Hong Kong riot police have fired teargas, sponge rounds and arrested a number of protesters, including two 13-year-olds, as peaceful demonstrations in several districts turned ugly at the end of the 15th week of unrest in the city’s drawn-out political crisis.

The police-sanctioned demonstration attended by thousands in Tuen Mun on Saturday afternoon was initially peaceful but later erupted into violent conflicts between protesters and riot police armed with teargas, pepper spray and shields.



Police moved in to dismantle makeshift barricades set up by demonstrators, while protesters retaliated by throwing petrol bombs and setting some of the barricades on fire.

Police said on Twitter that “radical protesters” possessed “offensive weapons including metal rods, slingshots and laser guns” during the confrontations.

Police face a burning barricade during protests in Hong Kong. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

The Hong Kong government issued a statement shortly after midnight condemning the protester’s “violent and vandalistic acts”. It said the police would act to restore public order.

Scuffles also broke out between the police and protesters near a light-rail station after demonstrators were accused of shining laser pointers at officers. They used fire hoses to spray water while police retaliated with pepper spray and fired several rounds of sponge bullets at them. Police later said on Twitter that the protesters had damaged station facilities with metal rods and hurled objects on to the tracks.

Earlier, protesters near Tuen Mun town hall lowered the Chinese flag, trampled on it and set it on fire. A 13-year-old girl was later detained for desecrating the national flag, reported public broadcaster RTHK, citing police sources.

Another demonstration started in the evening in the Yuen Long district to mark an indiscriminate attack carried out by pro-China gangsters on commuters at the local station two months ago.

The protest, originally planned as a sit-in at the metro station, could not take place there after the city’s transit operator, MTR Corp, closed the station in the afternoon. But from around 8pm local time, hundreds of protesters filled the neighbouring shopping centre, chanted slogans and sang “Glory to Hong Kong” – an unofficial anthem of the protest movement.

The atmosphere turned tense by late night after some demonstrators ventured out of the shopping complex and set up barricades on main thoroughfares in the area, bringing traffic to a standstill. Police flashed strong lights at protesters, who yelled profanities at officers from a footbridge. The crowds and police then got into a cat-and-mouse game across different streets in the area. Some protesters threw petrol bombs at police vehicles, before riot police charged at protesters and used teargas in retaliation.

“Reclaim Hong Kong! Revolution of our era!” many protesters chanted, as they refused to leave the area despite the clouds of teargas and detention of demonstrators by officers.

Meanwhile, dozens gathered on Sunday night outside the Prince Edward metro station in the Mong Kok district, where many believed people died when police attacked protesters and commuters inside a train carriage on 31 August. Some burned funeral offerings while others sang and chanted slogans.

A man jumps a fence as police fired teargas to clear pro-democracy protesters in Yuen Long district. Photograph: Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images

In the early hours of Sunday, police fired several rounds of tear gas from the police station in Tseung Kwan O - another out-of-town district - after dozens of protesters hurled projectiles at the station and set up makeshift barricades to block its exits. Police arrested a 13-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man for illegal assembly, reported RTHK. The boy, found carrying spray paint and a laser gun, was accused of allegedly possessing offensive weapon and tools for illegal purposes, it said.

Earlier this month, the Hong Kong leader, Carrie Lam, withdrew the controversial anti-extradition bill that sparked the wave of protests in June, but the move failed to calm unrest.

The protests had by then morphed into a wider and more violent anti-government movement as resentment mounted against the police and the government, which used threats and escalating force to deal with protesters. The bill, if passed, would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial.

Earlier on Saturday, dozens of pro-China supporters tore down “Lennon Walls” of large collages of colourful anti-government protest messages in several districts.

The installations have blossomed across Hong Kong, on and under footbridges, along pedestrian walkways, at bus stops and shopping centres. A pro-Beijing city legislator, Junius Ho, who has been a vocal critic of the protests, had urged his supporters to clean up the approximately 100 Lennon Walls around the city on Saturday.

The anti-government protesters are angry about what they see as creeping interference by Beijing on Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” formula that ensures freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland, including the right of assembly and an independent judiciary.

The demonstrations have turned ugly and tend to peak on the weekends, often with anti-government activists, many masked and in black, throwing petrol bombs at police, trashing metro stations, blocking airport roads and lighting street fires. At times, they have been confronted by counter-protesters who support Beijing.



Additional reporting by Reuters