Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters clashed with riot police in the city's upmarket business district and on university campuses Tuesday, extending one of the most violent stretches of unrest seen in more than five months of political chaos.
The confrontations followed a particularly brutal day on Monday, when police shot a protester and a man was set on fire, prompting calls from western powers for compromise but further fury in China against the challenge to its rule.
"Hong Kong's rule of law has been pushed to the brink of total collapse," police spokesman Kong Wing-cheung told a press conference on Tuesday as he defended the force against seething public anger.
In Central, a district that is home to many blue-chip international firms and luxury shops, thousands of office workers occupied roads for hours on Tuesday chanting: "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong!".
Hundreds of hardcore protesters, dressed in their signature black clothes and masks, then used a bus to barricade a key road in the area. They threw bricks and other objects before retreating when riot police fired tear gas in the shadows of high-end stores.
But the streets filled with protesters once more as people left work for the evening, prompting police to carry out another dispersal operation with tear gas.
The scenes in Central were a vivid illustration of how ordinary people are continuing to back the pro-democracy movement - even as the radicals adopt more violent tactics.
Universities emerged as a new battleground Tuesday with sustained clashes at major campuses for the first time. The epicentre was Chinese University of Hong Kong, where police fired multiple volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets at hundreds of protesters, who built barricades after an hours-long stand-off between the two sides.
Protesters responded with bricks and petrol bombs, while a vehicle used in a barricade was set alight.
Renewed clashes broke out as night fell, with barricades set ablaze and fresh rounds of tear gas whizzing through the air, turning the usually placid hillside campus into a battleground.
There were smaller clashes on at least three other university campuses throughout the day.
After months of largely confining their most disruptive protests to the weekends, online groups used by protesters have been pushing new tactics targeting the working week.
For the last two days hardcore protesters have blocked roads during the morning rush hour, thrown objects onto rail tracks and held up subway trains, sparking transport chaos throughout the city.
China has ruled Hong Kong under a "one country, two systems" framework, which allows the city greater freedoms than on the mainland, since its handover from the British in 1997.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019