Hong Kong police fire tear gas at protesters on Christmas Eve

Hong Kong riot police fired tear gas at thousands of protesters during clashes in shopping malls and at tourist districts today.

Many of the protesters wore masks and reindeer horns, as anti-government rallies escalated into chaos on Christmas Eve.

Some even donned Santa Claus hats, as the more than six-month-long demonstrations look set to move into the New Year.

Protesters inside the malls threw umbrellas and other objects at police, who responded by beating some demonstrators with batons, with one pointing his gun at the crowd, but not firing it.

A number of protesters started setting up barricades and dug up bricks from the roads.

Police said in a statement they would deploy ‘minimum force to effect dispersal’ and arrest ‘rioters’.

Riot police also fired tear gas to disperse protesters who had occupied the main roads outside the malls and nearby luxury hotels, including the Peninsula.

Hundreds of pro-democracy activists had gathered in the tourist-heavy neighborhood of Tsim Tsa Tsui to chant ‘fight for Hong Kong’ and ‘five demands.’

Families with children had congregated in the same area to view the Christmas lights along the promenade in the Tsim Sha Tsui East tourist district of Kowloon.

The protests, now in their seventh month, have lost some of the scale and intensity of earlier violent confrontations.

A peaceful rally earlier this month still drew 800,000 people, according to organisers, showing strong support for the movement.

Scores of black clad, mask wearing protesters chanted slogans including ‘Revive Hong Kong, revolution of our time,’ and ‘Hong Kong independence’ as they roamed the malls.

Ken, an 18-year-old student said: ‘Lots of people are shopping so it’s a good opportunity to spread the message and tell people what we are fighting for.

‘We fight for freedom, we fight for our future.’

At one mall in the teeming Mong Kok district, also on the Kowloon peninsula, police used pepper spray to disperse some protesters, according to Cable television.

It is reported that the Civil Human Rights Front, which has organised some of the biggest marches involving more than a million people, has applied to stage another march on New Year’s Day.

Police have arrested more than 6,000 people since the protests escalated in June, including a large number during a protracted, violent siege at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in mid-November.

Many Hong Kong residents are angry at what they see as Beijing’s meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

China denies it is interfering in Hong Kong’s internal affairs and says it is committed to the ‘one country, two systems’ formula put in place.

It has instead blamed foreign forces for fomenting unrest.