Thousands have signed an online petition denouncing reported comments by HSBC Holdings board member Laura Cha (查史美倫), in which she likened Hong Kong protesters’ demands for democracy to the emancipation of slaves.
Cha, who is also a member of Hong Kong’s policymaking Executive Council, chairwoman of the city’s Financial Services Development Council and a member of China’s parliament, was quoted as making the comments at an event in Paris.
“American slaves were liberated in 1861, but did not get voting rights until 107 years later, so why can’t Hong Kong wait for a while?” the Standard newspaper on Thursday quoted Cha as saying, referring to demands for free elections in the former British colony.
Cha said democracy could not be reached in just one step and warned that investors’ confidence in Hong Kong was at a critical point, the newspaper added.
The comments triggered outrage on social media and nearly 5,000 people had signed the petition by yesterday afternoon.
“We, the Hong Kong public, will not stand these remarks likening our rights to slavery, nor will we stand the kind of voter disenfranchisement her and her associates attempt to perpetrate on the Hong Kong public,” said the petition to HSBC, that sought an apology from Cha.
The petition is addressed to the HSBC board of directors and is signed “The People of Hong Kong.”
Beijing in August said it would screen candidates who want to run for the territory’s election for a chief executive in 2017, which democracy activists said rendered the notion of universal suffrage meaningless.
For more than a month, key roads leading into three of Hong Kong’s most economically and politically important districts have been barricaded with wood and steel by thousands of protesters.
The protests drew well over 100,000 at their peak.
Cha’s comments came just days after Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) triggered a wave of criticism when he said that free elections were unacceptable partly because they risked giving Hong Kong’s poor and working class a dominant voice.
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