Hk Police Guard Leader's Office As Protests Continue

Anti-government demonstrations continued in Hong Kong Thursday morning, with hundreds of police guarding the office of the Chinese territory's Leader Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying after students began occupying exits to the building.



The students have said if Leung did not resign they would escalate their civil-disobedience campaign and "paralyze the functioning" of government offices.



"This side of the government headquarters is strategic because it will seal off the access for police reinforcement," Alex Chow Yong-kang, head of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, told the South China Morning Post.



The chief executive's office is a five-minute walk from the main protest site and just metres from a major People's Liberation Army barracks. Hundreds of students had blocked the exits by 2 a.m. (HK time), leaving thousands of others to continue their protest at the main site, outside Admiralty MTR station.



"CY Leung has failed to step down and hasn't apologized for the excessive violence of the police," legislative councilor Leung Kwok-hung told the Anadolu Agency.



"We come here to block the road so he can't sit back. We want him to be humbler – he is arrogant. I wonder if he has a brain."



Protesters are calling on China's central government to allow the territory to choose its own leader by universal suffrage. In August, Chinese leaders ruled that while Hong Kongers could choose their next chief executive in elections in 2017 the candidates would have to be approved by Beijing first.



Hong Kong - an international financial center - was a British colony from 1842 to 1997. On Monday, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying said: "Hong Kong is China's Hong Kong. Hong Kong is purely our internal affair."



The protest movement has since been dubbed the "umbrella revolution" because protesters have en-masse used umbrellas to defend themselves against pepper spray.



The non-violent movement is seen as the biggest challenge to Chinese rule in Hong Kong since Beijing resumed sovereignty in 1997.



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