Hong Kong clears protest barriers

Hong Kong authorities cleared away the last barricades and tents of the two-month protest movement but the dozens of student leaders and other activists they took away vowed their fight for greater democracy wasn’t over.

Hundreds of police officers carried out a methodical, peaceful operation to shut down the protest site that sprawled across a normally busy highway on the edge of the specially administered Chinese city’s financial district.

The student-led demonstrators have been protesting Beijing’s restrictions on the first election for Hong Kong’s leader, though the movement’s momentum has been fading in recent weeks.

Hundreds of remaining protesters heeded police warnings to leave the protest zone, but dozens of students, pro-democracy lawmakers, and others, including middle-aged and elderly supporters, remained sitting on the street. They chanted “I want true democracy” and “We will be back” but offered no resistance as they were taken away one by one, many lifted off the ground.

Among those police took away were pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, Cantonese pop singer Denise Ho, veteran pro-democracy activist Martin Lee, and pro-democracy legislators including Albert Ho.

Earlier in the day, workers enforcing a court order removed barricades on the edge of the protest site before officers moved in and dismantled tents and obstructions from the rest of the site. They had warned protesters that they faced arrest if they did not leave.

“I think the spirit of the movement still lives, but the idea of occupying streets is over,” said student Andrew Chan, 20, as he left the site. “We can’t even get a big crowd to come out today to fight the police clearing the site.”

The protesters reject Beijing’s restrictions on the first election for the city’s top leader, scheduled for 2017, but have failed to win any concessions from Hong Kong’s government.