Hong Kong authorities began clearing away the last pro-democracy encampments near government headquarters on Wednesday, watched by a handful of demonstrators in a quiet but poignant end to nine months of street protests.
A small cluster of tents and hardcore protesters were allowed to remain on pavements until Wednesday, marking 270 straight days of demonstrations at the same site.
Officials from the Lands Department, dressed in hard hats and green vests, read out a notice calling for a final clearance of the remaining site on a rainy morning.
Two protesters were taken away by police, including one who was identified by demonstrators as Wang Dengyao, a Chinese activist who survived the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.
There was little resistance from around 20 others who watched quietly as the site was cleared away, their sodden tents and possessions thrown into dump trucks.
“We didn’t succeed, but we also didn’t fail,” said 71-year-old Simon Wong, whose black T-shirt bore the slogan: “I want real universal suffrage”.
“I feel calm but I’ll also be missing this,” he said.
The clearance came six days after Hong Kong’s legislature vetoed a Beijing-backed electoral reform package that was criticized by pro-democracy lawmakers and activists as undemocratic.
Street tensions appear to have eased off, but radical protesters and “localists” demanding greater Hong Kong autonomy have vowed to keep fighting even as China shows signs of tightening its grip on the city.
“The next step for us is to really move into the districts to try to re-awaken the moderate democrats … and to never stop fighting for democracy,” said Benny Mok, 51, who had camped at the site for more than 250 nights.
“Hong Kong deserves better,” he said.
Words/Photos: Reuters
