In a city unused to political violence, many people in Hong Kong were shocked by what they saw as a harsh response by police officers who used tear gas, batons and pepper spray against pro-democracy demonstrators on Sunday.
Here are some videos and other images of Occupy Central, as the movement is called, whose participants want Hong Kong people to be allowed to freely choose the candidates in the 2017 election for the next leader, a request that China’s central government in Beijing has turned down.
Here is The New York Times’s slideshow of the movement, which officially began on Sunday:
Pro-Democracy Protests in Hong Kong
Riot police used tear gas against protesters after tens of thousands of people blocked a main road to Central, a financial district, outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong on Sunday.
Wally Santana/Associated PressApple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong, is offering this live feed:
And this video from Apple Daily gives an aerial overview of the crowds on Sunday night. Chinese text at the beginning calls on Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive, to step down “or there will be a big strike”:
This video contains a dramatic moment with protesters in front of advancing police vehicles suddenly scattering as tear gas is fired:
Despite that and other similar incidents, on Monday, crowds swelled again in downtown Hong Kong, according to the Twitter feed of Varsity, a magazine by the students of the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, many of whose students are taking part in the protests:
Protesters were even picking up their trash:
Here is Varsity again, showing a human chain bringing supplies to protesters at noon on Monday:
With China set to celebrate the National Day holiday on Wednesday, The South China Morning Post noted that a Chinese national flag had been raised as usual — but upside down:
Beijing has long warned against a “color revolution” in Hong Kong, or a democracy movement that it says is being supported by “hostile forces” from the West.
A characteristic of the protests so far has been the use by demonstrators of umbrellas, to protect against police use of pepper spray. This post on Twitter shows some umbrellas in a subway exit and suggests a name for the movement: the Umbrella Revolution.