The Chinese University of Hong Kong on Friday Photo: Jia Lin

As rioters' days-long occupation of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has turned the campus into a "terrorist base," the university president issued an open letter on Friday demanding that all outsiders leave the campus immediately as the university is not a "battlefield" to make and use weapons. 

"Our university has been occupied by masked men, including those from outside the university, and the situation has been completely out of control and is unacceptable," CUHK President Rocky S. Tuan said in the letter published on the university's website on Friday. 

Tuan appealed to CUHK students who still stay on campus to leave as soon as possible, saying that the university will help them leave. The CUHK announced an early end to the fall term this week. 

Since the operations of the university have been seriously affected, Tuan asked all outsiders to leave the university immediately. The university should not be a place for resolving political disputes or a battlefield for making and using weapons, Tuan said. 

In the past few days, more than 1,000 masked men came to CUHK, most of whom Tuan believes were not CUHK students. They set fire, smashed buildings, dormitories and cafeterias, dug out bricks and used school buses without permission. Tuan said that repairing the damage would take months. 

Some of the masked men even brought materials into the university to make Molotov cocktails, and some dangerous chemicals in university laboratories were stolen to make explosives. 

Since Wednesday, major entrances to the university were occupied by masked men who prevented vehicles from entering, including fire trucks and ambulances. All people who enter or leave the university had to show their ID and their belongings were searched by masked men. All of these actions have seriously affected students' freedom to enter and leave the university and created panic, Tuan said. 

A total of 162 CUHK professors and faculty members also issued a joint open letter on Friday, calling on CUHK to issue an official statement criticizing protesters for damaging the campus, creating panic and disturbing peace of the campus. 

Those violent incidents have sparked fear and anxiety among students, faculty members, parents, and especially among parents of non-local students, but CUHK has failed to take immediate and enough measures to protect non-local students and has not criticized the mobs' violent behavior, the letter said. 

According to photos the Global Times obtained on Friday, trash, empty bottles, umbrellas, bricks, wooden and iron bars and bottles with inflammable materials were all over the CUHK campus and along the roads leading to the campus. The exits of the MRT university station have been blocked with handrails, tables and other objects, according to the photos. 

School facilities, including school buses, were smashed and sprayed with black paint to smear the Hong Kong government and police. Rioters even raised US flags, calling for US involvement, photos showed.

Since Thursday, black-clad protesters also used bricks and rocks to build fortresses to fight police, and occupied the campus cafeteria to cook their food, according to photos circulated online.  

The Hong Kong police called the CUHK an "arsenal" at Friday's media briefing, saying more Molotov cocktails were hoarded in the campus and road blocks and barricades were built to block the entrance of the campus. 

Hong Kong media reported that some black-clad rioters packed up their materials and left the CUHK campus on Friday afternoon. 

Aside from CUHK, Hong Kong media reported on Thursday that black-clad mobs who occupied Hong Kong Polytechnic University have turned the campus into a "terror training camp," as they tested their newly made catapults to fire stones, set barricades with stones and bricks at major gates, and practiced how to shoot arrows and use Molotov cocktails at a swimming pool. 

Global Times