Protests mount, China warns

Shaima Joo Eee - Hong Kong

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Protests in Hong Kong entered its 14th week on Wednesday, with the city experiencing the worst violence since protests began in June over a bill that would allow the local government to extradite wanted men for trial in China.

Protesters threw Molotov cocktails and attacked the city's parliament building, while police fired tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and water cannons in an attempt to disperse demonstrators. Police arrested 159 people, aged between 13 and 58, bringing the number of detainees to 1,117. Since the protest movement began about four months ago.

After the violent clashes in the city, activists from various sectors called for a wider strike over the past two days, which received wide response, as nurses queued in the corridors of hospitals with signs calling for democracy, and thousands of high school and university students boycotted classrooms.

Students' strike
The organizers of the protests that about ten thousand students from 200 high schools left behind on the first day of the new school year.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, said one of the protesters dressed in black, and called the central government in China called "black terrorism"; One solution to the crisis "to ask the United States to help us, and if we can not rely on ourselves."

L: I will resign
A number of demonstrators raised the US flag during the protest marches, as they say, "the state of democracy and freedoms," condemning the erosion of their fundamental freedoms and increasing Beijing's interference in Hong Kong's internal affairs, which China sees as conclusive evidence "of the interference of foreign powers from Its interest is to destabilize Hong Kong. "

"I will resign," Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said, adding that she had caused "unforgivable chaos" by igniting the political crisis sweeping her country. She also said she had very little room to resolve the crisis because the unrest had become a matter of national security. China's sovereignty, amid rising tensions with the United States.

As a wave of arrests engulfed dozens of demonstrators, police officers have taken more aggressive behavior since the return of former vice president Alan Lao Yiping, with prominent pro-democracy activists and three lawmakers arrested in a massive crackdown that coincided with the first government ban on an organized march since The beginning of the protest movement.

Arrest of activists
Among those arrested were Joshua Wang Chi, Agnes Zhao Ting, both from Democesto Party, and Andy Chan Ho Tin, a sponsor of the now banned Hong Kong National Party.

As celebrations mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, Yang Guang, spokesman for the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, said: "The end is coming." He also confirmed the central government's support in Beijing to the government of Chief Executive Kari Lam.

The Chinese official's warning is the most serious in a series of firm Chinese remarks on the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.

Economic growth in Hong Kong, a global financial center, was at its lowest level compared to the 2008 financial crisis. Lam described the country as the most severe and dangerous.