Hundreds of pro-democracy protesters marched through the brightly lit Hong Kong shopping malls on Thursday in the third day of Christmas demonstrations. The “shopping protests” have targeted bustling malls filled with holiday shoppers and tourists since Christmas Eve, and the black-clad activists have at times become embroiled in violent clashes with police, who have reportedly fired tear gas at the civilians. The city’s leader, Carrie Lam, claimed on Wednesday that demonstrators had ruined the holiday with the protests, but her critics countered that police used gratuitously heavy-handed tactics to disperse what had been a peaceful gathering.