HONG KONG
Police have dismantled the last of the street blockades set up by Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, meeting little resistance Monday as they removed tents and obstacles from a road in Causeway Bay.
Traffic has started flowing on Yee Wo street in the shopping district, which protesters had occupied for 79 days.
Around 20 demonstrators who refused to leave have been arrested, according to local reports.
The clearing of the last and smallest of the sites occupied for two and a half months comes after authorities tore through the main camp in Admiralty district, home to many government office buildings, last Thursday.
Some 249 people had been taken into custody for unlawful assembly after refusing to vacate the encampment, but were released the next day.
Meanwhile, public broadcaster RTHK reported that protesters and tents would be removed later Monday from outside the nearby Legislative Council, to where some demonstrators had moved after being driven from their tents by police Thursday.
Police would help in the operation in the case of protesters refusing to leave, the report said.
Police have arrested around 900 people since the demonstrations began at the end of September.
The demonstrators had been calling for a fully democratic election with open nominations for the territory's next leader, the chief executive, in 2017. The Chinese government says it will allow "one man, one vote" suffrage but that candidates will have to be approved by a body loyal to Beijing.
While the demonstrators have so far failed to win any concessions, protest leaders said they would continue campaigning even after the sites had been cleared.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula that promised a high degree of autonomy from Beijing, including universal suffrage.
The protests, which involved more than 100,000 people at their peak, were seen as one of the most serious challenges to China's authority since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that ended with a bloody crackdown in Beijing.
www.aa.com.tr/en
