About 50 protesters remain inside university after three-day standoff
HONG KONG >> About 50 protesters remained holed up inside a Hong Kong university Tuesday evening after a threeday standoff between students and police turned a prestigious institution into a battlefield and ended with hundreds of young people behind bars.
More than 1,000 protesters who had spent the previous day clashing with police were detained after heavily armed officers surrounded the school Sunday and gave the protesters few options but to surrender and face arrest.
A number of students had escaped by rappelling from a nearby bridge to be whisked away by waiting motorbike drivers, while others failed in an attempt to flee through a sewage pipe.
As much of the territory remained gripped by the drama at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the central government in Beijing on Tuesday condemned a decision by a Hong Kong court that overturned a ban on face masks worn by protesters.
The Hong Kong protests began in June over legislation, since scrapped, that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, and have expanded to include a broad range of demands for police accountability and greater democracy.
Pinned in from all sides by police, most of the campus occupiers had surrendered or fled the PolyU campus by Tuesday morning.
By then, on the third day of a standoff, only 100 protesters remained inside. Several hours later, the remaining holdouts numbered around 50.
The battle at PolyU, in which the police fired more than 1,000 cans of tear gas and rubber bullets, represented the force’s most direct intervention onto one of the city’s university campuses.
The departing protesters were searched by police and those older than 18 were put into a police van to be booked.
The remaining occupiers said that they would not resist the police, but that they would not leave until officers entered the campus to arrest them.
At least 200 of the protesters who left the campus were minors, Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, said in a news conference Tuesday.
Those under 18 were questioned by police but were not arrested on the spot. They may still face arrest pending further investigation, Lam said.
The Hong Kong Hospital Authority treated about 80 injured people from the university at emergency rooms Tuesday morning. Another 200 from the campus were later sent to local hospitals.