Hong Kong protesters set deadline for government

HONG KONG — Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong set a Wednesday deadline for a response from the government to meet their demands for reforms after spending another night blocking streets in an unprecedented show of civil disobedience.

A brief statement from the Occupy Central civil disobedience movement said it had set an Oct. 1 deadline for the city's unpopular Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to meet their demands for genuine democracy and for him to step down as leader of Hong Kong.

It said they would "announce new civil disobedience plans same day."

Wednesday is a holiday for China's National Day, and even larger crowds are expected to flood the streets. The government said it was canceling a fireworks display planned to celebrate the National Day.

One day after police shocked the city by firing tear gas at the crowds, the protesters passed a peaceful night Monday singing as the blocked streets in several parts of Hong Kong. They also staged a brief "mobile light" vigil, waving their glowing cell phones as the protests stretched into their fourth day. Crowds chanted calls for Leung to resign, and sang anthems calling for freedom.

"The students are protecting the right to vote, for Hong Kong's future. We are not scared, we are not frightened, we just fight for it," said Carol Chan, a 55-year-old civil service worker who took two days off to join the protests after becoming angered over police use of tear gas Sunday.

Students and activists have been camped out since late Friday, demanding that Beijing grant democratic reforms to the former British colony.

Police said they used 87 rounds of tear gas Sunday in what they called a necessary but restrained response to protesters pushing through cordons and barricades. They said 41 people were injured, including 12 police officers.

"Police cordon lines were heavily charged, by some violent protesters. So police had to use the minimum force in order to separate the distance at that moment between the protesters and also the police," said Cheung Tak-keung, the assistant police commissioner for operations.

The atmosphere was more festive Monday as constantly shifting crowds blocked major roads. People moved in and out of the sit-ins, some bringing in food and drink while others fetched their own. Some high school students, still in their school uniforms, sat on the pavement doing their homework.

"It's already the fourth day, so it's really tiring," said Ching-ching Tse, a 24-year-old student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who was on her second day of collecting trash in the protest area with her friends. "So we are forming some groups and hope we can do some shifts and take turns."

Officials announced that schools in some districts of Hong Kong would remain closed yesterday because of safety concerns, while dozens of bus routes were canceled and some subway stops near protest areas were closed.

The protests have been dubbed the "Umbrella Revolution" by some, because the crowds have used umbrellas to not only block the sun, but also to stop the police from hitting them with pepper spray. Political slogans calling for freedom have also been written on the umbrellas.

Many younger Hong Kong residents raised in an era of plenty and with no experience of past political turmoil in mainland China have higher expectations. Under an agreement set in 1984, before most of them were born, Beijing promised to allow Hong Kong residents civil liberties — unseen in the rest of China — after it took control of the city of 7.1 million in 1997.

The protesters are dismayed by China's decision last month that candidates in the city's first-ever election for its top leader must be hand-picked by a committee of mostly pro-Beijing tycoons. That move is viewed by many residents as reneging on promises to allow greater democracy in the semi-autonomous territory, since Beijing had promised that the chief executive would eventually be chosen through "universal suffrage."

China's communist leaders take a hard line against any threat to their monopoly on power, including clamping down on dissidents and Muslim Uighur separatists in the country's far west, but it cannot crack down too harshly on the semi-autonomous territory where a freewheeling media ensures global visibility.

Across the border, Chinese state media have provided scant coverage of the protests beyond noting that an illegal gathering spun out of control and was being curtailed by police.

The protests began a week ago with a class boycott by university and college students demanding reforms of the local legislature and a withdrawal of Beijing's requirement that election candidates be screened.

Leaders of the broader Occupy Central civil disobedience movement joined the protesters early Sunday, saying they wanted to kick-start a long-threatened mass sit-in demanding Hong Kong's top leader be elected without Beijing's interference.

"People are feeling a kind of guilt that they were allowing the young kids in their late teens and early 20s to take all the risks, so people are coming out to support them," said Steve Tsang, a senior fellow at the University of Nottingham's China Policy Institute.