Hong Kong protesters clash with police

Thousands of protesters scuffled with police in Hong Kong on Sunday night, stepping up their movement for democratic reforms after being camped out on the city's streets for more than two months.

At the main protest site outside government headquarters, student protest leaders told a big crowd that they would escalate their campaign. As of 1:30 a.m. local time, hundreds of police officers were struggling with protesters as they tried to disperse the crowd. Several protesters carrying umbrellas were chased by police as they rushed to an underground highway.

The protesters are demanding free elections for Hong Kong's next leader in 2017, not the vote between pre-screened candidates that China's Communist Party has said it will allow.

The movement has threatened to become the biggest challenge to the party since its bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy student protests in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as a new generation demands greater political freedom.

After two months of stalemate, Sunday night's skirmishes were the most violent in recent weeks.

Despite the relatively swift clearance of Lung Wo road outside government headquarters in the early hours of Monday, large crowds, many in protective goggles and makeshift body armor, refused to leave the area and continued to press against police lines, chanting "We want universal suffrage!".

Others held up yellow umbrellas, a flimsy defense against police batons and pepper spray that have become a symbol of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

In Britain, a lawmakers' committee said the Chinese Embassy had warned that its members would be refused entry if they tried to go ahead with a visit to Hong Kong as part of an inquiry into the city's relations with the U.K. since the handover of sovereignty to China in 1997.

Richard Ottaway, chairman of Parliament's committee on foreign affairs, said the Chinese authorities were acting in an "overtly confrontational manner." He said he would seek an emergency parliamentary debate on the development.

Al Jazeera and wire services