HK protests hit universities, business district
HONG KONG: Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters clashed with riot police in the city’s upmarket business district and on university campuses yesterday, extending one of the most violent stretches of unrest seen in more than five months of political chaos.
The confrontations followed a particularly brutal day on Monday, when police shot a protester and a man was set on fire, prompting calls from western powers for compromise but further fury in China against the challenge to its rule.
“Hong Kong’s rule of law has been pushed to the brink of total collapse,” police spokesman Kong Wing-cheung told a press conference yesterday afternoon as he denounced the latest rounds of violence.
In Central, a district that is home to many blue-chip international firms and luxury shops, thousands of office workers occupied roads for hours chanting: “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong!”.
Hundreds of hardcore protesters, dressed in their signature black clothes and masks, then used a passenger bus to barricade a key road in the area.
They threw bricks and other objects before retreating when riot police fired tear gas in the shadows of high-end stores.
The scenes in Central were a vivid illustration of how moderate people are continuing to back the pro-democracy movement even as their more radical allies adopt more violent tactics.
Meanwhile, universities emerged as a new battleground with sustained clashes at major campuses for the first time.
At China University of Hong Kong, police fired multiple volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets in the afternoon at hundreds of protesters, who had built barricades afters an hourslong stand-off between the two sides.
Protesters responded with bricks and petrol bombs, while a vehicle used in a barricade was set alight.
At City University, protesters used a three-person slingshot to fire bricks at police from a footbridge.
Masked activists also built barricades and blocked roads at Hong Kong University while at Polytechnic University, clashes broke out as police tried to arrest a female student.
During the morning rush hour hardcore protesters blocked roads, threw objects onto rail tracks and held up subway trains, sparking yet another bout of transport chaos throughout the city.
Chinese state media on
Tuesday raised the spectre of the People’s Liberation Army being deployed to end the crisis.
The warnings were in response to Monday’s violence, in which a man was doused with a flammable liquid and set ablaze by a masked assailant following an argument with pro-democracy protesters.
Chinese authorities, as well as state-run media, have said the attack was an example of protesters’ violent tactics, although the assailant has not been arrested and his identity remains unknown.
“This kind of hair-raising behaviour has caused terror and anxiety among the broader Hong Kong public,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in Beijing.
On Monday, protesters rampaged through train stations, vandalised shops and barricaded streets. — AFP