HONG KONG (Reuters) – Thousands of pro-democracy activists clashed with police in running scuffles in Hong Kong’s gritty Mong Kok district early yesterday in a bid to reclaim part of one of the city’s largest and most volatile protest sites.
After a tense standoff lasting hours, chaos erupted as hundreds of riot police baton-charged demonstrators with shields, pepper spraying and wrestling a string of them to the ground.
The clampdown only stoked more protests, and a three-hour march by hundreds of people calling for “real full democracy” helped put the city’s 28,000-strong police force further on edge.
Bands of roving protesters stalked the streets deep into the night amid a wail of sirens, sometimes pelting police with eggs, bottled water and wooden boards. Police, some bleeding, lashed out liberally with their batons to keep crowds back.
The fresh tensions came as authorities have struggled for months to find a resolution to the most serious governance crisis in the former British colony since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Unrest has simmered for three straight nights since a swift and surprisingly smooth police clearance of Mong Kok’s main protest encampment on Wednesday that resulted in over a hundred arrests including student leaders Joshua Wong and Lester Shum.
Amnesty International on Friday warned the police against the use of excessive force after Wong and Shum both said they were beaten during their arrests. Several reporters were also roughed up, prompting the Hong Kong Journalists Association to lodge a formal complaint and plan a Saturday protest.
“Is there a need to really use so much force to beat us,” said Wong Ching-san, a young protester wearing a black jacket and flip flops. “We’re not trying to cause violence but when they attack us we fight back.”
Medical volunteers manning first aid stations treated scores of injured including those with head injuries, grazes and others who’d been pepper sprayed in the eyes.
A pro-democracy lawmaker who observed the clashes, Leung Yiu-chung, criticised the lack of restraint by some police.