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Protest Camps in Hong Kong Come Under Assault | Protest Camps in Hong Kong Come Under Assault |
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HONG KONG — Pro-democracy protesters in two crowded Hong Kong neighborhoods came under assault on Friday from men who tore down their encampments and attacked the protesters. | |
The protesters said the attackers were pro-government gangs, and several of the groups leading the protest threatened to call off planned negotiations with the government “if the government does not immediately prevent the organized attacks.” | |
A week after the pro-democracy protests started at a student rally, the movement showed increasing strains on Friday from both external blows and from internal discord and exhaustion, even before the attacks began. The sit-ins on major roads still drew thousands, but appeared diminished as the city returned to work after a two-day holiday. | |
Then in the afternoon, bitter skirmishing broke out between protesters and men who tried to remove them and their makeshift shelters. It began in the Mong Kok neighborhood, a hive of shops, apartment blocks and hotels that is one of the world’s mostly densely populated places. | |
As skies darkened and rain fell, a couple of dozen men stormed the encampment in a major thoroughfare usually packed with traffic and shoppers. The men pushed and pummeled the protesters, grabbed the scaffolding of canopies and pulled them until the tents collapsed in heaps. | |
One of the attackers, Jones Lam, a 63-year-old retiree, said his motive was simple. | |
“They blocked the road,” he said of the protesters. “They blocked the people going to work.” | “They blocked the road,” he said of the protesters. “They blocked the people going to work.” |
Brawls also broke out at another protest encampment, in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay, as tourists hustled by clutching shopping bags. | |
“We began to see radicalists, some I suspected paid, to stir up trouble here,” said Eva Sze, a volunteer at the site. | |
After nearly a week in which the tens of thousands of protesters who have taken over parts of the city were, for the most part, not only nonviolent but assiduously polite and clean, the attacks came as a shock. | After nearly a week in which the tens of thousands of protesters who have taken over parts of the city were, for the most part, not only nonviolent but assiduously polite and clean, the attacks came as a shock. |
“I feel really hurt,” said one of the protesters, Nick Tse, 22, an art student. “We worked so hard for this, and they destroyed it.” | “I feel really hurt,” said one of the protesters, Nick Tse, 22, an art student. “We worked so hard for this, and they destroyed it.” |
Ng Cham-hung, a 30-year-old university research assistant, was shocked. “We’re rational, we’re disciplined,” he said. “But those pro-government people are attacking us. You can see it with your own eyes.” | Ng Cham-hung, a 30-year-old university research assistant, was shocked. “We’re rational, we’re disciplined,” he said. “But those pro-government people are attacking us. You can see it with your own eyes.” |
The mayhem appeared to have derailed proposed talks between the Hong Kong government and student protesters, who have demanded democratic elections for the city’s leader. The Hong Kong Federation of Students, the main organization of university students, said Friday night that it would not participate in the talks, and blamed the government for the violence. | |
“Yesterday the government stated it was willing to hold a dialogue with students,” said an emailed statement from the federation. “Today, it has gone broken its promise to the people, broken faith and without justification cracked down on the Occupy movement, treating the people as enemies.” | |
Protesters raised questions about the lack of police in both areas that came under attack, accusing the authorities of allowing the attacks to occur. | |
“If the government tolerates and allows body attacks and assaults on personal safety by the so-called patriotic groups, that would be the beginning of riots and chaos,” Cyd Ho Sau-lan, a representative of the pro-democratic Labor Party in the city’s legislature, said in an interview Friday evening. | “If the government tolerates and allows body attacks and assaults on personal safety by the so-called patriotic groups, that would be the beginning of riots and chaos,” Cyd Ho Sau-lan, a representative of the pro-democratic Labor Party in the city’s legislature, said in an interview Friday evening. |
The government said the violence was good reason for the entire protest movement to end its sit-ins across the city. The police issued a statement urging calm from both sides, and said people should leave the areas of confrontation as soon as possible. | |
The Mong Kok area is notorious for organized gangs known as triads that extort payments from the many small businesses there, or in some cases own the businesses. Some of the protesters suggested that the attackers were connected to them. | The Mong Kok area is notorious for organized gangs known as triads that extort payments from the many small businesses there, or in some cases own the businesses. Some of the protesters suggested that the attackers were connected to them. |
Asked if he was a member of such a group, one man who was tearing down the tents, Steve Lin, 48, said, “I’m not a triad. I’m a Hong Konger.” | |
The surrounded protesters linked arms in an effort to protect their tents and barricades, while the police struggled in vain to control the mayhem but in insufficient numbers to keep the two sides apart. | |
Several protesters said the attackers groped and sexually harrassed female protesters. | Several protesters said the attackers groped and sexually harrassed female protesters. |
Naseem Khan, a 21-year-old student at the University of Hong Kong, said he worried that the confrontation signaled that the protests were losing public support. “It’s starting to affect others to the point they can’t tolerate it,” he said. | |
Indeed, some residents and shopkeepers in the two neighborhoods where protesters were attacked had voiced growing irritation with disrupted transportation and rowdy crowds, and some of them cheered on the break-up of the camps. | |
In Causeway Bay, a woman who was upset about streets blocked off with metal barricades begged the protesters to leave. “Please stop,” she told a crowd of about 50. “I just want to comfortably walk the streets, to visit my friends, to take care of my family.” | |
But the groups of men who stormed the two sites came abruptly and in force, and on two sides of Victoria Harbor at about the same time, leaving many in the pro-democracy camp convinced that the assaults were not just spontaneous initiatives by nearby residents. | |
The biggest road occupations, near the government headquarters and the legislature, remained in place Friday, and many hundreds of activists maintained their siege of the office of the city leader, or chief executive, Leung Chun-ying. The demonstrators have demanded that he resign and that his successors be democratically elected, without prior vetting of the candidates by Beijing. | |
The Chinese Communist Party has adamantly rejected both of those demands and warned that Hong Kong could tumble into chaos if the protests continued. Leaders in Beijing fear that giving democratic power to Hong Kong, a former British colony, would make maintaining control there even harder. | |
“We want to impose enough pressure to make C. Y. Leung respond to the voice of the people,” said George Wong, a 31-year-old conceptual artist who was among those holding a sit-in that prevented Mr. Leung on Friday from using his office, which sits in a government complex beside Victoria Harbor. | “We want to impose enough pressure to make C. Y. Leung respond to the voice of the people,” said George Wong, a 31-year-old conceptual artist who was among those holding a sit-in that prevented Mr. Leung on Friday from using his office, which sits in a government complex beside Victoria Harbor. |
But the protesters have quarreled over tactics, and on Friday morning they debated fiercely whether to let trucks and ambulances past their blockade. | But the protesters have quarreled over tactics, and on Friday morning they debated fiercely whether to let trucks and ambulances past their blockade. |
“The more radical groups are suspicious and think the government is trying to trick us,” Mr. Wong said. “This continuous tension, it’s the immediate consequence of having no leaders.” | “The more radical groups are suspicious and think the government is trying to trick us,” Mr. Wong said. “This continuous tension, it’s the immediate consequence of having no leaders.” |
“At present, the status quo is confusion,” said Albert Ho, a prominent pro-democracy lawyer who is a member of the city’s Legislative Council and the Democratic Party. “I would say that we are still trying to find a strategy to sustain the movement and to preserve peace.” | “At present, the status quo is confusion,” said Albert Ho, a prominent pro-democracy lawyer who is a member of the city’s Legislative Council and the Democratic Party. “I would say that we are still trying to find a strategy to sustain the movement and to preserve peace.” |
Emily Lau, the chairwoman of Democratic Party, said in an interview that it was time for Hong Kong’s tycoons, with their deep business and political ties in China, to speak up and help broker concessions that could end the impasse. | |
“If you want the general public to climb down and accept nothing, I think it’s very difficult,” she said. “Some of the people that I think should be and could be influential, I think they should do something, and I am referring to the political and business elites in Hong Kong, especially the business community. These are the only ones that Beijing will listen to.” | “If you want the general public to climb down and accept nothing, I think it’s very difficult,” she said. “Some of the people that I think should be and could be influential, I think they should do something, and I am referring to the political and business elites in Hong Kong, especially the business community. These are the only ones that Beijing will listen to.” |
The Chinese Communist Party has long been a firm friend of Hong Kong’s capitalist elite, seen by Beijing as a dependable bulwark against populist pressures. So far, there has been no effort on their part to try to push the government to compromise on election issues or to ask the chief executive to resign. | |
Many if not most of the city’s tycoons, however, were out of town this past week on vacations, taking advantage of a week with two consecutive days of public holidays. | |
The protesters mostly agree on two demands: open democratic elections for the chief executive, and removing Mr. Leung, even if his successor turns out to be another pro-Beijing politician. But in the last two days, the main protest groups and crowds on the streets have disagreed over how to press those demands and whether to adopt more confrontational methods. | The protesters mostly agree on two demands: open democratic elections for the chief executive, and removing Mr. Leung, even if his successor turns out to be another pro-Beijing politician. But in the last two days, the main protest groups and crowds on the streets have disagreed over how to press those demands and whether to adopt more confrontational methods. |
“This movement doesn’t have an actual leader,” said Benny Tai, an associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong who co-founded the main pro-democracy group, Occupy Central With Love and Peace. “But it’s not without direction, not without a goal, and there are ways to handle the different views of the movement’s participants.” | |
“I hope everybody can persist in the spirit of peaceful resistance,” he added. | “I hope everybody can persist in the spirit of peaceful resistance,” he added. |