Hong Kong pro-democracy camp dismantled

Hong Kong authorities began clearing out a pro-democracy protest site on Tuesday following a court order.

Protest leader Joshua Wong said the protesters would "respect the decision of the courts." There was no resistance from the demonstrators as they were evicted from their spots.

A court ruled last Tuesday that bailiffs and police could remove barricades and tents from parts of the protest sites in the central Admiralty district. In one area, a court injunction was won to remove the protesters from the perimeter of an apartment building. The case had been filed by the building's owners. A long section of a highway near there remains under occupation, news agency AFP reported.

A second court injunction seeks to clear the second-largest camp, which is located in the Mongkok district.

Disruptions to daily life

Mass sit-ins have blocked the city's main thoroughfares for seven weeks and private transport companies are also pursuing court orders, saying that the disruptions caused to traffic have been bad for business.

On September 28, the pro-democracy group Occupy Central began to carry out its long-standing threat to lock down key parts of the financial hub, riding on the back of previous student-led rallies.

The group demands the resignation of Hong Kong city leader Leung Chun-ying and for free leadership elections to be held in the city in 2017. China's National People's Congress decided in August that any candidates would have to be vetted by Beijing before appearing on the ballot.

The demonstrations have carried on since September and been largely peaceful, but have caused major disruptions in the city. In mid-October, violence broke out following the surfacing of a video which showed plainclothes police officers beating a handcuffed protester as he lay on the ground.

Leaders stopped from traveling to Beijing

On Saturday, three students who have been leading pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong were stopped from boarding a flight to Beijing, where they had hoped to present their reform demands to the Chinese government after talks with Hong Kong officials failed.

The leaders of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) said Cathy Pacific airline officials had informed them that their permits for travel on the Chinese mainland had been canceled by Chinese authorities.

"Cathay has confirmed that their [the students'] return home card has been canceled by the mainland authorities, so they could not get the required certificates to get on to the plane," an HKFS representative told reporters.

'One country, two systems'

In mid-October, the Hong Kong government agreed to a fresh round of talks with leaders of the student protest movement. Hopes were, however, low from the outset, as Beijing had been clear in its stance that it had already offered enough concessions to the former British colony in the past and that it would not change its position. In the end, the talks did not get the protesters what they wanted.

China, which took back Hong Kong from Britain in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" agreement that accorded the city a high degree of autonomy, said in August that candidates for the election would have to be vetted by a committee widely seen as pro-Beijing.

China and the Hong Kong government have declared the protests to be illegal. At their height, the demonstrations drew well over 100,000 people, but the number has since sunk to just hundreds.

sb/av (dpa, AFP)