Members of student group launch strike after unsuccessful attempts to escalate protest amid clashes with police.
Three members of a student group leading pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong said they had begun an indefinite hunger strike, after attempts to escalate the protest by occupying another major road were forcefully defeated by police.
The student group, Scholarism, said the three teenagers, including the group’s convener, Joshua Wong, would starve themselves to press the government to restart dialogue on political reform.
The choice of hunger striking suggests the student protesters are wary of further physical confrontations with police after scores of demonstrators were left wounded by aggressive police action early Monday morning.
The secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, another group in the forefront of the movement, said the escalation of the civil disobedience campaign had been unsuccessful even if protesters had disrupted government operations for a short time, according to public broadcaster RTHK.
“The aim was to disrupt the government. We can say we were successful for a short time. But it ultimately failed and there is room for improvement,” Alex Chow said. “Some people say I don’t have the right to speak because I was not hit by the police. All I can say is that I am sorry.”
In some of the worst violence since the 65-day-old movement started, police hit demonstrators with their batons liberally, leaving many bleeding and injured. Pictures shared on social media even showed one officer with his fingers in the eyes of one protester.
Police said 11 officers were injured in the clashes, during which 40 protesters were arrested.
While the Admiralty protest camp was relatively peaceful Monday evening, hundreds of protesters in Mong Kok district continued their “mobile” protests under the watchful eyes of police. They roamed around in a large group, insisting they were shopping.
Meanwhile, a court granted an interim injunction order to bar protesters from occupying areas of their encampment in Admiral. The judge agreed the occupiers had caused a public nuisance, saying the right to demonstrate was not absolute but rather subject to limitation.
One of the protesters said he would appeal the decision Tuesday.
The violence came after a week in which protesters lost their major camp in Mong Kok, one of three sites where demonstrators have blocked roads since September 28.
The protesters are seeking free elections in 2017 for the semi-autonomous territory’s next chief executive. Beijing has said all candidates for the position would have to be approved by it first.
The movement is the biggest challenge to the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on power since the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy student protests in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
The protests attracted more than 100,000 at their peak. While numbers have fallen, they typically swell to several thousand at weekends and after violence is used against the demonstrators.
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