Student leader Joshua Wong said he and two others are starting a hunger strike to pressure Beijing to grant Hong Kong full democracy, according to CNN.
"Today, we have decided to do this because we feel have no other road to take," said 18-year-old Wong, CNN reported.
Wong said Monday he's going on a hunger strike after a failed attempt by pro-democracy activists to step up their flagging movement for democratic reforms by surrounding government headquarters, The Guardian reported.
Wong spoke after clashes erupted with police as commuters made their way to work, with hundreds of protesters surrounding Admiralty Centre, according to CNN.
The area where the clashes occurred a full of retail shops and businesses, CNN reported. The central government offices and the legislature were forced to close in the morning, as were most of theshops.
The city's Beijing-backed leader said public patience was wearing thin, adding that police would "continue to take decisive action to enforce the law," Reuters reported.
Wong had been briefly arrested last week as police forcefully cleared Hong Kong's second-largest protest site in the working class neighborhood of Mong Kok, according to CNN.
Another student leader Alex Chow, 24, of the Hong Kong Federation of Students bowed his head in an apology to supporters Monday, CNN reported.
"We aimed to disrupt the operation of the government... but the plan had room to improve and in a sense it failed," Chow said, according to CNN.
By Monday morning, at least 40 arrests had been made in Admiralty, and 12 more people were also arrested in Mong Kok, according to the Hong Kong Police, CNN reported.
