Thousands of pro-democracy protesters extended a blockade of Hong Kong streets yesterday, stockpiling supplies and erecting makeshift barricades ahead of what some fear may be a push by police to clear the roads before China’s National Day.
Riot police shot pepper spray and tear gas at protesters at the weekend, but by yesterday evening they had almost completely withdrawn from the downtown Admiralty District, except for an area around the government headquarters.
On the eve of today’s anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, crowds poured into central districts of the financial hub, near where National Day festivities are scheduled to take place.
Photo: AFP
Rumors rippled through crowds of protesters that police could be preparing to move in again.
“Many powerful people from the mainland will come to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government won’t want them to see this, so the police must do something,” Cheng Sui-ying, 18, a freshman at Hong Kong University’s School of Professional and Continuing Education, said of the National Day holiday.
“We are not scared. We will stay here tonight. Tonight is the most important,” she said.
Student leaders gave Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) an ultimatum to come out and address the protesters before midnight, threatening to escalate action in the next few days to occupy more government facilities, buildings and public roads if he failed to do so.
The protesters, mostly students, are demanding full democracy and have called on Leung to step down after Beijing ruled a month ago that it would vet candidates wishing to run for Hong Kong’s leadership in 2017.
While Leung has said Beijing would not back down in the face of protests that it has branded illegal, he also said Hong Kong police would be able to maintain security without help from People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops from the mainland.
“When a problem arises in Hong Kong, our police force should be able to solve it. We don’t need to ask to deploy the PLA,” Beijing-backed Leung told reporters at a briefing.
“I don’t know what the police or government will do to me, but I am 100 percent sure I need to come out,” said Ken To, the 35-year-old manager of a restaurant in the densely packed Mong Kok residential district. “We [Hong Kongers] don’t only want money. We want our kids, our future, our education.”
Protesters massed in at least four of Hong Kong’s busiest areas — Admiralty, Central, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok in Kowloon.
“We hope all the people can hold the three main occupation points — Admiralty, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok. We will call these places ‘Democracy Square,’” said Chan Kin-man (陳健民), a co-founder of protest movement Occupy Central.
Alex Chow (周永康), leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, said the protests, which began as a gathering of students and the Occupy Central movement, had become much broader and attracted people from all walks of life.
“It has evolved into a civil movement,” Chow said. “We can see the Beijing and Hong Kong governments already feel pressure, so the Occupy movement must continue.”
At one Mong Kok intersection, six abandoned double-decker buses have been turned into makeshift noticeboards, their windows papered with messages of support, such as “Please don’t give up” and “C.Y. Leung step down.”
“Even though I may get arrested, I will stay until the last minute,” 16-year-old protester John Choi said. “We are fighting for our futures.”
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