Besieged students stand firm
EXHAUSTED: POLICE SURROUND HONG KONG CAMPUS AS FOOD AND WATER RUNS LOW
US passes legislation backing protesters’ demands and UN calls for a resolution.
Dozens of pro-democracy protesters stood firm within a besieged Hong Kong university yesterday, where an SOS sign was laid out as supporters took up calls to distract police surrounding the campus by disrupting city transport.
The standoff between demonstrators and police at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) rippled overseas, with the UN’s human rights office urging a peaceful resolution, while the US senate passed new legislation supporting protesters’ demands.
The epicentre of nearly six months of increasingly savage anti-China protests has shifted to the PolyU campus, a stone’s throw from the city’s harbour, where hardcore protesters have held off riot police with Molotov cocktails, bricks and arrows.
The confrontation has been the most intense and prolonged in nearly six months of unrest that began over a now-shelved bill to allow extraditions to China, which revived fears Beijing was slicing into the city’s freedoms.
Millions of angry citizens have hit the streets in a movement that snowballed into wider calls for free elections and an inquiry into alleged police brutality, demands that Hong Kong’s Beijing-appointed leaders have rebuffed.
Protesters at PolyU said 50 of their number remained after hundreds had fled deteriorating conditions and officials warned that police may fire live rounds.
Exhausted youths continued to wander the debris-strewn campus, preparing Molotov cocktails while others slept on a gym floor. A large SOS sign was laid out across a courtyard, apparently intended to be viewed from above. A 20-year-old protester said food and water were running low. “We will die because they don’t let us out. Some people want to get out, but they cannot,” he said.
Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam called on Tuesday for protesters to surrender, adding that those over 18 would face rioting charges. Others were medically evacuated overnight, and yesterday before dawn police arrested a dozen students making a break for it.
Police said nearly 900 people at the campus had turned themselves in as of Tuesday night and 213 people were charged in court yesterday with rioting for diversionary actions earlier this week. The charge carries a maximum of 10 years in prison. The US Senate on Tuesday adopted new legislation threatening to revoke the favourable trade status the semi-autonomous Chinese territory has with the US if freedoms are quashed. –