Hong Kong, Dec 1 (IANS/EFE): Forty people were arrested Monday in Hong Kong during clashes between hundreds of police officers and pro-democracy demonstrators who tried to surround government buildings the previous night in a new phase of the two month-long protests.

Hundreds of people thronged Admiralty, the biggest protest site, Monday morning where demonstrators had been trying to block access to the main government buildings, among them the parliament and the office of the chief executive, since Sunday.

In a statement, the government announced that access to government buildings in Admiralty had been blocked, urging employees not to report to work.

The Legislative Council also cancelled its sessions scheduled for Monday morning.

The police used pepper spray and charged protesters on several occasions throughout the night in order to stop them from breaking the barriers surrounding the official buildings.

Authorities also used water cannons to disperse the demonstrators.

In another part of the city, in the Mong Kok district, 12 people were arrested Sunday night after clashes between police and hundreds of people trying to re-occupy some of the roads of the district.

Alex Chow, leader of the Federation of Students of Hong Kong, one of the organisations that urged protesters to paralyse activity in government offices Sunday night, told protesters Monday to go to the Admiralty area to try to contain the police cordons that are encircling more and more demonstrators at the protest camp.

Protest leaders said that this new form of protest was another step in their campaign to press the Hong Kong government to honour its demands to make municipal elections scheduled for 2017 more democratic.