Clashes Break Out at Hong Kong Protest Site
Crowds Scuffle With Pro-Democracy Demonstrators, Derailing Planned Talks With Government
By ANDREW BROWNE, TE-PING CHEN and ISABELLA STEGER
Updated Oct. 3, 2014 10:26 p.m. ET
HONG KONG―Angry crowds descended on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong on Friday, causing clashes and derailing scheduled talks with the government aimed at defusing the crisis.
Tension remained high Saturday morning at a protest site in Kowloon’s Mong Kok district, one of three that demonstrators have occupied, hours after a large crowd surrounded and, in some cases, attacked the demonstrators. By dawn, the crowds had largely thinned but intermittent scuffles continued to break out.
Citing police inaction over the attacks, the Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the two main student protest groups, issued a statement late Friday saying it had decided to shelve talks agreed upon the night before.
View Slideshow
A group in masks clash with a man, right, who tried to stop them from removing barricades Friday from a pro-democracy protest area in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The protests came under pressure on several fronts Friday. As protesters’ numbers dwindled during the day, police were able to reopen some streets, allowing opponents of the protests, some of them violent, to move in to the protest site in the Mong Kok district, a densely populated working-class district. Gangs of mostly middle-aged men set upon students who had erected makeshift tents at the intersection of Nathan Road and Argyle Street, grabbing them one by one and bundling them out of the area.
As the evening progressed, a pattern developed in which groups of students would surround violent trouble-makers and raise their arms in the air to show they weren’t using violence, as others ran to police lines to appeal for them to come and make an arrest.
In some cases the police responded, wading into the crowds to grab the offenders. But many of the police stood behind the crowds with their arms folded, some looking weary after days on the streets and reluctant to take sides.
More
The ‘Good Fighter’ Face of Hong Kong Government
In Hong Kong, a Family Divided
Full Video Coverage of the Protests
Live Updates
“Do your jobs,” the students yelled. “Uphold the law.”
At a predawn news conference on Saturday, Patrick Kwok Pak-chung, senior superintendent of police, said criticism of the police presence as insufficient was “unfair and without evidence.”
He said police arrested 19 men in Mong Kok for fighting and illegal gathering, eight of whom were suspected of having links to the organized crime organizations known as Triads.
A person familiar with the matter confirmed that the government believed that Triad gangs were behind many of the Mong Kok attacks. “They deliberately attacked the peaceful protesters,” the person said.
“The government is hoping to have the end result of the protest being cleared,” the person said.
Many counter-demonstrators, however, appeared to be local shopkeepers and street traders, who complained that their businesses are suffering as a result of the chaos on the streets.
A policeman scuffles with residents and pro-Beijing supporters as they try to attack a pro-democracy activist in Mong Kok district on Friday. Associated Press
The grittier parts of Mong Kok have large communities of recent arrivals from mainland China, some identifiable by their thick Cantonese accents. “Go back to China,” the students screamed at them.
They responded with Cantonese vulgarities, telling the protesters to “drop dead.”
The Mong Kok crowds started thinning in the early hours of Saturday morning just as the area’s nightclubs and massage parlors were emptying out, sending slim young women in short skirts and sweat-streaked students in rumpled black T-shirts into the night together in fleets of red and yellow minibuses.
The clashes in Mong Kok occurred after a tense showdown at government headquarters in the city’s Admiralty district, the site of the largest protest. That eased somewhat Thursday night when protesters and city officials agreed to meet to negotiate a solution to the crisis.
An aerial drone captured footage of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters in a standoff with police outside the office of Chief Executive Leung Chun-Ying on Thursday night. Photo: Tobias Reeuwijk
The protesters agreed to sit down publicly with Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, the city’s No. 2 official, before the conflicts at Mong Kok led them to shelve those plans. Saturday morning, a spokesman for Ms. Lam said that she still considered the talks with students to be vital and would continue to try to make arrangements to meet with them as soon as possible.
Protesters want Hong Kong voters to be able to choose the city’s next leader in an election in 2017. Beijing has ruled that Hong Kong residents can vote, but only for approved candidates. Currently, a 1,200-member committee of mostly pro-business, pro-Beijing members picked the chief executive of the city, a Chinese territory that operates under a separate set of laws that offers greater freedoms for its residents than those on the mainland.
After several days of relative calm following battles Sunday where police used tear gas and pepper spray against protesters, there were clashes at government headquarters overnight Thursday as students attempted to block the entrance to the chief executive’s office. The government announced Friday morning―after employees had showed up for work―that offices would be closed because of the protesters.
Central Casting
The main characters in the tussle over Hong Kong democracy
View Graphics
Reuters
Hong Kong police said what the protesters were doing was “illegal, extremely unreasonable and inhumane, and is even worse than that of radical social activists and almost complete anarchy.” The police said that while protesters gathering peacefully would be tolerated, those near the chief executive’s office “will be dealt with resolutely in accordance with the law.”
The government and police believe that the violence at Mong Kok is being carried out by triad gangs, according to a person familiar with the matter. “They deliberately attacked the peaceful protesters,” the person said.
Several dozen police at the intersection were hugely outnumbered and largely ineffectual. “The government is hoping to have the end result of the protest being cleared,” the person familiar with the government and police said.
See 360 Degree Views From Protest Sites
Admiralty, mid-protest. Henry Williams/The Wall Street Journal
On Friday night, the police officials said their priority was to restore order. Police presence had swelled in the area as the night progressed.
Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai urged the pro-democracy crowds in Mong Kok to leave the site and to defend the Admiralty district near where government offices are located. Student leaders condemned the violence but said they would continue the protests in a nonviolent way. “I hope all the protesters at Mong Kok, Causeway Bay and Admiralty could stick to the nonviolence principle, don’t actively incite or assault anyone, including those with different viewpoints,” said Lester Shum, a representative of the Hong Kong Federation of Students.
Even as crowds in Mong Kok had thinned, some demonstrators stayed in the area overnight or joined the crowds in the morning, ignoring Occupy’s call to retreat from the area. “They don’t represent us,” said Ray Kwok, 18, on Saturday morning. Mr. Kwok also criticized the police response to the assaults in the area. “They have done nothing,” he said.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has refused to resign despite pro-democracy protestors’ demands. WSJ's Ramy Inocencio recaps night six of the city's Occupy Central movement.
Last week, when the government pulled back police and allowed protesters to occupy city streets, it hoped that public opinion would eventually turn against the protesters as businesses lost money and people were inconvenienced in the famously efficient city.
In the Causeway Bay, another district occupied by protesters, people opposing the protesters appeared to be trying to remove police barriers from the area on a truck. Protesters and police on the scene said they wanted the barriers to remain to protect the protesters. “We can’t do anything right now except support peoples’ safety no matter what side they’re on,” a police officer said. Police earlier demanded protesters leave the area.
Hong Kong police scuffle with pro-democracy protesters outside the compound housing the chief executive's office on Oct. 3. Associated Press
The city returned to work Friday after a two-day holiday and were greeted with traffic jams and rerouted or canceled buses. The number of closed bank branches decreased to 11 according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. After starting the day in the red, the Hong Kong stock market rose 0.6%.
Many tourists stayed away from Hong Kong in what is normally one of its busiest shopping weeks in the year. Tourist arrivals were 7% lower Wednesday, China’s National Day holiday, compared with a year earlier.
The Chinese government made clear Friday that it wouldn’t revisit the decision by the National Peoples’ Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, that only approved candidates could run for the chief executive office.
For the third day in a row, the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, ran a front-page commentary denouncing Hong Kong protesters, blasting student groups as radicals seeking to undermine Hong Kong’s strong rule-of-law traditions.
The latest commentary, appearing at the bottom of page one of Saturday’s edition, argued that even if protestors’ labeled their actions as non-violent civil disobedience the demonstration are nonetheless illegal and “trampling on rule of law.” The commentary did not mention clashes in Mong Kok.
Some analysts said the only two areas of possible compromise between the Hong Kong government and the protesters would be the resignation of Mr. Leung as chief executive, something the protesters had called for earlier in the week, and the composition of the committee charged with vetting the candidates. It wasn’t clear what the government would be willing to negotiate. Mr. Leung, who had said he wouldn’t resign, spent much of the day meeting with other officials to plan strategy.
It also wasn’t clear what role Beijing played in the decision to negotiate or whether it would allow Mr. Leung to resign.
―Fiona Law, Lorraine Luk, Jacky Wong, Brian Spegele and Enda Curran
contributed to this article.
Write to Andrew Browne at andrew.browne@wsj.com, Te-Ping Chen at te-ping.chen@wsj.com and Isabella Steger at isabella.steger@wsj.com
-------------------
[Jamawns' comment]
-------------------
According to some rumor,
Violence in Mong Kok was made by payment. The fee contingent upon success to mutilate the demo is HK$1,000.
http://goo.gl/cPvkYK
China Central Television interviewed a person saying “HK demo negatively affects on economy”, while the person appeared as a member of gangsters violating against HK demo. SPY?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzC2HWQCcAAY9f7.jpg
Crowds Scuffle With Pro-Democracy Demonstrators, Derailing Planned Talks With Government
By ANDREW BROWNE, TE-PING CHEN and ISABELLA STEGER
Updated Oct. 3, 2014 10:26 p.m. ET
HONG KONG―Angry crowds descended on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong on Friday, causing clashes and derailing scheduled talks with the government aimed at defusing the crisis.
Tension remained high Saturday morning at a protest site in Kowloon’s Mong Kok district, one of three that demonstrators have occupied, hours after a large crowd surrounded and, in some cases, attacked the demonstrators. By dawn, the crowds had largely thinned but intermittent scuffles continued to break out.
Citing police inaction over the attacks, the Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the two main student protest groups, issued a statement late Friday saying it had decided to shelve talks agreed upon the night before.
View Slideshow
A group in masks clash with a man, right, who tried to stop them from removing barricades Friday from a pro-democracy protest area in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The protests came under pressure on several fronts Friday. As protesters’ numbers dwindled during the day, police were able to reopen some streets, allowing opponents of the protests, some of them violent, to move in to the protest site in the Mong Kok district, a densely populated working-class district. Gangs of mostly middle-aged men set upon students who had erected makeshift tents at the intersection of Nathan Road and Argyle Street, grabbing them one by one and bundling them out of the area.
As the evening progressed, a pattern developed in which groups of students would surround violent trouble-makers and raise their arms in the air to show they weren’t using violence, as others ran to police lines to appeal for them to come and make an arrest.
In some cases the police responded, wading into the crowds to grab the offenders. But many of the police stood behind the crowds with their arms folded, some looking weary after days on the streets and reluctant to take sides.
More
The ‘Good Fighter’ Face of Hong Kong Government
In Hong Kong, a Family Divided
Full Video Coverage of the Protests
Live Updates
“Do your jobs,” the students yelled. “Uphold the law.”
At a predawn news conference on Saturday, Patrick Kwok Pak-chung, senior superintendent of police, said criticism of the police presence as insufficient was “unfair and without evidence.”
He said police arrested 19 men in Mong Kok for fighting and illegal gathering, eight of whom were suspected of having links to the organized crime organizations known as Triads.
A person familiar with the matter confirmed that the government believed that Triad gangs were behind many of the Mong Kok attacks. “They deliberately attacked the peaceful protesters,” the person said.
“The government is hoping to have the end result of the protest being cleared,” the person said.
Many counter-demonstrators, however, appeared to be local shopkeepers and street traders, who complained that their businesses are suffering as a result of the chaos on the streets.
A policeman scuffles with residents and pro-Beijing supporters as they try to attack a pro-democracy activist in Mong Kok district on Friday. Associated Press
The grittier parts of Mong Kok have large communities of recent arrivals from mainland China, some identifiable by their thick Cantonese accents. “Go back to China,” the students screamed at them.
They responded with Cantonese vulgarities, telling the protesters to “drop dead.”
The Mong Kok crowds started thinning in the early hours of Saturday morning just as the area’s nightclubs and massage parlors were emptying out, sending slim young women in short skirts and sweat-streaked students in rumpled black T-shirts into the night together in fleets of red and yellow minibuses.
The clashes in Mong Kok occurred after a tense showdown at government headquarters in the city’s Admiralty district, the site of the largest protest. That eased somewhat Thursday night when protesters and city officials agreed to meet to negotiate a solution to the crisis.
An aerial drone captured footage of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters in a standoff with police outside the office of Chief Executive Leung Chun-Ying on Thursday night. Photo: Tobias Reeuwijk
The protesters agreed to sit down publicly with Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, the city’s No. 2 official, before the conflicts at Mong Kok led them to shelve those plans. Saturday morning, a spokesman for Ms. Lam said that she still considered the talks with students to be vital and would continue to try to make arrangements to meet with them as soon as possible.
Protesters want Hong Kong voters to be able to choose the city’s next leader in an election in 2017. Beijing has ruled that Hong Kong residents can vote, but only for approved candidates. Currently, a 1,200-member committee of mostly pro-business, pro-Beijing members picked the chief executive of the city, a Chinese territory that operates under a separate set of laws that offers greater freedoms for its residents than those on the mainland.
After several days of relative calm following battles Sunday where police used tear gas and pepper spray against protesters, there were clashes at government headquarters overnight Thursday as students attempted to block the entrance to the chief executive’s office. The government announced Friday morning―after employees had showed up for work―that offices would be closed because of the protesters.
Central Casting
The main characters in the tussle over Hong Kong democracy
View Graphics
Reuters
Hong Kong police said what the protesters were doing was “illegal, extremely unreasonable and inhumane, and is even worse than that of radical social activists and almost complete anarchy.” The police said that while protesters gathering peacefully would be tolerated, those near the chief executive’s office “will be dealt with resolutely in accordance with the law.”
The government and police believe that the violence at Mong Kok is being carried out by triad gangs, according to a person familiar with the matter. “They deliberately attacked the peaceful protesters,” the person said.
Several dozen police at the intersection were hugely outnumbered and largely ineffectual. “The government is hoping to have the end result of the protest being cleared,” the person familiar with the government and police said.
See 360 Degree Views From Protest Sites
Admiralty, mid-protest. Henry Williams/The Wall Street Journal
On Friday night, the police officials said their priority was to restore order. Police presence had swelled in the area as the night progressed.
Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai urged the pro-democracy crowds in Mong Kok to leave the site and to defend the Admiralty district near where government offices are located. Student leaders condemned the violence but said they would continue the protests in a nonviolent way. “I hope all the protesters at Mong Kok, Causeway Bay and Admiralty could stick to the nonviolence principle, don’t actively incite or assault anyone, including those with different viewpoints,” said Lester Shum, a representative of the Hong Kong Federation of Students.
Even as crowds in Mong Kok had thinned, some demonstrators stayed in the area overnight or joined the crowds in the morning, ignoring Occupy’s call to retreat from the area. “They don’t represent us,” said Ray Kwok, 18, on Saturday morning. Mr. Kwok also criticized the police response to the assaults in the area. “They have done nothing,” he said.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has refused to resign despite pro-democracy protestors’ demands. WSJ's Ramy Inocencio recaps night six of the city's Occupy Central movement.
Last week, when the government pulled back police and allowed protesters to occupy city streets, it hoped that public opinion would eventually turn against the protesters as businesses lost money and people were inconvenienced in the famously efficient city.
In the Causeway Bay, another district occupied by protesters, people opposing the protesters appeared to be trying to remove police barriers from the area on a truck. Protesters and police on the scene said they wanted the barriers to remain to protect the protesters. “We can’t do anything right now except support peoples’ safety no matter what side they’re on,” a police officer said. Police earlier demanded protesters leave the area.
Hong Kong police scuffle with pro-democracy protesters outside the compound housing the chief executive's office on Oct. 3. Associated Press
The city returned to work Friday after a two-day holiday and were greeted with traffic jams and rerouted or canceled buses. The number of closed bank branches decreased to 11 according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. After starting the day in the red, the Hong Kong stock market rose 0.6%.
Many tourists stayed away from Hong Kong in what is normally one of its busiest shopping weeks in the year. Tourist arrivals were 7% lower Wednesday, China’s National Day holiday, compared with a year earlier.
The Chinese government made clear Friday that it wouldn’t revisit the decision by the National Peoples’ Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, that only approved candidates could run for the chief executive office.
For the third day in a row, the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, ran a front-page commentary denouncing Hong Kong protesters, blasting student groups as radicals seeking to undermine Hong Kong’s strong rule-of-law traditions.
The latest commentary, appearing at the bottom of page one of Saturday’s edition, argued that even if protestors’ labeled their actions as non-violent civil disobedience the demonstration are nonetheless illegal and “trampling on rule of law.” The commentary did not mention clashes in Mong Kok.
Some analysts said the only two areas of possible compromise between the Hong Kong government and the protesters would be the resignation of Mr. Leung as chief executive, something the protesters had called for earlier in the week, and the composition of the committee charged with vetting the candidates. It wasn’t clear what the government would be willing to negotiate. Mr. Leung, who had said he wouldn’t resign, spent much of the day meeting with other officials to plan strategy.
It also wasn’t clear what role Beijing played in the decision to negotiate or whether it would allow Mr. Leung to resign.
―Fiona Law, Lorraine Luk, Jacky Wong, Brian Spegele and Enda Curran
contributed to this article.
Write to Andrew Browne at andrew.browne@wsj.com, Te-Ping Chen at te-ping.chen@wsj.com and Isabella Steger at isabella.steger@wsj.com
-------------------
[Jamawns' comment]
-------------------
According to some rumor,
Violence in Mong Kok was made by payment. The fee contingent upon success to mutilate the demo is HK$1,000.
http://goo.gl/cPvkYK
China Central Television interviewed a person saying “HK demo negatively affects on economy”, while the person appeared as a member of gangsters violating against HK demo. SPY?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzC2HWQCcAAY9f7.jpg