Hong Kong police exit wrecked campus, weekend protests planned

Hong Kong police on Friday withdrew from a university campus trashed by weeks of clashes as pro-democracy activists canvassed social media to promote more protests at the weekend.

Senior members of Hong Kong Polytechnic University toured buildings strewn with debris after police left, including a sports hall and a ruined Starbucks outlet, seeing smashed windows and charred piles of former barricades.

After more than five months of increasingly violent demonstrations, the Chinese-ruled city has enjoyed relative calm since local elections on Sunday delivered an overwhelming victory to pro-democracy candidates.

Activists are trying to keep up momentum, after winning backing from U.S. President Donald Trump that has renewed global attention on the Asian financial hub and infuriated Beijing.

“Many classrooms, laboratories and library were destroyed. Even so, there’s been no loss of life. We insisted on adopting a humane way to solve the crisis,” university president Teng Jin-Guang told reporters, saying the next semester would go ahead on time.

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