Hong Kong police have thrown tear gas canisters at protesters after they refused to disperse in the latest clashes between the people and the Hong Kong police force, News Corp Australia reports today.

The police fired multiple volleys of tear gas on Sunday night to clear crowds of anti-government protesters who had taken over the streets in the heart of the city following another mass rally.

Video by AFP

Riot officers equipped with masks and shields swarmed towards protesters who fled in multiple directions after a tense standoff close to a ferry terminal on the main island, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

Meanwhile, an estimated 316,000 people gathered at Tamar Park in Hong Kong Saturday afternoon to show their support and gratitude to the city’s police force while making a strong appeal for peace and order that were broken repeatedly in recent protests, China Daily reports

Despite the stuffy weather, the participants, mostly dressed in light-colored clothes, were passionate and energetic, chanting slogans while waving signboards and banners along with the national flag and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region flag.

Video by The Guardian

China Daily Hong Kong reports today that central authorities responsible for Hong Kong affairs have sternly denounced radical protesters who besieged and vandalized the liaison office — one of the three central government institutions in the special administrative region, saying such acts are “absolutely unacceptable”.

In a statement issued late Sunday night, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) of the State Council said these violent acts are a blatant challenge to the central government’s authority over the SAR, and have trampled on “one country, two systems”.

The Star of Malaysia quoted a Reuters story as reporting that Hong Kong’s opposition Democratic Party is investigating attacks by suspected triad gangsters on train passengers on Sunday, after a night of violence opened new fronts in the political crisis now deepening across the city.

Screams rang out when men, clad in white t-shirts and some armed with poles, flooded into the rural Yuen Long station and stormed a train, attacking passengers, according to footage taken by commuters and Democratic Party lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting.

Meanwhile, Straits Times of Singapore reports that a mob of men wearing white armed with wooden sticks and umbrellas attacked people dressed in black at a train station in a  Hong Kong suburb near the border with China on Sunday