HONG KONG // Hong Kong’s Lunar New Year celebration descended into chaos as protesters and police clashed over unlicensed food hawkers, in the worst violence since pro-democracy protests rocked the city in 2014.
Chief executive Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s leader, said more than 80 officers and four reporters were hurt, while police said that 54 people had been arrested.
Activists angered over authorities’ attempts to crack down on the hawkers in a crowded Kowloon neighbourhood engaged in hours-long running battles with police, which eventually ended early yesterday morning.
Protesters pelted officers with paving stones, glass bottles and other pieces of debris. Some threw rubbish cans, plastic safety barriers and wood from shipping pallets. They also set fires on the street.
Police, meanwhile, fired warning shots into the air and used batons and pepper spray against the protesters.
The unrest started when authorities tried to prevent unlicensed street food sellers from operating on Monday night in Mong Kok, a working-class district. The hawkers have become a local tradition during the Lunar New Year holiday but this year authorities tried to remove them.
The hawkers were backed by activists who objected to the crackdown over concerns that Hong Kong’s local culture is disappearing as Beijing tightens its hold on the semiautonomous city.
Mr Leung said a mob had attacked police officers and journalists, and that the perpetrators would be prosecuted. Police cars and public property were damaged, fires started and bricks and other objects thrown at police officers, including those already injured and lying on the ground, he said.
Officials said they were investigating whether the violence had been organised in advance.
Police commissioner Lo Wai-Chung said that 54 people had been arrested on suspicion of unlawful assembly, assaulting police and possession of dangerous weapons.
Earlier, police said those arrested ranged from as young as 17 and as old as 70.
The scuffles underscored how tensions remain unresolved more than a year after the end of pro-democracy protests that gripped the city. Mong Kok, a popular and densely populated shopping and entertainment district, was one of the neighbourhoods where activists occupied streets for about 11 weeks in late 2014, capturing world headlines with their demands for greater electoral freedom.
* Associated Press
