Hong Kong police cleared another protest site early today after nearly three weeks of demonstrations for open elections in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

Hundreds of officers removed barricades erected in the Mong Kok commercial and residential district, dispersing protesters within an hour and without significant resistance, local news reports said.

The site was occupied by around 30 protesters at the time, the South China Morning Post reported.

The road was partly reopened to traffic by 7.15am, the report said.

“Around 5.30am police rushed in to clear the roadblocks while most protesters were sleeping,” activist Wong Yeung-tat told dpa. “Police want us to leave the road, but we don't want to. We’re asking more protesters to come join us,” he said.

By mid-morning the number of protesters in Mong Kok, on the Kowloon peninsular across the bay from Hong Kong island, had grown to over a hundred. Police allowed their demonstration to continue on the southbound lane of main thoroughfare Nathan Road.

The latest early morning operation came after security forces cleared a blockaded tunnel near government headquarters on Hong Kong island on Wednesday, leading to dozens of arrests.

Hundreds more demonstrators were still at other sites in the city’s Admiralty and Causeway Bay districts on the island, where government offices are located.

Separately, pro-government activists protested today on the campuses of the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong to demand disciplinary action against two professors who are among the leaders of the pro-democracy movement.

The protests are seeking open elections for the city’s next chief executive in 2017, rejecting a ruling from Beijing that candidates must be approved by a government-backed election committee.

Yesterday, Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, said that the government was prepared to start talks with student leaders as soon as next week, but ruled out any change to the central government’s ruling.

In recent days, the numbers of demonstrators on the streets - mainly high school and university students - have fallen further from their peak of tens of thousands at the end of last month.

- dpa