HONG KONG: Police fire rubber bullets, tear gas & pepper spray in renewed clashes with protesters

Fresh demonstrations have erupted in strife-stricken Hong Kong with police reported to have fired rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray at pro-democracy protesters.

The police according to reports, took the action in a bid to clear a demonstration outside a subway station in the crisis-wrecked semi-autonomous territory late on Friday.

However, the hundreds of protesters, many of them masked and dressed in black, gathered at the Prince Edward station in Mong Kok were undaunted as they charged at the police, marking the latest clash in 14 weeks of anti-government demonstrations.

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Al Jazeera’s Divya Gopalan, reporting from Hong Kong, said protesters had “taken over a major highway”, where an ongoing demonstration appeared to be an “extension of the earlier protest” at the Prince Edward station.

“We have seen reinforcement from riot police,” Gopalan said.

The development comes days after angry protesters threatened to continue mass demonstrations, if other demands are not met by the administration of Chief Executive, Carrie Lam.

They say Lam’s administration must meet all their demands including that for universal suffrage and an independent investigation into the police response to the protests.

Only one of five demands being made by the pro-democracy protesters who have targeted government buildings, the central business district and the airport in some 13 weeks of demonstrations have been met, according to reports.

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