The South China Morning Post has reported that thousands of Hong Kong and Taiwanese activists have signed an online petition against an apparent attempt by the United Nations to purge traditional Chinese characters from its documents by 2008.

As of yesterday, there were 156,188 protest votes worldwide on Gopetition.com. Taiwan led the way with 105,785 votes, while Hong Kong contributed 11,905.

But has the petition on leading website Gopetition.com come several decades too late? A UN spokesman said the organisation had been using simplified characters since the 1970s, when Chinese representation on the world body switched from Taipei to Beijing. It appears, however, that there may clear political motivation for this exclusive use of simplified Chinese.

To view the South China Morning Post article click here.

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2. GoPetition in the Media
3. Petition gets shot from HK activists fighting against UN exclusive use of simplified characters