Asia-Pacific News
Police arrest 900 after Hong Kong WTO street battles
By DPA
Dec 18, 2005, 19:00 GMT

Hong Kong - Hundreds of anti-globalization protestors were arrested early Sunday as police reclaimed the streets of Hong Kong following a night of violent clashes.

Police moved in on about 900 protestors shortly after 3 a.m. and herded them into vans, after a six-hour standoff as the protestors gathered on the city\'s arterial Gloucester Road.

Dozens of police vans took the protestors off to police stations and remand centres. Many are expected to be charged with offences related to Saturday night\'s violence.

A group of women protestors wailed as they were the first to be grabbed by police, carried into vans and told they were being arrested under Hong Kong\'s illegal-assembly laws.

Other demonstrators stood up, walked toward the waiting riot police and surrendered apparently without resistance. The huge round-up was continuing late morning Sunday.

Six hundred of the protestors - most of them South Korean farmers - were taken to the city\'s Kwun Tong court where they were expected to be charged with illegal assembly and rioting.

However, the protestors insisted that a planned rally for the final day of the WTO summit Sunday afternoon in Hong Kong would go ahead despite the arrests.

The mass arrests followed a dramatic night that paralyzed the centre of Hong Kong and put the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting into a state of siege.

Tear gas was fired as protestors used metal barricades to charge police lines to try to break into the convention centre where the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting is being held.

The venue was at one stage ringed by police and rioters, its doors locked, with trade ministers from around the world inside and ranks of police outside to stop protestors from forcing their way in.

Police said 107 people were injured in the clashes, including 38 police officers, though no one is believed to have been seriously injured.

Before the arrests, police commissioner Dick Lee said that police had \'rounded up\' some 900 demonstrators - referring to the protestors surrounded in the city - and said that about 2,000 officers were on the streets.

He added that there was no need to call in support from China\'s People\'s Liberation Army, which has 1,000 soldiers barracked in the former British colony.

The chaotic scenes built up after a few dozen South Korean protestors began pelting police with eggs and flag poles after a march by 2,000 people Saturday afternoon from the city\'s Victoria Park.

Saturday\'s violence was the first since the meeting\'s opening days on Tuesday and Wednesday, when South Korean protestors clashed with police.

It was also the most widespread of any unrest since the ministerial meeting began, confirming fears that protestors would concentrate their efforts on the end of the five-day forum.

After two days of relatively peaceful protests, police said they had been expecting thousands of demonstrators at the last two days of the meeting, attended by 6,000 delegates from 149 member states.

Some 9,000 police have been mobilized to deal with an estimated 10,000 protestors from around the world who have descended on Hong Kong.

Before the conference began, officials said they had cleared jail space for 1,800 prisoners to deal with protestors arrested in Hong Kong.