Hong Kong's long-running Occupy camp cleared

HONG KONG (AP) ? One of the global Occupy movement's longest-running encampments came to an end Tuesday in Hong Kong as bailiffs cleared out anti-capitalist activists and their belongings from a site underneath HSBC's Asian headquarters.

The last of the protesters was removed from the site by late afternoon. They had spent the day in scuffles with bailiffs, who were carrying out a court order to clear the campsite in a large public passageway in the heart of the city's financial district.

The bailiffs pushed and shoved the activists, who had ignored the order requiring them to leave the site by August 27. Some were carried away forcibly and taken outside a perimeter, where they were let go.

As nightfall neared, a handful of them clung to two sofas, all that was left of a camp that had included a dozen tents, tables, bookcases, gas cookers and lamps. They were surrounded by black-clad bailiffs who dragged them away one by one after earlier cataloguing and packing up their belongings.

Hong Kong's Occupy movement started camping out under the HSBC building on Oct. 15, when protesters in the Asian financial center joined others around the world in a day of demonstrations against corporate excess and economic inequality.

The group, which according to media reports numbered more than 100 at its peak but dwindled to less than a dozen, has outlasted other Occupy encampments around the world that have been shut down by authorities including in New York, London and Frankfurt.

The land under the HSBC building where the Occupy activists were living is owned by the bank but legally designated a public passageway. A judge ruled that the activists' occupation of the space went beyond its designated use.

The global Occupy movement is generally thought to have begun Sept. 17, when tents sprang up at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hong-kongs-long-running-occupy-camp-cleared-090230482.html

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