Amid reports of a crackdown by the Chinese Government on social media outlets like Instagram in mainland China to suppress distribution of images of student protests in Hong Kong, the hashtag #OccupyCentral has become one of the top trends on Twitter.
Images like this:
Mongkok, shopping area of Hong Kong. Occupy by protesters. No riot police here. #OccupyCentral #OCLP #OCLPHK pic.twitter.com/tIbhnQLMav
— Lam Yik Fei (@LamYikFei) September 28, 2014
and this:
@law_fiona: Volunteers handing out supplies to protesters with strings #OccupyCentral pic.twitter.com/e08m34J9Qm
— Fiona Law (@law_fiona) September 28, 2014
and this:
RT @Twheat: 2 am, Causeway Bay pic.twitter.com/RIMh10btkP
— Wendy Tang (@wwtang) September 28, 2014
… give a sense of the scale of the protests that have swept Hong Kong since China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee ruled that only candidates approved by Beijing would be able to run in the elections for Hong Kong’s chief executive — despite earlier reforms opening voting to all Hong Kong citizens.
The Independent has a great synopsis of the background behind today’s protests, which have seen 34 people injured according to CNN.
The protest movement, officially called Occupy Central With Love & Peace, has an English language website, and earlier this month a White House petition sympathetic to the students’ goals was posted here.
News outlets sympathetic to Beijing’s position have responded to the student protest movement by questioning the group’s ties to the U.S., which Joshua Wong, the founder of the student protest movement called “Scholarism” denied. Wong was arrested by Hong Kong police two days ago as protests got underway.