Government’s dismissive attitude led to Occupy protests, co-founder Chan Kin-man tells Hong Kong court
- Chan says movement leaders met with government officials two months before protests took place
- But Carrie Lam walked out after less than an hour, leaving pro-democracy report behind
One of the founders of the Occupy protest said the government’s dismissive attitude towards their movement set the tone for the civil disobedience that brought Hong Kong to a standstill in 2014.
On Thursday, Dr Chan Kin-man revealed that Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, who was chief secretary at the time, and the second most powerful politician in the city, walked out of a meeting with pro-democracy activists after less than an hour, two months before the 79-day protest began.
Giving evidence at his own trial at West Kowloon Court, Chan, who faces a string of charges in relation to the protest, said Lam’s dismissive attitude ultimately led him to believe the government was not serious about listening to them, which triggered the disruption in September that year.
At the July meeting, Lam, who is now Hong Kong’s leader, insisted the founders – Chan, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming – should end the movement there and then, Chan said. Also at the meeting, according to Chan, was then undersecretary for Mainland and Constitutional Affairs Lau Kong-wah, now Secretary for Home Affairs, who called the campaign radical.
“They even left [our] report on the sofa and did not take it away,” Chan said of the meeting at the Central Government Office.