Hong Kong police fired repeated volleys of tear gas to disperse pro-democracy protests yesterday and baton-charged the crowd blocking a key road in the government district after issuing official warnings against illegal demonstrations.
The territory’s Admiralty district had descended into chaos as chanting protesters converged on police barricades surrounding colleagues who had earlier launched a “new era” of civil disobedience to pressure Beijing into granting full democracy to Hong Kong.
Police, in lines five-deep in places and wearing helmets and gas masks, staged repeated pepper spray attacks and shot tear gas into the air. The crowd fled several hundred meters, scattering their umbrellas and hurling abuse at police, calling them “cowards.”
Photo: REUTERS
However, demonstrators returned and by early evening, tens of thousands of protesters were thronging streets, including outside the prominent Pacific Place shopping mall that leads toward the Central financial district.
Fresh rounds of tear gas cleared some of the roads in Admiralty and pushed protesters toward Central.
Police had not used tear gas in Hong Kong since breaking up WTO protests against South Korean farmers in 2005.
Photo: AFP
Clouds of tear gas also blew back toward police lines, but it is unclear how many people on either side have needed treatment.
“We will fight until the end... We will never give up,” said Peter Poon, a protester in his 20s, adding that they may have to execute a temporary retreat as night falls.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) pledged “resolute” action against the protest movement known as Occupy Central with Love and Peace.
“The police are determined to handle the situation appropriately in accordance with the law,” Leung said just hours before the charge.
A spokesperson for China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office added that the government in Beijing fully supported Hong Kong’s handling of the situation “in accordance with the law.”
Inside the cordon, thousands had huddled in plastic capes, masks and goggles as they waited for a fresh police charge to clear the area before Hong Kong was to open for business this morning.
However, Beijing last month rejected demands for Hong Kongers to freely choose the territory’s next leader, prompting threats from activists to shut down Central.
China is thought to want to limit elections to a handful of candidates loyal to Beijing.
While promising a fresh round of public consultation, Leung also described Beijing’s decision as “legally binding.”
Publishing tycoon Next Media Group (壹傳媒集團) chairman Jimmy Lai (黎智英), a key backer of the pro-democracy movement, said he wanted as big a crowd of protesters as possible to thwart any crackdown after a week of student demonstrations.
“The more Hong Kong citizens come, the more unlikely the police can clear up the place,” said Lai, also wearing a plastic cape and workmen’s protective glasses.
“Even if we get beaten up, we cannot fight back. We will win this war with love and peace,” he said.
Organizers said as many as 80,000 people thronged the streets in Admiralty, galvanised by the arrests of student activists on Friday. Police have so far arrested 78 people, including Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), the 17-year-old leader of student group Scholarism, who was dragged away after he called on the protesters to charge the government premises. He was still in detention yesterday.
His parents said in a statement the decision to detain him was an act of “political persecution.”
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
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