Hong Kong authorities arrested 37 people overnight amid renewed pro-democracy protests in the Chinese territory, police said today.

The move brought to 49 the number arrested over two days in the first protests since activist camps were cleared this month.

Twenty-six men and 11 women, aged 13 to 76, were arrested last night in the business Mongkok area on the Kowloon peninsula because they “blocked the roads and caused chaos and nuisance to the residents nearby” despite repeated warnings, police said.

Around 300 people had confronted police for five hours chanting pro-democracy slogans, the South China Morning Post reported.

The report said most of the arrests were over suspected criminal damage when the crowd broke into the stairwell of a residential building.

Wednesday night in the same area demonstrators also gathered, prompting 12 arrests, police said in an earlier statement.

Activists are demanding public nomination of candidates for the territory’s next chief executive in 2017 elections. Beijing has said candidates must be vetted ahead of the poll.

The pro-democracy protests blocked several major thoroughfares for up to 10 weeks until police cleared them on a court order in several operations in November and earlier this month.

The activists said they would shift tactics to more fluid forms of protest.

Police said today the demonstrators should “refrain from conducting public meeting and procession by way of the so-called ‘mobile occupation’.”

- dpa