Hong Kong Warns It May Clear Part of Protest Site
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and KEITH BRADSHER
NOV. 17, 2014
Police officers near a barricade set up by pro-democracy protesters in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong on Monday. Credit Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
HONG KONG — The Hong Kong government prepared Monday to push back against pro-democracy demonstrators for the first time in weeks, warning that the police may clear an area in the center of the city that protesters have made into a base.
The government said police officers were ready to help court bailiffs enforce an injunction ordering people to stop congregating around the Citic Tower in Admiralty, a neighborhood near government headquarters that for more than 50 days has become a street camp for thousands of protesters, some living in tents.
“Police are ready to give the fullest support to the bailiffs to execute the court order” on Tuesday, a government statement said. “If anyone obstructs or violently charges the bailiffs when they are executing their duties, police will take resolute action.”
But protesters and the government have said that any clearing operation would be just one move in a politically fraught endgame that is far from over. The court injunction applies to only a part of one of three areas seized in late September by protesters demanding open democratic elections for Hong Kong’s leader.
Acting on a complaint from the building’s owner, a Hong Kong court issued an injunction in November against blocking traffic to the Citic Tower, an office and retail building across the street from the government headquarters on the south side of Victoria Harbor. The court has issued a similar injunction for a street in Mong Kok, another protest site on the north side of the harbor that is usually thronged by Chinese tourists, after a taxi drivers’ association and a minibus company brought complaints. The government warned that anyone obstructing the police could be culpable of “criminal contempt of court."
“Police urge the illegal road occupiers to obey the court order, remove obstacles and personal belongings, and stop the illegal occupation soonest,” said the statement. It did not say when the police might try to enforce the injunction in Mong Kok, an area where rowdy protests have sometimes flared into violent clashes and arrests.
A person involved in the Hong Kong government’s decision said the police would not rush to clear completely the three occupied areas, although the closure of major avenues had caused traffic jams and hurt sales in stores. The person insisted on anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak openly about the matter.
“The government is in no hurry to end the whole thing because public opinion is growing on our side,” he said. “It will be guerrilla warfare — we will clear it, they will regroup, we will clear it again, they will regroup, but eventually, they will dissipate.”
An opinion poll in Hong Kong carried out in early November found that 34 percent of respondents supported the protests, while 44 percent opposed them, according to researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who organized the telephone survey of 1,030 Cantonese-speaking residents. The survey also reported that 67 percent of respondents said they thought the protesters should leave the streets.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story That poll and others, however, showed that support for the protests remained robust among residents in their teens and 20s, who often say they feel marginalized by high housing costs and diminished opportunities.
The street standoff started with a student-led sit-in outside Hong Kong’s government headquarters in Admiralty in late September. The police used pepper spray and tear gas in an attempt to clear crowds nearby, but thousands of demonstrators, angered by the police actions, seized the three city areas on Sept. 28.
Since then, the number of protesters camping on the sites has shrunk, and in mid-October, the police cleared some roads and reduced the areas under occupation. Many of the protesters who remain say they are determined to stay, however, and some have threatened to occupy other areas if they are pushed out.
“I will defend here until we get what we want, and what we want is democracy,” Jason Yim, a sound engineer in his 20s, said at the Mong Kok protest site. “If there’s enough people, we will resist. If there is not, we will leave and come back with more people.”
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“I will defend here until we get what we want, and what we want is democracy,”***
“If there’s enough people, we will resist. If there is not, we will leave and come back with more people.”
Jason Yim, a sound engineer in his 20s, said at the Mong Kok protest site.
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