Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2014-10-22-Speech-3-471-000"
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"en.20141022.24.3-471-000"2
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"Mr President, this morning I spoke to Christine Chan from the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. She told me that the government there is trying to isolate them from the international media but that they want their voice to be heard all around the world.
So let me use my parliamentary speech to tell this House what she told me. Christine told me that the police are beating the protestors. One of her friends was taken to what she called a ‘dark corner’ and was beaten by no fewer than seven policemen. She said their heads are bleeding. The umbrella is not just a symbol of the protest. She told me that it is the only defence they have against the widespread use of pepper spray and tear gas. She believes that has been exported to Hong Kong from my own country, the United Kingdom.
Christine said the protestors had been cleared, not just by police, but by what she called the mob – violent people she and her friends believe have been mobilised and paid for by the government, using tactics she says have been learned from Vladimir Putin. These are the very same individuals who have raised a petition against the protestors which the government itself appears to have exposed its own complicity in by this week publicly endorsing the petition.
Christine says the protestors have been provoked by the statement of the Hong Kong Chief Executive to the international media, but not the local media, that people earning less than USD 1 800 per month – the poorest half of the population – will be disenfranchised. She said that a privileged group is taking control of the election. They want civil nominations with everyone having the right to vote. She says the protestors have been disappointed by the talks yesterday and today, and that what they have been offered is not even close to what they want. Christine said the portrayal from Beijing of their protest as a so-called revolution inspired by the West is a total myth. She asked me to make clear that the West is not trying to overthrow the government but to say on her – and their – behalf that democracy must be universal.
Today I endorse those messages. Everyone will form their own conclusions after listening to these and other testimonies. For my part, I make three. I express my own disappointment that the dialogue appears to be producing little outcome. I am concerned that my own country, which is party to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, has chosen to grant seven export licences to export GBP 180 000 of tear and CS gas to Hong Kong up to as late as March this year, which is surely being used against the protestors. While I respect ‘One Country, Two Systems’, I find it shocking that a country run by a Communist party appears to be advocating a system which gives representation only to those with wealth and privilege."@en1
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