March 30, 2015
As the six-month anniversary of the start of the Occupy Central protests nears, the encampment around government offices has slowly expanded.
After workers under police watch dismantled the main camp of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters in the Admiralty district in December, a small number of holdouts vowed to fight on.
They regrouped on the sidewalks near government buildings, a vastly diminished presence but a reminder that the end of the 79-day occupation of city streets was not an end to their campaign for greater citizen involvement in the selection of Hong Kong’s next leader.
“At first, there weren’t many people, but it has grown,” said Kit Ku, a 23-year-old pastry chef wearing a black hoodie and clunky black glasses as he sat in a tent on Thursday. “I’m very happy. This is very meaningful for the Hong Kong people.”
In the days leading up to the six-month anniversary of the Sept. 28 start of the Occupy Central protests, which also became known as the Umbrella Movement, the encampment around the government offices has slowly expanded. The site now has a garden, a study area, a library and solar-powered lights.
As a cold rain fell Thursday night, two men sawed lumber to make benches and storage lockers. High-school students did homework under a tent, while two groups of about a dozen each discussed politics and strategy.
An online tally said that as of Tuesday, there were 147 tents at the camp, nearly double the 78 that were counted on Dec. 16, after the mass sit-ins ended. The number is a sliver of the 1,817 tents present just before the protesters were removed from one of Hong Kong Island’s major thoroughfares, but the increase has prompted notice.
In a speech on Wednesday to an investment conference, Leung Chun-ying, the Hong Kong chief executive, raised the possibility that the Occupy protests could return.
“The Hong Kong government, as always, maintains its preparedness,” he said. “But I can say that the public, if Occupy happens again, will not be sympathetic.”
At the protest site, Mr. Ku said he was not interested in trying to block major streets again. “If we take the streets again, some people are scared the police will beat us again,” he said. “We have other ways to do this without people getting hurt.”
On Thursday evening, two police officers walked through the camp, counting tents. They inquired about a banner that had been hung from the side of a stairway that became known as the Lennon Wall during the protests after demonstrators covered it with notes expressing their hopes.
Last year, the police arrested 955 occupy protesters, the government said this week.
During his speech to the investment forum, Mr. Leung said the best way for residents to respond to pro-democracy lawmakers who have resisted the government’s agenda would be to “vote them out.”
His comments set off indignant responses from lawmakers who noted that he was elected by only 689 votes from a election committee heavily stacked with allies of the central government.
