(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong riot police fired tear gas at crowds in popular shopping districts on Christmas Eve as protesters took to streets and malls to demand greater democracy.Officers used the gas to disperse demonstrators in Mong Kok and outside the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. They also clashed with protesters inside shopping malls, loosed pepper spray and made a few arrests. Hundreds of demonstrators, many wearing masks, turned up at multiple locations and set a fire at a subway station entrance.An HSBC building in Mong Kok was vandalized, with the message “Don’t forget Spark Alliance” spray-painted on walls, Radio Television Hong Kong reported. The slogan refers to a fund linked to pro-democracy protests.Hong Kong’s pre-holiday strife extended more than six months of clashes between protesters and police, ignited by a proposed extradition law to allow fugitives to be sent to China to stand trial. The unrest has killed off any economic momentum, with the city entering its first recession in a decade. Though the bill was withdrawn, protests have persisted with more demands, including direct elections of the city’s leader.Why Hong Kong Is Still Protesting and Where It May Go: QuickTakeProtests will likely continue into the new year. Civil Human Rights Front, organizer of some of Hong Kong’s biggest peaceful protests, is calling for a march through the city’s center on Jan. 1. The organizer said it has applied for a police permit.(Updates with additional unrest in second and third paragraphs)To contact the reporters on this story: Fion Li in Hong Kong at fli59@bloomberg.net;Justin Chin in Hong Kong at hchin15@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: John Liu at jliu42@bloomberg.net, Stacie ShermanFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2SmWlz7
0 coment�rios: