Earlier on Saturday, protesters marched by the official residence of Hong Kong's embattled Beijing-backed leader Carrie Lam.
Chaos engulfed Hong Kong's financial heart Saturday night as police fired tear gas and water cannon at protesters who set large fires and threw petrol bombs, defying a ban on rallying -- and mounting threats from China -- to take to the streets for a 13th straight weekend.
As evening fell, violence ricocheted through the city's commercial centre, with a minority of hardcore protesters unleashing a barrage of petrol bombs and rocks at riot police. The crowd briefly broke through the barrier outside the building, but were repelled by tear gas and jets of blue-coloured liquid fired from the water cannon."Peaceful protest doesn't work," 22-year-old demonstrator Stone told AFP, giving one name.As protesters streamed away, graffiti on a pillar inside a nearby metro station read:"We shall never surrender."
The protests have expanded into a wider pro-democracy push and a rejection of attempts by Beijing to curtail the freedoms of the semi-autonomous territory. Police confirmed the arrests of the lawmakers but denied the sweep was timed specifically to weaken the weekend's protests.The European Union's diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said the developments were"extremely worrying", while US President Donald Trump said his economic pressure on China was forcing Beijing to take a more moderate line on Hong Kong.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
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