Passer-by shot in neck as police fire on Macau protesters

May 2, 2007, 14:12 GMT

Hong Kong - A hospital in Macau said Wednesday that it had operated on a man believed to have been shot as police fired in the air during violent clashes with Labour Day protesters.

The man, in his 50s, was reportedly hit in the neck Tuesday by a police warning shot as he rode a motorbike with his son 300 metres from the demonstrations.

The bullet was believed to have struck him in the neck and passed into a lung. He was rushed to the Kiang Wu Hospital, which confirmed Wednesday that doctors had removed a metal object from a patient's chest.

Without confirming the metal object was a bullet, the hospital said the patient was in a stable condition and was expected to remain in hospital for 10 days.

The man's wife, who was riding on a motorbike behind her husband and son, said she found her husband bleeding heavily from the neck after being struck by the bullet.

'He was bleeding so heavily that my hands were full of blood,' the distraught woman told reporters.

Police fired five to six warning shots over the crowd to disperse it as the demonstrations involving more than 2,000 protesters turned violent.

More than 100 police in riot gear grappled with a group of aggressive protesters, and the firing of the shots only inflamed the crowds, leading to more violent clashes.

Police eventually used pepper spray and batons to drive back protesters as they tried to leave an agreed march route and head for the city centre in the densely populated territory of 450,000.

Ten people suspected to have been involved in the protests were arrested by police Wednesday and might face charges at a later date, a police spokesman said.

Labour groups have become increasingly militant in Macau in recent years, claiming the government is not doing enough to stop official corruption and an influx of migrant workers from China.

Some of the protesters at Tuesday's march shouted slogans demanding the resignation of Macau's Beijing-appointed chief executive Edmund Ho, whom they say is too close to business tycoons.

Macau - famous for its casinos, which attract millions of visitors from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong every year - was a Portuguese colony for four and a half centuries before reverting to Chinese rule in 1999.

Its economy has boomed in recent years, but labour activists in the territory said local workers have not shared in the rising fortunes and charged that migrant workers from China are depriving them of jobs.