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* Anti-government protesters march through shopping malls
* Riot police fire tear gas in popular protest area of Mong
Kok
* Most shops remain open.
*
(Adds details, quotes)
By Donny Kwok and Lucy Nicholson
HONG KONG, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Hong Kong anti-government
protesters marched through Christmas-decorated shopping malls
chanting pro-democracy slogans on Wednesday as police fired tear
gas to disperse crowds gathering on nearby streets.
The protests have been largely peaceful for much of December
after pro-democracy candidates overwhelmingly won district
council elections the month before.
Hong Kong's pro-Beijing leaders have made no concessions to
the protesters, despite acknowledging their defeat in the polls,
and the rallies have turned more confrontational over the
festive period.
"Confrontation is expected, it doesn't matter if it's
Christmas," said Chan, a 28-year-old restaurant worker who was
part of a crowd which exchanged insults with police outside a
shopping centre in the Mong Kok district.
"I’m disappointed the government still didn’t respond to any
of our ... demands. We continue to come out even if we don’t
have much hope," said Chan, who only gave his surname.
Riot police patrolled past protest hotspots while tourists
and shoppers, many wearing Santa hats or reindeer antlers,
strolled past.
There were no major clashes, but with impromptu crowds
forming to shout abuse at the deeply unpopular officers, who
have been accused of using excessive force, police briefly fired
tear gas in Mong Kok, a popular protest area.
Police have described their responses to the unrest as
reactive and restrained.
Hundreds of protesters, dressed in black and wearing face
masks, descended on shopping malls around the Chinese-ruled
city, shouting popular slogans such as "Liberate Hong Kong!
Revolution of our times!"
Television footage showed police arresting several people in
a shopping mall in the Sha Tin district after pepper-spraying
them.
Most shops remained open.
Baton-wielding police fired tear gas on Tuesday at thousands
of protesters who barricaded roads, spray-painted slogans on
buildings and trashed a Starbucks cafe and an HSBC branch. A
water cannon truck, flanked by armoured jeeps, roamed the
streets, but was not heavily used.
INJURED OVERNIGHT
The Hospital Authority said 25 people had been injured
overnight, including one man who fell from the second to first
floor of a shopping mall as he tried to escape the police, and
another who fell from the rooftop of a restaurant. It was
unclear if the latter was related to the protests.
HSBC has become embroiled in a controversy
involving a police crackdown this month on a fund-raising
platform supporting protesters. HSBC denied any connection
between the crackdown and its closure of a bank account linked
to the group, but remains the target of protester rage.
Starbucks has also become a target of the demonstrators'
anger after the daughter of the founder of Maxim's Caterers,
which owns the local franchise, publicly condemned the
protesters.
The protests started more than six months ago against a
now-withdrawn bill which would have allowed extraditions to
mainland China where courts are controlled by the Communist
Party.
They have since evolved into a broader pro-democracy
movement, with demonstrators angry at what they perceive as
increased meddling by Beijing in the freedoms promised to the
former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
China denies interfering, saying it is committed to the "one
country, two systems" formula put in place at that time and
blaming foreign forces for fomenting unrest.
"I am here because I want the world to support us," said
30-year-old Terry, in the Sha Tin mall. "We have been here for
six months already so it makes no difference for us to be here
on Christmas Day."
(Additional reporting by Mari Saito; Writing by Marius Zaharia,
Editing by Gareth Jones and Ed Osmond)
