Scuffles broke out and around a dozen people were detained as police attempted to clear protesters from one of three major pro-democracy protest camps in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Demonstrators have been camped out on the streets of Asia’s most important financial centre since late September when the Umbrella Movement protests were launched in a bid to pressure Beijing into granting the former British colony greater democracy.
Two months later – and with Beijing yet to show the slightest hint it will offer concessions – hundreds of protesters remain barricaded into small tent cities that have sprung up in the districts of Admiralty, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok.
Police and bailiffs arrived at the Mong Kok site in Kowloon on Tuesday morning, one week after a similar operation removed a small portion of the Admiralty camp.
I will stay here until the very end because this is my home, said one 29-year-old protester who asked to be named only as Cathy.
If we lose this site and this battle then the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] will take full control of Hong Kong and it will no longer be the home I know. Mong Kok protesters won’t surrender easily – I’m sure people will return tonight, she added.
Another protester, a 48-year-old accountant who gave her name as Ms Ng, said: I’m not afraid of being arrested because I didn’t do any wrong.
Ms Ng said she would take her protest to outside the British consulate if police succeeded in forcing demonstrators from Mong Kok.
The clearance operation was initially peaceful as bailiffs dismantled barricades erected by protesters between Argyle Street and Nathan Road.
However, by midafternoon scuffles had broken out as crowds surged into the area and police used loudhailers to urge bystanders to withdraw in order to avoid getting hurt unnecessarily.
At least a dozen people were detained, the South China Morning Post reported. Among them was Leung Kwok-hung, a pro-democracy lawmaker better known by the nickname Long Hair.
Many protesters used surgical masks to cover their faces, following reports that Beijing has been drawing up a blacklist of Hong Kong protesters who it has banned from travelling to Mainland China. On November 15, three prominent student leaders were prevented from boarding a plane to Beijing where they had hoped to air their grievances to senior Communist Party leaders.
A 60-year-old protester who gave her name as Maddie motioned to rooftops over the Mong Kok protest site where police officers could be seen filming demonstrators with cameras.
I am fighting for her future since I won’t be around in 30 years, she said of her three-year-old granddaughter, who she had brought to the protest camp.
Public support for the protests, which entered their 59th day on Tuesday, has been waning with a Hong Kong University poll last week finding that 83 per cent of respondents now believed it was time for them to end.
A number of prominent pro-democracy campaigners are now calling on student leaders to make a tactical retreat.
Jimmy Lai, the prominent media mogul and political activist, urged students to give the government a few months to offer them concessions over democratic reform – and then to reoccupy the streets if they failed to do so.
If by then there is no answer, or the answer is not positive, we come back again. We have to come back many times before we get what we want, Mr Lai told CNN.
They should realise that it is about time we retreated and preserved our determination, our willpower so we can come back again, he added. I hope they will consider it because we can’t just go on. Many protesters at the Mong Kok camp scoffed at the suggestion of a retreat on Tuesday.
I am staying here until the last moment, said Anthony, a university student who also declined to give his second name. The current state of Hong Kong is unacceptable. If we back down now there will surely be heavy political repercussions against protesters for a long time to come.
Meanwhile a group of British MPs cancelled a trip to Shanghai scheduled for this week after Chinese officials refused to grant a visa to a Conservative MP who urged Beijing to introduce real elections in Hong Kong.
In a speech at Westminster Hall last month, Richard Graham, MP for Gloucester, called on the British Government to do more to debate what is happening in Hong Kong and said he believed residents of the former colony should be given a real choice in who becomes Hong Kong’s future leader.
Pro-democracy campaigners accuse Beijing of attempting to introduce fake democracy in Hong Kong by giving voters in the 2017 leadership election the ability to vote only for candidates who have been approved by a heavily pro-Beijing nominating committee.
To implement universal suffrage in a way that does not offer real choice to the people of Hong Kong would risk a low turnout and would be a hollow achievement that gave the future Chief Executive a fragile mandate, Mr Graham warned.