Hong Kong: A week after pro-democracy protesters agreed to make way for Hong Kong's civil servants by removing some barricades, authorities have resorted to removing barricades forcefully from key protest sites.
Over a hundred officers from Hong Kong police dragged away the metal barricades from Causeway Bay on early Tuesday morning, reported the BBC.
It comes a day after police did the same with the barricades put up by the protesters in the downtown district of Admiralty, triggering clashes between police and protesters.
Occupy central, a key movement spearheading the protests along with students tweeted a late night photo of Admiralty, showing bamboo scaffolds.
Tonight in Admiralty #OccupyHK pic.twitter.com/35mYPnJFIX
— Occupy Central 和平佔中 (@OCLPHK) October 13, 2014
Night falls in Admiralty, bamboo barriers go up #OccupyHK'ers reinforce in the face of thuggery pic: Manson Wong, USP pic.twitter.com/qZeJSacmrn
— Occupy Central 和平佔中 (@OCLPHK) October 13, 2014
The protesters also accused the authorities of hiring thugs to dismantle the freshly built barricades as masked men were seen at the site, trying to disperse protesters.
The police action also prompted the protesters to reinforce their encampments with a range of stuffs like concrete and bamboo scaffolds.
Reports said that protesters resorted to fix the barricades in buckets full of concrete and also used an array of things like plastic wraps, sticky tape and steel chain to strengthen the barricades.
According to a New York Times report, protesters were making fresh barricades out of bamboo, and were “sawing off the ends of some of the longer poles to give them sharp points”.
The report hinted at the possibility of the protesters wielding the poles as pikes, making it “considerably more dangerous for police or others to try to remove and disperse them”.
This could then lead to police acting more brutally, the report said.
Hong Kong has been mired in protests since last month when tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters took to streets, also thronged outside the government offices, demanding the resignation of Chief Executive CY Leung.
The demonstrators were protesting against China's screening of candidates for first-ever elections for Hong Kong's leader scheduled for 2017.
The protests that began three weeks ago in the form of a boycott by university and college students demanding electoral reforms, picked momentum on September 28 after the leaders of Occupy Central civil disobedience movement joined them, a day after the police crackdown on demonstrators turned ugly.
Hong Kong police clamped down harshly on the protesters during the two weekends, wielding batons and using tear gas and pepper spray and detaining dozens.
China has so far been hand-picking the leaders of Hong Kong and even this time it insists on a 1200 committee to screen three candidates for 2017 polls, based on their loyalty to China. The three chosen candidates will then be allowed to be put to vote by Hong Kongers to be their leader. However, Hong Kongers believe that China is reneging on its promise made in 2007 to grant the autonomous region full democracy.
