HONG KONG: Hong Kong police dismantled the city’s main pro-democracy protest site Thursday, clearing tents and barricades after more than two months of rallies and leading away more than 200 demonstrators, who vowed their struggle lives on.
Hundreds of police moved in from all sides of the Admiralty camp in the heart of the business district, sweeping away shelters and supply stands before swooping on a core group at the center of the site, including student leaders and lawmakers.
As police cleared the last handful of protesters late Thursday, parts of the site reopened to traffic for the first time since September.
Those making a last stand were the remnants of what once numbered tens of thousands of people at the height of the protest movement, before public support waned.
Some were carried by groups of four officers while others were led off on foot, one by one. Those who remained lay on the road shouting, “We are peaceful,” “We will not resist” and “I want true democracy.”
The call for free leadership elections has underpinned the demonstrations, and protesters have vowed the clearance operation will not end a campaign they say has redefined the city’s vexed relationship with Beijing.
Police would not confirm if any of those taken away had been formally detained but they had threatened in the build-up to the operation to arrest anyone who refused to leave the protest zone.
Protest group Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) said that eight of its members had been arrested.
Media mogul Jimmy Lai, a fierce critic of Beijing, and veteran campaigner Martin Lee were among those led away — Lee holding up a victory salute to reporters.
Singer Denize Ho shouted “Civil disobedience without fear,” as she walked away with officers while lawmaker Claudia Mo sang “We will overcome” and shouted “We will be back” through a megaphone before being escorted off.
Student leaders Nathan Law and Eason Chung were also take away by police, alongside other protesters including an elderly man in a wheelchair.
“This is not the end of the movement. The political awakening amongst the young is irreversible and we will fight on,” Mo told AFP earlier Thursday.
Lee added: “In the heart of every student who has participated in this movement there is now a fire burning, a fire for democracy. This fire cannot be extinguished by an iron fist.”
Earlier in the day, police had announced a “lockdown” after a 30-minute window allowing protesters to voluntarily leave the site — an encampment of tents, supply stations and art installations sprawling along a kilometer of a multi-lane highway through the Admiralty district.
Some managed to leave after the deadline, but were asked to give their identity details to police.
Thousands gathered on Wednesday night for one final mass rally at the site, but the numbers had already dwindled to hundreds by Thursday morning.
Before the police operation, bailiffs descended with cutters and pliers to take down barricades and load them into trucks to enforce court orders taken out by transport companies frustrated at the long-running disruption.
The Admiralty site has been the focal point of the protest movement since rallies erupted in September, after China’s Communist authorities insisted that candidates in Hong Kong’s 2017 leadership election will have to be vetted by a loyalist committee.
Protesters say this will ensure the election of a pro-Beijing stooge, and their struggle has highlighted a litany of frustrations in the former British colony including a yawning income gap and lack of affordable housing.
Some in Admiralty expressed a sense of failure Thursday, after the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing refused to give any concessions on political reform, but said the occupation had changed Hong Kong for good.
“I feel sad because we haven’t achieved our mission, but I think there can be progress in the future,” said 23-year-old welfare worker Dubi. “I think it’s the start of something long-term.”
Others were still determined to stand their ground.
“I’m not tired (of the campaign). I’ll never be tired, only the government is tired,” said 19-year-old student Alice.
There had been fears that radical splinter groups would dig in for a final stand, following violent clashes outside government headquarters in Admiralty at the end of last month.
But many said they did not want a confrontation and there were no clashes as police swept through.
HK police haul away protesters from rally site
HK police haul away protesters from rally site
Four Pakistan security forces killed as ex-PM Khan supporters flood capital
More than ten thousand protesters armed with sticks and slingshots took on police in central Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon, AFP journalists saw, less than three kilometers (two miles) from the government enclave they aim to occupy.
Khan was barred from standing in February elections that were marred by allegations of rigging, sidelined by dozens of legal cases that he claims were confected to prevent his comeback.
But his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has defied a government crackdown with regular rallies. Tuesday’s is the largest in the capital since Khan was jailed in August 2023.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said “miscreants” involved in the march had killed four members of the paramilitary Rangers force on a city highway leading toward the government sector.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the men had been “run over by a vehicle.”
“These disruptive elements do not seek revolution but bloodshed,” he said in a statement. “This is not a peaceful protest, it is extremism.”
The government said Monday that one police officer had also been killed and nine more were critically wounded by demonstrators who set out toward Islamabad on Sunday.
The capital has been locked down since late Saturday, with mobile Internet sporadically cut and more than 20,000 police flooding the streets, many armed with riot shields and batons.
The government has accused protesters of attempting to derail a state visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived for a three-day visit on Monday.
Last week, the Islamabad city administration announced a two-month ban on public gatherings.
But PTI convoys traveled from their power base in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the most populous province of Punjab, hauling aside roadblocks of stacked shipping containers.
“We are deeply frustrated with the government, they do not know how to function,” 56-year-old protester Kalat Khan told AFP on Monday. “The treatment we are receiving is unjust and cruel.”
The government cited “security concerns” for the mobile Internet outages, while Islamabad’s schools and universities were also ordered shut on Monday and Tuesday.
“Those who will come here will be arrested,” Interior Minister Naqvi told reporters late Monday at D-Chowk, the public square outside Islamabad’s government buildings that PTI aims to occupy.
PTI’s chief demand is the release of Khan, the 72-year-old charismatic former cricket star who served as premier from 2018 to 2022 and is the lodestar of their party.
They are also protesting alleged tampering in the February polls and a recent government-backed constitutional amendment giving it more power over the courts, where Khan is tangled in dozens of cases.
Sharif’s government has come under increasing criticism for deploying heavy-handed measures to quash PTI’s protests.
“It speaks of a siege mentality on the part of the government and establishment — a state in which they see themselves in constant danger and fearful all the time of being overwhelmed by opponents,” read one opinion piece in the English-language Dawn newspaper published Monday.
“This urges them to take strong-arm measures, not occasionally but incessantly.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said “blocking access to the capital, with motorway and highway closures across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has effectively penalized ordinary citizens.”
The US State Department appealed for protesters to refrain from violence, while also urging authorities to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to ensure respect for Pakistan’s laws and constitution as they work to maintain law and order.”
Khan was ousted by a no-confidence vote after falling out with the kingmaking military establishment, which analysts say engineers the rise and fall of Pakistan’s politicians.
But as opposition leader, he led an unprecedented campaign of defiance, with PTI street protests boiling over into unrest that the government cited as the reason for its crackdown.
PTI won more seats than any other party in this year’s election but a coalition of parties considered more pliable to military influence shut them out of power.
stm-jts/sco
Russia’s Medvedev warns West over discussing nuclear weapons for Ukraine
MOSCOW: Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.
The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested that US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons, though there were fears such a step would have serious implications.
“American politicians and journalists are seriously discussing the consequences of the transfer of nuclear weapons to Kyiv,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, said on Telegram.
Medvedev said that even the threat of such a transfer of nuclear weapons could be considered as preparation for a nuclear war against Russia.
“The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to the fait accompli of an attack on our country,” under Russia’s newly updated nuclear doctrine, he said.
China sends naval, air forces to shadow US plane over Taiwan Strait
- The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait
BEIJING: China’s military said on Tuesday it deployed naval and air forces to monitor and warn a US Navy patrol aircraft that flew through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, denouncing the United States for trying to “mislead” the international community.
Around once a month, US military ships or aircraft pass through or above the waterway that separates democratically governed Taiwan from China — missions that always anger Beijing.
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and says it has jurisdiction over the strait. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying the strait is an international waterway.
The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait “in international airspace,” adding that the flight demonstrated the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” it said in a statement.
China’s military criticized the flight as “public hype,” adding that it monitored the US aircraft throughout its transit and “effectively” responded to the situation.
“The relevant remarks by the US distort legal principles, confuse public opinion and mislead international perceptions,” the military’s Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement.
“We urge the US side to stop distorting and hyping up and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.”
In April, China’s military said it sent fighter jets to monitor and warn a US Navy Poseidon in the Taiwan Strait, a mission that took place just hours after a call between the Chinese and US defense chiefs. (Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting and writing by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Ukraine says Russia launched ‘record’ 188 drones overnight
KYIV: Russia staged a record number of drone attacks overnight over Ukraine, damaging buildings and “critical infrastructure” in several regions, the air force said Tuesday.
“During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of Shahed strike unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified drones,” the air force said, referring to Iranian-designed drones and putting the figure at 188.
President of Chile denies sexual harassment complaint
- Chilean President Gabriel Boric denies claims he sexually harassed a woman over a decade ago
Santiago: Chilean President Gabriel Boric was accused in a criminal complaint of sexually harassing a woman over a decade ago, an allegation he “categorically” denies, a lawyer said Monday.
“The president ... rejects and categorically denies the complaint,” attorney Jonatan Valenzuela said in a statement, referring to an alleged event in 2013.
The complaint was filed on September 6 in the local prosecutor’s office of Magallanes, in the far south of Chile where Boric is from.
Cristian Crisosto, who heads the Magallanes prosecutor’s office, confirmed “there is a criminal case related to the facts listed,” adding that there was a special team at the agency investigating the complaint.
According to Valenzuela, the complaint was filed by a woman who at the time sent Boric 25 emails that were “unsolicited and non-consensual,” including one with explicit images.
More than 10 years later, the woman “filed a complaint without any basis whatsoever against now-president Gabriel Boric.”
Boric, now 38, was 27 at the time and had just completed his law degree.
“My client never had an emotional relationship or friendship with her and they have not communicated since July 2014,” Valenzuela added.
The accusation against Boric comes as his administration is dealing with a separate scandal over sexual abuse after former crime czar and ex-deputy interior minister Manuel Monsalve was arrested this month on suspicion of raping his subordinate.
Boric, who is ineligible to run for reelection after his four-year presidential term ends in 2026, has special immunity and must first be subject to an impeachment trial by the justice department to be formally investigated.
