Protesters stay holed up on Hong Kong campus, surrounded by riot police (updated)

MTR

21/11/2019 05:08

(Adds state media comments)
    By Donny Kwok and Clare Baldwin
    HONG KONG, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Fewer than 100 protesters
remained holed up in a Hong Kong university on Thursday as riot
police encircled the campus, with some activists desperately
searching for ways to escape while others hid.
    Some protesters told Reuters they where holding out not for
a showdown with police, but because they were innocent and
looking for an escape route. 
    "I won't consider surrendering. Surrendering is for people
who are guilty. None of us inside are guilty," Michelle, a
20-year-old student, said on the campus of Polytechnic
University on the Kowloon peninsula.
    Rubbish has piled up around the campus, with trash and
debris from homemade petrol bombs littered across the grounds.
Many protesters have abandoned their equipment, including gas
masks and umbrellas.
    Much of the campus is damaged, with rooms vandalised and
windows shattered. Electricity and water are still functioning.
    The Asian financial hub has had a brief respite from months
of often violent demonstrations, with relative calm across the
city for the past two days and nights ahead of District Council
elections set for Sunday. 
    The government said late on Wednesday it was closely
monitoring the situation to see whether the elections could be
held safely. 
    The university, in the centre of the bustling Kowloon
peninsula, is the last campus still occupied by activists during
a week that saw the most intense violence since the
anti-government demonstrations escalated more than five months
ago.
    Demonstrators are angry at what they see as Chinese meddling
in freedoms promised to Hong Kong when the British colony
returned to Chinese rule in 1997. 
    Beijing has said it is committed to the "one country, two
systems" formula granting Hong Kong autonomy.
    The unrest marks the most serious popular challenge to
Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012.
    Some protesters have surrendered while others were held
during escape attempts that included clambering down from a
bridge to waiting motorbikes and fleeing through the sewers.
    
    'GROSS INTERFERENCE'
    Graffiti sprayed on campus buildings read: "I have nothing
to lose. I have no stake in society," summing up the mood felt
by many of the protesters on Thursday morning. 
    Some looked for breakfast in one of the university canteens,
which remained stocked with food, including noodles and
tomatoes.
    One protester, dressed in black clothes with gloves, elbow
and knee pads, had about a dozen colourful lighters strapped to
his chest, apparently to light petrol bombs. He told Reuters the
hold-outs were discussing what to do next.
    In the past two weeks, protesters have torched buildings and
infrastructure, including a footbridge, mass transit stations
and toll booths at the city's Cross Harbour Tunnel linking Hong
Kong island to the Kowloon peninsula.
    The protesters say that they are angry at the way the MTR,
Hong Kong's public rail network, has helped riot police, and
that shutting down key infrastructure forces the government to
listen to their demands for universal suffrage and an
independent inquiry into police violence, among other things.
    The Cross Harbour Tunnel remained shut on Thursday because
of extensive damage, authorities said.
    Some train services remained shut, the city's metro operator
MTR Corp  0066.HK  said, while the rural Yuen Long station in
New Territories would shut by 2 p.m., to pre-empt demonstrations
marking four months since suspected triad gang members attacked
protesters and commuters there.
    China has accused the United States and Britain of stirring
up trouble in Hong Kong and it has criticised the U.S. House of
Representatives over its passing of two bills aimed at
supporting the protesters and sending a warning to China about
human rights.
    China's state Xinhua news agency said a top Chinese official
in Hong Kong, Xie Feng, had summoned the U.S. consul-general to
denounce the legislation as gross interference and violation of
international law.    
    The anger over the U.S. legislation, which has been sent to
the White House for President Donald Trump to sign or veto,
comes as the two countries are locked in delicate trade talks.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N2800OG

 (Reporting by Donny Kwok and Clare Baldwin; Writing by Farah
Master; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Robert Birsel)
 ((farah.master@thomsonreuters.com; +852 28431631 ;))