Earlier in the day, thousands took to the streets for a series of wildcat protests. Police barricaded major streets around the China Liaison Office, which represents the mainland government, but it was at the main Hong Kong government offices that protests took a more violent turn: Protesters threw petrol bombs and other objects, and police responded with tear gas and the water cannon.
Standoffs between protesters and police moved through the city center — at one point punctuated by a large bonfire of piled barricades and debris, which police quickly extinguished — as day turned to night.
The standoffs continued until the very early hours of Sunday morning local time, where angry crowds gathered outside of Mong Kok police station and police blocked the station entrance to ward off potential incursions. Hundreds of people could be heard shouting and jeering, and across the street, cars honked to show their support for the protesters
Overall, the police response was quicker and fiercer than in past weeks, perhaps in a sign of waning patience.
On Friday however, one US official told CNN that Washington had no indication that any troops had left the city, suggesting that the week’s deployment may have swelled Hong Kong’s garrison by the thousands. CNN has reached out to Hong Kong and Chinese authorities for comment.
Discussing the protests, Trump said, “Look we all want liberty. We all want freedom.”
“I think we’re going to be worrying a lot — actually … I think we’re going to be learning a lot in the next two or three days. And I hope that it’s handled in a very humane way,” he added.
Online organizing platform LIHKG also said on Saturday morning that its server had received an unprecedented distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack it said was designed to drive it offline. Another key platform, the encrypted messaging app Telegram, has previously said it was targeted by DDoS attacks, which it linked to the protests.
Almost three months of protests
Hong Kong has seen protests for almost three months, with some demonstrations drawing estimated crowds of over 1 million.
Police have not revealed the names of all activists arrested in this week’s round-up. However, they did announce that in addition to Wong and Chow, police also arrested Rick Hui, an outspoken pro-democracy politician, and Andy Chan, founder of the outlawed Hong Kong National Party.
Legislators Au Nok-hin, Cheng Chung-tai and Jeremy Tam were also arrested, said their staff and political parties on Saturday.
Among other charges, Wong and Chow, both 22, were accused with “inciting others to participating in unlawful assembly” — which carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail if convicted. They have been released on bail.
Chow described the arrests as an attempt to tamp down on protest participation. “We can see clearly that the regime and the HK government is trying to create a White Terror to try to scare Hong Kong people to not participate in the social and democratic movement of the future,” she told reporters outside the courthouse on Friday.
Source : Nbcnewyork