Democracy veteran: we'll never give up in Hong Kong
Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, who first took on Beijing in the 1980s, says the Occupy Central rally can kick-start civil disobedience in HK
A 30-year veteran of the city's struggle for democracy, Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, said he had exhausted all other means to achieve his goals before deciding to turn to the planned civil disobedience movement, Occupy Central.
While insisting the movement had no enemies, Chu, one of the three core organisers of the plan, warned their democratic struggle could "last for generations" if Beijing failed again to answer their calls.
Chu was among the activists pushing for democracy during the Sino-British negotiation in the 1980s. "They were the old days when we could meet senior mainland officials, such as former director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Lu Ping , to air our demands," Chu said. The Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 shut down those avenues of communication.
Chu, alongside late veteran democrat Szeto Wah, takes part in a secret mission to help mainland activists flee the country. He remains a core member of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.
In 2004, Chu and a group of academics spent months working on a universal suffrage proposal for the chief executive election in 2007 and the Legislative Council election the next year.
Days before they planned to announce the proposal, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress ruled out universal suffrage for 2007 and 2008.
Among those academics were Dr Benny Tai Yiu-ting, a University of Hong Kong law professor, and Chan Kin-man, a sociology professor at Chinese University. They, along with Chu, are leading the Occupy Central movement, which aims to mobilise at least 10,000 protesters next year to block roads in Central.