Hong Kong policeman shot in leg with arrow as bridge set on fire
● Protesters retreat into university after stand-off
A Hong Kong policeman has been hit in the leg by an arrow, while protesters set a footbridge on fire as they fought to keep officers using tear gas and water cannons from advancing on their university campus stronghold.
Police said the arrow struck a media liaison officer in the calf yesterday and he was taken to hospital.
Photographs on the department’s Facebook page show the arrow sticking out of the back of the officer’s leg.
As riot police moved in from all sides, some pro-democracy protesters retreated inside Hong Kong Polytechnic University while others set fires on bridges leading to it.
A huge blaze burned along much of a long footbridge that connects a train station to the campus over the approach to the Cross Harbour Tunnel, a majorroadunderhongkong’s port that has been blocked by the protesters for days.
The use of bows and arrows, along with petrol bombs launched using catapults, threatened to escalate the violence in the more than fivemonth-long anti-government movement.
Pro-democracy protesters are trying to keep the pressure on Hong Kong leaders, who have rejected most of their demands.
The protests were sparked by proposed legislation that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland.
Activists saw it as an erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy under the “one country, two systems” formula implemented in 1997, when the UK returned the territory to China.
The Bill has been withdrawn but the protests have expanded into a wider resistance movement against what is perceived as the growing control of Hong Kong by communist China, along with calls for full democracy for the territory.
Police and protesters faced off all day yesterday after a pitched battle the previous night in which the two sides exchanged tear gas and petrol bombs that left fires blazing in the street.
A group of people arrived in the morning to try to clean up the road but were warned away by protesters.
Riot police shot several volleys of tear gas at the protesters, who sheltered behind a wall of umbrellas and threw petrol bombs into nearby bushes and trees, setting them on fire. The protesters held their ground for most of the day, as water cannon lorries drove over bricks and nails strewn by protesters to spray them at close range – some with water dyed blue to help police identify protesters afterwards. Demonstrators began retreating into the university, fearing they would be trapped as police fired tear gas and approached from other directions.
The protesters have barricaded the entrances to the campus and set up narrow access control points.
They are the last remaining from larger groups that occupied several campuses for much of last week.
Another group threw bricks in the street to block a main road in Mongkok as police fired tear gas to try to disperse them.
The disruption to Nathan Road traffic may have been an attempt to distract police during the stand-off at Polytechnic University.
Opposition politicians criticised the Chinese military for joining a clean-up to remove debris from streets near Hong Kong Baptist University on Saturday.
Dozens of Chinese troops, dressed in black shorts and olive T-shirts, ran out in loose formation and picked up paving stones, rocks and other obstacles.
The military is allowed to help maintain public order but only at the request of the Hong Kong government.
The government said it had not requested the military’s assistance, describing it as a voluntary activity.