The Umbrella Movement

The Handover of Hong Kong
Hong Kong was originally ruled by the British government but in 1997, the British Government handed over Hong Kong to China. Before Hong Kong was officially handed over, China agreed on a rule called "One Country, Two Systems". "One Country, Two Systems" was put into place in order to solidify Hong Kongs current practices and rights from China as they were being handed over. The rights that "One Country, Two Systems" was supposed to provide Hong Kong with were an independent judiciary, multiple political parties, and freedom of assembly and speech.

Violation of "One Country, Two Systems"
"One Country, Two Systems" was quickly violated and lead to the eventual Umbrella Movement. In 2014, Beijing announced that everyone who was eligible to vote was allowed to in the upcoming 2017 election. The voters could only vote for two or three candidates who had been approved by at least fifty percent of the 1200 members in the nomination committee. The nomination committee is made up of people who represent groups very close to Beijing. Hong Kong felt completely violated by this and felt that this was in no way a democratic election and that the true meaning of a universal vote was being taken away from them. At this time, this is when students and civilians began the Umbrella Movement in order to attempt to gain universal suffrage and the withdrawal of restrictive framework.

Student Activists
Even though there were no specific groups of activists leading the whole Umbrella Movement, Scholarism, founded by Joshua Wong who was born in 1996, is one of the most salient groups of student activists who has made huge contributions towards the movement. Facebook has been utilised as a digital public sphere where they have engaged with their followers actively during the movement to announced leaflets, articles and make official announcements or call for civil actions. To exemplify, they have published on Facebook to call for actions towards class boycott, which aims at boycotting class but not education, so as to add pressure to the government in responding to public demands.

Student Protest
On 31st August 2014, the twelfth of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) has introduced a electoral reform by implementing the Universal Suffrage, while they has also announced that only candidates endorsed by a nominating pro-Beijing committee will be permitted to compete for chief executive in Hong Kong, and candidates must follow the principles of patriotism: 'love the country and love Hong Kong'. The action has triggered a majority of dissatisfactions among Hong Kong students, who remains doubtful that the framework may not encompass full democracy with the vast amount of restrictions within. Thus, the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS)and Scholarism has initiated a class boycott on 22 and 26 September 2014 over 20 universities and secondary schools has participated in the campaign to object to the government's pre-screening policy while seek for fully democratic elections.