By Laura Kuenssberg
Where might you find a North Korean defector, a self-confessed
Serbian troublemaker, a Tiananmen Square protester and members of
punk group Pussy Riot in the same room?
While Hong Kong's students continue their protests and stumbling
negotiations with the territory's authorities, democracy activists
from around the world, who have helped organise their struggle,
gather together.
The Oslo Freedom Forum is one of the biggest meetings of human
rights activists in the world, and this year its rather surreal
proceedings have a different tension, as activists trying to take
on Beijing's actions in Hong Kong seek to hold their ground.
Activists are furious at what they see as Beijing's proposals to
fix the election of Hong Kong's next chief executive.
'Trained demonstrators'
However, far from being impromptu demonstrations, it is an open
secret at this meeting in Norway that plans were hatched for the
demonstrations nearly two years ago.
The ideas was to use non-violent action as a "weapon of mass
destruction" to challenge the Chinese government.
Organisers prepared a plan to persuade 10,000 people on to the
streets, to occupy roads in central Hong Kong, back in January
2013.
They believed that China's moves to control the Hong Kong election
would provide a flashpoint where civil disobedience could be
effective, and planned accordingly.
Their strategies were not just to plan the timing and nature of the
demonstrations, but also how they would be run.
BBC Newsnight has been told many of those involved in the
demonstrations, perhaps more than 1,000 of them, have been given
specific training to help make the campaign as effective as
possible.
'New world race'
Jianili Yang, a Chinese academic, was part of the protests in
Tiananmen Square 25 years ago.
He has been talking to the Hong Kong students on a daily basis.
He says that the students are better organised than the Tiananmen
protesters ever were, with clearer, more effective structures for
their action and clearer goals about what they are trying to
achieve.
But he adds that responsibility for what happens next is not just
down to the protesters themselves, not just down to other democracy
activists like those gathered here in Oslo, but to the rest of the
world.
Jamila Raqib, the executive director of the Albert Einstein
Institution based near Boston, which analyses and distributes
studies on non-violent struggle, says: "Protesters were taught how
to behave during a protest.
"How to keep ranks, how to speak to police, how to manage their own
movement, how to use marshals in their movement, people who are
specially trained.
"It was also how to behave when arrested - practical things like
the need for food and water, movement can last longer when people
are taken care of, and also how to manage a water cannon being used
against you, and other types of police violence."
Protests don't always work.
Srdja Popovic was one of the student leaders involved in
overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic.
He has since trained activists in 40 countries, but he says the
techniques of non-violent action that he advocates have led to
successful and lasting change in only six or seven countries.
He argues that there is more need than ever for the methods of
organisation and leadership to be shared.
He says that after the 20th Century military race, "what we are
seeing now is a new world race - now it is 'can the good guys learn
as well as the bad guys?'."
'Schmoozing for democracy'
Mr Popovic says whether in Georgia, Ukraine, Egypt or Hong Kong
"you can look at these movements - and see the set of rules".
"You have to understand the rules of the non-military
battlefield."
His work in Oslo, along with the writings of the American human
rights activist, Gene Sharp, is in high demand.
There is something incongruous about the Oslo meeting - seeing
Chinese dissidents, American computer hackers, activists from
Africa, the Middle East and Russia trade information over champagne
and canapés.
Like any conference, a good deal of the work is done after hours,
even if it is schmoozing for democracy.
Two members of Russian opposition female punk group Pussy Riot,
members of which were put in jail by President Putin, are here
too.
They say they want to "make personal contacts" and meet others
doing similar human rights work.
What this event shows is that struggles for democracy or human
rights in the 21st Century rarely happen in isolation.
Activists, whether those on the streets of Hong Kong right now, or
from other parts of the world, are sharing information and insights
faster than ever before.
Clarification: Hong Kong's Occupy Central insists that its members
have not attended the Oslo Freedom Forum nor received any specific
training from the organisations mentioned in the article.
OCLP has openly held "non-violent protest" workshops in Hong Kong
but these were wholly organised by OCLP, without any support or
intervention from foreign organisations.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29708917
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2014/10/27/who-cooked-the-hong-kong-broth/