Hong Kong’s police on Monday defended their use of tear gas and other tactics to control protests that have paralysed the city’s financial district, appealing to the thousands gathered to demand more democracy to stop the unprecedented mass act of civil disobedience for the sake of safety and stability.
Crowds grew on Monday evening as people getting off work joined weary-looking students camped on major roads near the city’s Government headquarters and in several other parts of the city. Uniformed police manned barricades and looked on, preventing access to some buildings, but did not otherwise intervene.
Police said they used 87 rounds of tear gas on Sunday in what they said was a necessary but restrained response to protesters’ efforts to push through cordons and barricades. They said 41 people were injured, including 12 police officers.
The United States on Monday asked Hong Kong’s leaders to show restraint after riot police fired tear gas on mass democracy protests, and said it had told Beijing it backs universal suffrage in the territory.
“The United States urges the Hong Kong authorities to exercise restraint and for protesters to express their views peacefully,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
“Police cordon lines were heavily charged, by some violent protesters. So police had to use the minimum force in order to separate the distance at that moment between the protesters and also the police,” Cheung Tak-keung, the assistant police commissioner for operations, told reporters today.
Protesters donned rain capes, surgical masks and goggles, wrapped their heads and glasses in plastic and used umbrellas to shield themselves from the searing clouds of tear gas unleashed by police yesterday. Each time they fled, but returned in defiance.
late yesterday, riot police withdrew and Hong Kong’s chief executive, leung Chun-ying, issued a public appeal for everyone to go home and stop blocking traffic. Across Victoria Harbor, in crowded Kowloon, crowds blocked a major intersection, as young people climbed atop subway station exits and activists rallied the crowds.
While many Hong Kong residents support the calls for greater democracy dubbed the “umbrella revolution” by some although the crowds’ demands fall far short of revolution the unrest worries others.
“I strongly disagree with the protesters,” said an older woman who gave only her surname, Chan. “Those of us who came to the city 60 or 70 years ago had nothing and we worked and suffered so much to make Hong Kong the rich city it is today. And now the protesters have made our society unstable. For me, being able to eat and sleep is already a luxury. I don’t need democracy. What does it meanIJ” (AP)