By Benjamin Garvey
HONG KONG
Three men were arrested overnight in Hong Kong after clashes broke out between police officers and democracy protesters, shattering two weeks of relative peace at demonstrations now in their sixth week.
Dozens of officers armed with batons and shields had reinforced police cordons in the Mong Kok area - one of three protest sites - as hundreds of protesters gathered. Violence broke out around 2.00 local time (20.00 Turkish time) in the gritty shopping district.
Police detained one of the men after he allegedly tried to stop officers from restraining a man who had shone a mobile phone torchlight at police, government-funded Radio Television Hong Kong reported.
More than 30 people wearing Guy Fawkes masks had joined the demonstrators, who are calling for greater democracy in the former British colony. Fawkes plotted to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of England's Parliament in 1605, and his image is now a regular presence at anti-government protests around the world.
One protester said he intended to raise public awareness about democracy by wearing the mask, warning of the totalitarian society depicted in the movie “V for Vendetta,” pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily reported.
Some protesters complained about policing, according to pro-democracy news site Passion Times.
They questioned the identity of a young man who was wearing the uniform of a high-ranking officer but acting as a front-line police officer -- the high rank of the uniform was incongruous with the man's apparent youth and his front-line duties.
Protesters have long worried the Chinese government could send mainland police officers to Hong Kong to reinforce the city's capabilities against the demonstrators.
Such an arrangement would raise legality and jurisdiction questions in the territory that is governed under a legal and political system different from mainland China.
The formula is known as "one country, two systems."
Earlier in the protests, many protesters complained that officers had obscured their identity numbers with reflective vests before they used force against demonstrators, the South China Morning Post reported.
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