‘Many more than 100’ students still under siege
– Black shadows flitting around in small groups, deserted rubbish-strewn corridors and cockroaches in disembowelled kitchens: dawn broke yesterday to reveal a post-apocalyptic scene at a Hong Kong campus six days after a police siege began.
In a near-empty, soundless labyrinth, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is decoupled from the cacophony of a brash, bustling city of 7.5 million people. The pro-democracy protesters holding this brick “fortress” are almost invisible as they hide in the maze of rooms and corridors.
They occasionally emerge in twos or threes and give interviews to the assembled media. They are dressed and masked in black, the signature colour of the pro-democracy movement that over the past six months has turned into the biggest challenge to China’s rule of Hong Kong since the city was returned from Britain in 1997.
“The police say we are a hundred. We avoid giving a number but I can tell you that we are many more,” said one protester calling himself Mike. Hundreds of protesters have left PolyU in recent days, slipping out through the drainage system or making a daring breakout by ropes to awaiting motorcycles. “The battle of Saturday and Sunday was the most terrible fight in Hong Kong history,” said Mike.
After the initial confrontations, the stand-off turned into a siege as police surrounded the complex. After nearly one week it seems the police may be prepared to wait for the final protesters to emerge to arrest them.