Amid some of the worst clashes since Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests began in September, thousands of demonstrators temporarily forced the closure of government headquarters.<br /><br />Police armed with batons and pepper spray pushed back activists as they tried to surround administrative offices in the Chinese-controlled city. More than 40 people were arrested and several police and protesters were injured.<br /><br />The latest flare-up marked an escalation in the civil disobedience campaign.<br /><br />The democracy movement represents one of the biggest threats for China’s Communist Party leadership since Beijing’s bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy student protests in and around Tiananmen Square.<br /><br />Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said police had been very tolerant but would now take “resolute action.”<br /><br />“Some people have mistaken the police’s tolerance for weakness,” he told reporters.<br /><br />Protesters stormed a shopping centre, demanding free elections for the city’s next leader in 2017 rather than the vote between pre-screened candidates that Beijing has said it will allow.<br /><br />China has also told a group of MPs from the UK wishing to visit Hong Kong that they will be refused entry to Britain’s former colony.
