Nearly 1,000 Hong Kong secondary students, many dressed in uniforms and defying their parents, joined ongoing pro-democracy protests today against Beijing's refusal to grant the city unfettered democracy.
Throngs of students -- many saying they had defied their parents' wishes -- descended on the Southern Chinese city's legislative headquarters adding their voices to a week-long class boycott kicked off by university students on Monday.
Student groups are spearheading a civil disobedience campaign along with democracy activists in protest at Beijing's decision to vet who can stand for chief executive -- the southern Chinese city's top post -- at the next election.
University students rallied a crowd on Monday that organisers said was 13,000-strong on a campus in the north of the city and breathing new life into a movement left stunned by Beijing's hardline stance.
Yesterday night, over 2,000 people took their protest to the residence of Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying with the hope of speaking directly to him. Leung has so far refused to speak with the students or meet their leaders.
Protests continued today morning with around 900 secondary school students gathering outside the city's main government complex shouting: "I want real elections not fake ones".
"The government is ignoring our voices so I think that if we have so many secondary students boycotting the classes maybe then they will be willing to listen to us," Agnes Yeung, a form five student told AFP.
Chung Chun-wai, 17, said many of his friends came out to protest despite being told not to do so by their parents, highlighting the often sharp generational divide in the former British colony over its political future.
"I think secondary school students are a part of the society and I consider myself a citizen of Hong Kong. That's why I think I need to bear the responsibility to care about the society and to voice out real opinions of Hong Kongers," he said.
Regular polling data has shown Hong Kong's younger generations are much more likely to be critical of Beijing than their parents and students have become a key bloc among the city's vocal pro-democracy groups.
Organisers said 1,200 people showed up to the secondary school strike with more students and ordinary citizens arriving each hour at the government headquarters.
Last month China said Hong Kongers would be allowed to vote for their leader for the first time in the 2017 election, but that only two or three candidates approved by a pro-Beijing committee could stand.
