By Benjamin Garvey
HONG KONG
Authorities in Hong Kong began removing some of the barricades at the city’s main protest site Tuesday, although most of the area occupied by student demonstrators remained untouched.
Dozens of bailiffs arrived the Admiralty site at 9.30am Hong Kong time (3.30am Turkish time) to implement a court order following nearly two months of occupation.
Television news channels showed bailiffs cutting plastic ties holding together metal crowd barriers before removing the obstacles from the area around the 33-storey Citic Tower. Pro-democracy demonstrators stood by and watched, some even helping with the removal of the barriers, taking them to other parts of the site.
In what appeared to be an agreed plan not to resist the bailiffs, some protesters had packed up their tents and belongings before the bailiffs’ arrival as police, who were not wearing riot gear as in previous attempts to clear protesters, observed from the sidelines.
Despite the removals, most of the site at Admiralty remained intact.
The injunctions against the barricades at the tower, next to government buildings, were issued after a request from the building's owners Golden Investment, a joint-venture controlled by the Chinese state-owned Citic Group.
An injunction has also been issued for a street in the Mong Kok district, a protest site across the harbor from Admiralty that has seen violent clashes, but there was no sign of bailiffs taking action there.
However, a notice published in The Standard newspaper warned protesters at Mong Kok not to obstruct bailiffs when they begin to clear obstructions on Argyle Street.
A third site at Causeway Bay is unaffected by the injunctions.
The South China Morning Post reported Federation of Students Secretary General Alex Chow as saying the students would not allow the three protest sites to be fully cleared. “Our members will stay with other protesters to the last minute,” he said.
Under the injunctions, obstructing the removal of barricades would leave protesters liable to be arrested for "criminal contempt of court," according to a statement issued by the Hong Kong government Monday.
The statement added that police are ready to give their "fullest support" to the bailiffs.
The removals came after a poll showing that public support for the protesters has dwindled, with around 67.4 percent of those surveyed saying the activists should give up their street occupation immediately.
The demonstrations are the largest the former British colony has seen since China resumed sovereignty over the territory in 1997.
The protest groups are seeking changes to proposals passed in August that pave the way for candidates for the 2017 chief executive election to be selected by a committee protesters fear would select only pro-Beijing candidates.
Hundreds of protesters have remained at the sites since late September and numbers typically swell to thousands in the evenings and on weekends, or after force is used against the demonstrators.
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