Carrie Lam promised a report on Occupy and we have it now.The report initially promised by Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor at a meeting with leaders from the Federation of Students in October, is now available online.
It includes a summary of events from the protests, although it claims that the information comes from "the public domain" and that they did not "verify the accuracy" and "shall not be held responsible". The report, which was submitted to the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Tuesday, also says it "cannot guarantee" that all opinions were included.
The report concluded that "it is the common aspiration" of Hongkongers to have universal suffrage as stipulated by Beijing's August 31 ruling and in accordance with the Basic Law - something that pan-democrats disagree with. They have rejected Beijing's framework for the 2017 chief executive elections, and dismissed the report as being "economical with the truth".
Scholarism student leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung said the report did not even qualify as "a piece of liberal studies homework", because it had distorted public demands for genuine democracy.
University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme director Dr Robert Chung Ting-yiu agreed, saying: "If the compilers of the government's report were only primary school level, I could still grade them a pass."
Junior reporter Bakhita Fung, a 13-year-old student at Island School, said she doesn't trust the Hong Kong government to give an accurate report. "They've failed to understand what Hongkongers really want," she said. She believes the government is more interested in maintaining good relations with Beijing than reflecting people's opinions.
Civil Society Joint Action - founded by a group of academics and professionals, including Chung - will produce its own version of the public sentiments report next month. But "even if the report was accurate and true", Bakhita says, "this would not change Beijing's view on universal suffrage."