‘I choose to stay’

– In the final days of a police siege at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, a lone protester stalked the darkened corridors, determined to outlast the authorities waiting to arrest him.

The man, who asked only to be identified as Michael, was among the final few dozen democracy protesters who barricaded themselves inside a campus where hardcore activists waged running battles using Molotov cocktails and even bows and arrows to keep back police.

Over the course of the extraordinary nearly twoweek siege, protesters staged daring escapes, abseiling down ropes to waiting vehicles or seeking exits through the sewers.

But Michael was determined to stay, adamant that he had committed no crime.

“I have had many chances and opportunities to leave, but I choose to stay,” he said in the final days of the siege.

Clashes at the university known as PolyU broke out on November 17, with protesters wielding petrol bombs and bows and arrows in their battles with police.

It was one of the most violent confrontations in nearly six months of protests, and it settled into a tense standoff, with police surrounding the complex and arresting anyone who emerged.

Conditions inside the school once known for its relaxed, party-fond student body deteriorated, with vending machines looted for food and a foul odour wafting from canteens and kitchens where cockroaches rooted through rotting leftovers.

Michael took up residence in a meeting room strewn with cans of food, bottles and other detritus.

It resembled the home of a hoarder, but he didn’t seem to notice as he sat at a small desk, his sweater hood pulled up over his head, sipping from a bottle of purloined red wine.

Surviving in the increasingly difficult circumstances on campus proved a serious challenge and every day he tried to avoid the search teams who were sent in to find holdouts.

By the final days of the siege, only a handful of protesters remained secreted in different parts of the campus, living in fear of a police charge into the university. Hours after police said they would be removing their cordons, having collected nearly 4 000 petrol bombs and dozens of bows and arrows from the campus, Michael reemerged, in the form of a brief text message. “I’m okay and safe,” it read. – AFP

Hong Kong