No new Occupy Central on the horizon, movement founder Benny Tai says on first anniversary of protests
There is no sign of a new Occupy Central-style mass movement as the pro-democracy camp needs time to reflect, a co-founder of Occupy said on the first anniversary of the start of the 79-day sit-ins.
A year on from declaring “the era of civil disobedience has begun” in a dramatic speech in the early hours of September 28 last year, Benny Tai Yiu-ting said it was time to think about how the campaign for a democratic Hong Kong should move on.
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“I don’t see any signs of direct action protest. The entire democratic reform camp is rather tired. With almost three years of mobilisation, they need time to recover,” Tai told an RTHK programme this morning.
The next movement might emerge at around the time of Legislative Council election next year or the chief executive poll in 2017, the University of Hong Kong law scholar added.
Tai said the Occupy movement had changed the structure of the pan-democratic camp. Whereas it used to have two main leaders – Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee Chu-ming and the late Szeto Wah – the camp was more diversified now.
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While the pro-establishment camp might have regarded the 79-day street blockades for democracy as harmful to the rule of law, Tai said he did not see “any evidence of unrestricted illegal behaviour” during the movement. He said it was “miraculous” that nobody was seriously injured in the protests, which saw police deploy tear gas on the first day and frequent clashes later between protesters and anti-Occupy “blue ribbon” groups.
Tai will join other Occupy leaders for memorial activities around the site of the main protest camp in Admiralty this afternoon.
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Looking ahead, he hoped participants in future campaigns could make decision together, as there was no mechanism to do so during Occupy, when leaders were planning to withdraw from the scene.
“We are planning to have a co-decision mechanism in the next mass movement ...to let all supports to take part,” and discuss questions “such as whether to leave or stay”.
