Hong Kong Students Surround Government Offices
Police Use Pepper Spray, Batons to Stop Protesters’ Advance
VIDEO LIVE: Violent clashes erupt in Hong Kong as protesters move to barricade more roads around the central government offices. Video: Thomas Di Fonzo. Photo: Getty.
By Isabella Steger, Biman Mukherji and Phred Dvorak
Updated Nov. 30, 2014 11:16 a.m. ET
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HONG KONG—Protesters in Hong Kong moved to blockade government offices Sunday night, bringing a new, assertive element to pro-democracy demonstrations going into a third month with little sign of resolution.
The Hong Kong Federation of Students and Scholarism, the two groups leading the demonstrations, asked the thousands of people assembled at a protest site in central Hong Kong to surround the central government offices and the office of the chief executive, Hong Kong’s top official, aiming to block government workers from entering Monday morning.
The HKFS also stressed that protesters should stay peaceful and not use force. The student groups had earlier asked protesters to bring umbrellas, goggles, masks, food supplies and helmets to Sunday’s assembly, to protect themselves in case police responded with pepper spray or tear gas.
After the call to surround the government offices, protesters filled the roads around the complex where the buildings and Hong Kong legislature are located, skirmishing in some areas with police who used pepper spray and batons to stop their advance. Local TV stations showed scenes of bleeding protesters and police handcuffing demonstrators. Some protesters were erecting barriers in the streets surrounding the government offices—the first new move to take territory by demonstrators in months.
Police use pepper spray on Sunday during clashes with pro-democracy protesters close to the office of the chief executive, Hong Kong’s top official. Reuters
In a statement posted on the Hong Kong police website before the action started, police spokesman Kong Man-keung warned that “if anyone obstructs police duties, uses violence to attack police lines or tries to surround the government headquarters, police will certainly decisively enforce the law.”
“We will continue our fight for democracy,” Oscar Lai, a spokesman for Scholarism, yelled to the crowd Sunday night, as they chanted along with him. “We will keep up the pressure on the government.”
Sunday’s call to surround government buildings underscores the dilemma Hong Kong’s protest leaders find themselves in, as the demonstrations—in which thousands of people have camped out at sites in central areas of the city—stretch into their third month with no end in sight.
The protesters are demanding free elections for Hong Kong’s top official in 2017, rather than a vote for prescreened candidates, which Hong Kong and Beijing are currently proposing.
Officials from both Hong Kong and Beijing have said those demands can’t be granted, and talks between student leaders and Hong Kong government representatives more than a month ago ended with little progress. “Definitely, the leaders should do something new because there is no progress,” said Kenneth Yung, a 31-year-old university lecturer who was at the main protest site Sunday night. “You have to use new tactics.”
Although public discontent with the Hong Kong government’s stance on the 2017 elections had been building for many months, the protests began in earnest two months ago Friday, when police used tear gas against demonstrators gathered in central Hong Kong. The police action roused further public support for the demonstrators, with tens of thousands of people at times occupying three sites.
Police cleared one of those sites, in the busy commercial district of Mong Kok, last week. The other two, in Causeway Bay and the main site in front of government buildings in Admiralty, remain occupied.
—Gillian Wong
contributed to this article
Write to Isabella Steger at isabella.steger@wsj.com, Biman Mukherji at biman.mukherji@wsj.com and Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com
VIDEO: http://online.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-student-leaders-call-for-sunday-night-action-1417328383
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