Hong Kong protests devolved into violence for a second consecutive night Sunday, with police firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators who threw rocks and bricks at a police station.
The weekend marches have continued for the past two months to protest what they see as Beijing’s growing control over the officially autonomous Chinese territory. In an ominous warning Sunday, a major Chinese news outlet warned that Beijing will not let the protests continue.
As with previous marches, Sunday’s protests began peacefully with demonstrators singing and playing musical instruments as large crowds filled the streets. But as evening fell, smaller groups marched on a police station and the Liaison Office, the local headquarters of the mainland government.
Hundreds of masked demonstrators blocked streets in a district in Hong Kong’s New Territories and hurled rocks and bricks at a police station, smashing windows. Police responded with tear gas to drive back the crowd. A separate group of protesters was turned back from the Liaison Office.
A day earlier, protesters marched across Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po on Hong Kong’s Kowloon peninsula before converging in Tsim Sha Tsui, a waterfront shopping district popular with tourists from China, where they briefly barricaded a cross-harbor tunnel.
China’s warning
China’s central Xinhua news agency published the sharpest warning yet that a crackdown could be imminent. Blaming the violence on “ugly forces,” the commentary said the Beijing government “will not sit idly by and let this situation continue.”
Sunday’s protest are the latest in nearly nine weeks of demonstrations against the government, which earlier this summer tried and failed to push a bill through its semi-democratic legislature that would have allowed criminals to be extradited to mainland China.
The bill unleashed unprecedented anger and mistrust with the Hong Kong government, however, which many believe is heavily influenced by Beijing. That’s despite the fact the former British colony has been promised autonomy until 2047.
Even after it was suspended, discontent persists with the government’s heavy handed use of riot police to respond to protests, and its failure to meet any protester demands — including formally withdrawing the bill.
Many protesters on Saturday chanted slogans calling for a general strike on Monday, which organizers say will involve 23,000 people.
Elsewhere at Saturday’s march, half a dozen protesters carried American flags in a bid to draw the attention of the U.S. Congress, which they want to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The bipartisan legislation “reaffirms U.S. commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law at a time when those freedoms and Hong Kong’s autonomy are being eroded,” according to a press release.
The act would see the U.S. annually review its special trade treaty with Hong Kong, depending on the status of human rights in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. It also would enable the U.S. to impose sanctions on Hong Kong officials.