Oct. 5: Future of Protest Is Uncertain

Pedro Ugarte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Alex Ogle/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Pro-democracy demonstrators began pulling back on their blockade of the offices of Hong Kong’s leader on Sunday and debated whether to abandon another key encampment as the government set a Monday morning deadline for the police to restore access to the government’s headquarters.

It was unclear whether either concession had the support of any of the main protest organizations and could be sustained in the face of criticism by protesters opposed to compromise.

A leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students warned that talks would be suspended if the government made any attempt to forcefully drive away the protesters.

“A dialogue is not a compromise,” Alex Chow of the Hong Kong Federation of Students said. “We will start arranging talks with the government, because we understand that there are people in both the government and here who want to solve society’s problems.”

The Monday morning deadline set up a possible confrontation between the passionate and, often disjointed protest movement, and a government that, taking its cue from Beijing, has refused to compromise on the protesters’ broadly shared demands: Mr. Leung’s resignation and democratic elections for his successor.

The police used tear gas a week ago in an effort to disperse protesters, but more crowds arrived in response to what were perceived by many as unnecessarily heavy-handed tactics by the authorities.

A government spokesman urged student leaders to clear a footbridge leading to the main government offices and to allow 3,000 staff members to return to work on Monday. He also asked for roads in Admiralty, near the government offices, to be reopened so that schools in the area could resume classes.

Oct. 4: Hong Kong Protesters Continue Campaign Despite Attacks

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Dennis M. Sabangan/European Pressphoto Agency

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Wong Maye-E/Associated Press

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Alex Hofford/European Pressphoto Agency

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Alex Ogle/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong held one of the largest rallies of their campaign Saturday evening, a day after assaults on their encampments.

 

An opponent of the pro-democracy campaign, center, was grabbed by protesters amid skirmishes on Saturday. Student stewards at the demonstrations tried to stop quarrels from escalating into fights. 

Joshua Wong, a 17-year-old student activist, preparing to speak  at a protest Saturday. The government has vowed to take “all actions necessary” to clear the area by Monday.

Young activists insisting on fully democratic elections did not relent on Saturday. At least 18 people were injured in violent confrontations on Friday, the police said.

 

 

Demonstrators listened to pro-democracy speeches on Saturday, the seventh day of the student-led campaign to prevent mainland China from restricting Hong Kong’s choices for a new leader.

 

 

Confronting pro-democracy demonstrators on Saturday, a man held up a banner and yelled abuse. Some Hong Kong residents had cheered the assaults against protesters on Friday.

 

A crowd trying to prevent a man from dismantling a barricade that protesters had placed on a main road, blocking traffic into the shopping district of Mong Kok. 

 

Messages of support for the pro-democracy campaign, widely known as the Umbrella Revolution, have been left on the office building for the Hong Kong government.

 

 

Catholics calling for peace near a protest site.  A week ago, the police used tear gas against demonstrators, and violence on Friday was attributed in part to members of organized crime gangs.

The police surrounded a man after a scuffle that began when he tried to remove one of the barricades set up by protesters. Throughout Saturday afternoon, groups of middle-aged men attacked the barriers.

 

A protester rested on a blockaded road Saturday, shielding himself with an umbrella, now the symbol of the  pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. 

Oct. 3: A Straining Day for Hong Kong Protests

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Alex Ogle/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Alex Ogle/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Dennis M. Sabangan/European Pressphoto Agency

Pro-democracy protesters in two parts of Hong Kong came under assault on Friday from men who tore down their encampments.

Police officers controlling the crowd after the confrontation in Mong Kok, one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the world. Skirmishing between protesters and the men trying to remove them began there in the afternoon.

A man screaming at pro-democracy protesters to stop occupying an area of the Causeway Bay shopping district, where brawls also broke out. The groups of men who stormed the two sites came abruptly and in force, and on two sides of Victoria Harbor at about the same time, leaving many in the pro-democracy camp convinced that the assaults were planned.

An encampment being broken apart in Mong Kok. After nearly a week in which the tens of thousands of protesters were, for the most part, not only nonviolent but assiduously polite and clean, the attacks came as a shock.

A pro-democracy protester being escorted by police officers in Mong Kok. Protesters raised questions about the lack of police in both areas that came under attack, accusing the authorities of allowing the attacks to occur.

The sit-ins on major roads still drew thousands, but appeared diminished on Friday as Hong Kong residents returned to work after a two-day holiday.

Several of the groups leading the protests threatened to call off planned negotiations with the government unless officials prevented further attacks.

Police officers at Hong Kong’s government offices in Admiralty on Friday. Many hundreds of activists maintained their siege of the office of the city’s leader, Leung Chun-ying.

Oct. 2: Beijing Remains Firm as Protesters Face a Dilemma

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Wong Maye-E/Associated Press

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Wong Maye-E/Associated Press

Demonstrators at the main protest site, where their number appeared thinner but surged again in the evening.

Pro-democracy demonstrators recycled plastic bottles at a collection point. The protesters faced a choice Thursday in the face of a government strategy to wait them out, as they considered whether to escalate their confrontation with the authorities by storming a government building or to begin searching for an exit strategy.

A pro-democracy protester slept at Tamar Park. After a two-day public holiday, many Hong Kong residents were supposed to return to work on Friday, meaning that the traffic delays and disruptions caused by the protests would affect a broader swath of the public, potentially cutting into support for the demonstrations.

Police stood guard outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong.

A taxi driver gave a thumbs-up to pro-democracy protesters as he drove past the protest site.

A large crowd of protesters gathered around Hong Kong’s main government offices after the authorities warned of “serious consequences” if demonstrators tried to enter and occupy the complex.

Protesters confronted the police outside Hong Kong’s Legislative Council on Thursday.

Student protesters formed a human chain across a main road to prevent people from entering.

Oct. 1: A Test of ‘One Country, Two Systems’

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Wally Santana/Associated Press

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A protester held an umbrella on Wednesday in Hong Kong.

For more than a year, a group of pro-democracy activists had warned Beijing that if it set rules for the elections that did not comply with internationally accepted norms for free and fair elections, they would engage in nonviolent protests in the Central district of Hong Kong, the heart of Asia’s most important financial center.

Joshua Wong, a 17-year-old student activist, has been at the center of the democracy movement that has rattled the Chinese government’s hold on this city.

Freedom of speech, assembly and religion and a free press are all enshrined in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, drafted to govern the city of 7.2 million upon its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 after more than 150 years of British rule.

 

Hong Kong residents are guaranteed those rights until 2047, and a legal system inherited from the British helps keep it intact.

It is a system called “one country, two systems” that the leaders in Beijing hope — or hoped — would someday also be applied to Taiwan to encourage its political reunion with the motherland. Taiwan has governed itself since 1949.

Student protesters listened during evening speeches. Protest leaders have drawn on civil disobedience movements of the past, citing Henry David Thoreau and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Demonstrators slept in Hong Kong’s Wanchai district.

Sept: 30: Despite Rain, Protests Don’t Let Up

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Wally Santana/Associated Press

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images

Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Carlos Barria/Reuters

The police guarded the entrance to government headquarters as protesters gathered Tuesday for the third night in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s leader on Tuesday called for the pro-democracy demonstrators who have blocked major roads in the city to return home immediately, but protest leaders threatened to expand the demonstrations and to occupy government buildings.

Protesters took shelter from a rainstorm as they continued to block a street in the financial Central district.

 

The protests, which started on Friday when students took to the streets, expanded considerably on Sunday.

Protesters held cell phones in the air. The protesters want Beijing and the Hong Kong government to scrap a decision by China to limit who can run in the 2017 election to choose the next chief executive.

Protesters occupied a main thoroughfare through the Central financial district.

Some protesters slept on the street overnight.

 

The crowds outside the local government headquarters swelled even larger  as people of all ages came to join the demonstration before public holidays on Wednesday, China’s National Day, and Thursday, which is a local holiday.

 

Protesters sang songs and waved cellphones after a thunderstorm at the Hong Kong government complex.

 

Umbrellas, the symbol of the protest movement, were displayed on a barricade.

High school students handed out water and supplies to protesters.

 

A man walking along an empty street near the financial district, which has not been this empty as of late.

Sept. 29: Protesters Are Not Deterred

Dale De La Rey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Alex Ogle/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Dale De La Rey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Wally Santana/Associated Press

Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Protesters, many holding cellphones on Monday night, blocked the main road to Hong Kong’s financial district.

Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators disregarded Beijing’s call to disperse.

The police gathering. The protesters are seeking fully democratic elections for the city’s leader in 2017. But under China’s plan, only candidates vetted by a Beijing-friendly committee would be allowed to run.

Police officers rested early Monday at the end of the first day of mass civil disobedience in Hong Kong.

Protesters took photographs on their mobile phones as a wave of protest extended into the working week.

The police walked down a stairwell as pro-democracy demonstrators gathered for a rally outside the Hong Kong government headquarters.

The police fired tear gas on student protesters occupying streets surrounding the government headquarters early in the morning.

The police said that 41 people had been injured in clashes over the previous three days, including 12 police officers.

An effigy of Leung Chun-ying, the city’s top leader. Mr. Leung said the government opposed the “unlawful occupation actions by Occupy Central,” the name the pro-democracy movement has adopted.

Police officers tried to dispense the crowd near the government headquarters.

Sept. 28: The Police Respond With Tear Gas

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Associated Press

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Vincent Yu/Associated Press

Wally Santana/Associated Press

Wally Santana/Associated Press

Xaume Olleros/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The police used tear gas against protesters after tens of thousands of people blocked a main road to Central, the main financial district, outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong on Sunday.

The escalation of police action, including the city’s first use of tear gas in years and the presence of officers with long-barreled guns, appeared to galvanize the public, drawing more people onto the streets.

 

The protests started after a weeklong boycott of classes by university students to protest China’s election plan.

Crowds had besieged the city government for three days.

Streets of a city known as a safe enclave for commerce became a battleground between helmeted  police and umbrella-holding protesters.

 

A pro-democracy demonstrator was overcome after police used pepper spray.

The escalation of the protests, and the unusually strong response by the police, pointed to the possibility of a long confrontation between a city government pressured by the Chinese Communist Party’s demands for top-down control and residents’ demands for a city leadership chosen by democratic means.

Thousands of residents with umbrellas and face masks defied police orders to clear the area.

 

Sept. 27: Leaving Classroom to Join Front Line

Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

Alex Hofford/European Pressphoto Agency

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Vincent Yu/Associated Press

Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images

Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images

Protesters, mainly students staging a weeklong boycott of classes, attempted to push back police officers at barricades outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong’s Central district on Saturday.

Protesters were surrounded by the police at the Civic Square, the public area in front of the government’s main offices.

A protester was taken away by the police after storming into the government building.

A protester raised a placard that read “Occupy Central” between the police  and protesters outside the government headquarters.

An injured protester was treated after clashing with the police.

Protesters used barricades to block a road outside the government complex.