Student leaders at eight Hong Kong universities tell Carrie Lam they will only meet her in public and if extradition bill protesters are exonerated
- Leaders of student unions lay down two prerequisites for talks with government
- Chief executive had invited student leaders from two universities to meeting via schools’ administrations, a move advisers call ‘bureaucratic’
Student leaders at eight Hong Kong universities issued a joint statement to Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Friday, saying a dialogue she initiated would only take place if she promised to organise public town hall meetings and exonerate extradition bill protesters facing charges.
The students laid down the conditions for talks with the city’s leader as the Hong Kong Bar Association also called for the government to communicate openly with society at large.
The government’s overture came after hundreds of mostly young protesters stormed the city’s legislature on July 1 to call for the withdrawal of the now-suspended bill, which would have allowed the transfer of fugitives to mainland China and other jurisdictions with which the city had no extradition agreement.
Jacky So Tsun-fung, president of Chinese University’s student union, said student representatives from eight local universities had agreed they would not meet the chief executive unless two prerequisites were met.
