Scuffles have broken out in Hong Kong as opponents of the pro-democracy movement moved in on the main protest site in the financial district.
Hundreds of men, some wearing surgical masks, rushed the barricades set up by protesters in recent weeks.
Police were reportedly trying to keep the two groups apart.
The unrest came hours after police had dismantled some barricades at the camp, outside government offices, in an operation to reduce traffic congestion.
The demonstrators – a mixture of student groups and the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement – are demanding that the people of Hong Kong be given full voting rights in the next leadership election in 2017.
China wants control over the list of candidates who can stand in that election.
On Sunday, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive CY Leung said the chances of China changing its mind over the elections were “almost zero”.
In a TV interview in China, he said the protests had “spun out of control” and did not rule out the use of force to end them.
‘Can’t take it’
On Monday, police moved in to remove some barricades in Admiralty which were blocking major roads around the financial and government district. They said this was to reduce traffic, and that they did not plan to clear the camp entirely.
The operation was largely peaceful though some of the protesters accused police of failing to communicate properly or trying to force them to abandon the site.
“The police just want to trick us again. We won’t move and I’m ready to get arrested,” Cherry Yuen told AFP news agency.
Hours later, large numbers of people opposed to the protests converged on the area chanting “open the roads” and slogans in support of the police.
“Hongkongers hate you all,” South China Morning Post quoted them as saying.
Among them were taxi drivers, many of them angry about more than two weeks of disruption. They arrived at the Admiralty protest site in their cars shouting and beeping horns.
A few had signs on the front of their cars saying: “We can’t take it any more.”
Some people started dismantling the tents put up by protestors and dragging them away.
One student protester told Reuters that some of the anti-Occupy group “look like gangsters”.
“They start running toward them [protesters] and then one of them hit an old man with something hard, hit his head, so he’s injured over there right now,” she told Reuters.
At least one lorry with a crane was seen removing barricades and television footage appeared to show a masked man being forced to drop a small knife.
Earlier this month, peaceful demonstrators at the Mong Kok rally site were attacked by residents. Police have said they believe some of the attackers were members of the Triad criminal gang.
The protesters have occupied key areas, including in Central and Mong Kok across the harbour, for more than two weeks.
At the start of the movement the rallies drew tens of thousands of people, and hundreds were sleeping on the streets overnight. However, numbers have reduced in recent days to just a few hundred, mostly students.
The students were scheduled to have talks with government officials on Friday evening. But on Thursday, Hong Kong’s deputy leader, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, said their continuing calls for street protests had made it “impossible to have a constructive dialogue” and cancelled the talks.
BBC.
