Hong Kong police are set to end the nearly two-week-long siege of the city’s Polytechnic University (PolyU) on Friday after they completed an operation removing dangerous items, including Molotov cocktails, bows, and chemicals stowed there.
The Polytechnic University said that it has decided to halt its search after a sweep of the trash-littered campus for a second straight day failed to find anyone left behind.
On Tuesday, one person was found — a young woman in a weak condition.
During the operation, police claim to have seized around 4,000 petrol bombs, hundreds of gas canisters, hundreds of bottles of chemicals, including sulphuric acid “believed to have been stolen by protesters from laboratories on the campus ” and other offensive weapons such as bows, arrows and catapults. No protester was found.
“Later on, we will hand over the campus to the university. Police would like to reiterate that we will not tolerate any kind of violence or illegal activities,” Chow added when meeting the press.
Hong Kong embattled leader Carrie Lam offered no concessions, saying only that she would accelerate dialogue and look for ways to address societal grievances. “Carrie Lam is the goddess of democracy. She has single-handedly motivated and galvanized us to fight for democracy,” an act…
More than 5,000 people have been detained since the unrest started in June over a China extradition bill that was seen as an erosion of freedoms promised when the former British colony returned to Chinese control in 1997. The movement has since expanded into wider demands, including universal suffrage and an independent investigation of police conduct.
Over the next few days, hundreds of people barricaded inside PolyU handed themselves over while some others used their own ways to escape, including abseiling down from a bridge.
Those who stayed put were reluctant to leave, out of fear of being charged with rioting “an offence that carries a maximum jail sentence of 10 years” and of being subdued by police with violence
Last week, the city’s police asked the demonstrators to leave the city’s Polytechnic University (PolyU) campus as soon as possible, citing bad and dangerous conditions inside.
The protests, which have been drawing massive crowds since June following a contentious proposed extradition law that has been pulled by the government, have mutated into a movement that seeks to improve the democratic mechanisms that govern Hong Kong and safeguard – or expand – the region’s partial autonomy from Beijing.
The controversial China extradition bill was withdrawn in early September but the movement has morphed into a wider campaign for greater democracy and against alleged police brutality.