2014-10-20
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Pro-democracy demonstrators gather in the Mong Kok area of Yau Tsim Mong district in Hong Kong, Oct. 20, 2014.
RFA
As a mass pro-democracy civil disobedience movement in Hong Kong entered its 23rd day on Monday, the territory’s High Court ordered protesters to disperse after transportation groups applied for injunctions.
Protesters surged back onto the streets at three major protest sites in Hong Kong after police began clearing makeshift barricades on Friday, and forcing a police retreat in the busy Kowloon shopping district of Mong Kok, which saw dozens injured in baton charges in clashes over the weekend.
The court granted injunctions brought by taxi and public minibus industry associations, whose members said the ongoing blockage of Nathan Road in Kowloon has affected their livelihoods.
While the court orders aimed at unnamed “persons occupying portions of Nathan Road” are effective immediately, it was unclear if and how court bailiffs would move to clear the area, as protesters can make their own arguments at a later hearing.
The influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) issued an apology for the inconvenience caused to fellow residents of the former British colony, which was promised “a high degree of autonomy” under the terms of its 1997 handover to China.
“We understand that even if the court hadn’t granted an injunction, the occupation itself may already have broken some Hong Kong laws,” the protesters said in a statement on Monday.
“It is reasonable from a legal perspective for the court to issue an injunction to restore social order, because…our actions have affected people’s lives and caused a nuisance to society,” it said, calling on individual protesters to consider their risk of being held in contempt of court if they continued to occupy Nathan Road.
But the statement also said the whole point of the Occupy movement is civil disobedience, with the aim of putting pressure on the government for a political solution to the three-week-old standoff.
“The government can use political means to end this movement,” the HKFS statement said. “It can use any means it likes to restore social order, but it will never win back the trust of the people, and it will have lost an entire generation.”
