HONG KONG/london: Britain said yesterday that it had decided not to block the sale of tear gas to Hong Kong, having reviewed its export policy after police there used the gas against pro-democracy protesters in September.
In a written submission to parliament yesterday, Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire said the only current licence did not breach rules and would not be revoked. Swire had said in October that a review was likely in light of the Hong Kong clashes.
“The Government has reviewed licences for tear gas exports to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government ... the Government has decided it will not be revoked on the basis that it does not contravene the consolidated criteria,” he said, referring to the rules used to control arms exports.
Swire said the government had not been able to verify pictures purporting to show that some of the canisters used by police in the Chinese-controlled city, a former British colony, had been manufactured by a British firm.
Hong Kong police will move today to evict some of the pro-democracy protesters who have been blocking main roads for more than seven weeks, a statement said.
Police said they would give “fullest support” to civilian bailiffs carrying out a court order to clear access to a skyscraper in the Admiralty district.
In a statement they pledged “resolute action” against anyone obstructing the bailiffs, saying they could face charges of criminal contempt of court.
Protesters since September 28 have been staging sit-ins on three major thoroughfares, demanding a free leadership election for the semi-autonomous Chinese city in 2017.
The court order to be enforced Tuesday, granted at the request of the building owners, relates only to the area around CITIC Tower in the Admiralty business and government district.
It does not cover the entire area of the sit-in at Admiralty, where demonstrators have pitched a sea of colourful tents across an eight-lane highway.
But similar court orders have been issued or are being sought for other blocked roads in the city, as China refuses to budge on protesters’ demands and public opinion starts turning against the campaigners.
For the first time since it started the poll in September, Hong Kong’s Chinese University found more people opposed the Occupy movement than supported it, according to the South China Morning Post.
About 67 per cent of all respondents said protesters should go home, it reported.
A police source quoted by the paper said roads in the Mongkok district in Kowloon would also be cleared this week.
The protests, which drew tens of thousands at times initially, have dwindled markedly in size.
China has refused to back down on its insistence that candidates for the 2017 election must be vetted by a loyalist committee, a decision critics say is designed to ensure the election of a pro-Beijing stooge.
Agencies
