At the University of Hong Kong this week, front-line students also set up barricades and, against the advice of professors, threw paving bricks off balconies, even though it is considered the most established of the territory’s schools.
Founded in 1911, it is the territory’s oldest university. Many of its students are foreigners or Hong Kong residents who attended international schools. English is the main language, and the university aims to open a mainland China campus. Among its alumni are many police commanders and Carrie Lam, the territory’s chief executive who is reviled by protesters.
On Monday, the students were on edge in part because the police had taken a student from a dormitory area early that morning.
Two liberal law professors, Hualing Fu and Johannes Chan, urged a group of front-line protesters in masks not to resort to violence and to understand that the struggle for democracy was a lifetime commitment, according to video footage. But one masked woman shouted they had no choice, and asked: “How many people are we going to sacrifice?”
“We are better, we are different,” Mr. Fu said.
“But we shall not forgive,” a young man shouted, “we shall not forget.”
On Monday and Tuesday mornings, police officers arrived at campus entrances to try to clear the barricades. They fired tear gas, but retreated.
Students have called on the president, Xiang Zhang, to forcefully condemn the police, but he has refrained from doing so, and, unlike Mr. Tuan, rarely holds open forums. On occasion, professors have shown up at the front lines to speak to students, as William Hayward, dean of social sciences, did on Tuesday.
“Obviously, as it goes on and as it gets more polarized, this becomes increasingly a challenge,” Mr. Hayward later said of student engagement. “Some of them do really open up, but at the same time, you know, of course they’re trying to figure out — is he on our side or is he trying to silence us?”
As night fell on Tuesday, students traded shifts at the barricades, walking past a famous eight-meter statue of orange corpses, “The Pillar of Shame,” that memorializes the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy students and workers around Tiananmen Square in Beijing by the Chinese government.
Paul Mozur and Katherine Li contributed reporting.
4-4
