'Now it is my turn': Why Hong Kong protesters continue to gather in the streets

They knew they could face 10 years jail on riot charges - and they were scared.

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تاریخ: ۱۳ مرداد ۱۳۹۸ - ۱۱:۰۱

But Hong Kong's masked protesters came out to the streets, costumed in black like anime action figures with smartphones. "I'm more scared that if we give up we lose Hong Kong," said a girl, a university student, among a band of signallers on Nathan Road on Saturday night.

She carried four large banners in her backpack, to be held high to spread word through the sea of black when the riot police, inevitably, arrived: Go Forward, Stop, or Back Away Slowly.

"I don't want to be arrested," she said, walkie talkie in hand. "We stand 10 metres back from the frontline so when they want to disperse quickly we can get the mass of protesters to fall back. There needs to be somewhere to run when police charge."

"I was in secondary school during the Umbrella movement and I didn't do enough. Now it is my turn," said a girl with long black hair and heavy eye makeup, another signaller, referring to democracy protests that ended after 79 days in 2014.

As extradition bill protests enter a third month, there was no sign of fatigue among the leaderless protestors who vote on their next actions on social media - they have widened their demands to greater democracy and a reckoning of police violence.

Teresa, 58, who marched through Mong Kok in the afternoon said her feeling of guilt wouldn't let her back down - despite recent veiled threats from Beijing that its military could intervene.

"I feel regret that when I was young I was too busy with work and raising my family. The Chinese communists got away with so much, because we didn't do anything then."

"The young people now they value their freedom. People are upset with the police," she said.

Outside Mongkok Station on Nathan Road at nightfall, a group of young men in gas respirators looked formidable. But one was a recent design school graduate - anime-style graphics are pumped out fast and digitally circulated among the protesters to boost morale. Saturday's poster was a protester wiping tears from the eyes of a child amid clouds of gas, a real incident from a week earlier.

"We don't want to be arrested tonight, and we won't charge police lines, but we don't know what the police will do," he said, talking calmly and softly behind the mask.

"The police are scared and are becoming emotional and angry. They don't have experience facing large protests."

He said his goal was to stop protestors from becoming violent, and he and his friends were prepared to drag other protestors away so they left together.

Carrie Lam's government has upped the stakes in its battle with protesters, charging 44 with rioting instead of the lesser charge of illegal assembly. Beijing firmly backed the actions of Hong Kong police, thus denying widespread calls for an independent inquiry into police handling of the protests.

But the threats didn't work to stop the mass acts of civil disobedience on Saturday, where another 20 arrests were made and tear gas fired after busy Nathan Road in Kowloon was occupied, the Cross Harbour Tunnel briefly blocked, the Chinese national flag thrown into the harbour, and a police station at Tsim Sha Tsui graffitied.

In a new twist, it was residents without masks or black costumes, who confronted police well past midnight.

Protesters dispersed quickly, on plan, as riot police arrived at Nathan Road. But residents and the elderly of Wong Tai Sin, known for its towering public housing estates, came down to the streets in t-shirts and shorts, and dug in past midnight as they expressed their anger at police using tear gas in their neighbourhood.

Clashes erupted as residents and protesters threw umbrellas at police officers who struck with batons, after allegations that off-duty officers living in dormitories had thrown fire crackers or water bombs down on the crowd.

The government condemned Saturday night's protests and said the "illegal behaviours " and road blockage was "getting worse and way beyond the boundary of freedom of expression".

Mong Kok residents had also stayed on the street to watch and heckle police.

Mong Kok businessman Mr Wong, 56, said things "only become dangerous when the police turn up".

"This will continue until the government responds to the protestors," he said.

There is a risk the world may tune out of the onoing clashes being broadcast live on Hong Kong televison networks.

But Hong Kong is not France. Despite Hong Kong's freedom of speech enshrined in the Basic Law, Beijng has no such tolerance for what it sees as prolonged social disorder. The crunch will likely come.

Those on Hong Kong's streets, as well as the many groups representing public servants, doctors, lawyers, education, business and the churches, who are calling for an independent commission of inquiry into the exradition bill saga and police conduct, hope it is Lam who moves first.

A poll by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute of 1000 people found 79 per cent want the extradition bill that sparked the political crisis to be withdrawn, and half want Lam to resign.

A general strike called for Monday will test the strength of public opinion in a more tangible way.