Hong Kong police officially end siege at university

(Image credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

published 29 November 2019

Police restored school administrators' control of Hong Kong Polytechnic University on Friday, declaring that there were no pro-democracy protesters left on the wrecked campus after a two-week siege, The New York Times reports. Police arrested hundreds of protesters during the showdown, the latest episode amid months of civic unrest.

On Thursday, a team of about 400 officers conducted a sweep of the university, and found nearly 4,000 firebombs, 921 gas canisters, and 588 containers of chemicals, including acid and other corrosive liquids, the South China Morning Post reports. The transfer of control back to school officials marked the end of one of the most intense clashes between protesters and police in a month of escalating unrest following the death of a student who fell from a parking structure during a police operation.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox