Anti-government protesters carried out excavations at several universities throughout Hong Kong on Wednesday, preparing for a direct confrontation with the police.
The taste directors – many of whom are young students – spend most of Wednesday building barricades like in warfare and stockpiling food and weapons, while mobs of protesters are better off, traveling the city on purpose and public transportation and business in many areas.
At nightfall the protesters stand guard at barricades and checkpoints throughout the university, while sleeping in turns for approaching police officers.
While in the heart of the city’s business center, police use armored vehicles with officers firing bullets that cannot be released from the roof to crash into barricades and disperse protesters who have been moved by traffic.
In a turn, the protesters also moved the entrance to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel that connects the island of Hong Kong to the Kowloon area, according to the city’s Department of Transportation.
Previously around 1,000 protesters stopped walking in the Central district during the daytime. Wearing face masks issued now and wearing office clothes, they lined up and threw bricks into the streets lined with some of the most expensive real estate in the world and luxury shops.
Dozens of riot police tried to disperse the crowd near the stock exchange, toppled several people on the ground and paralyzed the rioters.
At the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where many people were injured in clashes between riot police and protesters, police said that the protesters used a “weapons factory” using gasoline bombs thrown at officers.
“A university that is a breeding ground for future leaders, but it is a battlefield for criminals and rioters,” said Hong Kong police spokesman Tse Chun-chung.
The police agreed that they had evacuated a number of Chinese university students from Hong Kong by boat, while the Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council said that the number of Taiwanese students would also leave the city due to security concerns.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Education Bureau said all schools will be closed on Thursday. Some universities say they will introduce online learning and other renewal methods for the weeks received from the term.
Earlier the rioters also doused a man with gasoline and burned him for criticizing them after they were involved in the destruction of the MTR.
“Violent violence reached extremely dangerous and even deadly levels,” a police spokesman said at a media press conference. “There is no place in Hong Kong that is lawless land.”
The turmoil also caused displacement for passengers queuing at metro stations throughout the city on Wednesday morning, after several train services were suspended and roads were closed.
Police said 142 people have been arrested since Tuesday, bringing the total to more than 4,000. Hong Kong Hospital Authority said 81 people had survived since Monday, with two in serious condition.
The police used tear gas and other equipment to protest in several areas of the city at night. Many banks and shops in busy commercial areas are closed on Wednesday, while the Hong Kong Jockey Club is canceling its night race.
The Asia Pacific Airlines Association announced Wednesday it would cancel the President’s meeting scheduled to be held in Hong Kong in November. The decision was taken after a large-scale conference on air finance, a key growth area for Hong Kong. Previously protesters needed several Molotov cocktails into the subway station.
Thousands of protesters, many young and wearing face masks issued, lined up at the Kowloon section at the time. “The protesters are in an illegal assembly, which is determined under Hong Kong Law. The police asked the protesters to stop all illegal actions and leave immediately,” the police said in the decision.
Well-structured
Demonstrators are now like combat troops, moving from three to four company commanders wearing blue helmets, and marked with different numbers. There’s also a protester identified as another additional Commander. He was equipped with a radio communication, approved by one of the most successful leaders and supported by a team of archers. Only one of them wears level-2 body armor and equipped with a police-shield type.
All demonstrators armed themselves. They are not eligible under the legal protection of the Red Cross and deserve to be called as combatants. The change in strategy is also clearly legible. Instead of protesting peacefully, demonstrators divided their groups into two groups, the first group was active in rioting, the first group remained in the campus barricade.
One thing that must be underlined, protesters equipped with beating guns and molotov cocktails to damage and destroy. Campus has been used as a command headquarters for storing weapons, planning strategies and defense lines in the event of chaos.
