HONG KONG - A tense standoff between
thousands of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters and police warning of a
crackdown spiraled into chaos Sunday as the crowd jammed a busy road
and clashed with officers wielding pepper spray. A huge crowd of
protesters tried to reach a mass sit-in being held outside government
headquarters to demand Beijing grant genuine democratic reforms, but was
held back by police who had warned people to leave the area for their
own safety. Beijing condemned the protests, calling them "illegal."
Students and activists
have been camped out on the streets outside the government complex all
weekend. Students started the rally, but by early Sunday leaders of the
broader Occupy Central civil disobedience movement said they were
joining. In a rare scene of disorder in the Asian financial hub,
thousands of other protesters arriving to join the crowd breached a
police cordon, spilling out onto a busy highway. The huge crowd trying
to reach the protest zone was met by officers manning barricades who
doused them with pepper spray. Demonstrators, who tried at one point to
rip apart metal barricades, carried umbrellas to deflect the spray.
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