Thousands of school and university students refuse resumption for new school session

Also, school students in blue uniform held hands outside Maryknoll Convent School – a Catholic girls’ school, pairing the uniform with surgical masks as a sign of concealment of their identities and mitigation of tear gas effect

In the district were also old students from different schools, clothed in protesters’ distinguishable black outfit and having similarly joined human chains.

Protesters throw Molotov cocktails and police officers used tear gas, batons and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators. A young man wearing a shirt bearing the emblem of his school held up a placard that said “Freedom”. Some Hong Kong residents have in recent years accused Chinese authorities of steadily eroding freedom of certain democratic rights.

Not less than 1,000 people have been arrested and the protests which began in June have become fierce in recent weeks.

The protest was sparked after the government’s formal withdrawal of a proposed extradition bill which would make residents of Hong Kong being sent to Chinese mainland to stand trial.

The government is committed to fulfilling only one out of the five demands but the some of the protesters said they are determined to continue until the government fulfils all the demands, which include electoral reforms and an independent inquiry into alleged brutality by the Police.

Hong Kong is a former British colony that was returned to China in 1997 under the so-called “one country, two systems” constitutional framework, empowering the territory to enjoy certain democratic rights not beneficial to Chinese mainland.