Hong Kong: Black shadows flitting around in small groups, deserted rubbish-strewn corridors and cockroaches in disemboweled kitchens: dawn broke on Friday to reveal a post-apocalyptic scene at a Hong Kong campus six days after a police siege began.
In a near-empty, soundless labyrinth, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is decoupled from the cacophony of a brash, bustling city of 7.5 million people. The pro-democracy protesters holding this brick “fortress” are almost invisible as they hide among the maze of rooms and corridors. They occasionally emerge, clustered in twos or threes and give interviews to the assembled media.
They are dressed and masked in black, the signature colour of the pro-democracy movement that over the past six months has turned into the biggest challenge to China’s rule of Hong Kong since the city was returned from Britain in 1997.
“The police say we are a hundred. We avoid giving a number but I can tell you that we are many more,” says one protester who introduces himself as “Mike”.
On the sprawling city centre campus, it is impossible to say if he is inflating the figure. Hundreds of protesters have left the PolyU in recent days, a large majority of whom were arrested. Many were aged under 18. Some slipped out through the drainage system, others made a daring breakout by ropes to awaiting motorcycles. (AFP)
