Hong Kong protesters blockade streets, 'set deadline'

Demonstrators remained on the streets of Hong Kong on Tuesday morning after a night of largely peaceful protests calling for greater democracy.

Protesters gathered at busy junctions in the Causeway Bay and Mongkok shopping areas, as well as protest sites near government headquarters in Admiralty and the Central financial district.

Campaigners are calling for a "genuine choice" of candidates to become the city's next leader in 2017. China's National People's Congress has ruled that candidates in the election for the post must be vetted and approved by Beijing.

On Monday night, a "mobile light" vigil was held, with chants for the city's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to resign. Tens of thousands were said to have blocked the city streets in the early hours of Tuesday.

However, police were said to have kept a largely low profile after officers used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse the crowds on Sunday, in what they claimed was a necessary response to protesters pushing through barricades.

Hong Kong's South China Post newspaper reported that protest organizers had urged the Chinese government to respond to their demands for limited electoral reform by China's National Day on Wednesday.

'Determination to fight'

"This is a very touching moment," one protester told the newspaper. "So many people took to the streets to express their determination to fight for democracy."

"It is purely a bottom-up movement by people themselves," he added. "

As protest organizers promised to step up their protests, city officials said some schools would be closed and bus and subway services canceled.

The Chinese government's response to the protests so far has been a brief statement condemning the protests as an illegal assembly and backing Leung's semi-autonomous administration in its efforts to break up the protests. Beijing is accused of trying to shut down at least one social media network carrying information about the protests.

Hong Kong authorities on Monday banned a National Day fireworks display planned for Wednesday. Larger crowds are expected to gather then, and on Thursday which is also a holiday.

Under an agreement set in 1984, before many of the current protesters were born, Beijing promised to grant special civil liberties to the former British territory's 7.1 million inhabitants.

rc/lw (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)