Hong Kong pro-democracy activists recaptured parts of a core protest zone from police early yesterday after hours of turmoil that the city’s police chief warned undermined order and jeopardized public safety.
Dozens of people were injured, including 18 police, in the skirmishes that raged through the night as several thousand protesters squared off again police in the densely populated Mong Kok area.
At least 33 people were arrested, Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK reported.
Photo: EPA
Police used batons and pepper spray, and scuffled violently with activists, but they were eventually forced to pull back less than 24 hours after they reopened most of the area to traffic.
The protests have been going on for three weeks and pose one of the biggest political challenges for China since the crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing in 1989.
Hong Kong Police Commissioner Andy Tsang (曾偉雄) broke three weeks of public silence to say his force had been “extremely tolerant,” but had failed to stop protesters becoming more “radical or violent.”
“To these protesters: You may think that your illegal acts have prevented the police from going about our duties, disrupted our deployments and even forced us to retreat,” Tsang told a news conference. “Superficially, that may be the case, but let me tell you this: These illegal acts are undermining the rule of law, undermining [what] Hong Kong has been relying on to succeed.”
After police retreated, demonstrators swiftly stacked up barricades made out of packing crates and fences.
Tsang said the reoccupation of the area “seriously undermined public order and seriously jeopardized public safety.”
The protesters, led by a restive generation of students, have been demanding the Chinese Communist Party live up to constitutional promises to grant full democracy to the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Hong Kong is ruled under a “one country, two systems” formula that allows the thriving capitalist hub wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms and specifies universal suffrage for Hong Kong as an eventual goal.
However, Beijing ruled on Aug. 31 it would screen candidates who want to run for the city’s chief executive in 2017, which democracy activists said rendered the universal suffrage concept meaningless. The protesters are demanding free elections for their leader.
The clashes came just hours after pro-Beijing Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) offered talks to student leaders next week in an attempt to defuse the protests that have grabbed global headlines with scenes of clashes and tear gas rising between some of the world’s most valuable office buildings.
Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) yesterday announced that talks between student leaders and the city government would take place for two hours on Tuesday.
The Mong Kok area was calm later yesterday, with the number of protesters much smaller as activists rested.
Police stood in formation away from the barricades.
Posters declaring “Reclaim Mong Kok!” had been plastered on shop fronts.
The protesters who remained were bracing for another bruising night.
Student Angel So, 20, said she was determined to stop police clearing the area again.
“We’ll keep coming back,” she said, as a friend, Terry Leung, nursed grazes on his arms and legs from scuffles with police.
Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), a bookish 18-year-old whose fiery speeches have helped drive the protests, was defiant.
“We will stay and fight till the end,” he said as he surveyed the crowd during the night, from on top of a subway station exit.
The escalation in the confrontation illustrates the dilemma faced by police in trying to strike a balance between law enforcement and not inciting the protesters, who have been out since late last month in three core shopping and government districts.
Besides Mong Kok, about 1,000 protesters remained camped out on Hong Kong Island in a sea of tents on an eight-lane highway beneath skyscrapers close to government headquarters.
Despite Leung’s offer of talks next week, few expect any resolution without more concrete concessions from authorities.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS