■ Hong Kong police fire tear gas and clear protesters by force from a neighborhood.

Police respond with force after demonstrators defy warnings

HONG KONG — Hong Kong police on Saturday fired tear gas, swung batons and forcefully cleared out protesters who defied warnings not to march in a neighborhood where last weekend a mob apparently targeting demonstrators brutally attacked people in a train station.

Protesters wearing all black streamed through the Yuen Long area, even though police refused to grant permission for the march, citing risks of confrontations between demonstrators and local residents.

By nightfall, protesters and police were once again facing off in the streets, as they’ve done previously during the summer-long pro-democracy protests that are fueled by fears over the steady erosion of civil rights in the Chinese territory.

Demonstrators threw objects and ducked behind makeshift shields, and police officers shot plumes of tear gas into the air.

Later, police wielding batons charged into the train station where a few hundred protesters had taken refuge from the tear gas. Some officers swung their batons directly at demonstrators, while others appeared to be urging their colleagues to hang back. For the second week in a row, blood was splattered on the station floor.

Police said in a statement they arrested 11 men, aged between 18 and 68, for offences including unlawful assembly, possession of offensive weapon and assault. At least four officers were injured.

The Hospital Authority said 24 people were taken to five hospitals. As of Sunday morning, eight remained hospitalized, two in serious condition.

For the protesters, it was a show of defiance against both the police and the white-clad assailants who beat dozens of people July 21, including some demonstrators heading home after a mass protest.

Police said some of the attackers at the train station were connected to triad gangs and others were villagers who live in the area. Demonstrators accused law enforcement of not acting quickly enough to protect the victims and even colluding with the mob, an allegation that police have firmly denied. Another protest is scheduled for Sunday.

On Saturday, the streets of Yuen Long became a sea of umbrellas. A symbol going back to the Occupy Central protests that shook Hong Kong in 2014, umbrellas have become tools to help protesters conceal their identities from police cameras as well as shields against tear gas and pepper spray. Some also wore masks.

“Hong Kong police know the law and break the law,” protesters chanted as they marched.

Max Chung Kin-ping, one of the rally’s organizers, said there were 288,000 participants.