Protest leaders announce their surrender

The founders of Hong Kong's Occupy Central civil disobedience movement on Tuesday called on pro-democracy activists to pull back from the city's main protest site next to government headquarters and said they will surrender to police.

Protest leader, Benny Tai, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, urged the protesters to go home just hours after student leader Joshua Wong called on supporters to regroup in the heart of the city to demand greater democracy.

Tai, at a news conference with Occupy co-founders Chan Kin-man, a professor of sociology at Chinese University and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, said they were not unilaterally calling for a withdrawal but urging students to retreat as the situation had become dangerous.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) BENNY TAI, SAYING:

"The government that use police batons to maintain its authority is a government that is beyond reason. For the sake of the occupy safety, for the sake of our original intention of love and peace, a