Update | Hong Kong police set to clear Occupy protesters 'this week'
Police will take action "this week" to clear protesters from some occupied sites just as a new poll showed that nearly 70 per cent of the public wants the movement to end.
Police will take action "this week" to clear protesters from some occupied sites just as a new poll showed that nearly 70 per cent of the public wants the movement to end.
For the first time since it started the poll in September, Chinese University found more people opposed the Occupy movement than supported it. Of the 1,030 respondents, 43 per cent were against and 34 per cent for the movement - indicating a shift in public sentiment.
Even those who supported the democracy protests believed it was time to bring it to an end. About 67 per cent of all respondents said protesters should go home.
This came as a police source told the that the force would take action "within this week" to help bailiffs implement court injunction orders against protesters occupying sites in Admiralty and Mong Kok.
But he said police would not carry out the action at "odd hours".
"The working hours of bailiffs are from 9am to 5pm on weekdays, so that's when it will happen," the source said. "Perhaps only an hour or two earlier [than 9am] at most, definitely not during the small hours.
"Citic [Tower in Admiralty] will be first, then Mong Kok," the source said, adding that it would happen tomorrow at the earliest.
Watch: Hongkongers react to student leaders’ failed trip to Beijing and impending site clearance
The Mong Kok operation is considered "high risk". Each police officer could face up to three or four Occupy protesters there, the source said. He said all officers helping bailiffs in Mong Kok would be in full gear.
Police first needed to wait for instructions from the Department of Justice on how to provide assistance to bailiffs, according to the source. And he said police still had to clarify operational details such as whether "obstacles" to be removed include protesters.
On Monday, a High Court judge said he would decide "as soon as possible" on whether to hand down another injunction to clear parts of Harcourt Road, Connaught Road Central and Cotton Tree Drive in Admiralty. Two subsidiaries of Kwoon Chung Bus company have requested the injunction.
The protesters named as defendants in the case have argued that the court should not allow itself to be used to resolve a public order issue which requires a political solution. They also say the bus companies have exaggerated the financial losses they have incurred as a result of the Admiralty protest camp.
Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah in his weekly blog urged the protesters to stop their movement now or risk "losing the moral high ground".
"It is time to return to rationality … They should first convince the rest of Hong Kong people with their arguments," he wrote.
The Reverend Peter Douglas Koon, provincial secretary general of the Anglican Church, said in a TV talk show that the Occupy organisers had "greatly embarrassed the church" because Christians would now be perceived by others as radicals.
Occupy organisers the Reverend Chu Yiu-ming and Benny Tai Yiu-ting are Christians.
