of democracy and can never achieve democracy using such anti-democratic tactics.

It also blamed the British rule for making Hong Kong “hostile to democracy”.

“It is unavoidable for those who jumped out to fight against Hong Kong’s democratic progress,” wrote the column. “After all, Britain’s 150-year colonial rule has planted some hostility-to-democracy seeds.”

The commentary, published on page four of today’s newspaper, is the latest in a series of harshly worded commentaries by the flagship party mouthpiece and its website. The harshest of these commentaries was written by someone with the pen name “Guoping”, which can be translated as “national peace” or "national commentary".

Two commentaries by “Guoping” were released by state media late last night, one on People’s Daily’s website and the other on the State Council Information Office’s affiliated portal.

One commentary criticised campaign participants for using “populism” to mobilise young people.