Hong Kong's Occupy Central leaders surrender to police as pro-democracy protests appear to wither

Updated

Leaders of Hong Kong's Occupy Central movement have surrendered to police for their role in democracy protests the government has deemed illegal.

But after a short meeting, Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-ming were released without charge.

The three founders turned themselves in a day after calling on students to retreat from protest sites in the Asian financial centre amid fears of further violence.

Their surrender also came hours after student leader Joshua Wong called on supporters to regroup.

Pro-Beijing groups taunted the men as they entered a police station just two subway stops from the main protest site in Admiralty, next to the Chinese-controlled city's financial centre.

The three, accompanied by Cardinal Joseph Zen, 82, former Catholic bishop of Hong Kong, filled in forms, giving personal information, and were allowed to leave without arrest.

"I hope we can show others the meaning of the surrender," Benny Tai, the most prominent of the Occupy leaders, said after leaving the police station.

"We urge the occupation to end soon and more citizens will carry out the basic responsibility of civil disobedience, which is to surrender."

If (the protest) keeps dragging on, it will wear down their willpower, which is exactly what Beijing wants. Pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai

Their surrender is the latest sign that the campaign may be running out of steam.

Police said 24 people aged between 33 and 82 had surrendered for "taking part in an unauthorised assembly", and authorities would conduct follow-up investigations based on the information provided.

More than 100,000 people took to the streets at the height of the demonstrations but numbers have dwindled to a few hundred, mostly students, and public support has waned as the protests blocked key roads and disrupted business.

Some students defied calls for them to retreat and vowed to stay put at protest sites to press their call for free elections for the city's next leader in 2017.

Occupy Movement 'in tatters'

Jean Pierre Cabestan, an expert in Chinese politics at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the Occupy movement was "in tatters".

"The trouble and one of the weaknesses of the movement is there's not much coordination between the Hong Kong Federation of Students and the pan-democrats," he told foreign correspondents in Beijing.

The protesters are united in their calls for democracy for the former British colony but are split over tactics, two months after the demonstrations branded illegal by Beijing, began.

The calls for students to pull back came a day after clashes between police and protesters in Admiralty after activists tried to surround government headquarters.

Police charged into the protesters with scores of activists and police wounded.

Pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai said the students should withdraw.

"If [the protest] keeps dragging on, it will wear down their willpower, which is exactly what Beijing wants," he said.

Authorities cleared protesters from the working-class district of Mong Kok across the harbour last week, triggering running battles as students tried to regroup.

A small group remains camped out in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay, but the bulk are in nearby Admiralty where students have erected a makeshift village.

Reuters

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, government-and-politics, activism-and-lobbying, hong-kong, asia

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