Hong Kong protesters, police in tense stand-off

HONG KONG — Dozens of protesters were in a tense stand-off last night with a large number of riot police officers near Hong Kong’s government headquarters after protesters appeared to advance towards an area near the entrance to the office of the city’s leader.

Television stations showed hundreds of police officers wearing helmets and holding shields facing off with the student-led protesters, who have been locked in a stalemate with the authorities after the government called off negotiations last week.

Local television reports said the stand-off began when protesters tried to take over a tunnel in front of the government headquarters near Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s office. They said the police used pepper spray to try to disperse the protesters but failed and fell back, leaving the tunnel in the hands of the protesters.

Earlier yesterday, the police cleared barricades from protest zones that have choked off traffic in key business districts for more than two weeks, signalling the authorities’ growing impatience with the student-led activists.

Appearing to use a strategy of gradually chipping away at the three main protest zones, hundreds of police officers fanned out in the early hours to take down barriers the protesters had erected overnight. Officers used electric saws and bolt cutters to take down bamboo scaffolding built in the government district of Admiralty after a mob of masked men stormed some of the barricades the day before. Protesters camped out in Admiralty later reinforced their makeshift barriers.

“This is our last line of defence. We can’t afford to let the police get through,” said Mr Issac Chung, 21, a marketing student, as metal fences were piled up. The police also removed metal barricades from another protest camp on a road in the nearby Causeway Bay shopping area to free up a lane for traffic.

The police will continue to take down barriers set up by protesters, spokesman Steve Hui said. He said they would continue to remove barriers at protest sites, including in the district of Mong Kok, north of the city’s harbour. He added that officers arrested 23 men in Monday’s violent clashes, when masked men and taxi drivers led a crowd of several hundred who tried to charge the protest zone.

Student leaders have urged protesters to maintain the blockades for as long as the government ignored their call for talks over China’s plans for the city’s 2017 leadership election.

The clearance operation yesterday came hours after Mr Leung signalled that he was losing patience with the protests that have disrupted traffic and commerce for more than two weeks. Some protesters said the more aggressive approach by the authorities over the past two days followed a weekend meeting between Mr Leung and Chinese officials across the mainland border.

China’s ruling Communist Party believes it had offered enough concessions to Hong Kong in the past and will give no ground to pro-democracy protests because it wants to avoid setting a precedent for reform on the mainland, sources told Reuters yesterday.

Sources with ties to the Chinese leadership said Beijing believed it had been tolerant enough of the protests. Asked if the central government will make minor concessions, a source said: “Dialogue (with protest leaders) is already a concession.” AGENCIES