Alan Wong, China Labels Protesters ‘Radical Separatists,’ and they Agree; A confrontation in Hong Kong. New York Times, Feb 21, 2016.
Quote:
(a) " 'Radical? Yes. Separatist? I have no objection either,' said the protester, Edward Leung 梁天琦, a 24-year-old spokesman for the group Hong Kong Indigenous. He is among dozens of people charged with rioting in connection with the Feb 9 clashes.
(b) "After the Mong Kok riot, the student unions of all but one of Hong Kong's eight publicly funded universities issued statements in support of the protesters. (The exception, the City University of Hong Kong 香港城市大学, has no student union.) The statements blamed the local government for the unrest, saying it had failed to address a variety of public concerns; one quoted the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, saying, 'A riot is the language of the unheard.'
"That contrasted sharply with the reaction of Hong Kong's two largest pro-democracy parties, the Democratic Party and the Civic Party, which quickly condemned the attacks on the police. Those parties, some of whose members have campaigned for democracy for decades, are scorned by many younger pro-democracy activists, who say they have accomplished little.
(c) "Mr Leung himself is running for the city legislature in a by-election next weekend.