Clashes, tear gas welcome Christmas
HONG KONG: Hong Kong marked Christmas Eve with tear gas, petrol bombs and mall clashes on Tuesday night as battles between democracy activists and riot police swept through a major shopping district.
The evening’s unrest was the most sustained in what has otherwise been a few weeks of comparative calm for a city upended by more than six months of violent protests.
Thousands of black-clad protesters — some wearing Santa hats and reindeer antlers — took to the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, a usually bustling tourist district.
Clashes soon erupted, with riot police firing multiple rounds of tear gas to disperse protesters throughout the evening, including outside the famous Peninsula Hotel. Rubber bullet casings were also seen on the ground.
Police said a “large group of rioters” had built barricades, damaged traffic lights and dug up bricks on the area’s major thoroughfares and vandalised stores. Some threw petrol bombs in one district, they added.
Meanwhile, flash-mob rallies were held in multiple malls across the financial hub, with protesters chanting anti-government slogans.
In Harbour City, a luxury mall, police used pepper spray and batons when a group of plainclothes officers were discovered and surrounded, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
The plainclothes officers made multiple arrests as the crowds threw objects and heckled them. Riot police quickly arrived, with one aiming a shotgun at protesters as shops quickly shuttered. Flash-mob rallies formed in at least four other locations on Tuesday night, with riot police trying to disperse crowds.