Unrest reigns in the streets of Hong Kong

HONG KONG — Protesters launched three days of civil disobedience Saturday with a sprawling march that again erupted into violent clashes with police, who responded by firing tear gas as the embattled government takes a harder line against the pro-democracy movement.

Thousands occupied a major shopping district for hours, and some attacked a police station with bricks and paint-filled bottles.

Deep into this morning, streets in some of the city’s densest districts were convulsed by violence and tense standoffs between riot police and young protesters in hard hats, gas masks and their signature black T-shirts.

The occupations and continuing violence suggest that demonstrators are determined to keep pressing a broad range of demands for greater democracy.

The initial protests, which began nearly two months ago, were prompted by opposition to legislation that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s unpopular chief executive, later suspended the bill and said it was “dead.” But she has refused to withdraw it formally, as protesters have demanded, or make further concessions.

The protesters are also seeking Lam’s resignation, direct elections, the retraction of the government’s characterization of a protest June 12 as a riot, the unconditional release of all arrested protesters and an independent inquiry into police violence against protesters.

Saturday’s unrest began with a police-approved march in Kowloon, a broad peninsula that sits across a harbor from

Kong’s main island.

But some protesters streamed past the official endpoint, marching south into Tsim Sha Tsui, a shopping area along the harbor that is popular with mainland

Hong Chinese tourists. At one point, they removed a Chinese flag from a pole and tossed it into the harbor.

By nightfall, the protesters had brought traffic to a standstill and built barricades across some streets, forcing the area’s luxury boutiques and other stores to close.

Some protesters stormed onto a nearby highway and blocked the exit of a tunnel that crosses under the harbor. Traffic resumed about an hour later.

Other protesters surrounded the police station in Tsim Sha Tsui. They threw bricks and glass bottles filled with white paint, spray-painted obscenities on the building’s facade and set a fire outside the station’s entrance.

The police presence in Kowloon was light for much of the day, but riot police appeared on the streets after 9 p.m. They fired tear gas into the crowds in several areas, forcing some protesters to disperse. Video footage showed police officers tackling some demonstrators.

In Mong Kok, the densely packed Kowloon neighborhood where Saturday’s approved march began, police officers beat protesters with batons, a Hong Kong broadcaster reported late Saturday.

Standoffs continued early today in several spots. Police fired tear gas after clashing with demonstrators in Wong Tai Sin, a residential neighborhood of Kowloon, and expressed “strong condemnation” of violence there. Police said after midnight that protesters were hurling objects, breaking windows and damaging gates.

The South China Morning Post reported that a protester in Kowloon had thrown a gasoline bomb at police but that it landed short of its target.

Elson Li / Associated Press A protester is enveloped in tear gas during a confrontation with police early today in Hong Kong, which is dealing with its worst political crisis since Britain handed control of it to China in 1997.