Police threaten to use live ammo after protesters shoot arrows and throw gasoline bombs at officers.Pro-democracy demonstrators holed up in a Hong Kong university campus set the main entrance ablaze Monday to prevent surrounding police moving in after officers warned they may use live rounds if confronted by deadly weapons.
The police warning, which came after one officer was struck by an arrow, marked a further escalation of the near six-month crisis engulfing the city.
China has repeatedly warned that it will not tolerate dissent, and there are growing concerns that Beijing could intervene directly to end the spiraling unrest.
Several loud blasts were heard around dawn on Monday before a wall of fire lit up an entrance to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), AFP reporters said, as what appeared to be a police attempt to enter the campus was repelled by protesters determined to hold their ground.
Police said they had fired three live rounds in the early hours of Monday at a protest site near the university but that no one appeared to have been hit.
Intense clashes throughout Sunday, which saw a police officer hit in the leg by an arrow and protesters meet police tear gas with volleys of petrol bombs, rolled overnight across the Kowloon district, as a call went out to defend the besieged campus.
There, protesters had hunkered down under umbrellas from occasional fire from police water cannon and hurled Molotov cocktails at an armored vehicle, leaving it ablaze on a flyover near the campus.
Medieval tech in Hong Kong Protests
[Asia Times] With wooden catapults to launch petrol bombs and bows and arrows pilfered from sports departments, Hong Kong’s democracy protesters are combining new tactics with medieval tech as they battle police.
| visit the link to see examples of ancient technology in use in Hong Kong riots. |