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Hong Kong protests: hundreds of demonstrators occupy airport for second day

  • Only a handful of protesters remained in the arrivals hall overnight but some 1,000 others have now joined them
  • Protesters are making posters, greeting travellers, and chanting ‘add oil, Hong Kong’

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Protesters stage a second day of demonstrations at Hong Kong International Airport. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Hundreds of black-clad demonstrators descended on Hong Kong International Airport to support the second day of an illegal anti-government sit-in on Saturday.

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By 3.30pm, an estimated 1,000 protesters had joined a handful of others who spent the night in the airport’s arrivals hall.

Seated in organised blocks to allow a path for airport staff, they busied themselves by making posters or greeting arriving travellers, and sporadically broke out into chants of “add oil, Hong Kong!” and “fight for freedom, stay with Hong Kong”.

The crowd cheered when a banner carrying the message “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution now” was unfurled on a walkway on the second floor. It was removed 15 minutes later by a group of men, and protesters shouted “shame on you” at them.

Many of those present in the morning had stayed overnight to guard supplies left over from the day before, when hundreds had gathered to “greet” travellers with anti-government brochures in a bid to win international support.

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This was the fourth day in less than three weeks the airport had been affected by the anti-government movement, and airport authorities had heightened security ahead of this protest, which began on Friday and will finish on Sunday.

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