HONG KONG, Nov 18, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Pro-democracy demonstrators holed up in
a Hong Kong university campus set the main entrance ablaze Monday to prevent
surrounding police moving in, after officers warned they may use live rounds
if confronted by deadly weapons.
The police warning, which came after one officer was struck by an arrow,
marked a further escalation of the near six-month crisis engulfing the city.
China has repeatedly warned that it will not tolerate dissent, and there
are growing concerns that Beijing could intervene directly to end the
spiralling unrest.
Several loud blasts were heard around dawn on Monday before a wall of fire
lit up an entrance to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), AFP
reporters said, as what appeared to be a police attempt to enter the campus
was repelled by protesters determined to hold their ground.
Police said they had fired three live rounds in the early hours of Monday
at a protest site near the university but that no one appeared to have been
hit.
Intense clashes throughout Sunday, which saw a police officer hit in the
leg by an arrow and protesters meet police tear gas with volleys of petrol
bombs, rolled overnight across the Kowloon district, as a call went out to
defend the besieged campus.
There, protesters had hunkered down under umbrellas from occasional fire
from police water cannon and hurled Molotov cocktails at an armoured vehicle,
leaving it ablaze on a flyover near the campus.
Police declared the campus a “riot” scene — rioting is punishable by up to
10 years in jail — and blocked exits as spokesman Louis Lau issued a stark
warning in a Facebook live broadcast.
“I hereby warn rioters not to use petrol bombs, arrows, cars or any deadly
weapons to attack police officers,” he said.
“If they continue such dangerous actions, we would have no choice but to
use the minimum force necessary, including live rounds, to fire back.”
Three protesters have been shot by police in the unrelenting months of
protests, but all in scuffles as chaotic street clashes played out — and
without a sweeping warning being given by a force that overwhelmingly depends
on tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.
Fear gripped protesters still trapped inside the campus — whose occupation
is a twist in tactics by a leaderless movement so far defined by its fluid,
unpredictable nature.
“I feel scared. There’s no way out. All I can do is fight to the end,” one
protester joining the barricade in front of the university building said
early Monday.
– ‘Helpless’ –
Owen Li, a PolyU council member and student, said panic had taken hold of
the few hundred protesters believed to be holed up.
“Many friends feel helpless… we appeal to all of society to come out and
help us.”
Throughout Sunday, activists parried attempts by police to break through
into the campus, firing rocks using a homemade catapult from the university
roof, while an AFP reporter saw a team of masked archers — several carrying
sports bows — patrolling the site.
Violence has worsened in recent days, with two men killed in separate
incidents linked to the protests this month.
Chinese President Xi Jinping this week issued his most strident comments on
the crisis, saying it threatened the “one country, two systems” model under
which Hong Kong has been ruled since the 1997 handover from Britain.
Demonstrators last week engineered a “Blossom Everywhere” campaign of
blockades and vandalism, which forced the police to draft in prison officers
as reinforcements, shut down large chunks of Hong Kong’s transport network
and closed schools and shopping malls.
The protests started against a now-shelved bill to allow extradition to
China but have billowed to encompass wider issues such as perceived police
brutality and calls for fully free elections in the former British colony.
The financial hub has been nudged into a recession by the unrelenting
turmoil.
A poster circulating on social media called for the “dawn action” to
continue on Monday.
“Squeeze the economy to increase pressure,” it said.