Reuters, Hong Kong :
Two Hong Kong student leaders were banned from a large area in Mong Kok as a condition of bail on Thursday after they were arrested during scuffles with police who cleared one of the largest protest sites that have choked the city for weeks.
Joshua Wong, Lester Shum and activist lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, who was also banned from Mong Kok, were charged with obstructing court bailiffs and did not enter a plea.
They are due to appear again in court on Jan. 14.
Wong, Shum and Leung were among more than 100 people arrested in Mong Kok over the past two days. Wong’s student group Scholarism confirmed the court ban. Shum and Leung received similar bail terms.
The protesters are demanding open nominations for the Chinese-controlled city’s next chief executive nomination in 2017. Beijing said in August it would allow a vote, but only among pre-screened candidates.
Lined with banks, noodle shops and gritty tenements, the streets of Mong Kok have been a key battleground for protesters and mobs intent on disbanding them, and was viewed as the protest site most likely to resist clearance.
While the protesters regrouped and tried to storm back onto the roads, they ultimately failed to penetrate the mass of police armed with pepper spray and batons deployed to defend the major traffic intersections. Some protesters were hospitalized with head injuries from police batons.
The Mong Kok clearance was the second time in as many weeks that police, court bailiffs and workers moved to enforce court-ordered injunctions to clear the streets. The removal of the protesters’ barricades, tents and furniture is a major blow to the pro-democracy movement.
Two Hong Kong student leaders were banned from a large area in Mong Kok as a condition of bail on Thursday after they were arrested during scuffles with police who cleared one of the largest protest sites that have choked the city for weeks.
Joshua Wong, Lester Shum and activist lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, who was also banned from Mong Kok, were charged with obstructing court bailiffs and did not enter a plea.
They are due to appear again in court on Jan. 14.
Wong, Shum and Leung were among more than 100 people arrested in Mong Kok over the past two days. Wong’s student group Scholarism confirmed the court ban. Shum and Leung received similar bail terms.
The protesters are demanding open nominations for the Chinese-controlled city’s next chief executive nomination in 2017. Beijing said in August it would allow a vote, but only among pre-screened candidates.
Lined with banks, noodle shops and gritty tenements, the streets of Mong Kok have been a key battleground for protesters and mobs intent on disbanding them, and was viewed as the protest site most likely to resist clearance.
While the protesters regrouped and tried to storm back onto the roads, they ultimately failed to penetrate the mass of police armed with pepper spray and batons deployed to defend the major traffic intersections. Some protesters were hospitalized with head injuries from police batons.
The Mong Kok clearance was the second time in as many weeks that police, court bailiffs and workers moved to enforce court-ordered injunctions to clear the streets. The removal of the protesters’ barricades, tents and furniture is a major blow to the pro-democracy movement.
