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Hong Kong’s Protest Movement Hits a Low Point

Hong Kong’s Protest Movement Hits a Low Point

In a darkened classroom at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, a half-dozen people peeked through the blinds to watch the sight of true desperation: People dressed in black raced up a highway ramp in a frantic chase for freedom. “Like ants,” remarked one young man who watched with me as we sat in the room. He asked that he be identified only by his last name, Tsang, for fear of arrest.

Some others had escaped via ropes dropped from a highway overpass to motorcycles humming below; still more people tried to scramble through sewer pipes. But to run in the open, where most anyone, including photojournalists and police, could see you?

Then again, escape routes were few. For months, pro-democracy demonstrators have marched and rallied across this city to win greater freedoms and end police abuse. Now a few hundred people were hunkered on an urban university campus, armed with bricks and Molotov cocktails, isolated and encircled by police.

The protesters’ seizing of the campus, in the heart of the city, appeared to breach principles that guided the past six months of demonstrations here in Hong Kong. Over a little more than a week, the occupation turned into one of the movement’s lowest moments.

One of the chief failings of the 2014 Umbrella Revolution, which sought comprehensive universal suffrage, was its static nature; the government was able to dissolve the sit-in through attrition. A strength of today’s iteration has been speed and persistence. Most protests have been staged on the streets, the actions fast and fluid. Those who man the front lines are strong and quick, backed by a throng of more peaceful protesters.

To gnaw away at that strength, the government has taken ever tougher steps to thwart large gatherings. Officials routinely deny permits for marches, and last month they imposed a ban on wearing face masks, intended to scare off demonstrators who sought anonymity. (This latest decision was overruled by a Hong Kong judge this week.) Police have used more violent means on the streets—rubber bullets, water cannons, mass detentions, and live fire—as justice officials press riot charges. […]