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| Version 6 | Version 7 |
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| Pro-Democracy Students Are Arrested in Hong Kong | Pro-Democracy Students Are Arrested in Hong Kong |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| HONG KONG — Student protests demanding democratic elections in Hong Kong ended in rowdy confrontation and arrests on Friday, when the police moved in with pepper spray against demonstrators who had stormed a square near the government headquarters. | |
| The strife was a taste of what could follow a planned sit-in protest in Hong Kong’s main financial district, which a leader of the city’s democracy movement said was likely to take place next week. | |
| Overnight and into Saturday morning, the confrontation spilled onto the streets around the government offices. Hundreds of young protesters faced phalanxes of police officers with shields whose warnings to disperse went unheeded. | |
| The nighttime standoff between hundreds of demonstrators and the well-prepared police force came at the end of a week of peaceful student protests over Beijing’s limited proposals for electoral change, released last month. | |
| Pro-democracy groups and parties have said the Chinese government’s proposals betrayed promises that starting in 2017, Hong Kong’s leader, or chief executive, would be chosen by all voters, instead of the 1,200-member committee of elites loyal to Beijing that chooses the leader now. | |
| In Hong Kong, anger with the Chinese government runs especially deep among people in their 30s and younger. This week, thousands of university students boycotted classes and attended assemblies to voice their complaints, and on Friday hundreds of high school students also abandoned classes for a day of protest near the government and legislative headquarters. | In Hong Kong, anger with the Chinese government runs especially deep among people in their 30s and younger. This week, thousands of university students boycotted classes and attended assemblies to voice their complaints, and on Friday hundreds of high school students also abandoned classes for a day of protest near the government and legislative headquarters. |
| Quite a few said they had come to a daytime rally despite parental disapproval. | Quite a few said they had come to a daytime rally despite parental disapproval. |
| “My mom supports me, but my dad opposed me,” said Oscar Mo Hau-chuk, a slight teenage boy at the protest, where the police gently herded the students behind barriers. “I told him this government is dark, is wrong, because it doesn’t listen.” | “My mom supports me, but my dad opposed me,” said Oscar Mo Hau-chuk, a slight teenage boy at the protest, where the police gently herded the students behind barriers. “I told him this government is dark, is wrong, because it doesn’t listen.” |
| As the crowd swelled in the evening, Joshua Wong, 17, a leader of a youth protest group, Scholarism, who recently graduated from high school, said the protesters seemed to be getting younger. | As the crowd swelled in the evening, Joshua Wong, 17, a leader of a youth protest group, Scholarism, who recently graduated from high school, said the protesters seemed to be getting younger. |
| “I thought I was young when I protested against national education at the age of 15,” he told a crowd of thousands, referring to protests in 2011-12 against proposed school curriculum changes that critics said were a vehicle for indoctrination. “Then I saw a 12-year-old today.” | “I thought I was young when I protested against national education at the age of 15,” he told a crowd of thousands, referring to protests in 2011-12 against proposed school curriculum changes that critics said were a vehicle for indoctrination. “Then I saw a 12-year-old today.” |
| “I do not want to see, 10 years later, primary school students out there still protesting for democracy,” Mr. Wong said. | “I do not want to see, 10 years later, primary school students out there still protesting for democracy,” Mr. Wong said. |
| After the speeches ended, about a hundred protesters broke away and swarmed a nearby square, next to the government headquarters, as the police struggled to stop others from pouring in and used pepper spray against some in the surging crowd. | |
| The Hong Kong Federation of Students said the protesters took the action after Hong Kong’s government leader, Leung Chun-ying, refused to meet them. | |
| Other protesters on the square were surrounded by a ring of police officers, who warned that none would be allowed to leave. Some of the protesters on the square were arrested, said Yvonne Leung, the president of the student union of the University of Hong Kong. Mr. Wong was among them. | Other protesters on the square were surrounded by a ring of police officers, who warned that none would be allowed to leave. Some of the protesters on the square were arrested, said Yvonne Leung, the president of the student union of the University of Hong Kong. Mr. Wong was among them. |
| The confrontation on the streets near the government complex continued into Saturday morning, when hundreds of residents, mostly young, sat in protest on a driveway to the complex and resisted attempts by the police to scatter them with pepper spray. Other residents were held back from joining the protesters by rows of police officers with riot shields. Several prominent leaders of the pro-democracy groups came to speak in support of the protesters, including Cardinal Joseph Zen, a retired Roman Catholic prelate. | |
| The financial heart of Hong Kong, known as Central, could be the scene of similar but bigger confrontations next week, when Occupy Central, the main group opposing the Chinese government’s package of election changes, plans an extended sit-in. Chan Kin-man, a co-founder of Occupy Central, said the protest would probably start on Wednesday, China’s National Day holiday, which is also a public holiday in Hong Kong. | The financial heart of Hong Kong, known as Central, could be the scene of similar but bigger confrontations next week, when Occupy Central, the main group opposing the Chinese government’s package of election changes, plans an extended sit-in. Chan Kin-man, a co-founder of Occupy Central, said the protest would probably start on Wednesday, China’s National Day holiday, which is also a public holiday in Hong Kong. |
| Despite adopting a name similar to Occupy Wall Street, the movement that began in 2011 with protests against economic inequality, the Hong Kong movement has focused on electoral demands, and many of its supporters are middle class, with a few from the city’s financial elite. | |