Rivals to Occupy Central: meet your match
Voice of Loving Hong Kong plan: rally 10,000 people in a peaceful, non-violent action to take on pro-democracy civil disobedience movement
A rapidly rising pro-government group has vowed to rally 10,000 people in July 2014 to counter plans by the Occupy Central group to bring 10,000 pro-democracy protesters to central Hong Kong to block traffic.
The group, called the Voice of Loving Hong Kong, was founded last September. It is one of the first groups to declare its plans for concrete action against Occupy Central’s planned civil disobedient protest in July 2014.
Occupy Central, which views their protest as a last resort, said it would only go ahead with its plans if the Hong Kong government failed to offer a satisfactory plan to implement universal suffrage for the chief executive election in 2017.
Voice of Loving Hong Kong convenor Patrick Ko Tat-pun on Wednesday would not disclose what the type of actions his group was planning to take, but he said they would not breach any laws.
“It is not difficult at all for us to gather 10,000 people to confront the occupiers,” Ko said. “But our bottom line is that any of our actions will be law-abiding.”
“It is inevitable that Hong Kong is becoming more polarised,” Ko said. “But we must act as much as we can to prevent such unlawful activities [Occupy Central’s traffic blocking] from happening,” Ko added.
Ko’s group did on Wednesday announced that a carnival – with a theme of “Protect Hong Kong” – will be held this Monday, July 1, in the afternoon next to the Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui – the same time as the annual July 1 protest will be taking place across the harbour.