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Democracy protesters in Admiralty on Tuesday. Photo: Sam Tsang

New | Democrats sceptical about Bar Association’s criticism of Occupy protesters

The Bar Association’s criticism of democracy protesters’ defiance of injunctions to clear the streets on Tuesday has been greeted with scepticism by pan-democrats and some of the protesters.

The Bar Association’s criticism of democracy protesters’ defiance of injunctions to clear the streets on Tuesday has been greeted with scepticism by pan-democrats and some of the protesters.

The association said in its statement that the defiance of the injunctions to clear protest sites in Mong Kok and Admiralty was eroding the rule of law and set a bad precedent.

Democratic Party lawmaker Albert Ho Chun-yan said he “did not see the logic” behind the Bar’s statement.

He noted that US civil rights leader Martin Luther King had broken court injunctions in his fight for racial equality.

“If you break a criminal law and do not accept the court penalty, this runs against the rule of law. But a court injunction is civil law,” Ho said. “I am surprised by the standard of the Bar Association.”

Ho also criticised the government for relying on private parties to seek injunctions to clear the roads. “They are trying to avoid making a political decision and instead choose to use injunctions as a tool to enforce the law, which is ridiculous.”

Democracy protesters have also remained defiant.

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In Admiralty, former teacher Brian Kern said: “These protests have occurred precisely because Hong Kong people have so patiently had to work within the system to get their very basic right to universal suffrage for many years, to no avail.

“The NPCSC [National People’s Congress Standing Committee] decision showed that Beijing was perfectly willing to trample Hong Kong people’s basic rights, so in this situation, what would the Bar Association suggest that we could do legally? The whole reason this is occurring is because legal means, strictly speaking, haven’t worked.”

Vintonius Primus, a musician in his 40s stationed outside Citic Tower opposite government headquarters, went further.

“As a citizen, we have a duty to obey laws that promote justice, and go against laws that don’t. This court order is just a legal ploy - the people applying for it only want to highlight the downsides of the Occupy movement, without any interest in understanding why all this started.”

But 21-year-old university student Yan Chung-yan said that he will not resist the court order, although he views it as an extreme measure and does not agree with it.

“We’re only peacefully protesting and we don’t want to defy the law,” he said.

In Mong Kok, protester Michael Lam, 23, said he would not leave until an acceptable proposal was offered by the government.

Lawyers believe in laws, he said, but they also support the retraction of Beijing’s election framework handed down on August 30.

Judy Kong, who recently resigned as a security guard, said: “If we occupy somewhere else, let’s say Victoria Park, what’s the point?”

She said by occupying major thoroughfares, it gave protesters “chips” to bargain with the government.

“I find it hard to understand...we are actually forced to stay here,” she said.

Meanwhile, an anti-Occupy group who started a signature campaign in support of police say they have amassed a million signatures, proving that the majority of Hongkongers are against the pro-democracy protests.

The credibility of the campaign has been questioned after organisers accepted they could not prevent multiple signatures or people using fake identities.

Robert Chow Yung, spokesman for the anti-Occupy Alliance for Peace and Democracy, said the signatures showed people are against the idea of letting the public nominate candidates for the chief executive election.

“Think about it – Occupy Central starts with civic nominations, so these million signatures make it clear that people do not support civic nominations...A system of civic nominations started the Occupy movement, chaos, and disorder,” he said.

When asked how he reached this conclusion when the term “civic nominations” doesn’t appear anywhere on the signature petition, he said it was not much of a stretch.

Reporting by Joyce Ng, Alan Yu, Chris Lau and Lai Ying-kit

 

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