“We’ve never asked for permission from the law, we’ve never asked for permission from the courts, we’ve never asked for permission from HSBC,” said Nin Chan, one of the Occupy activists. “From the very beginning we’ve never recognized these authorities as legitimate.”
While HSBC owns the land, it’s legally designated as a public passageway. The judge ruled that the activists’ use of the space goes beyond the land’s designated use.
Protesters have been given until August 27th to vacate the area around HSBC’s Hong Kong Headquarters, you may or may not have heard about the bank in the news recently for profiting hundreds of millions of dollars in fees when it “laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels, terrorists and pariah states.”
WALL STREET JOURNAL: The decision by the high court came after HSBC Holdings PLC filed a lawsuit last month against four defendants affiliated with the movement. Occupy protesters have been camping in a designated public space beneath the bank’s Hong Kong headquarters—one of the city’s most recognizable buildings—since Oct. 17. The court ruled that the use of the area is beyond its designated purpose.
