Police close in on occupied university
Hong Kong police and prodemocracy protesters were fighting into the early hours of yesterday morning, with police threatening to use live ammunition in the face of barrages of Molotov cocktails from a university campus.
While three protesters have been shot during the 24 weeks of protests so far, this is the first time in the crisis the police have issued the stark warning.
‘‘If they (protesters) continue such dangerous actions, we would have no choice but to use minimum force, including live rounds,’’ said police spokesman Louis Lau during a Facebook live broadcast.
The warning came after a
Hong Kong police officer was shot in the leg with an arrow fired by protesters during a day-long tear-gas and petrol-bomb fuelled standoff between police and antigovernment protesters.
Police yesterday morning had surrounded the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to prevent protesters from escaping as they move in.
Photographs of the injured officer were posted on the Hong Kong Police’s Facebook page, showing the arrow sticking out of the officer’s lower leg.
Police confirmed that the man hit was a media liaison officer,
who often join police lines acting as a buffer for the press in the protests.
On Sunday afternoon, police deployed water cannons and armoured vehicles, which broke through blockades strewn with bricks and nails, and dispersed protesters with bursts of blue dye laced with pepper spray.
Protesters retreated back towards the campus, blocking projectiles and tear gas with umbrellas and makeshift shields. There are estimated to be 200 protesters barricaded inside the university.
Meanwhile, on the roof of the
university, protesters fired arrows and catapults with flaming projectiles towards police lines.
Warning shots were reportedly fired by police, and tear gas was still being launched towards the university at 4am local time after an ultimatum for students to surrender expired, as tensions showed no sign of easing.
The university is near the Hung Hom Cross-Harbour tunnel, a 10-lane thoroughfare between the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong Island.
– Telegraph Group