Hong Kong protesters hurl petrol bombs at government offices

Black-clad protesters hurled petrol bombs at government offices in central Hong Kong on Sunday, as a day that began with a peaceful march by tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators descended into clouds of tear gas deployed by police and ugly brawls between civilians.

Police also used water cannons Sunday after protesters vandalised a subway station and hurled bricks and petrol bombs at a complex of government buildings that includes the city’s Legislature, during a weekend that revealed the extent to which three months of pro-democracy demonstrations have frayed the city’s social fabric.

Anti-government protesters hold up banners, placards, Union Jack flags as they gather at the British consulate General in Hong Kong, China, September 15, 2019. Reuters

The South China Morning Post reported that at least one man who was attacked by a mob of black-clad protesters Sunday was in serious condition. Video footage showed several men being taken away on stretchers or treated by paramedics after an evening of fistfights and street brawls between people on opposing sides of the city’s yawning political divide.

The turnout at the march Sunday was lower than that of similar ones this summer, but the violence over the weekend highlighted the staying power and raw anger of a movement that has produced 15 consecutive weekends of unrest in an otherwise orderly financial hub.

An anti-government protester protects himself with an umbrella during a demonstration near Central Government Complex in Hong Kong, China, September 15, 2019. Reuters

The tumult across the city came just over two weeks before a major political moment on Oct 1: the 70th anniversary of the founding of modern China. A key question is what protesters will do on that date, and how Beijing and the Hong Kong police will respond.

“I don’t think the government will be able to respond to our demands by Oct. 1, so people will keep fighting for what they want,” Cheng Sui-ting, 27, an environmental educator, said at Sunday’s march, which began in the Causeway Bay shopping district and quickly stopped traffic.

Anti-government protesters are sprayed with water cannon during a demonstration near Central Government Complex in Hong Kong, China, September 15, 2019. Reuters

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s beleaguered leader, said early this month that she would formally withdraw the contentious extradition bill that prompted the initial protests in June and led to the territory’s worst political crisis since it returned to Chinese control in 1997.

But mass rallies have continued, in part because the movement’s demands have gradually expanded to include broad calls for political reform, including universal suffrage, and an independent inquiry into allegations of police brutality.

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