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Hong Kong police dismantle final pro-democracy protest camp Hong Kong police dismantle final pro-democracy protest camp
(about 7 hours later)
Hong Kong police pulled down barricades and folded up tents at the third and final pro-democracy protest camp on Monday, putting an end to demonstrations that have blocked traffic in the southern Chinese city’s streets for two and a half months. Hong Kong police cleared the city’s last remaining pro-democracy protest site on Monday, arresting 20 demonstrators and closing a chapter in an ongoing political crisis that has gripped the city for more than two months.About 100 police began clearing the protest site in the bustling shopping district Causeway Bay at about 10.30am, according to local media reports. A few dozen remaining protesters shouted “we will be back”, but did not resist when police removed their barriers, collapsed their tents, and unhurriedly escorted them into waiting buses.The site was effectively cleared by midday. A few hours later, the city’s chief executive Leung Chun-ying declared that the protests were officially over. “It feels a bit depressed and hopeless, but at the same time this is just the beginning, it’s not the end,” Otto Ng, an 18-year-old student protester, told the Associated Press. “We still haven’t got what we wanted..... It’s awakened the Hong Kong people.”Authorities cleared the main protest site near government headquarters in the Admiralty district last week, arresting 249 people, including a roster of prominent lawmakers and protest leaders. The Causeway Bay site was small, by comparison — only about 100m long, occupying half of a busy thoroughfare in the shadow of a shopping mall.Although the clearances have restored traffic to normal, the movements’ underlying causes remain untouched. The protesters demanded a more democratic voting process for the city’s next chief executive elections in 2017. Despite hundreds of thousands of demonstrators turning out at the protests’ peak, neither the Hong Kong government nor Beijing have made any significant concessions.Many Hong Kong people still bristle at Beijing’s perceived encroachment onto the city’s civil liberties, unrestricted press and independent judiciary.Protest leaders have vowed to move their civil disobedience movement into other arenas. On Monday, the activist group Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) and representatives from 20 civil society organisations agreed to launch a “non-cooperation movement,” according to the South China Morning Post.
Police had told the protesters to leave “immediately” from the short stretch of road in Causeway Bay. They have urged the city’s 1.5m taxpayers to pay their taxes in small increments, and its two million public housing residents and to delay their rent payments. With enough participation, they say, the move could theoretically raise government administrative costs without violating any laws. “Occupy is taking on different forms,” HKFS leader Alex Chow told the newspaper. “While the government has no timetable for universal suffrage, we do have a timetable to fight for it and challenge the legitimacy of the government.” Protesters aim to kick off the campaign by next month. On Sunday a prominent mainland official said that Hong Kong needs “re-enlightenment” about the “one country, two systems” arrangement — a political framework by which Beijing has governed the city since 1997.“It seems that some people [in Hong Kong] still cannot find an identity with the country,” said Zhang Rongshun, a high-ranking official in the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature. “There is a need to have a re-enlightenment about the ‘one country, two systems’ principle and national identity.”Experts say that the comments hint that Beijing may tighten its control over the city in an effort to preempt further unrest. “My own sense is that they don’t quite get it,” said David Zweig, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “Each time that they’ve really pushed hard, that’s when they get a strong reaction. If they would just be more confident, and show some faith in the people of Hong Kong, things might go better.”
A small group of protest leaders chanted “we will be back” and called on Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s chief executive, to step down.
This past week authorities shut down the protesters’ main camp near the heart of the city’s financial district and arrested 249 people who refused to leave for unlawful assembly.
The student-led protesters rejected Beijing’s plan to screen all candidates in the first-ever elections for Hong Kong’s top leader, but failed to win significant concessions from the government.
However, many say the protest movement sparked a wider political awakening among the city’s residents, especially the young. Protest leaders vowed to keep up their campaign of civil disobedience through other methods to continue pressuring the government for genuine democracy.
Otto Ng, an 18-year-old student, had been camped out at the main Admiralty protest site and came to Causeway Bay to watch the last moments.
“It feels a bit depressed and hopeless, but at the same time this is just the beginning, it’s not the end … We still haven’t got what we wanted … It’s awakened the Hong Kong people,” he said.
Protesters at the camp had been resigned to eventually being removed after the main site was shut down in an orderly and peaceful operation on Thursday and had already begun packing up their things.
What was left — such as chairs and shipping pallets — was piled up by police and workers to be loaded onto a dump track and taken away.
A group of about dozen people, including one pro- democracy lawmaker, were sitting down in the street and refusing to leave so that they could be arrested.