Hong Kong spirals into renewed chaos
Police use tear gas in subway station
HONG KONG — Hong Kong was convulsed by mass demonstrations and chaos for a second straight day Sunday, as police fired tear gas into a subway station and authorities accused protesters of attacking officers with gasoline bombs.
The unrest in several downtown districts came in the 10th weekend of protests in the semiautonomous Chinese territory and capped a week in which the protest movement mounted its fiercest resistance yet to Beijing’s rule of the former British colony.
The chaos and uncertainty, in which the police said some protesters threw gasoline bombs at them, came six days after a general strike and street clashes brought much of the financial hub to a rare standstill.
Top Chinese officials have said the demonstrations “have the clear characteristics of a color revolution,” a reference to uprisings in the former Soviet bloc that Beijing believes drew inspiration from the United States, and they accused a U. S. diplomat — without evidence — of being a “black hand” bent on stirring chaos in the territory.
For now at least, protesters seem determined to keep pressing their broad demands for greater democracy, in part by using flashmobstyle tactics on the streets that keep the authorities guessing their next move.
The Hong Kong police, meanwhile, appear increasingly eager to clear away the crowds and spray tear gas in residential neighborhoods and popular shopping and nightlife districts — even as those tactics outrage residents and help the protesters’ argument that the police force has gone rogue.
The use of gasoline bombs by protesters — which has been fairly rare all summer — in Sunday’s unrest suggested a possible escalation in the movement’s tactics.
The civil disobedience began in the afternoon with a peaceful rally in Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island that had been authorized by the police. The protesters had been expected to march east from the park to nearby North Point, a traditionally pro- Beijing neighborhood and the site of a mob attack on protesters last week.
Instead, the protesters headed in the opposite direction along a major thoroughfare, bringing traffic to a halt and leaving their next moves unclear.
“We no longer demonstrate based on a schedule, which I think works well,” said Dominic Chan, 26, a protester who works in retail. “We spread to different places, because every arrest means one less protester in the field.”
Some protesters tried to approach the headquarters of the Hong Kong police, west of Victoria Park, but retreated as officers charged at them and fired tear gas in Wan Chai, a downtown neighborhood whose bars and restaurants are popular with expatriates. Police said protesters had also thrown gasoline bombs at officers in the area.
Officers fired tear gas at other protesters in Sham Shui Po and Tsim Sha Tsui, two neighborhoods on the Kowloon peninsula, across a glittering harbor from Hong Kong Island. Police later said that an officer from Tsim Sha Tsui had suffered burns on his legs from a gasoline bomb.
Television footage from Kowloon showed police officers in riot gear charging at protesters and tackling some of them to the ground or hitting them with batons. The police said in a statement that some protesters had been hurling bricks at officers, “posing a threat to the safety of everyone at scene.”
A few districts north, television footage showed police officers firing tear gas into the Kwai Fong subway station, near a police station where protesters had gathered. It appeared to be the first time that the police had resorted to that tactic in an effort to clear demonstrators.