“Restore Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times”: Pro-democracy protests are once again ‘occupying’ Hong Kong

By Dana Trif| Cluj Napoca & Ho Ming-sho| Taipei

Five years have passed since the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the ‘Occupy Central with Love and Peace’ civil disobedience campaigns that brought tens of thousands onto the streets of Hong Kong. Back in 2014, the protesters’ demands were focused on genuine universal suffrage for the election of the Special Administrative Region’s (HKSAR) Chief Executive (CE) and of the members of the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s Parliament.

EasternFocus #3: 30 Years Later. The Unfinished Revolution

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the state of liberal democracy in the former communist bloc is “probably worse than we hoped but better than we feared”, thinks Thomas Carothers, interviewed in this issue of Eastern Focus. He looks at the good, the bad and the ugly of post-1989 transition and says that three decades later, we are still in an intermediate state.