Christmas Eve in Hong Kong was peppered with clashes between hundreds of pro-democracy protesters and police, who announced Thursday, December 25 having made a dozen arrests. The police officers use pepper spray and batons to disperse protesters.

This is the first incident since the evacuation of the barricades and tent cities erected by the Occupy Central and student federations in several places in the former British colony returned to China in 1997.

In a statement, the police charged the demonstrators of having caused chaos and blocked roads in the shopping district of Mongkok.

Ten men and two women aged 13 to 43 years were arrested for violence against representative of the range, resistance to a representative of the order and disturbing public order in particular.

Television stations broadcast images of the clashes which shows demonstrators, one bleeding from the head, flat on the ground. Two policemen were injured, police said. The confrontation lasted until the wee hours of Thursday.
Particularly violent clashes have pitted in Mongkok pro-democracy protesters and police between late September and late November.

Other protesters gathered in the district of Causeway Bay, another big sticking point evacuated last week, waving yellow umbrellas, accessory used to protect gas projections Pepper became the emblem of their movement.”Our Christmas wish is universal suffrage, they chanted.

A hundred people also marched in the government quarter shouting The people represents hope and The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) does not represent us.

I am certain of one thing: the movement has not ended in our hearts, he told AFP Cheung Wai-man, 25, founder of an online trading company.