By Benjamin Garvey
HONG KONG
A pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong has alleged the apparent hacking of a protest organizer's email account is an attempt to smear activists.
Protest leader Benny Tai is said to have helped unidentified people make donations worth HK$1.3 million ($168,000) to different departments of the University of Hong Kong between May 2013 and May 2014, local newspaper Ming Pao reported Wednesday.
The report cited documents attached to an email the newspaper received from a person claiming to be "a scholar who loves the university."
Ip Kwok-him, a legislator for the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said the leaked emails raised the possibility the donations came from foreign sources. In an interview earlier this month, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying suggested the pro-democracy demonstrations had been inspired by unspecified "external forces."
Lawmaker Claudia Mo, of the Civic Party, said the apparent hacking and leaking of Tai's emails were part of an attempt to discredit leading protesters. "This is just hacking to smear pro-democracy icons," she told Anadolu Agency. "Definitely, it's state-level-type hacking."
Stressing the need to investigate details about the donations and their source, she added: "But we can't say just because the information was stolen it's not applicable -- there must be high levels of probity."
Tai, one of the founders the Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign in January 2013, had originally told the university two of the donations came from unidentified donors, but later said they were all provided by Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, another co-founder of the protest movement.
Last night, as reports of the donations surfaced, protest organizers issued a statement saying that a Hong Konger had last year donated money to Chu, who then decided to make three donations: HK$800,000 to the university’s public opinion polling program; HK$300,000 to its law faculty; and HK$200,000 to its arts faculty. The donor was not named in the statement.
Another donation of HK$150,000 came from a collection taken up at Chu’s birthday dinner earlier this year, protest organizers added.
Meanwhile, Liberal Party leader James Tien faces being kicked off of a Beijing advisory body -- the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference -- after recent statements that Leung should consider stepping down, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported Wednesday.
Citing political analysts, the report said ousting Tien from the body would send a message to "anti-Leung forces" in the former British colony.
As the movement enters its second month, the standoff between protesters and the government appears to be at a stalemate. Protesters say they will not go home until the government commits itself to an electoral system with civic nomination for the 2017 chief executive election. Talks last week failed to achieve any breakthrough.
In August, Chinese leaders ruled that while Hong Kongers could choose their next chief executive, the candidates would have to be approved by a 1,200-member nominating committee -- which protesters suspect would be stuffed with party loyalists.
The ongoing civil disobedience movement is seen as the biggest challenge to Beijing's authority in Hong Kong since the handover in 1997.
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