Bailiffs clear out Hong Kong Occupy camp

The last of the protesters were removed from the site by late afternoon.

They had spent the day in scuffles with bailiffs, who were enforcing a court order to clear the campsite in a large public passageway in the heart of the city's financial district.

The bailiffs pushed and shoved the activists, who had ignored the order requiring them to leave the site by August 27.

Some were carried away forcibly and taken outside a perimeter, where they were released.

As nightfall neared, a handful of them clung to two sofas, all that was left of a camp that had included a dozen tents, tables, bookcases, gas cookers and lamps. They were surrounded by black-clad bailiffs who dragged them away one by one after cataloguing and packing up their belongings.

Hong Kong's Occupy movement started camping out under the HSBC building on October 15, when protesters joined others around the world in a day of demonstrations against corporate excess and economic inequality.

The group, which numbered more than 100 at its peak but dwindled to less than a dozen, has outlasted other Occupy encampments around the world that have been shut down by authorities including in New York, London and Frankfurt.

foreigneditor@peoples-press.com