Local media show broken windows, graffiti and lobby fire at official Xinhau agency
Protesters have vandalised the Hong Kong office of China’s official Xinhua news agency for the first time in months of anti-government demonstrations, smashing windows and doors.
Local media showed scenes of a fire in the lobby of Xinhua’s office in Wan Chai district, broken windows and graffiti sprayed on a wall. It was unclear if there were people in the building.
Continue reading...The battle with protesters is splitting the police force between those seeking power and others protecting freedoms
Larry Yeung* cuts a lonely figure in the police force these days.
He joined more than 20 years ago because it appealed to his sense of justice. Proudly showing off his graduation tie, he reminisces about his desire as a young recruit to serve society and help the disadvantaged.
Continue reading...Financial secretary calls fall in tourism an ‘emergency’ and says it will be extremely difficult for city to achieve any annual growth
Hong Kong’s financial secretary has said the region is in recession after more than five months of anti-government protests, and said it was unlikely to achieve annual economic growth this year.
“The blow to our economy is comprehensive,” Paul Chan said in a blog post on Sunday, adding that figures out on Thursday would show two successive quarters of contraction – the technical definition of a recession.
Continue reading...Unrest is seemingly everywhere. We look at the some of the reasons for and responses to it in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Chile, Catalonia and Iraq
In Lebanon they are against a tax on WhatsApp and endemic corruption. In Chile, a hike in the metro fare and rampant inequality. In Hong Kong, an extradition bill and creeping authoritarianism. In Algeria, a fifth term for an ageing president and decades of military rule.
The protests raging today and in the past months on the streets of cities around the world have varying triggers. But the fuel is familiar: stagnating middle classes, stifled democracy and the bone-deep conviction that things can be different – even if the alternative is not always clear.
Continue reading...Speculation over Hong Kong chief executive’s future comes as man whose murder case prompted the extradition bill is released from prison
China reportedly has plans to replace Hong Kong’s embattled leader, Carrie Lam, with an “interim” chief executive once protests have settled down.
The news emerged as the murder suspect whose case prompted the original extradition bill that in turn sparked the protest movement in June was released from prison on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Protestors hurl petrol bombs and smash pro-Beijing businesses as crowds descend on luxury shopping area
Hong Kong police have fired water cannon and tear gas at crowds holinding an illegal march, with hardcore protesters throwing petrol bombs and trashing businesses to cap a week of anger after recent attacks on pro-democracy demonstrators.
Authorities had forbidden Sunday’s rally in Tsim Sha Tsui, a densely-packed shopping district filled with luxury boutiques and hotels, citing public safety and previous violence from hardcore protesters.
Continue reading...Cast your mind back to 2011 and the Arab uprisings that began in Tunis before spreading to Egypt and beyond. Protesters used social media to communicate and coordinate, so it became the “Twitter revolution” and the “Facebook revolution”. It was the peak of techno-utopia, a moment of hope that technology would transform our political lives and put citizens in control.
Today, techno-utopia has given way to techno-dystopia. Many worry that technology is undermining democracy, spreading misinformation, equipping criminals and the authorities with new tools. This month, Apple, under pressure from the Chinese government, pulled an app that let protesters track the movements of Hong Kong police with crowdsourced data. It has been a long road from Tunis to Hong Kong. There is an element of truth about techno-utopia and dystopia. Social media makes it easier for protesters to communicate, create forums for discussion and spread information. Technology also makes it easier for authorities to snoop on citizens and control dissent.
Continue reading...A 19-year-old democracy activist was allegedly stabbed by a man shouting pro-China slogans
A man handing out leaflets for a Hong Kong pro-democracy protest was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant who slashed his neck and abdomen on Saturday, days after a leading activist was left bloodied in another street attack.
The injured 19-year-old, wearing black clothes and a black face mask, was knifed near one of the large “Lennon Walls” that have sprung up around the city during months of demonstrations, police said.
Continue reading...US lawmakers including Ted Cruz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez write to Tim Cook urging him to restore HKMapp app
A bipartisan group of prominent US lawmakers has urged Apple chief executive Tim Cook to restore the HKMap app used in Hong Kong, as protesters push ahead with plans for another unsanctioned mass rally on Sunday.
Earlier this month, Apple removed the app that helped track police and protester movements, saying it was used to target officers.
Continue reading...Police have had to intervene and separate groups at events in university cities
Supporters of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests say they are being intimidated and harassed by pro-Beijing Chinese students and others at their events around the UK, forcing police to step in to separate them from counter-demonstrations.
Below-the-radar tensions have boiled over into incidents that include the arrest of a 19-year-old Chinese student after bottles were thrown at a Sheffield event, while police and university security have intervened in other town centres and campuses.
Continue reading...Carrie Lam interrupted twice by angry pro-democracy politicians, who shouted her down during address
Hong Kong’s beleaguered leader, Carrie Lam, has condemned ongoing violent street protests for dampening the economy and ruining the image of the financial hub, in a key annual policy speech that she was forced to deliver via video link after after being heckled in parliament.
Pro-democracy lawmakers jeered and yelled slogans as she walked into the legislature’s chamber and started to speak, forcing the unprecedented cancellation of the speech. The legislative council resumed sessions on Wednesday for the first time after it was suspended on 12 June, when it was besieged by protesters demanding the withdrawal of a controversial extradition bill.
Continue reading...Coalition MP accused of hypocrisy for disparaging Australian Extinction Rebellion protesters
Government backbencher Tim Wilson has defended his decision to join pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and said environmental protests in Australia have a right to operate “so long as they stick within the law”.
Wilson joined protesters in Hong Kong last week but was accused of hypocrisy because of previous comments disparaging protests in Australia.
Continue reading...Warning follows another night of violent skirmishes between police and protesters in city
Violent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have escalated to a “life-threatening level”, police have said, after a small bomb exploded and a police officer was stabbed in clashes overnight.
Peaceful rallies descended into chaos in the Chinese-ruled city on Sunday with running skirmishes between protesters and police in shopping malls and on streets. Black-clad activists threw 20 petrol bombs at one police station, while others trashed shops and metro stations.
Continue reading...‘Blossom everywhere’ tactic is a reaction to politicisation of MTR subway system
Hong Kong protesters have deployed a new strategy of popping up in small groups in multiple locations across the city in an effort to avoid arrest, during their ongoing campaign against police and the local government.
Small flashmobs of protesters demonstrated across a dozen districts after a call for protesters to “blossom everywhere” on Sunday, with many staying closer to home where they could evade police on foot or by bus.
Continue reading...Petrol bomb thrown at metro station and government offices vandalised as unrest continues
Thousands of protesters are continuing to defy a ban on wearing masks in Hong Kong as clashes have again taken place between demonstrators and authorities.
A petrol bomb was thrown at the gate of a metro station, and two government offices and a cafe were vandalised, although the mood on Saturday was less tense than at recent protests because police had not used teargas or shot at demonstrators.
Continue reading...Hong Kong officials say a third of 2,379 protesters arrested during four months of protests are under 18
Hong Kong officials have revealed that 750 of the protesters arrested during four months of unrest are children, sparking outrage in the city, as anger continues to grow over the government’s increasingly hardline measures against demonstrators.
The semi-autonomous city’s number two official Matthew Cheung said at a press conference on Thursday it was “shocking and heartbreaking” that 750 out of the 2,379 people arrested – or nearly a third – since June were under 18, and 104 were under 16.
Continue reading...Sport is a serious business. Ping-pong diplomacy sped US detente with China; Richard Nixon followed the path of American table tennis players. Now some joke that basketball could yet spell the end for bilateral relations, as Beijing seeks to punish the NBA over comments on the protests in Hong Kong and US politicians hit back at the league’s attempts to appease.
China’s use of economic power for political purposes has rarely been quite so visible. It began when the general manager of the Houston Rockets sent a tweet including the words “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong” – where authorities are cracking down harder than ever on the four-month anti-government movement and violence is growing. The team’s Chinese sponsors and partners cut ties. Matters soon spiralled.
Continue reading...State media says ‘poisonous’ app made Apple an accomplice in the Hong Kong protests
China’s state media has accused Apple of endorsing and protecting “rioters” in Hong Kong’s increasingly violent protests by listing an app on its app store that tracks the movement of police in the city.
The condemnation, by the People’s Daily, a Chinese Communist party mouthpiece, appears to be China’s latest move to pressure foreign companies to toe the line after its state TV and Chinese companies cancelled collaboration with the US National Basketball Association over comments by a team official in support of Hong Kong’s protests.
Continue reading...Man and woman, arrested on Sunday, appeared in court after arrest for illegally covering their faces
Crowds clashed with police across Hong Kong in the fourth day of protests against an anti-mask law that the government claimed was needed to stop violence but critics say is a dangerous assault on civil rights.
Hong Kong authorities brought the first charges under a new anti-mask law earlier on Monday, as the city slowly recovered from a weekend of protests against the ban that turned violent, leaving a trail of destruction and shuttered metro stations.
Continue reading...Masked protesters streamed onto the streets of Hong Kong over the weekend after the city’s embattled leader, Carrie Lam, employed colonial-era emergency powers to outlaw face coverings at protests. Demonstrators defied the emergency regulation that came into force on Saturday, displaying their creativity with a huge variety of masks. The city, meanwhile, ground to a halt. The subway was suspended and swathes of shops and malls shuttered following yet more violence on both sides.
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