‘Listen to us, or we’ll strike again’

HONG KONG: ANGER BUILDS AS CHINA IGNORES POLL VICTORY

Police stand down after siege with protesters at varsity.

Hong Kong police yesterday ended their two-week siege of a university campus that became a battleground with pro-democracy protesters, as activists vowed to hold fresh rallies in the coming days.

Renewed calls to hit the streets came after Beijing and city leader Carrie Lam refused further political concessions despite a landslide victory for pro-democracy parties in local elections last weekend.

Sunday’s district council polls delivered a stinging rebuke to the financial hub’s pro-Beijing establishment and undermined their argument that a silent majority were tired of the nearly six months of violent protests.

They also ushered in a rare period of calm following weeks of spiralling unrest, with no clashes or teargas battles between protesters and police for more than a week.

But the calm spell looks set to end as public anger grows once more over the lack of response to the election results by Beijing and Hong Kong’s leaders.

In China this week, state media has sought to downplay and discredit the weekend ballot while Lam, who boasts record-low approval ratings, has acknowledged public dissatisfaction but ruled out further concessions.

“I have every confidence Hong Kong can bounce back as we always do,” Lam said yesterday during an official visit to Thailand.

But online forums used to organise the mass movement have filled with calls for a major rally tomorrow and a strike on Monday targeting the morning commute.

“If the communist Hong Kong government ignores public opinion, we will blossom everywhere for five or six days straight... We have to set a deadline,” read one post on the Reddit-like LIHKG forum, which got heavy approval from users.

The calls raise the spectre of a return to the kind of weekly political chaos that has battered Hong Kong for nearly six months and helped tip the city into recession.

Hundreds of office workers held flashmob rallies during their lunch break yesterday in multiple locations across the city, prompting the deployment of riot police. But the protesters dispersed peacefully.

Earlier in the day, police said they were closing the book on one of the most violent chapters of the protest movement – the siege of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It became a battleground on November 17 between police and protesters armed with bows and arrows. – AFP