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Hopes and fears: Zhang Dejiang visits Hong Kong
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A large yellow banner draped outside a residential building next to an elderly home in Tseung Kwan O visited by Zhang Dejiang on Thursday. Photo: Nora Tam

Parting gift: Hong Kong activists unfurl another yellow banner for Zhang Dejiang

Large pro-democracy message hung from building next to elderly centre visited by senior Chinese official

Another giant yellow banner bearing the words “I want genuine universal suffrage” was unfurled during state leader Zhang Dejiang’s visit, this time on the face of a residential building next to an elderly centre the state leader toured on Thursday.

League of Social Democrats chairman Avery Ng Man-yuen confirmed the banner was hung by his party and said it did so to tell the National People’s Congress chairman that Hong Kong residents were not as satisfied with the government as officials here wanted the senior official to believe.

“Hongkongers want genuine universal suffrage and we want an end to the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship,” Ng said. “Hong Kong police have used a counterterrorism operation to paint a picture that the city is peaceful. In fact, people here are very dissatisfied with the government.”

The banner was draped from a Tseung Kwan O residential building five minutes after Zhang arrived at the Sheng Kung Hui Tseung Kwan O Aged Care Complex to meet individuals there to learn about the multi-pronged elderly care strategy the government adopted.

Zhang arrived in Hong Kong on Tuesday morning and left on Thursday afternoon.

On the first day of his visit, the league draped a similar banner bearing the same words on Beacon Hill, next to Lion Rock, a mountaintop that police had patrolled to prevent a banner from being unfurled.

That banner was quickly removed. But hours later, the league hung banners in other locations.

Such banners were a symbol of the pro-democracy Occupy movement that paralysed parts of Hong Kong for 79 days in 2014.

Lion Rock became a protest site during the movement when rock climbers hung a large yellow banner reading “I want real universal suffrage” on the mountain.

Many in the city associate “Lion Rock spirit” with striving for a better life, as embodied in the 1970s RTHK drama Under the Lion Rock and its title song.

Earlier Thursday, Demosisto members Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Oscar Lai Man-lok were subdued by police while trying to get close to Zhang’s motorcade as he left government headquarters at Tamar.

The group said on its Facebook page its efforts were meant to tear apart the illusion that Hong Kong was harmonious during Zhang’s visit.
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