Hong Kong protesters give city's leader 24 hours to resign

Pro-democracy student leaders threatened to step up their protests by occupying government buildings if Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying doesn’t resign by Thursday. Lester Shum, the vice secretary of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, said the occupation could include “essential” government agencies like hospitals and social welfare offices.

Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents spent their National Day holiday Wednesday protesting Beijing’s decision to vet candidates for the 2017 election for chief executive, which breaks the promise that Hong Kong would be allowed universal suffrage. National Day marks the 65th anniversary of the founding of communist China, and many mainland tourists usually visit Hong Kong during the holiday.

The protests, which after six days have spread to the Central business district, Causeway Bay, Mong Kok, and Tsim Sha Tsui, remained peaceful Wednesday as families with children joined the swelling crowds. While police in riot gear used pepper spray and tear gas on the protesters over the weekend, the Hong Kong police have since toned down their response. A source told The Wall Street Journal that Leung would wait out the protests and had been instructed by Beijing not to use violence. Thus far, the Chinese government has not intervened.

But Beijing has ensured mainland citizens don’t get a taste for dissent. Posts and images of the large-scale protests have been scrubbed in mainland China, deleting about 152 posts per 10,000 messages on the social network Weibo, according to Weiboscope, a censorship monitoring project at the University of Hong Kong’s journalism school. Fearful Chinese censors also shut down Instagram, one of the only global social media networks still accessible from inside the country. State-controlled news programs showed images of protesters with a caption that they were marching to show support for China’s National Day.

Hong Kong churches are divided in their response to the protests, with some leaders urging churches to focus on ministry and evangelism rather than political debates. But some Christians have been outspoken about the democracy movement, including Benny Tai and Rev. Chu Yiu-Ming, two of the founders of democracy group Occupy Central. Joshua Wong, the 17-year-old founder of Scholarism, a group that has headed the student protests, said his faith sparked his involvement in the movement.

“Without faith, I wouldn’t have realized that we have to search for the value of life, to respect every individual as equal,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

A group of pastors, professors, and parents held a press conference calling on the government not to use tear gas or pepper spray and to allow protesters to express their demands.

Church leaders are providing spiritual guidance to protesters as well. Rev. Wu Chi Wai and a group of about 50 pastors and seminary students took turns standing out in the crowds with a 20-foot-tall white cross, offering prayer, counseling, and advice. They’ve also opened three churches as support centers, which allow protesters to pray, worship, rest, and use the bathroom, stressing that they encourage anyone to come.

“I always say there is a separation of church and state, not a separation of church and politics,” Wu said. Because Hong Kong residents are facing an oppressive communist government, “politics is everybody’s business, nowadays Christians need to think about that.”