Hong Kong protests: class boycott hits schools on first day of term
- Organisers estimated as many as 10,000 secondary students from close to 200 schools would skip classes, with half of them expected to show up at rally in Central
- Strike-affected schools include alma maters of the city’s leader and the police commissioner
Defiant school students across Hong Kong cut classes on Monday morning, using the first day of term to add their voices to anti-government anger which has fuelled months of unrest in the city.
Thousands of them were expected to head to the city centre for a rally against the now-shelved extradition bill.
Strike-affected schools included the alma maters of the city’s embattled leader and the chief of its beleaguered police force.
The school boycott, co-organised by localist party Demosisto, was part of a broader anti-government campaign triggered by the bill, which would have allowed the transfer of fugitives to jurisdictions with which Hong Kong lacks an extradition deal, including mainland China.
On Chai Wan Road, to the east of the island, pupils and alumni from three nearby secondary schools – from Shau Kei Wan Government School, Shau Kei Wan East Government School, and Salesian English School – formed a human chain on the 650-metre slope leading up to the Eastern Highway.