Hong Kong police move to end two weeks siege of university

Hong Kong: The police on Friday ended their two-week siege of a university campus in Hong Kong that became a battleground with pro-democracy protesters as activists vowed to hold fresh rallies and strikes in the coming days.

Police said they have lifted their blockade on Hong Kong Polytechnic university after officers cleared a campus that’s been besieged for nearly two weeks amid a violent standoff with demonstrators.

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Renewed calls to hit the streets came after Beijing and city leader Carrie Lam refused further political concessions despite a landslide victory for pro-democracy parties in local elections last weekend.

Sunday’s district council polls delivered a stinging rebuke to the financial hub’s pro-Beijing establishment and undermined their argument that a silent majority were tired of the nearly six months of increasingly violent protests.

They also ushered in a rare period of calm following weeks of spiralling unrest, with no clashes or tear gas battles between protesters and police for more than a week.

But the calm spell looks set to end as public anger grows once more over the lack of response to the election results by Beijing and Hong Kong’s leaders.

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In China this week, state media has sought to downplay and discredit the weekend ballot while Lam, who boasts record-low approval ratings, has acknowledged public dissatisfaction but ruled out further concessions.

Online forums used to organise the mass movement have since called for a major rally on Sunday and a strike on Monday targeting the morning commute.

“If the communist Hong Kong government ignores public opinion, we will blossom everywhere for five or six days straight… We have to set a deadline,” read one post on the Reddit-like LIHKG forum, which got heavy approval from users.

The calls raise the spectre of a return to the kind of weekly political chaos that has battered Hong Kong for nearly six months and plunged the city into recession.

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On Friday, police said they were closing the book on one of the most violent chapters of the protest movement – the siege of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.