Traffic resumed Tuesday at Hong Kong airport, where all flights were canceled the day before thousands of pro-democracy protesters invaded the arrivals hall. A spokesman for the airport announced at dawn Tuesday that the recordings had started again, while the display screens indicated a gradual restart of flights departing and arriving.
Some 5,000 protesters, according to the police, continued Monday a fourth day of peaceful sit-in to educate travelers to their cause. Some carried placards reading "Hong Kong is not safe" or "Shame on the police". They accuse the police of resorting to disproportionate violence in order to suppress the rallies.
Protesters are gradually released during the night without police intervention. Only a handful of them were still present Tuesday morning in the terminal, cleaned of all the banners and signs but not yet graffiti on the walls. The protesters, however, announced their intention to return to the airport Tuesday to resume their movement.
The violence will push Hong Kong to "a path without return," warns Carrie Lam
The closing of the eighth busiest international airport in the world (74 million passengers in 2018), a rare measure, was decided Monday when the Chinese central government said to see "signs of terrorism" in the dispute that agitated his region semiautonomous. These tough statements marked a new escalation in the political crisis that began in early June, the most serious in Hong Kong since the surrender of the territory by London to China in 1997.
INTERVIEW - Demonstrations in Hong Kong: "Extradition Bill Had a Catalyst Effect"
On Tuesday, the head of the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Executive Carrie Lam warned opponents. "Violence, whether its use or apology, will push Hong Kong on a path of no return and plunge Hong Kong society into a very worrying and dangerous situation," she told a news conference. "The situation over the past week made me fear that we have reached this dangerous situation," she added.
Carrie Lam has also taken the defense of the police, while the demonstrations were peppered with clashes between radicals and police, explaining that it was confronted with "extremely difficult circumstances" but held by "rules strict rules on the use of force ".