Hong Kong protests: Riot police fire tear gas at protesters for second consecutive day

Our live coverage of the protests on Hong Kong Island has concluded, but you can read more about the ongoing crisis here.

Most protesters appear to be leaving and heading into the Sheung Wan subway station, in time to catch the last train home.

Over the past two chaotic months, protests have typically ended by 12:30 a.m., before the final trains leave – young protesters don’t want to get separated, or risk being stranded and picked up by police.

Some protesters have been ducking into the MTR station intermittently all night for cover from the tear gas before heading back out for another push.

But this time it seemed for real.

In the end, the police’s tactics had paid off: protesters had been corralled into one area, surrounded on all sides, with only the subway station as an exit. Most protesters now appear to be on the MTR home.

It was a tense night in Hong Kong on Sunday as the city’s streets once again became a battle ground between police and protesters.

Tear gas is everywhere: Once a last resort, tonight tear gas is being deployed constantly — every time police lines push forward, or when protesters get too close, or sometimes seemingly for little reason.

The streets around the Sheung Wan district, where police and protesters are still facing off, are fogged by the toxic, burning gas. It’s also seeping into people’s homes through windows and air conditioning units in this highly residential area.

Protesters push back: The hundreds of remaining protesters are still determined and seem buoyed by the police response. It’s been a back-and-forth tonight, with skirmishes breaking out every 20 minutes or so. Chants, the beating of sticks and shouts fill the air. 

Civilians caught in the mix: Meanwhile, passersby are trying to get home, but find themselves blocked by the protesters and police. One man told CNN reporters on the ground that he was trying to get his family home, and asked for directions to a safe space.

No end in sight: The atmosphere is tense and there’s a sense that protesters are not following a plan — they will stay out and continue this fight, which they call their last chance.

Riot police aren’t just firing tear gas in Sheung Wan as they try to disperse crowds – they’re also firing rubber bullets.

The bullets may be nonlethal, but their size and weight can make quite a painful hit. Images on social media from the past few protests have shown protesters and journalists sporting purple, palm-sized bruises on their chests and arms after being hit by these bullets.

The protests began about two months ago over a controversial bill that would allow extradition from Hong Kong to China. But the bill has been suspended and called “dead” by the government – so why are people still protesting?

Their list of demands has grown as the violence has escalated. Here are some of them:

It’s now the eighth weekend of protests in Hong Kong – and it looks like it may be a long night as police and protesters push back and forth.

Here’s what’s happened since our last catch up:

Earlier today thousands gathered in Chater Garden, Central, for a police-approved protest. But around mid-afternoon some protesters defied a police ban on marching through the city, and fanned out to Causeway Bay and the West of the city, to protest outside the Liaison Office, Beijing’s main base in Hong Kong.

Four people have been hospitalized due to today’s protests, according to the Hong Kong Hospital Authority.

They are all stable and being treated at Queen Mary Hospital.

It’s been a violent and chaotic weekend – yesterday’s protest in Yuen Long district also saw police and protesters clashing, leaving 23 people hospitalized. As of this morning, most had been discharged except for six.

The streets are littered with tear gas canisters and casings, with some bearing the label of a manufacturer from the United States.

One casing is labelled “NonLethal Technologies,” a company based in Pennsylvania that creates crowd control products.

On June 25, the UK announced it would stop issuing licenses for crowd control equipment to Hong Kong until “concerns raised on human rights” had been addressed.

Earlier this week, Amnesty International published a statement calling on other countries to halt sending these types of products to Hong Kong. According to the Amnesty statement, Hong Kong law enforcement are using products from:

Protesters are increasingly being pushed toward the Central district as police press further east.

The past hour has seen a tit-for-tat struggle between the two sides – but as police fire tear gas intermittently, the crowds have had to retreat. They had begun in Sai Ying Pun, by the Chinese government’s Liaison Office. Now, they are beside the Wing On department store, increasingly headed for the very heart of the city.

This is Hong Kong’s eighth straight weekend of protests.

While numbers have not again reached the same heights seen during those first initial weeks, tens of thousands of people are still regularly hitting the streets – no small deal in a city with just over 7 million people.

Organizers at yesterday’s protest in Yuen Long say there were 288,000 protesters. However, there was no estimate for that march from the Hong Kong police, and there will be no estimate for tonight’s march either. This weekend’s protests have not been granted approval by the police, so they are marked as officially illegal with no attendance counts.

Tonight’s clashes between protesters and police feel well-practiced – after all, the marches have been happening for eight weeks now. And the protesters are getting desperate – many young people feel they’re running out of time in their fight for democracy.

Looming over it all is a 2047 deadline – when Hong Kong will be fully reintegrated with mainland China, as agreed upon when the United Kingdom handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997.

The protests began over a bill: But the now-suspended extradition bill is no longer the sole reason for the protests.

Protesters have a host of demands, including calls for greater democracy and more government accountability, that many feel they are out of time to achieve.

Even as democratic values have increasingly come under threat around the world, and many voters in democracies are increasingly expressing apathy or despair, young Hong Kongers are determined to continue a fight for freedom, which began decades ago under British rule, before time runs out and Hong Kong becomes just another Chinese city.

Read more about it here.

Police are advancing toward protesters on Des Voeux Road as they push the crowds east from Sheung Wan into Central.

The tear gas is so strong that you can smell it hundreds of meters away on Hollywood Road.

Nearby on Queen’s Road East, some protesters were seen ducking inside a McDonald’s – perhaps to order more food before heading back out.

Protesters and police are facing off in Sheung Wan in a back-and-forth struggle.

There is a police line on Cleverly Street, with riot police bearing a black flag to warn of tear gas.

Then just around the corner, protesters form a line on Des Voeux Road, making a wall of open umbrellas to shield against the gas.

It’s very much tit for tat – protests surge forward, only to be pushed back, where they regroup again.

In Sheung Wan, many people are now stranded and trying to get home after the subway suspended services going West at this stop on the Island Line.

Tear gas is all over the streets. Parents and children are washing their eyes out as the gas fogs the air. Police are now spraying a large amount on the intersection of Connaught Road and Cleverly Street, trying to push the protesters back once again.

Meanwhile, protesters are carrying bamboo construction poles and barricade materials – as well as eggs to throw – to the front lines.

It is now nighttime in Hong Kong, but chaos is continuing as protesters and riot police are locked in a tense face-off.

Here is what’s happened since our last catch up:

Police in Sheung Wan have fired multiple rounds of tear gas at protesters, pushing them back a few hundred yards from the Western Market, near the ferry terminal to Macau.

But protesters don’t seem put off. They simply adjust their masks and goggles, then reform a frontline, waiting until someone make the next move.

And they’ve also got some tactics of their own. Protesters have been pouring what looks like cooking oil onto the streets, making them slippery and difficult to walk on.

Firefighters in Sheung Wan have just extinguished the flaming cart that police say protesters set ablaze and pushed at the police line.

The cart, piled with burning newspapers and cardboard, had sat between the two sides for about 15 minutes before being put out.

“The police officers are conducting a dispersal operation eastward on Hong Kong Island as some protestors were committing arson at various locations,” a police statement said.

The statement also condemned protester violence and urged the public to stay calm.

As riot police move east to disperse crowds across Hong Kong Island, they are leaving tear gas canisters and casings in their wake.

The small casings and plastic holders are littered across Connaught Road West.

In Sheung Wan, outside the Western Market, a flaming cart is sitting between the protesters and the police. It appears to be piled high with bound newspapers or cardboard, which have been set on fire.

The police put out a statement claiming the protesters had pushed the cart towards the police line “creating serious safety threats to everyone at the scene.”

Protesters in Sheung Wan have been pushed to the Western Market as riot police move eastward.

Lines of police, dressed in riot gear and holding full-body plastic shields, are blocking access to the streets leading to the market.

Some residents and tourists have been caught in the mix – one tourist told CNN he was trying to find his hotel, but had gotten tear gassed by the police and didn’t know the way back.