Activists scale crane at high-speed rail link site
Protesters against the high-speed rail link to Guangdong climbed to the top of a crane at the construction site of the controversial project in Austin early yesterday.
Eight activists, including Raphael Wong Ho-ming from the League of Social Democrats and Eddie Chu Hoi-dick from the Land Justice League, participated in the stunt at the West Kowloon Terminus.
The group unfurled two banners calling for construction of the project to stop and opposing the joint immigration checkpoint that allowed mainland officials to work in Hong Kong.
Chaos broke out in the Legislative Council last week after pro-establishment lawmakers approved HK$19.6 billion of additional funding for the project. The topped up the HK$65 billion approved by legislators in 2010.
Police said they received a report around 6am that unauthorised people entered a building site on Austin Road West.
“Upon arrival, officers found two banners, and there were seven men and one woman conducting a public event at the scene. And they also climbed on the crane,” the police said.
Police advised the protestors to return to the ground where the group was issued with a verbal warning for entering the construction site. The demonstrators left of their own accord and no one was arrested.
On the joint immigration checkpoint, Basic Law Committee member and Peking University law professor Rao Geping has suggested that co-location could be achieved when Beijing’s top legislative organ issues a decision to justify the deal struck between central and Hong Kong governments.
But the proposal, which the Hong Kong government says it is looking into, would be contrary to the rule of law, University of Hong Kong’s ex-law dean Johannes Chan Man-mun warned.
Former KCR head Michael Tien Puk-sun has said that if the agreement was to undergo Legco scrutiny, it would be less controversial.
