HK police end university siege

Hong Kong police yesterday ended their two-week siege of a university campus that became a battleground with pro-democracy protesters, as activists vowed to hold fresh rallies and strikes in the coming days.

Renewed calls to hit the streets came after Beijing and city leader Carrie Lam refused further political concessions despite a landslide victory for pro-democracy parties in local elections last weekend.

Sunday’s district council polls delivered a stinging rebuke to the financial hub’s pro-Beijing establishment and undermined their argument that a silent majority were tired of the nearly six months of increasingly violent protests.

They also ushered in a rare period of calm following weeks of spiralling unrest, with no clashes or tear gas battles between protesters and police for more than a week.

But the calm spell looks set to end as public anger grows once more over the lack of response to the election results by Beijing and Hong Kong’s leaders.

Online forums used to organise the mass movement have filled with calls for a major rally on Sunday and a strike on Monday targeting the morning commute.

The Sunday rally has received permission from authorities, but the fresh calls raise the spectre of a return to the kind of weekly political chaos that has battered Hong Kong for nearly six months and helped tip the city into recession.