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Hong Kong protests: Armed mob violence leaves city in shock

Pro-democracy activists and lawmakers in Hong Kong have accused the police of standing by as men dressed in white attacked commuters and protesters, leaving 45 people hospitalised, including one who is critically injured.

Video footage showed dozens of men, mostly in masks, storming a mass transit station in Yuen Long around 10:30pm on Sunday, chasing passengers and beating them with metal and wooden rods and canes. Among those hurt in the attack were demonstrators returning from a large anti-government rally, as well as a pregnant woman and a woman holding a child, according to witnesses.

Footage showed a young man dressed in black being punched and kneed in the stomach by several men. A female journalist was beaten while filming the attack. Photos showed commuters bleeding and smears of blood on the station ground.

When police arrived at the station after 11pm, the assailants had left and angry protesters demanded to know why they had taken so long to get there. Police left and the attackers later came back a second time, breaking into a closed gate of the train station.

Hong Kong’s hospital authority said 45 people between the ages of 18 and 64 were injured in the attack, including one man who was in a critical condition and three in a serious condition. Late on Monday, police said they had arrested five people – some of them allegedly Triads – in relation to the attacks on charges of “unlawful assembly”.

Hiring men to beat up protesters is not a new tactic, according to activists and observers, who say thugs were also behind attacks on pro-democracy protests in 2014. Men, possibly from southern China, where the practice is more common, heckled and assaulted demonstrators.

A widely circulated video showed the pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho, who lives in Yuen Long, shaking hands with men in white and giving them a thumbs up. In response to accusations that he had hired the men to go after protesters, Ho said in a press briefing on Monday that he had nothing to do with the attack. Asked why he did not call the police, Ho said: “They appeared to be normal residents, just like the protesters in your eyes.”

Protesters later covered Ho’s office in pro-democracy sticky notes and threw documents of his over an escalator. Several who covered their faces with scarves and hats later broke down a glass wall of his office in a shopping mall in Tsuen Wan. One poster on the wall stuck on by protesters said: “Rural bullies beat up people and carry out terrorist attacks!”

In the early hours of Monday, morning police entered a village near the station in Yuen Long where groups of men in white had gathered but said they had seen no weapons and made no arrests because they “could not be sure of who was involved”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/22/where-were-the-police-hong-kong-outcry-after-masked-thugs-launch-attack

Here's a collection of some videos of the attack (mostly smartphone footage)
https://youtu.be/7P8uPkAeTas?t=88

Later incidents involving suspected triad members include this from 3 days ago, when fireworks from a moving car were fired into crowds of protesters, injuring 10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNyKZWYCqpU

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 1

AngeryPenguin

Yikes! An illegal protest? Say it isn't so! :eek:

Imagine that, China sending its thugs to beat them up has escalated it.

Oh wait - graffiti?! Wow, damaging property is really stepping over the line!

Sorry, pro-Democracy protesters - you are officially #Cancelled

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 2

AngeryPenguin

> You may protest along these roads out of the way where we can easily block the press and kettle you.

Stop hiding behind these scare quotes. You think "protester" is the incorrect term? What fits these hundreds of thousands to millions of people better then?

Nice strawman. There's very little talk about independence. The talk is primarly about maintaining the principle of one country, two systems.

And even then - what are you on about? HK doesn't have an army now, and therefore as an independent state it couldn't? Smaller nations than HK exist. Or are you saying that China would invade HK anyway?

Reply 3

AngeryPenguin

I wouldn't be in charge in the first place - China selects the candidates.

Kettling is a scummy tactic and should be avoided, whoever uses it. Don't act like it is necessary to keep the peace.

In any movement involving millions of people, there will be some radicals. You are back-pedalling now, but you were trying to imply that this invalidated the protests.

I could find many videos of police brutality. Does that now make the police - sorry, "police" - a terrorist organisation?

^^ Clearing peaceful "protestors" will need these equipment.

You are literally in a thread where pro-government thugs are on video beating them up.

Oh, they have God Emperor Trump's approval? My bad then! As you were, Beijing.

Reply 4

singzeon

Your article was about events that occurred in Yuen Long on 21/07. Since then many more things have happened.

Amongst the protestors, there are also those who have shown they are no better than the white-shirt triads. The latest I've heard is they've set fire outside Tsim Sha Tsui police station. Granted, it's probably an angry response to the lack of police during the 21/07 attack. But such acts only serve to delegitimise their cause. In 2014 the Occupy Central protests failed because they eventually lost public support. It would be a pity if this current movement went the same way too.

As it stands, certain elements within both parties are extremist and violent in nature. This, to me, is wrong - regardless of which side they're on. Call me idealistic, but I've always believed in having some sort of 'moral high ground' if possible. HK people are allowed peaceful protest (unlike in mainland China); once they breach that by starting violence, that just makes it much easier for Beijing to justify whatever actions it takes to clamp down.

Reply 5

L i b

Ultimately, any action to bring down the authority of the People's Republic is pretty good by my reckoning.

Whether it's in Hong Kong or China itself, I do think that people should stand up for the sort of freedoms we would expect in liberal democracies. The PRC Government blocks that and is quite clearly not only attacking the freedoms that remain in Hong Kong, but doing it in violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Indeed, they have openly repudiated it against all standards of international law. Because that's what the PRC Government do - they don't give a toss about the rule of law or the rights of citizens.

There will be more of this - and more of the repression that goes on every day, unreported, in mainland China. Because that's what the Government there does.