Hong Kong: Hong Kong riot police fired tear gas and baton-charged protesters who retaliated with a barrage of stones, bottles and bamboo poles, as a standoff in a working-class district on Saturday descended into violence, breaking an uneasy peace that had lasted several days.
Thousands of demonstrators, many wearing hard hats and gas masks, marched through the industrial Kwun Tong area, where they were blocked by dozens of officers with shields and batons outside a police station. Frontline protesters pulled together a barricade of traffic barriers and bamboo construction poles, spray-painting walls with insults directed at the police.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrators on Friday night (local time) formed human chains across large parts of the city in a call for direct elections in a display that recalled a major anti-Soviet demonstration from 30 years ago.
