“Hundreds” of counter-protesters attacked barricades around democracy activists’ main camp in Hong Kong today; no injuries were reported. So-called “anti-Occupy” protestors—the democracy demonstrations are known as “Occupy Central” in reference to the area of Hong Kong where they were launched—reportedly object to both the democracy movement’s political aims and the disruptions to daily life it’s created. From the New York Times:
On Monday, opponents of the pro-democracy sit-in converged on barricades at two ends of Queensway, a traffic artery through Admiralty that the protesters had sealed off, and began pulling apart barriers, mostly portable steel railings tied together, which the demonstrators had assembled to put pressure on the government and to protect their camp. Earlier, opponents of the “Occupy” protests had gathered in a nearby park, and some opponents had chanted in Cantonese, “Open the road, open the road,” while groups of men dismantled some of the makeshift roadblocks.
Hong Kong and Chinese authorities have not shown signs that they are amenable to discussing protesters’ main demand—the right to nominate candidates for the city’s chief executive election in 2017. China’s Xinhua news agency has reported that the democracy protests are “the handiwork of the United States government.”
