The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Police lay siege to university
Hong Kong: Protesters in bid to flee
Police in Hong Kong have tightened their siege of a university campus where hundreds of protesters remained trapped in the latest dramatic episode in months of protests against growing Chinese control over the semi-autonomous city.
The pitched battle for control of the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University has been the focus of the latest protests as demonstrators for days fortified the campus to keep the police out.
Now cornered by security forces determined to arrest them, they desperately tried to get out but faced a cordon of officers armed with tear gas and water cannons.
Senior government officials said they were trying to de-escalate the situation and urged the protesters to peacefully leave the campus and cooperate with police, advice that seemed certain to lead to arrests and therefore strengthened the protesters’ resolve to resist.
Officers repelled one escape attempt early yesterday with tear gas, driving hundreds of protesters back on to the campus.
Later, huge crowds of supporters advanced on foot toward the police from outside the cordon to try to disrupt the police operation.
Some protesters descended by ropes from a footbridge to a road below, where they were met by motorbike riders trying to help them flee as police fired tear gas.
It was unclear whether they got away safely.
Throughout the day, multiple protests disrupted traffic in the Asian financial centre, where schools remained closed because of safety concerns stemming from the demonstrations, which began in June but have become increasingly violent in recent weeks.
Local council elections scheduled for Sunday were at risk of being delayed because of the unrest, said Patrick Nip, Hong Kong’s secretary for constitutional affairs.
“The situation in the past weekend has obviously reduced the chance of holding the election as scheduled. And I am very anxious about this,” Mr Nip said.
The give-and-take has played out repeatedly during the city’s months of anti-government unrest.
The protesters want to avoid arrest while the police want to pick up as many as they can.
“These rioters, they are also criminals. They have to face the consequences of their acts,” said Cheuk Hau-yip, the commander of Kowloon West district, where Polytechnic is located.