This archive report was first published on 3 August 2019.
Published on August 3, 2019, Hong Kong has been gripped by two months of protests and clashes triggered by opposition to a planned extradition law.
The movement has evolved into a wider call for democratic reforms, with authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing signalling a hardening stance.
On Saturday, police fired volleys of tear gas at hundreds of protesters in Tsim Sha Tsui, a usually bustling harbourside district, after officers charged at the crowd with gas masks and shields.
Masked demonstrators had smashed the windows of cars in the police parking lot and daubed nearby walls with graffiti, with one team creating a large slingshot to launch bricks at the building.
But standoffs continued into the evening with small groups of hardcore protesters trying to hold their ground behind makeshift shield walls.
Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of protesters had marched through nearby streets, embracing their mantra 'be water' - a philosophy of unpredictability espoused by local martial arts legend Bruce Lee.
They seized roads, built barricades and even briefly blocked a cross-harbour tunnel.
'We will fight as guerrillas today and be water,' a masked and helmeted 19-year-old protester told AFP.
Many of the chants and graffiti tags thrown up Saturday called for residents to join a planned city-wide strike on Monday.
'The more the government suppresses us, the more we will come out until the government responds to our demands,' protester Ah Kit, 36, told AFP.
Under the terms of the 1997 handover deal with Britain, the city has rights and liberties unseen on the Chinese mainland, including an independent judiciary and freedom of speech.
But many say those rights are being curtailed, citing the disappearance into mainland custody of dissident booksellers, the disqualification of prominent politicians and the jailing of pro-democracy protest leaders.
