Hong Kong officials close rail stations ahead of potential final operation to flush out ‘hardcore’ protesters
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Officials in Hong Kong shut down nearly a dozen railway stations Wednesday as police consider clearing out the final “hardcore” protesters who are occupying the besieged Polytechnic University.
The announcement on a Twitter account belonging to the city’s Mass Transit Railway-- which said 11 stations “will be closed to avoid possible railway assets damages due to protest and police actions thereafter” – comes as some 50 protesters remain inside the university’s campus.
“It is an indication – and the students here have been fearing this all day – that the police may be planning to storm this campus... and flush out the radicals,” Fox News reporter Jonathan Hunt, who is on the scene, said on ‘Fox & Friends’ this morning.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Police officers watch as workers clear the road in front of the Polytechnic University in Hong Kong on Wednesday. (AP)
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Hunt described the remaining protesters as “hardcore," with some clad in body armor and carrying bows and arrows, baseball bats and javelins.
“If [the police] do that, they are likely to face a fight,” he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hunt added that past closures of public transit in Hong Kong have “been a prelude to police action because it prevents protesters and sympathizers coming to a certain location.”
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The protesters have been occupying the Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus for days and have been engaged in fierce clashes with police, who have surrounded the area.
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Authorities told the Associated Press that more than 1,000 demonstrators have been taken into custody since police established a perimeter around the school on Sunday, and hundreds more who are injured are being treated at local hospitals.
The developments are happening as a former employee of Britain’s consulate in Hong Kong revealed Wednesday that he was tortured, shackled and forced to sing the Chinese national anthem during a grueling two-week period of detention in the mainland in August.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News' Jonathan Hunt and the Associated Press contributed to this report.