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 The Hong Kong Federation of Students will decide in the next week
whether to call on protesters to pull up stakes despite having
failed to achieve their goal of ensuring open nominations in the
election for the city's next leader in 2017.
"Some people wish to stay until the last minute and we respect that
- but we cannot occupy without meaning," federation spokeswoman
Yvonne Leung told local radio. "We will decide within the next week
whether to stay or retreat."
The federation is one of several groups driving the protests in the
former British colony. Some members of another student group,
Scholarism, have gone on hunger strike while leaders of the
pro-democracy "Occupy Central" movement surrendered to police on
Wednesday and called on students to retreat.
 Student leaders held talks with Hong Kong officials in late October
but failed to break the deadlock after the government said their
demand for open nominations was impossible under the laws of the
former British colony.
Last month, three student leaders were stopped from boarding a
flight to Beijing to take their fight for greater democracy to the
Chinese government. Airline authorities said their travel permits
were invalid.
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Hong Kong returned to Chinese Communist Party rule in 1997 under a
"one country, two systems" formula that gives it some autonomy from
the mainland and a promise of eventual universal suffrage. Beijing
has allowed a free vote in 2017, but insists on screening any
candidates for city leader first.
The protests at their peak drew more than 100,000 into the streets
but the numbers have now dwindled to just a few hundred.
(Reporting by Diana Chan; Writing by Clare Baldwin; Editing by
Jeremy Laurence)
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