Hong Kong, December 5
A founder of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement branded the occupation of the city's main roads as "high-risk" today, urging protesters to turn to new methods of civil disobedience to push for electoral reform.
Benny Tai, one of the three founders of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement, said the movement has now run its course and warned that protesters now risk further violent clashes with police if they stay in their camps.
"Occupation is now a high-risk, low-return business," he said in an editorial in the New York Times, arguing that campaigners should instead turn to "acts of non-cooperation" such as refusing to pay taxes.
Campaigners have camped out on Hong Kong's streets for more than two months to demand fully free elections for the southern Chinese city's leadership.
The rallies drew tens of thousands at their height, but numbers have dwindled as public support for the movement has waned and dozens have been injured in clashes with police as authorities have tried to clear the camps. — AFP