Improve

The government would put forward measures to improve people’s livelihoods, she said in a statement after the visit.

Young people are at the forefront of the protests, worried about China encroaching on Hong Kong’s freedoms. The city is already battling problems such as skyhigh living costs and what people see as an unfair housing policy favouring the wealthy.

The normally efficient and orderly city has seen its transport network besieged and shut down by demonstrators, while protests have shut big-brand stores and popular shopping malls.

Three masked activists, who did not give their names, held a news conference on Thursday, their second this week and broadcast on domestic television channels, to criticise what they called arbitrary arrests and police use of tear gas.

“The continuation of such attempts at spreading fear and suppressing the freedom of press will eventually backfire on the government itself,” one activist told the Citizens’ Press Conference, a platform protesters are using to voice concerns over the situation in Hong Kong.

“The ultimate victim of these tactics will be the police force’s crumbling public image,” said the activist, who spoke in English.

The comments came after plainclothes police arrested a student leader from Baptist University, Keith Fong, on the grounds that laser pointers he bought were offensive weapons.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of protesters held a rally and shined lasers on the dome of the city’s Space Museum in Tsim Sha Tsui, demanding Fong be released, and mocking the police’s description of the pointers as “laser guns”.

Several thousand Hong Kong lawyers, dressed in black, marched in silence on Wednesday to call on the government to safeguard the independence of the city’s department of justice.

They fear the justice department’s prosecutions of arrested protesters are taking on an increasingly political slant. Many of those arrested have been charged with rioting, which carries a 10-year jail term.