Posted on 08/26/2019 4:37:22 AM PDT by robowombat
Violence Erupts on 12th Weekend of Hong Kong Protests
By VOA News August 25, 2019
Hong Kong police drew their guns, fired tear gas and, for the first time, water cannons at anti-government protesters on Sunday in the 12th weekend of demonstrations.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets, some of them throwing bricks at police, attacking them with sticks and rods and spraying detergent on streets to make it slippery for police. Some of the demonstrators, many in masks and wearing black, broke store windows and hurled tear gas canisters back at police.
Early Monday, police said one officer fell to the ground as protesters hurled objects at police, prompting six officers to withdraw their guns. One officer fired a warning shot skyward, the statement said.
It was the first time any live rounds had been fired since the protests began three months ago.
The vast majority of protesters marched peacefully, but police at times fired bursts of tear gas at wildcat demonstrators who broke away from the largest groups. Some protesters tossed bamboo poles on the street and lined up traffic barriers and cones to obstruct police.
The protests in the major Asian finance center are the biggest threat to peace there since Britain handed over control of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The protesters say they demonstrating against what they see as an erosion of rights under the "one country, two systems" arrangement under which Beijing assumed control of the territory.
Some demonstrators say they have resorted to violent tactics because the government has not responded to their demands. The weeks-long demonstrations in Hong Kong began with calls to stop an extradition bill, which has now been scrapped, but have now expanded to include demands for full democracy.
On Saturday, the protests had turned violent for the first time in nearly two weeks, as hundreds of demonstrators dressed in black and armed with baseball bats and bamboo poles hurled petrol bombs and bricks at police.
Hong Kong police brandished batons and fired volleys of tear gas to disperse the protesters, who had set up makeshift street barricades using bamboo scaffolding outside a police station and a nearby shopping mall.
Meanwhile, China freed a British consulate worker, Simon Cheng, whose detention served to ratchet up tensions. He was detained for 15 days in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, for allegedly violating public security management regulations, according to police there.
Authorities say Cheng's legal rights were upheld, claiming he had confessed to the charges for which he was held. This is a standard rejoinder from Chinese police, despite the fact Cheng was not given a chance to defend himself in court. Cheng's family said on Facebook he had now returned to Hong Kong.
Protesters had been demanding his release for the past several days, and Britain said it welcomed the news.
As the rallies entered their third month, protesters also cut down a "smart lamppost" because they feared it was being used for surveillance by Chinese authorities.
Hong Kong's government maintained, however, the lamppost only collected data on traffic, weather and air quality.
Ya know we don’t get a few images of a violent clamp down the next day or even a few days later in the local paper.
It’s INSTANT.
And there’s no hiding it unless you confiscate everyone’s cell phone! Cell phone cameras have really made it harder to do bad things in public :)
So much for peaceful protests. I’ve always maintained that rioters should be shot; those protestors regrettably have become rioters. Too bad.
That is, unless there are ChiCom false flaggers doing the brick throwing to create an excuse to shoot...always a possibility.
“The cops have got to be on the side of the protesters since they grew up there. Can’t see them taking orders from fascists.”
>
If that, Hong Kong would have been controlled by PRC China in 1967 when the left-wing riots were escalating.
Very funny.
On 10 October, 1956, a bunch of pro-KMT anticom thugs smashed Hong Kong, called “double 10” riots.
It should not surprise anyone if history eventually proves that Beijing is hiring the Chinese mafia-like gangs in Hong Kong to infiltrate the protests and create violence, creating excuses for harsh police action in response, in an effort to put the blame on the legitimate peaceful protestors.
Wish that was so - still easy to do the bad thing - just harder to spin a good denial story...the question is how far China is willing to go while the world still has eyes-on and how much they can mask after the initial assault/confiscation/roundup. I think that Trump becomes a bigger factor than they would have ever thought as he will certainly leverage any misdeeds in this situation to the max and he has already got their economy/currency reeling against the ropes....with no rope-a-dope trick in their bag.
“..Funny. That’s what leftists do....”
MERELY coincidence, my good man... Nothing to see here...!!! :^)
Any place to see a live feed of what’s happening there?
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