2014年9月30日 星期二

香港抗議能否起作用?

抗議能否起作用?

因特首選舉改革方案引起爭議,香港日前爆發幾十年來最大的抗議浪潮。中國問題專家馬提亞斯·斯特潘(Matthias Stepan )就北京的立場以及以往抗議活動產生的影響談了他的看法。
China Studentenprotest in Hongkong Occupy Central Regenschirme und Polizei
德國之聲:抗議者的主要目的是什麼?
馬提亞斯·斯特潘:抗議者的總體要求是實現更多民主,具體而言就是直接選舉香港行政長官。他們拒絕只在 事先決定的候選人之間做出選擇,而是要求直接選舉一名也是由港人提名的候選人。
香港居民總的來說對抗議活動持什麼態度?
Demonstrationen Hongkong 29.09.2014
數以萬計的香港市民參加示威
必須指出,民眾中存在一定的分歧。一方面,除了構成目前這場抗議活動主力軍的大學生之外,還有"佔領中環"運動和香港的其他民主派力量,他們在最近幾個月中贏得了巨大的影響力。另一方面,也有一些居民為香港的穩定擔憂。我可以想像,由於學生的抗議活動不斷擴大,同時也是因為警察的行動,例如使用催淚瓦斯,使得越來越多的人站在了民主運動的一邊。
香港領導人周日宣布,願意開展對話。這意味著什麼?
這可能意味著,對全國人大常委會有關香港特首和立法機構選舉的具體方案有可能要重新進行商議。全國人大8月31日剛剛做出一個決定。然而,這個決定也必須獲得香港立法會的通過。但迄今未能獲得真正實施所必須的多數。在做出決定之前,香港立法會的泛民勢力就已經提出妥協建議,例如至少提名委員會的部分成員可以由 香港公民直接選舉產生,或者將候選人人數增加到五人甚至更多。
全國人大的決定有進行這種變動的餘地嗎?
中國中央政府最初的想法肯定是留有相對較小的改動餘地。但是我相當確信,面對目前香港積聚的巨大壓力,北京將給予香港政府找到妥協方案的空間,以避免局勢完全激化。
Bildergalerie Demonstrationen Hong Kong 29.09.2014
北京政府擔心香港失控


示威者繼續提出其要求。他們呼籲在香港舉行真正的特首選舉,而不再先由中央政府進行預選。對此北京會做出讓步嗎?

我認為,在這一點上 北京絕對不會屈服。它不會讓和中共沒有直接聯繫也不能表明完全忠於中國共產黨的人擔任政治領導職務。我先前提到的是,在提名委員會方面有可能做出讓步。我認為在這方面存在著尋求妥協的可能性。
您認為,香港的局勢還將如何發展?
我感覺到,目前的新聞報導有些忘記香港的這一事實:香港居民過去就曾通過抗議活動對北京中央政府和香港政府的決定施加了影響。例如在2003年,當時有五十萬人上街遊行,公開反對在香港實施更加嚴厲的國家安全法。其結果是當時香港的保安局局長辭職,之後不久,當時的行政長官也宣布辭職。因此我可以再次強調,儘管有北京做後盾,抗議活動仍一再迫使香港政府調整其決策,以避免衝突進一步升級。
馬提亞斯·斯特潘是柏林墨卡託中國問題研究所政治研究領域的負責人。
Philipp Bilsky/ljh

Hong Kong Protests Are Leaderless but Orderly

Photo
Protesters set up a first aid station on Tuesday in Hong Kong. Participants said the movement's attention to hygiene, good manners and trash sorting as well as its self-organized medical teams helped send a message of determination.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times
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HONG KONG — They sleep by the thousands on what are normally the busiest boulevards of this crammed, nonstop city. They live on crackers, bananas and bottled water. They clean up their trash, even taking the time to pick out plastic and paper for recycling. Their shield of choice, andthe symbol of their cause, is the umbrella: protection against the sun, rain — and pepper spray used by the riot police.
The pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong appeared headed for a showdown with the authorities on Wednesday, with larger numbers expected over a national holiday and some organizers threatening to escalate the conflict by seizing government buildings. Yet it has been a diligently clean, exceedingly polite and scrupulously peaceful insurgency, one that supporters are calling the Umbrella Revolution.
“An umbrella looks nonthreatening,” said Chloe Ho, 20, a history student distributing apples, chocolate and wet towels on a six-lane downtown expressway occupied by protesters. “It shows how mild we Hong Kong people are, but when you cross our bottom line, we all come out together, just like the umbrellas all come out at the same time when it rains.”
Photo
The protesters' shield of choice, and a symbol of their cause, is the umbrella: protection against the sun, rain and pepper spray fired by riot police officers.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York
Hers is a movement without a clear leader, one in which crowds of largely young people are organizing themselves and acting on their own, overtaking months of planning by veterans of the city’s pro-democracy camp. The spontaneous, grass-roots nature of the protest is one of its strengths — it has adapted quickly and seized the momentum from the government — but it may also make it difficult for the movement to accept any compromise that the Chinese government might be willing to offer.
The mass sit-in — and for hardier participants, sleep-in — in several of Hong Kong’s key commercial districts has presented the Chinese leadership with one of its biggest and most unexpected challenges in years. The protesters are demanding the right to elect the city’s leader, or chief executive, without procedural hurdles that would ensure that only Beijing’s favored candidates get on the ballot.
China’s state-run news outlets have depicted the protests as the handiwork of a conspiracy aided by the West to topple the Communist Party. But what leaders in Beijing and Hong Kong face is something even more alien to party thinking: an amorphous movement that does not answer to any particular individual or agenda.
The protesters’ desire for democratic elections was first articulated by organizations dominated by academics and students, but the movement that has blockaded the city streets since the weekend is a cacophony of voices, with demands including face-to-face dialogue with the Chinese government’s handpicked chief executive, Leung Chun-ying; his immediate resignation; and more ambitious, and unlikely, concessions from the central government.
“The strengths of these protests are that it’s so decentralized, so first of all you can’t crush them through arresting the leaders,” said Maya Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong who has monitored the demonstrations. “The weaknesses are, of course, that there could be confusions and splits as the situation quickly develops. So far it has worked remarkably well, but it might not further along the way.”
Tensions in Hong Kong over election rules built for months and reached a peak on Friday, when students stormed past the police and occupied the forecourt of the Hong Kong government’s headquarters. The standoff there drew more protesters who gathered outside, growing into a noisy carnival of disgruntled residents calling for democracy. On Sunday afternoon, however, the police moved in with tear gas.
The televised spectacle of students scattered by tear gas triggered an outpouring of anger against the Hong Kong government that drew tens of thousands onto the streets on Sunday night. On Monday, the crowds were even larger, and they grew again on Tuesday.
The protesters have commandeered city buses, using them as bulletin boards for signs and messages. They have built barricades from bamboo scaffolding and borrowed cars to fend off possible police incursions.
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What Prompted the Hong Kong Protests?

Hong Kong belongs to China and operates under a policy of “one country, two systems.”
“I came here because I don’t want to lose my Hong Kong,” said Bo Au-yeung, 20, a saleswoman at a clothing store who had volunteered to run a supply station. “I don’t want Hong Kong to be the next China.”
The society that has sprung up on the baking-hot roads has already developed its own rhythms. The days begin mostly with university students, retirees and middle-class office workers who have taken time off or been given leave by sympathetic bosses.
In the evenings, as temperatures cool and the workday ends, the crowds expand and become more diverse. Teenagers do their homework on the streets. And then the die-hards settle in for the night, sleeping under the skies on newspapers or foam before heading home in the morning for a shower and a nap.
“We want to stay clean to show that we are normal citizens fighting for our democracy,” said Billy Chan, 21, a computer science student who was heading home on Tuesday morning to wash up.
Other supporters arrived in the morning, saying they wanted to ensure that crowd numbers remained strong enough to ward off the police and impress those watching through the many television cameras. Joe Tang, an 18-year-old student wearing a black T-shirt decorated with a yellow ribbon, the uniform of many protesters, said he was a little embarrassed to seem so idealistic.
“It sounds stupid, but I came for liberty and democracy,” he said, as he prepared to hunker down for a day in the hot sun under an umbrella.
Many participants in the Umbrella Revolution acknowledged that their movement could well fail, scattered by a fresh police crackdown or just petering out. But many also said that their street movement, with its fastidious attention to hygiene and good manners and signs apologizing for “causing inconvenience” to other residents, was more than a reflection of Hong Kongers’ neat ways.
The trash sorting, constant speeches from megaphones and self-organized medical teams send a message of determination to leaders, and the world, they said.
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PLAY VIDEO|2:10

The Voice of a Hong Kong Student Leader

The Voice of a Hong Kong Student Leader

A look at the fears and motivations driving the anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong.
 Video by Jonah M. Kessel and Mona El-Naggar on Publish DateSeptember 30, 2014. Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters.
“With such a big area, if the waste is not handled well, it will cause hygiene problems and increase disorder,” said Chan Sau-ching, a 21-year-old medical student, who was helping sort trash. “In this protest, we want to show our citizenship and our will to have a democratic government. Although this cleanup is a small thing, it is something that shows the values that all Hong Kong citizens should have.”
The people of Hong Kong are such obsessive users of their smartphones that subway stations broadcast reminders for commuters to look up from their devices and watch where they are walking. Now, protesters are using smartphones and social media to share news and rumors about the protests, and form impromptu organizations that keep the crowds clean, fed and healthy.
Alex Au Yeung, 25, a student at the City University of Hong Kong, uses the WhatsApp messaging service to coordinate staffing at first-aid tents set up around the protest zones. After responding to injuries from tear gas and pepper spray over the weekend, the medical volunteers now treat people suffering from the heat as well as the cuts and scrapes that come with sleeping on a highway.
Supplies, too, are coordinated online, through Facebook pages and Google documents that list what is needed, and where: bottled water, packaged snacks, face masks and umbrellas. At the Methodist House, a church complex near the main sit-in, volunteers sorted donations that were then carted half a mile to the protest area. By Tuesday, the storage space at the building was full, and volunteers were turning away donations.
Jeff Chan, a movie cameraman who had just spent two hours sorting trash, said he and about 200 other members of Hong Kong’s film industry had thrown themselves into supporting the protests. Cameramen, production and post-production units each had separate tasks. He said his motivation for cleaning trash was very simple: “I just can’t stand to see garbage.”
The gatherings seemed to share some common elements with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations of 2011, which attracted thousands of protesters to an encampment in a Lower Manhattan park. As in Hong Kong, the Occupy protesters eschewed a traditional leadership hierarchy but forged an ecosystem all their own, often organizing their own medical care and food distribution.
Both protests were also galvanized by televised images of clashes with law enforcement. In New York three years ago, video of a police commander pepper-spraying a group of protesters contributed in elevating Occupy from the relative obscurity of its early days to an international spectacle.
In Hong Kong, by Tuesday night the crowd of protesters in the Admiralty neighborhood had swelled to even greater numbers than before, and crammed, sweating bodies stretched to Central, the next subway stop. The demonstration appeared to be gaining cohesion, and people within earshot of loudspeakers roared as Lee Cheuk-yan, chairman of the pro-democracy Labor Party, hoarsely exhorted Mr. Leung, the chief executive, to resign. Hundreds lined up at nearby toilets, one of the many tests of protesters’ patience.
A little down the road, Chui Yik-keung, a 19-year-old student of leisure management, was trying to doze on an inflatable mattress that refused to inflate. He and his classmates lay in the shadow of the hulking concrete quarters of the Chinese military garrison in Hong Kong, whose soldiers some protesters have speculated could come out to crush them.
“I’m not afraid,” said Mr. Chui. “I don’t believe the Chinese soldiers will come out. If they do, will they ever get past here? I don’t think so.”

2014年9月28日 星期日

香港世代價值之爭 Police use tear gas as pro-democracy demonstrators occupy central Hong Kong

Police use tear gas as pro-democracy demonstrators occupy central Hong Kong

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong have brought parts of the city center to a standstill. Police have used tear gas to disperse crowds calling for more political freedom from Beijing.
 Protesters wear masks and goggles to protect themselves from pepper spray while blocking a police car outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters on Sunday surrounded a government enclave and blocked streets in central Hong Kong in an escalation of the demonstrations that the city has experienced over the past days.
Police used tear gas for the first time during the protests and baton-charged a crowd blocking a key road.
Police also used pepper spray on demonstrators trying to break through a police blockade designed to stop people joining the crowds who have staged a sit-in outside Hong Kong's government headquarters since Friday.
Demonstrators, many wearing goggles and plastic wrap to protect themselves against pepper spray, blocked traffic on Harcourt Road, a major throughway, as well as sections of several other roads in the financial district. At least 29 police and civilian have been injured in clashes.
The escalation in protest actions by pro-democracy supporters comes after a week of student-led demonstrations against Beijing's refusal to grant the city fully democratic elections in 2017.
China's legislature last month ruled that candidates for the election of Hong Kong's leader would first be vetted by a committee of Beijing loyalists that has up to now chosen who governs the former British colony. Many see the ruling as running counter to promises by China that the elections would be carried out on the basis of "universal suffrage."
'Occupy' joins the fray
On Saturday evening, the activist group Occupy Central announced it would be launching its long-threatened campaign to shut down the city's financial center three days earlier than planned, in an apparent bid to use the momentum gained by the student-led protests over the past week.
The group is calling on Beijing to withdraw last month's decision and for it to allow a consultation on political reform to start anew.
A police statement issued late on Saturday reiterated that the demonstration near the government complex was "unlawful." A spokesperson for China's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said the central Chinese government fully supported Hong Kong's treatment of protesters "in accordance with the law."
Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying has pledged "resolute" action against Occupy Central and other pro-democracy activists.
China took over Hong Kong from British colonial rule in 1997 under an agreement that foresaw a "one country, two systems" principle, allowing Hong Kong relative autonomy until 2047. Beijing critics fear that the political freedoms granted to the city until now are being eroded under increasing influence from the Chinese mainland.
tj/glb (Reuters, AP, AFP)
「長久以來,反佔中一派所提出的理由不外乎是「佔中是違法行為」、「佔中影響香港經濟發展」。然而香港的年輕一代仍義無反顧地進行佔領,正正是在說明他們不在乎所謂的「影響香港經濟發展」。
為甚麼?因為年輕一代根本無法享受到經濟發展所帶來的益處:香港物價高企、人工升幅追不上通漲、上車無期,加上各種不公義的事件如菜園村事件等,對年輕人來說,經濟發展不但「與我無關」,更是既得利益者的擋箭牌。」
926,一個將會被香港人銘記的日子。那夜,一次有組織的重奪行動,激起一次從未見過的波瀾,演變成大批市民參與的佔領行動,成為世界新聞的中心。這次行動會演變成甚麼,沒人說得準,但目前已有幾點值得討論和思...
INMEDIAHK.NET

香港「雨傘革命」Police Arrest Dozens of Pro-Democracy Protesters in Hong Kong



Police Arrest Dozens of Pro-Democracy Protesters in Hong Kong

香港学生民主运动拉开“占领中环”序幕

HONG KONG — The police in Hong Kong began tightening on Sunday a ring of security around thousands of pro-democracy protesters who have besieged the city government for three days. But by clearing the protesters and appeasing the Chinese Communist Party, the Hong Kong authorities could risk a bigger backlash from even more city residents, said experts.
香港——香港警方周日开始增强环包数千名已包围香港政府三日的亲民主抗议者的安保力量。但专家表示,香港当局清退抗议者并讨好中国共产党可能会使其遭受引来来自更多居民的、更大的激烈抵抗的风险。
The Hong Kong government has been grappling with how to defuse the sit-in protest that started on Friday night and stretched over the weekend, swelling at times to a crowd of tens of thousands. Although the police had been practicing for months to quell planned protests over election rule changes, they failed on Friday to prevent hundreds of students from charging into a forecourt at the city government headquarters, drawing many more supporters who occupied an avenue and open areas next to the fenced-in forecourt. The students inside the forecourt were dragged off by the police on Saturday, but the supporters outside have stayed.
香港政府一直在探索如何驱散周五晚间开始、并延续整个周末的静坐抗议——抗议规模几度扩大到数万人。尽管警方已就如何平息针对选举规则变化而策划的游行演练了数月,他们周五还是没能阻止数百名学生闯入香港政府总部的前庭,并引来更多支持者占领了那个被围栏围住的前庭旁的一条大道及开放区域。前庭内的学生周六被警方拖出,但是前庭外的支持者们还留在原地。
On Sunday afternoon, the police began to seal off the sit-in area, stopping supporters from entering. The city leader, Leung Chun-ying, told a news conference that the protesters were using illegal methods to threaten the government, and he declared his “absolute trust in the professional judgment of the police.”
周日下午,警方开始封锁静坐区域以阻止支持者进入。香港领导人梁振英在一场新闻发布会上说抗议者正在用违法方式威胁政府,并声明其“绝对信任警方的专业判断”。
周六在香港政府总部外,一名抗议者手举标语,上书“公民抗命、占领中环”。
Vincent Yu/Associated Press
周六在香港政府总部外,一名抗议者手举标语,上书“公民抗命、占领中环”。
A surging youth protest movement in Hong Kong took the political initiative on Saturday, forcing the police to retreat for a second night and prompting the city’s most prominent democratic group to shift plans and join forces with the student activists in a campaign of defiance against the Chinese government’s planned election rules.
周六,愈演愈烈的香港青年抗议运动在政治上占据了主动,迫使警方连续第二晚撤退,并使香港最重要的民主团体改变计划,决定加入学生活动人士的行列,一同反抗中国政府准备施行的选举规则。
Several older politicians who support democracy in Hong Kong said the unexpected strength of the young protesters, who have besieged the city government headquarters since Friday night, suggested an emerging shift, as their generation ceded greater say to student activists who will be even less open to compromise with authoritarian Beijing.
抗议者从周五晚间开始围在香港政府总部门口。数名支持香港民主的年纪较长的政界人士表示,年轻人出人意料的能量表明,转变正在发生——他们这代人把更多话语权让给了学生活动人士,而后者将更不愿意与北京的威权政府达成和解。
“What happened since yesterday was beyond our expectation,” Albert Ho, 62, a prominent lawyer and Democratic Party member of Hong Kong’s legislature, said in an interview late on Saturday.
“从昨天开始发生的事完全超出我们的预期,”62岁的著名律师、香港立法会的民主党议员何俊仁(Albert Ho)在周六夜里的采访中说。
“Now the younger people have taken control and used their advantage of surprise,” Mr. Ho said in the middle of an exuberant rally attended by thousands of people, mostly teenagers and people in their 20s, in front of the city government offices. “This is something that will deeply concern the government.”
“现在,控制权掌握在这些年轻人手中,他们运用了出其不意的优势,”何俊仁说。当时,他的身边共有数千人在香港政府总部前参加这场情绪高涨的集会,其中大多数都是一二十岁的年轻人。“这种情况会让政府十分担忧。”
Adding to the sense of a shift in political influence to the young activists, Hong Kong’s most prominent democracy campaign, Occupy Central with Love and Peace, announced an abrupt change in its plans.
香港最主要的民主运动“让爱与和平占领中环”宣布对自身计划进行大幅变动。这加强了一种政治影响力正在向年轻活动人士转移的感觉。
The campaign had said it would hold civil disobedience protests in the main financial district, known as Central, because election proposals issued by the Chinese government last month failed to offer authentic democratic choice for electing the city’s leader, or chief executive. But in the early hours of Sunday, Benny Tai, a co-founder of Occupy Central, announced that the student initiative would now be the spearhead for the group’s protests.
占中运动曾表示,要在香港的主金融区中环举行公民不服从的抗议活动。这是因为,中国政府上个月发布的选举计划,未能提供真正的民主选举特区行政长官的方案。周日清晨,占中运动的联合发起人戴耀廷(Benny Tai)宣布,学生们的行动现将成为占中运动的起点。
The student-led occupation at the city government headquarters “completely embodied the awakening of Hong Kong people’s desire to decide their own lives,” Occupy Central said in an emailed announcement.
占中运动在通过电子邮件发布的声明中称,由学生领导的对香港政府总部的占领“已完全体现港人决定自身命运的觉醒”。
“The courage of the students and members of the public in their spontaneous decision stay has touched many Hong Kong people,” it said. “As the wheel of time has reached this point, we have decided to arise and act.”
“学生与市民持续自发留守所展示的勇气,感动了很多香港市民,”声明说。“时代的巨轮到了此刻,我们决定起来行动。”
In an interview, Mr. Tai said his group was “very moved by the participation of the citizens which have been organized and initiated by the students,” and suggested that it might switch the site of its occupation to the student one.
戴耀廷接受采访时称,他的团队对“由学生组织和动员的市民的参与十分感动”,并表示他们可能会把占中运动的地点转移到学生所在的地方。
“You have to respond to the changing situation of the society,” he said.
他说,“必须对社会形势的变化做出回应。”
While the rest of the city went about its weekend as usual, the protesters turned an area next to the government buildings beside Victoria Harbor into a passionate but orderly stage to demand a say in electing the chief executive. The Chinese government last month laid down much narrower plans for electoral change, which would keep its power as a gatekeeper deciding who can run the city, a former British colony.
在这座城市的其他部分忙于正常的周末活动时,抗议者把维多利亚港畔的政府总部旁的一片区域变成了热情洋溢却井然有序的舞台,用来要求市民在选举特首时拥有发言权。中国政府上月公布的选举改革方案要比他们的要求严苛得多。根据其中的安排,中央政府将继续保有把关的权力,可以决定谁有资格成为这个英国前殖民地的领导人。
“We think that this place is ours, not the government’s,” said Will Mak Wing-kai, a student from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
香港中文大学的学生麦永启(Will Mak Wing-kai,音译)说,“我们认为这里是我们的,不是政府的。”
He said he was among 200 or so students who on Friday nightstormed into a forecourt near the entrance to the government headquarters, known to the demonstrators as Civic Square, which had recently been blocked off from the public.
他表示,周五晚间他和大约200名学生一起涌入政府总部入口附近的地区,也就是抗议者所说的公民广场。这片区域近期不对共众开放。
“We want to see the Hong Kong people come out to protect their freedom and democracy,” Mr. Mak said, rapidly taking phone calls about organizing the swelling crowd. “I want the government to be representative, elected by us from our hearts, not by the Chinese government.” Under current electoral laws, the chief executive is selected by a committee dominated by Beijing loyalists.
“我们希望看到香港市民站出来保卫自己的自由和民主,”麦永启说。“我希望政府代表我们,由我们真心选出,而不是由中国政府决定。”他不时快速接听电话,内容涉及如何组织越来越壮大的人群。根据目前的选举法,行政长官由一个委员会选举产生,而该委员会主要由忠于北京的建制派组成。
On Saturday, the crowd veered from anger and jeering to an almost celebratory mood when number of officers thinned. Tensions rose again as darkness fell and the police regrouped across the square from metal barriers. But then the police retreated again, and crowds continued pouring into the protest area well into the early hours of Sunday.
周六,当警察人数慢慢减少时,人群的愤怒和嘲讽情绪变为近似于欢庆。当夜幕降临,警察穿过铁栏重新部署至广场时,气氛再次紧张起来。但警方后来再次撤退,民众在周日凌晨继续涌入抗议区域。
Many in the crowd unfurled umbrellas, donned plastic raincoats and flimsy gauze masks, and put sheets of plastic wrap over their eyes, fearing that the police would use pepper spray, as they had on Friday night and Saturday morning. Some also wore yellow ribbons given out by the protest organizers as a symbol of hope for change. Seventy-four people have been arrested since the confrontation started on Friday, the police said.
很多民众撑着伞、披着塑料雨衣、戴着薄口罩,眼睛也罩上塑料薄膜,因为他们担心警察会像周五夜间及周六上午那样喷射胡椒喷雾。一些人还系上了抗议组织者分发的象征改革期望的黄丝带。警方称,自周五发生对峙以来,共有74人被捕。
Many protesters said the sight of the police squirting eye-searing pepper spray at the students on Friday night, shown on television news reports, galvanized support for protesters.
很多抗议者表示,电视新闻报道显示警方在周五晚间向学生喷射能够灼伤眼睛的胡椒喷雾,这一幕让抗议者获得了更多支持。
“Hong Kong people have a special feeling for our students,” said Chris Mok, a research assistant who attended the demonstration, “I decided to come down here this morning after I saw them pepper-spraying the students.”
“香港民众对我们的学生有特殊的感情,”参与示威活动的研究助理克里斯·莫(Chris Mok,音译)说。“我看到他们对学生喷胡椒喷雾后,决定今天上午来到这里。”
In a society that reveres education, the students have drawn an outpouring of support from classmates and other residents, who sent bottled water, tissues and snacks, which by Saturday had accumulated into mountains of supplies. Some residents saw echoes of Beijing in 1989, when there was a surge of public support for students who occupied Tiananmen Square, before the protests were brutally suppressed.
在这样一个尊崇教育的社会里,学生们获得了同学及其他市民的大力支持。他们送来瓶装水、纸巾和食物,截至周六,已经形成大量供应的态势。一些居民看到了与北京1989年的情景类似的地方。当时,在抗议活动遭到残酷镇压前,占领天安门广场的学生所获的公众支持飙升。
“They are ready to pick up the democracy baton from the student movement in China in 1989,” said Sunny Lau, 57, who said he was pepper-sprayed by the police when he arrived to support the students. “Part of our success would be to put pressure on the Communist Party by getting the world’s attention.”
“他们已经准备好接过1989年学生运动的民主接力棒,”57岁的桑尼·刘(Sunny Lau,音译)说。“我们的成功将部分维系于,通过引起全世界的关注,给共产党施压。” 他还称,当他到达现场支持学生时,被警方喷了胡椒喷雾。
Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, it has kept its own independent courts and legal protections for free speech and assembly, as well as a robust civil society. But many democratic groups and politicians say the city’s freedoms are eroding under mainland China’s growing political and economic influence.
自1997年回归中国以来,香港保留了独立的司法体系,针对言论和集会自由的法律保障,以及一个强大的公民社会。但很多民主团体及政界人士表示,在中国内地日益强大的政治和经济影响下,香港的自由正在遭到侵蚀。
Beijing’s plan for electoral changes would for the first time let the public vote for the top leader, starting in 2017. But critics say the plan includes procedural hurdles would screen out candidates who do not have Beijing’s implicit blessing, making the vote meaningless.
北京的选举改革方案将首次允许香港民众从2017年开始选举最高领导人。不过,批评人士称,该方案存在程序性障碍,将会筛掉那些没有获得北京方面暗中支持的候选人,因此这样的投票活动毫无意义。
“I don’t want Hong Kong to change to be like China, with corruption, unfairness, no press freedom, no religious freedom,” said Edith Fung, 21, a land surveying student.
21岁的地质测绘专业学生伊迪丝·冯(Edith Fung,音译)说,“我不希望香港变得像中国一样,腐败、不公、没有新闻自由、没有宗教自由。”

储百亮(Chris Buckley)是《纽约时报》记者。

〈英國獨立報:Hong Kong umbrella revolution〉
The Independent就香港「雨傘革命」的報導
【連結:http://goo.gl/qYLWQ5
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