Hong Kong police clear protesters out of tunnel

HONG KONG -- Hundreds of Hong Kong police officers moved in early Wednesday to clear pro-democracy protesters out of a tunnel outside the city government headquarters in the latest escalation of tensions in a weekslong political crisis.

Clashes erupted as officers, many of them in riot gear and wielding pepper spray, pushed back the crowd and tore down barricades and concrete slabs around the underpass.

The operation came hours after a large group of protesters blockaded the tunnel, expanding their protest zone after being cleared out of some other streets. The protesters outnumbered the police officers, who later returned with reinforcements to clear the area.

Police said they had to disperse the protesters because they were disrupting public order and gathering illegally. They arrested 37 men and eight women during the clashes, which police said injured four officers. A police spokesman told local television that none of those arrested was hurt.

"I have to stress here that even though protesters raised their hands in the air, it does not mean it was a peaceful protest," said the spokesman, Tsui Wai-Hung. He said some protesters kicked officers and attacked them with their umbrellas.

Local television broadcast live footage of the operation and its aftermath, with officers taking away many protesters, their hands tied with plastic cuffs, and pushing others out to a nearby park.

The student-led protesters are in their third week of occupying key parts of the city to pressure the Asian financial hub's government over curbs recommended by Beijing on democratic reforms.

Positions on both sides have been hardening since the government called off negotiations last week, citing the unlikelihood of a constructive outcome given their sharp differences.

The protesters want Hong Kong's unpopular Beijing-backed leader, chief executive Leung Chun-ying, to resign. They also want the Hong Kong government to drop plans for a pro-Beijing panel to screen candidates for the inaugural election to choose his replacement.

Leung has said there is "almost zero chance" that China's government will change its rules for the election, promised for 2017.

The demonstrations have posed an unprecedented challenge to the government. Organizers say as many as 200,000 people thronged the streets for peaceful sit-ins after police used tear gas on Sept. 28 to disperse the unarmed protesters. The numbers have seen dwindled.

Police have chipped away at the protest zones in three areas across the city by removing barricades from the edges of the protest zones, signaling growing impatience with activists' occupation of busy streets.

The clearance operation was the latest in a day of tit-for-tat actions between authorities and demonstrators that began Tuesday morning when police used chainsaws and sledgehammers to tear down barricades on a road on the edge of the protest zone.

Activists responded Tuesday evening by barricading the tunnel with tires, metal barricades, water-filled plastic safety barriers and concrete slabs taken from drainage ditches.

They used the slabs to form the shape of an umbrella on the road.

Umbrellas have become a symbol of the protests after demonstrators used them to protect themselves against pepper spray and tear gas used by police in an attempt to disperse them two weeks ago.

Beijing is eager to end the protests to avoid emboldening activists and others on the mainland seen as a threat to the Communist Party's monopoly on power.

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