Crowds of protesters who filled Hong Kong’s streets with demands for a greater say in choosing the territory’s leader thinned dramatically on Tuesday after student leaders and the Government agreed to hold talks in this increasingly frustrated city.
Just a couple of days after tens of thousands of demonstrators thronged the city’s streets, only a few dozen students were occupying some stretches of highway, once again snarling traffic and slowing commuters. One young protester sleepily brushed his teeth as rush hour began, spitting into a storm drain along the blockaded six-lane highway that cuts through the heart of Hong Kong’s business district.
Nearby, a sleeping demonstrator leaned back in a nylon chair, his mouth open and his eyeglasses askew. Despite the dwindling numbers of activists on the streets, protest leaders insisted the movement was far from defeated, and vowed to walk away from negotiations if the police used force to clear away the remaining demonstrators. At least a few hundred protesters are thought to be scattered across the city’s three main protest areas.
“It’s up to the Government now. This is the first step, but the pressure has to continue,” said Alex Chow, a student leader. On Monday, lau Kong-wah, the territory’s undersecretary of constitutional affairs, said the Government and students had agreed on terms for talks, saying the two sides would enter discussions on an equal footing.
lester Shum, a leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, confirmed the agreement, but said they had not discussed or reached a consensus on the agenda.