Hong Kong protesters try to storm legislative building, police use pepper spray
As government building is stormed, Hong Kong protesters debate the endgame
(about 9 hours later)
HONG KONG — After one group of protesters offered little resistance to authorities clearing out a section of their long-running encampment Tuesday morning, others — apparently frustrated that the movement has stalled — arrived in the evening and used barricades to break the glass facade of the government’s legislative council building.
HONG KONG — It began with a bang — with tear gas, rubber bullets and baton-wielding police charging at student demonstrators.
The more radical protesters appeared to be trying to storm into the legislative building while other protesters blocked police from interfering.
Now, almost two months into a pro-democracy protest, the few hundred who were still camped out are openly debating when and how to end it — and what that ending will mean for this city’s prospects for democracy.
In response, police unleashed pepper spray.
Tuesday and Wednesday witnessed starkly different attitudes and intentions among the protesters. When, on Tuesday morning, authorities began to clear a small edge of the main protest site, few who were there resisted. A handful even helped workers carry away barricades as a gesture of compliance.
The different approaches by the pro-democracy demonstrators helped punctuate a debate over when and how to end the protests — and what that ending will mean for this city’s prospects for democracy.
But on Wednesday, just after midnight, others — apparently frustrated that the movement has stalled — stormed through police barriers and broke the glass facade of the government’s legislative council building in an attempt to get inside.
It began quietly enough. Authorities cleared barricades from several roads around the main site Tuesday after a court issued an order to allow free access to a commercial building. A few protesters even helped workers carry away barricades as a sign of compliance.
In response, police unleashed pepper spray on a swarm of protesters, donned riot gear and forcefully pushed the crowd of demonstrators back. The situation quickly devolved into a four-hour-plus tense standoff, with police resorting several times to using batons and pepper spray.
The action — the first in weeks against the occupied sites downtown — took place after the owners of CITIC Tower secured a court injunction to unblock the entrance to the building on the edge of the main protest site in Hong Kong’s Admiralty District.
At least two protesters were arrested in the fray, and paramedics rushed one person by stretcher to an ambulance.
Hong Kong’s leaders appear to be taking an incremental approach, after use of force in recent months only sent more residents into the streets in support of the movement.
The clashes — the most violent in weeks — point to a desperation many protesters are starting to feel as the occupation seems headed toward a protracted, but inevitable, end.
The authorities did not attempt to clear barricades or tents from the center of the protest site, where a few hundred demonstrators have remained.
From its earliest days, divisions have existed within the movement about how far to push and how aggressively to move against authorities. But by Tuesday night even some who once promoted civility above all else said they have nothing left to lose.
Several hundred protesters observing the street clearing did not resist the court order, though many debated with authorities exactly which areas were covered by it.
“After this occupation ends, I don’t think there will be another one like it. The government won’t allow it, and we won’t have the momentum for it,” said protester Brian Chan, 21. “That’s why, if there are people — like those who broke in tonight — with something in their hearts that they want to say or do to get their message across before it all ends, I support them.”
The action, which was telegraphed well in advanced by police announcements on Monday, began at 9:30 a.m. as bailiffs read out the court order and asked people to leave the site. Shortly afterward, several workers hired by the property owners used wire cutters to remove plastic ties binding together barriers around the 33-story CITIC building, which houses offices, restaurants and shops. About 100 police officers stood by, without the riot gear that has marked several of their previous violent clashes with the student protesters.
At least one protester appeared to have made it inside the legislative building after the glass was broken. And more than a dozen police officers entered the building afterward through a fire door in an apparent attempt to find intruders.
Earlier, Hong Kong police announced in a statement that they were “ready to give the fullest support to the bailiffs to execute the court order.”
In recent days, authorities appeared content to clear streets on the edges of the main site and other sites while public opinion continued turning against the occupation as it dragged on.
“Any act that amounts to obstruction may render one liable to the offense of ‘criminal contempt of court.’ If anyone obstructs or violently charges the bailiffs when they are executing their duties, Police will take resolute action,” said a police notice Monday.
The government appears to be encouraging local businesses to apply for court injunctions against discrete sections of the occupation territory, then sending court bailiffs and police to back up workers enforcing those court orders.
The court issued a similar injunction last month ordering students to leave a site in the working-class neighborhood of Mong Kok, a result of complaints by local taxi drivers and a bus company.
“It’s cheating. They should solve political problems with political solutions, not hiding behind the law,” said Liona Li, 19, a Hong Kong University student who skipped two classes to attend the protest Tuesday for fear police would clear the entire main site.
A third injunction is under consideration, brought by two bus companies requesting that more streets in Admiralty be cleared.
A court order for a protest site in the Mong Kok neighborhood makes it the likely next target for street clearing.
For more than a month, students have camped out in three of Hong Kong’s busiest neighborhoods: Admiralty, Mong Kok and Causeway Bay.
A court injunction has also been requested by businesses for Harcourt Road, which runs through the heart of the main encampment, but it has not yet been granted. Once that court order is granted and publicly posted by the government, it could signal a final showdown between the two sides.
In the movement’s early days in late September, hundreds of thousands of people joined them, particularly after Hong Kong authorities, with little warning, used pepper spray and tear gas on unarmed students. Since then, despite sporadic clashes, the government has been reluctant to employ similar force for fear of further galvanizing the movement.
But by ending the protest this way — through injunctions and incremental clearing, rather than political dialogue — the government is simply setting itself up for future fights, some said.
As a result, the movement — known as the Umbrella Revolution or Occupy Central — has waned in recent days, with a hard-core group of just a few hundred protesters remaining on most days.
“The students have shown they can mobilize 20,000 people in just a few hours over phones,” said Willy Lam, a political analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “If they leave, it doesn’t mean they won’t come back.”
According to a poll released Sunday by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, support for the occupying students has dropped to 33.9 percent, compared with 37.8 percent in October. Of the respondents, 43.5 percent said they do not support the Occupy movement, up from 35.5 percent in October.
An end without resolution will also leave much anger and distrust to fester. “They’ve taught an entire generation to hate them and to doubt everything they say,” said Dominic Chiu, who has shown up almost every night at the protest since it began in late September. “What kind of society are we going to be left with in the end?”
The poll, which was conducted Nov. 5-11, also showed that 67.4 percent of respondents thought the students should leave occupied areas.
Kris Cheng Lok-Chit contributed to this report.
Three student leaders attempted to fly to Beijing on Saturday to take their demands to China’s top officials. They were stopped at the Hong Kong airport.
A much-anticipated televised dialogue Oct. 21 between Hong Kong leaders and five student representatives also failed to resolve the issue.
When the former British colony was handed back to Chinese control in 1997, Beijing promised “one country, two systems” — a policy it said would grant Hong Kong more autonomy than other parts of China. It has also promised democratic elections for chief executive in 2017 and for legislative council after 2020.
But in recent statements, Chinese leaders have made clear that they will allow only candidates vetted and approved by Beijing to be elected.
The dispute also taps into deeper resentment and tensions between Hong Kong and mainland China in recent years over the influx of mainlanders to Hong Kong. The newcomers have brought business but also strained resources and sparked competition for goods and services ranging from housing to baby formula.
Simon Denyer and Xu Yangjinjing in Beijing contributed to this report.
