A banner that read in Chinese “Macau Also Wants Real Universal Suffrage” was hung on the external wall of the University of Macau (UM) library on its new Hengqin campus Tuesday, but was removed by security guards in less than an hour.
The banner was hung on the UM Wu Yee Sun Library sometime after 3 p.m. It was spotted by the university’s security guards about 20 minutes later and removed shortly before 4 p.m., according to activist sources.
Pictures of the banner were quickly posted on the Facebook pages of local Internet activist media outlet Macau Concealers and Orange Post, a monthly magazine published a group of UM students.
The yellow banner contained black Chinese characters, the same as the banners used by supporters of the “Occupy Central” movement in Hong Kong. According to activist sources, two female UM students were the masterminds behind it, saying they spent the last few days making the banner and it took them an hour to evade detection to get up on the library roof to hang the banner. One of the students told local reporters she wanted to use this opportunity to raise awareness of Macau’s political reform.
The New UM campus is located on a one-square-kilometre plot of land on Hengqin Island leased by the Macau government from Zhuhai.
While Macau has full jurisdiction over the campus, it is not an integral part of the territory of the Macau Special Administrative Region’s (MSAR). The Macau Basic Law defines the MSAR as consisting of the Macau peninsula, Taipa and Coloane.
Unlike its Hong Kong counterpart, the Macau Basic Law does not call for the introduction of universal suffrage.(macaunews/macaupost)
