Hong Kong government ‘shocked’ by Occupy leader Benny Tai’s independence comments at Taiwan seminar
University of Hong Kong law professor hits back saying government did not have its facts straight and was attacking free speech
A liberal academic who was a key leader of the 2014 Occupy protests has earned an unusually strong public rebuke from the Hong Kong government for suggesting in Taiwan that the city could “consider becoming an independent state”.
“The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is shocked by the remarks made by a university teaching staff member that Hong Kong could consider becoming an independent state, and strongly condemns such remarks,” a spokesman said on Friday.
But University of Hong Kong law professor Benny Tai Yiu-ting hit back at the administration, accusing it of attacking free speech and insisting he had only suggested independence could be one of the options for Hong Kong some day when China became a democratic country.
I have already published these remarks in newspapers earlier and there is nothing new about it
The political storm stems from Tai’s remarks this week at a seminar in Taipei organised by the Taiwan Youth Anti-Communist Corps, which was subsequently widely reported – and condemned – by Beijing’s mouthpieces in Hong Kong for several days in a row.