Two Hong Kong student leaders were banned from a large area of Mong Kok district as a condition of their bail yesterday after they were arrested during scuffles with police, who cleared one of the largest protest sites that have choked the territory for weeks.
Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), Lester Shum (岑敖暉) and activist lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄), who was also banned from Mong Kok district, were charged with obstructing court bailiffs and did not enter a plea.
They are due to appear in court again on Jan. 14.
Photo: AFP
Wong, Shum and Leung were among more than 100 people arrested in Mong Kok over the past two days. Wong’s student group Scholarism confirmed the court ban. Shum and Leung received similar bail terms.
The protesters are demanding open nominations for the territory’s next chief executive nomination in 2017. Beijing said in August it would allow a vote, but only among pre-screened candidates.
Lined with banks, noodle shops and gritty tenements, the streets of Mong Kok have been a key battleground for protesters and mobs intent on disbanding them, and was viewed as the protest site most likely to resist clearance.
While the protesters regrouped and tried to storm back onto the roads, they ultimately failed to penetrate the mass of police officers armed with pepper spray and batons deployed to defend the major traffic intersections.
Some protesters were hospitalized with head injuries from police batons.
The main protest site in Admiralty next to the territory’s chief executive office and the barracks of China’s People’s Liberation Army remains largely intact.
There is also a smaller protest site remaining in the Causeway Bay shopping district.
As the students regroup, they may target government buildings, another student leader told local broadcaster RTHK.
“Further actions include a possibility of some escalations pointed at government-related buildings or some of the government-related departments,” Hong Kong Federation of Students member Yvonne Leung (梁麗幗) said, adding that details of the actions would be released soon.
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