HONG KONG Last remaining pro-democracy protest tents cleared out

Pro-democracy protesters sat at their tents outside Hong Kong government headquarters before authorities removed the camp that was the last vestige of the street protests that erupted last September.
The Lands Department said it removed 27 tents and marquees yesterday, the deadline for clearing out the camp, marking 270 straight days of demonstrations at the same site.
Department representatives read an ultimatum, saying that anything left in the public areas in front of Legco could be removed, and that the government reserved the right to prosecute what it calls “illegal occupiers,” according to the South China Morning Post.
Two protesters were taken away by police, including one who was identified by demonstrators as Wang Dengyao, a Chinese activist who survived the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing, Reuters reported.
There was little resistance from around 20 others who watched quietly as the site was cleared away, their sodden tents and possessions thrown into dump trucks.
Tens of thousands of activists occupied downtown streets at the peak of the protests against a Beijing-backed election plan, and most of the last few protesters left after Hong Kong lawmakers rejected the election plan on June 18.
Street tensions appear to have eased off, but radical protesters and “localists” demanding greater Hong Kong autonomy have vowed to keep fighting even as China shows signs of tightening its grip on the former British colony, Reuters added.
The vote vindicated the activists, but Hong Kong and Beijing officials have said, regardless of the defeat, that election candidates still would be handpicked by a 1,200-member panel of local elites. AP/MDT