離開
進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Hong Kong police clear protest sites
Workers yesterday remove barricades at an area blocked by pro-democracy protesters near the government headquarters building in Hong Kong’s Central district. Photo: Reuters
NOT GIVING UP: Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai and several lawmakers were led away alongside several student protesters yesterday as the police cleared the streets
/ Reuters, HONG KONG
Hong Kong police yesterday arrested pro-democracy activists and cleared most of the main protest site, marking an end to more than two months of street demonstrations in the territory, but many chanted: “We will be back.”
Most the activists chose to leave the Admiralty site, next to the Central business area, peacefully, despite their demands for a free vote not being met, but the overall mood remained defiant.
Groups of up to four police arrested holdout protesters one by one, hours after workers used wire cutters to remove barricades and dismantle bamboo scaffolding.
Martin Lee （李柱銘）, one of the founders of the main opposition Democratic Party, student leader Nathan Law （羅冠聰）, media mogul Jimmy Lai （黎智英） and legislators were among those arrested.
Lai said 75 days of protests would never have been enough to see the demands met.
“We are not so naive,” he told CNN before he was arrested. “We know there will be many battles before we win the war.”
Hong Kong Federation of Students （HKFS） secretary-general Alex Chow Yong Kang （周永康） said: “You might have the clearance today but people will come back on to the streets another day.”
The mainly peaceful protests have represented one of the most serious challenges to China’s authority since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations and bloody crackdown in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Going forward, protest leaders have said they will consider other forms of civil disobedience, given Beijing’s continued refusal to grant any concessions.
At the protest site, authorities used about 20 large trucks with cranes to remove mountains of rubbish. A government spokesman said roads would be reopened to traffic as soon as possible.
Hundreds of police swept through other parts of Admiralty, checking tents before dragging them away along with metal barriers, plastic sheets and umbrellas, which activists had used during clashes to guard against pepper spray and baton blows.
A decapitated cardboard cutout of Chinese President Xi Jinping （習近平） stood in front of a police line.
“The movement has been surreal. No one knew it could last more than two months ... in a place where time and money are most important,” protester Javis Luk, 27, said.
There was little resistance as protesters packed up pillows, blankets and other belongings from inside their tents.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
Singer and actress Denise Ho is taken away by policewomen from a protest site outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong yesterday. Photo: Reuters
Hong Kong police yesterday arrest lawmaker and pro-democracy activist Leung Kwok-Hung, center, during a sit-in as authorities clear the main protest site in Admiralty district. Photo: AFP
Pro-democracy protesters last night gather and chant slogans next to a road that police had cleared them from earlier in the day in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district. Photo: AFP
