2014-12-08

 

Hong Kong protesters in tents join a relay to fast for 28 hours in support of student leaders who recently ended their own hunger strike, Dec. 8, 2014.

 RFA

 

 

Hong Kong authorities on Monday issued an order to clear the main pro-democracy encampment on a major highway near government headquarters in the semiautonomous Chinese city, paving the way for police intervention to end the 10-week-long protests.

 

The civil injunction was granted to a bus company by the High Court in the former British colony, but police are widely expected to assist court bailiffs in clearing the road, as they did in the Kowloon district of Mong Kok earlier this month.

 

The injunction covers about one-fifth of the Admiralty protest area. However, connecting sections of road were also cleared by police during the Mong Kok clearance operation.

 

Some 7,000 police officers will be deployed to clear the main Occupy Central site later this week, government broadcaster RTHK reported.

 

But police and lawyers for the All China Express bus company said they would ensure those who wished to leave ahead of the clearance had plenty of time to do so.

 

Student leaders also said on Monday they would make arrangements for more vulnerable protesters to leave before clearance operations begin.

 

"I think we will need to make arrangements for high-school students and some older people to leave, leaving volunteers to carry out the civil disobedience protest," Joshua Wong, leader of the academic activism group Scholarism, told reporters.

 

He said that while Scholarism and the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) had no plans to offer any resistance to police, leaders were urging students to bring homemade shields to ward off blows from police batons.

 

He said students also have no plans to leave the site until forced to do so.

 

A protester at the Admiralty site surnamed Tam said she is camped in an area not covered by the injunction, and had few concerns about the clearance operation.

 

"It shouldn't be a problem, because the injunction doesn't come up as far as the bridge," she said. "So I will be staying."

 

Hong Kong's embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying on Sunday repeated his view that the Occupy Central movement is an "illegal gathering."

 

Continue reading the original article.

2014-12-08

 

Hong Kong protesters in tents join a relay to fast for 28 hours in support of student leaders who recently ended their own hunger strike, Dec. 8, 2014.

 RFA

 

 

Hong Kong authorities on Monday issued an order to clear the main pro-democracy encampment on a major highway near government headquarters in the semiautonomous Chinese city, paving the way for police intervention to end the 10-week-long protests.

 

The civil injunction was granted to a bus company by the High Court in the former British colony, but police are widely expected to assist court bailiffs in clearing the road, as they did in the Kowloon district of Mong Kok earlier this month.

 

The injunction covers about one-fifth of the Admiralty protest area. However, connecting sections of road were also cleared by police during the Mong Kok clearance operation.

 

Some 7,000 police officers will be deployed to clear the main Occupy Central site later this week, government broadcaster RTHK reported.

 

But police and lawyers for the All China Express bus company said they would ensure those who wished to leave ahead of the clearance had plenty of time to do so.

 

Student leaders also said on Monday they would make arrangements for more vulnerable protesters to leave before clearance operations begin.

 

"I think we will need to make arrangements for high-school students and some older people to leave, leaving volunteers to carry out the civil disobedience protest," Joshua Wong, leader of the academic activism group Scholarism, told reporters.

 

He said that while Scholarism and the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) had no plans to offer any resistance to police, leaders were urging students to bring homemade shields to ward off blows from police batons.

 

He said students also have no plans to leave the site until forced to do so.

 

A protester at the Admiralty site surnamed Tam said she is camped in an area not covered by the injunction, and had few concerns about the clearance operation.

 

"It shouldn't be a problem, because the injunction doesn't come up as far as the bridge," she said. "So I will be staying."

 

Hong Kong's embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying on Sunday repeated his view that the Occupy Central movement is an "illegal gathering."

 

Continue reading the original article.