Hong Kong riot police on Saturday fired tear gas and baton-charged protesters who retaliated with a barrage of stones, bottles and bamboo poles, in another tense bout of violence.

The city has been gripped by three months of street protests that started against a proposed extradition bill to China but have spun out into a wider pro-democracy movement.

An uneasy peace had descended this week but that was broken on Saturday as thousands of demonstrators — many wearing hard hats and gas masks — marched through the industrial Kwun Tong area, where they were blocked by dozens of officers with shields and batons outside a police station.

Frontline protesters pulled together a barricade of traffic barriers and bamboo construction poles, spray-painting walls with insults directed at the police.

Source: AFP