Hong Kong gears up to clear pro-democracy occupiers from highway

2014-12-08

Hong Kong authorities on Monday issued an order to clear the main pro-democracy encampment on a major highway near government headquarters in the semiautonomous Chinese city, paving the way for police intervention to end the 10-week-long protests.

Hong Kong protesters in tents join a relay to fast for 28 hours in support of student leaders who recently ended their own hunger strike, Dec. 8, 2014. RFA

The civil injunction was granted to a bus company by the High Court in the former British colony, but police are widely expected to assist court bailiffs in clearing the road, as they did in the Kowloon district of Mong Kok earlier this month.

The injunction covers about one-fifth of the Admiralty protest area. However, connecting sections of road were also cleared by police during the Mong Kok clearance operation.

Some 7,000 police officers will be deployed to clear the main Occupy Central site later this week, government broadcaster RTHK reported.

But police and lawyers for the All China Express bus company said they would ensure those who wished to leave ahead of the clearance had plenty of time to do so.

Student leaders also said on Monday they would make arrangements for more vulnerable protesters to leave before clearance operations begin.

"I think we will need to make arrangements for high-school students and some older people to leave, leaving volunteers to carry out the civil disobedience protest," Joshua Wong, leader of the academic activism group Scholarism, told reporters.

He said that while Scholarism and the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) had no plans to offer any resistance to police, leaders were urging students to bring homemade shields to ward off blows from police batons.

He said students also have no plans to leave the site until forced to do so.

A protester at the Admiralty site surnamed Tam said she is camped in an area not covered by the injunction, and had few concerns about the clearance operation.

"It shouldn't be a problem, because the injunction doesn't come up as far as the bridge," she said. "So I will be staying."

Hong Kong's embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying on Sunday repeated his view that the Occupy Central movement is an "illegal gathering."

"There are fewer and fewer people taking part, but their actions are becoming more and more extreme," Leung said. "We must make proper preparation, mentally and physically, for the clearance operation."

"It is likely that police will meet with furious resistance."

Hunger strike

Hundreds of protesters have remained encamped on Admiralty's Harcourt Road since clashes with riot police on Sept. 28 brought hundreds of thousands of supporters onto the streets at the height of the "Umbrella Movement."

The news of the court order came as two out of five students gave up a hunger strike they began last week, including Joshua Wong, who had fasted for 108 hours.

Scholarism member Eddie Ng ended his hunger strike after nearly 120 hours. Both did so on the advice of doctors, they said, prompting supporters to launch a "relay" hunger strike to carry on their protest.

Scholarism activist Gloria Cheng was the only remaining continuous hunger striker by Monday night.

An activist surnamed Tai said he had signed up for the relay hunger strike, in which each protester fasts for 28 hours.

"We all want to show our support for the hunger striking students, and go some of the way with them," Tai said. "While 28 hours isn't very long, we at least want them to know they aren't alone."

He said the aim of the relay hunger strike remains the re-opening of dialogue with the Hong Kong government over electoral reform.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has hit out at international support for the Occupy Central protests, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void," and that it answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong, which was handed back by the U.K. in 1997.

According to an Aug. 31 decision from the country's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), all five million of Hong Kong's voters will cast ballots in the poll, but may only choose between two or three candidates vetted by a Beijing-backed election committee.

'Hold them accountable'

Former U.S. consul general to Hong Kong Stephen M. Young, writing in the South China Morning Post newspaper, said world leaders should continue to make it clear that they are watching developments closely, however.

"We must hold them accountable for their actions to undermine Hong Kong's desire for a representative government whose leaders they can choose themselves," Young, now retired, wrote in a personal commentary published on Monday.

Hong Kong police are facing growing criticism over the use of excessive force against demonstrators in Mong Kok.

Hundreds of parents, teachers and social workers marched to Hong Kong police headquarters in Central on Monday, shouting "Criminal police! For shame!" and holding up large prints of news photos showing police using batons on the crowd.

Veteran pan-democrat and founding chairman of the Democratic Party Martin Lee called on China's President Xi Jinping to "clear up confusion" over comments by Chinese officials in London on the status of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Beijing last week blocked a delegation of British MPs from entering Hong Kong on a fact-finding mission, a move lauded by pro-establishment politicians as a legitimate prevention of foreign interference in Hong Kong's affairs.

Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website