By MICHAEL FORSYTHE and ALAN WONG
NOVEMBER 19, 2014
HONG KONG — The most violent clashes between pro-democracy demonstrators and the police here in a month have underscored the difficulty the authorities face in evicting people from the barricaded tent cities that have blocked some of the city’s busiest streets since late September.
Late Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, dozens of demonstrators attempted to break into Hong Kong’s legislature, using metal barricades as ramrods to smash through doors and windows of reinforced glass. The police arrested at least six people for assaulting officers and causing “criminal damage” to property. Student groups and pro-democracy lawmakers joined the police in criticizing the participants in the assault, condemning the use of violence.
The incident occurred hours after bailiffs, aided by police, began enforcing court injunctions to clear some roads. Student demonstrators on Tuesday put up no resistance as part of a road in the Admiralty district, directly across from the legislature, was opened to traffic. Several protesters said it was time to end the demonstrations, which have failed to win any concessions from either the Hong Kong government or the central authorities in Beijing.
But some demonstrators are frustrated with the strategy of nonviolence advocated by the lawmakers, academics and students who first conceived of the sit-in protests as a way to pressure the Hong Kong and Beijing governments to allow free elections in the former British colony.
On Aug. 31, China’s legislature setstrict rules for elections for Hong Kong’s top leader, the chief executive, that pro-democracy advocates say guarantee that only people loyal to the Communist government in Beijing will be allowed to appear on the ballot. That put into motion the demonstrations that erupted a month later.
“If we keep sitting here, doing nothing, nothing’s going to change,” said one 23-year-old man who said he had helped smash windows at the Legislative Council. A worker at a Japanese noodle shop, he called himself Kuroros, declining to give his real name because he feared arrest. “This isn’t about law, it’s about politics,” he said.
Kuroros said that he and his colleagues, who on Wednesday morning were in a huddle watching news coverage of their assault on mobile phones, had come from the Mong Kok protest area across Victoria Harbor. There, the generally older, more working-class demonstrators often only have words of scorn for the student-led movement that has set up camp around the Hong Kong government’s main buildings in the center of the city. Many of his colleagues were wearing the hard hats, goggles and surgical masks characteristic of the Mong Kok demonstrators.
Posts on HKGolden, an online message board, rallied people to take part in the break-in. One post used thinly disguised code words, calling the Legislative Council the “Garbage Council,” for example. The words sound similar in Cantonese. The forum has been a popular place for more radical groups to organize rallies and is closely monitored by the police.
A portion of the Mong Kok site is next on the list for court bailiffs. There, protesters face removal from a short section of Argyle Street, which on Wednesday afternoon held 19 one- or two-person tents and three larger tents with tables and supplies. There, several protesters said they believed that the time had come to escalate the protests, suggesting that a police clearance could be much more contentious than the peaceful clearance in Admiralty on Tuesday.
“I think the peaceful way to continue this operation is over,” said one of the protesters encamped on Argyle Street, Antonio Liu, a professional online poker player. But Mr. Liu and others said the protesters would probably back down if they felt the police had them outnumbered.
“The protesters might retreat from here,” he said, gesturing to Argyle Street. “But then they might use guerilla tactics like last night,” he said, referring to the clash at the Legislative Council. “Removing occupation here doesn’t mean other areas cannot be occupied.
“Mr. Liu’s attitude was in stark contrast to student leaders and pro-democracy lawmakers in Admiralty. One pro-democracy legislator, Fernando Cheung, who tried to physically stop the protesters from charging the building, said Wednesday that he was “furious” about the violent episode and said “not a single window was broken” until the previous night.
“It’s a blow to the whole movement, making our path forward more difficult,” he told reporters. “In the past 53 days of the movement, it has been extremely peaceful, and Hong Kong people are proud of that.
“The mainstream student groups who have been the public face of Hong Kong’s sit-in demonstrations said they were not involved in the episode and did not approve of it."Nonviolence is our biggest weapon,” Alex Chow, the secretary general of the Federation of Students, told reporters Wednesday morning."Nonviolence is our biggest weapon,” Alex Chow, the secretary general of the Federation of Students, told reporters Wednesday morning.
Chris Buckley contributed reporting.
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