Nearly 1,000 Hong Kong secondary students, many dressed in uniforms and defying their parents, joined ongoing pro-democracy protests Friday against Beijing’s refusal to grant the city unfettered democracy. Throngs of students - many saying they had defied their parents’ wishes - descended on the Southern Chinese city’s legislative headquarters adding their voices to a week-long class boycott kicked off by university students on Monday. Student groups are spearheading a civil disobedience campaign along with democracy activists in protest at Beijing’s decision to vet who can stand for chief executive - the southern Chinese city’s top post - at the next election.
Leung is scared of us, he’s scared of the people. He knows the Chinese government’s decision is wrong, but he can’t do anything because Beijing controls him.
18-year-old high school student Lau Tak-wai told AFP
University students rallied a crowd on Monday that organisers said was 13,000-strong on a campus in the north of the city and breathing new life into a movement left stunned by Beijing’s hardline stance. On Thursday night, over 2,000 people took their protest to the residence of Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying with the hope of speaking directly to him. Leung has so far refused to speak with the students or meet their leaders. Protests continued Friday morning with around 900 secondary school students gathering outside the city’s main government complex shouting: “I want real elections not fake ones”.
The government is ignoring our voices so I think that if we have so many secondary students boycotting the classes maybe then they will be willing to listen to us.
Agnes Yeung, a form five student