HONG KONG (AFP) ― Police arrested protesters as they moved in Monday to clear Hong Kong’s last remaining pro-democracy site, with just a handful of demonstrators making a final peaceful stand, after the main camp was demolished last week.
After more than two months of rallies, a committed core of around a dozen protesters staged a sit-in at the center of the last site in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay as police cut away barricades and tore down banners and shelters.
From students to the elderly, the protesters were led away without resisting, some shouting “We will be back” and “Fight to the end.”
Meanwhile trucks and cleaning teams moved in to remove the debris, and roads around the site which have been closed for weeks reopened.
Causeway Bay is the smallest of the three camps that sprang up in late September, paralyzing sections of the city, as part of a student-led campaign for free leadership elections.
Activists occupied major traffic arteries after China said in August that candidates for the city’s chief executive elections in 2017 would first be vetted by a loyalist committee, a move campaigners said will ensure a pro-Beijing stooge in the leadership role.
The main Admiralty camp which sprawled across a kilometer of multi-lane highway through the heart of the business district was cleared Thursday with more than 200 protesters arrested.
Police cleared the other major protest site in the working-class commercial district of Mongkok ― scene of some of the most violent clashes since the campaign began ― in late November.
Protesters had been given a 30-minute warning to disperse from Causeway Bay before police set up a cordon around the camp Monday.
Five members of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, which has spearheaded the street protests, were among the sit-in group and said they were willing to face arrest.
They were joined by a 90-year-old campaigner surnamed Wong who sat on a chair by the barricades and was later led away by police, walking slowly using a cane.
“I will let them arrest me,” he said. “We must do it regardless of whether we can achieve anything. We have to get back what they owe us.”
Those who were arrested were loaded onto a coach as supporters outside the cordon chanted “We want true universal suffrage!”
A handful of protesters and around 30 tents remain near Hong Kong’s government complex, beside the former Admiralty site. Officials have said that site will also be cleared Monday afternoon.
Demonstrators feel their lengthy occupation has put the democracy movement on the map with Beijing and the local administration, after it saw tens of thousands of supporters on the streets at its height.
But it has achieved no political concessions from either Hong Kong’s leaders or the Chinese government, with both branding the protests “illegal.”
Chinese state-run media triumphantly declared the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement “defeated” after the Admiralty site was cleared, and warned domestic and foreign “hostile forces” against destabilizing the city.
However, protesters have vowed to struggle on in their fight for fully free elections through various means including refusal to pay rent and taxes.
Hundreds had gathered at the neat Causeway Bay camp on Sunday afternoon, many of them tourists and visitors wanting to capture the strings of paper umbrellas and artworks which decorate the site and have become symbols of the movement.
Some had commemorative T-shirts printed while others sang protest songs.
By Monday morning that number had dwindled to around 20 with some packing away tents and belongings. Protesters said their goodbyes, while stickers on the floor read “We’ll be back.”
