Category Archives: Hong Kong

Hong Kong activist stabbed handing out pro-democracy leaflets at ‘Lennon Wall’

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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.

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Hong Kong protests: bring back app or risk ‘complicity’ in repression, Apple told

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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.

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Hong Kong protesters in UK say they face pro-Beijing intimidation

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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.

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Hong Kong leader forced to deliver key speech via video after protests

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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.

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Q&A: Tim Wilson defends joining Hong Kong protests

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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.

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Hong Kong protests are at ‘life-threatening level’, say police

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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.

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Hong Kong protesters use new flashmob strategy to avoid arrest

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‘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.

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Hong Kong protesters defy ban on masks as they clash with police

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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.

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Hong Kong: arrest of 750 children during protests sparks outcry

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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.

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The Guardian view on China and basketball: power games | Editorial

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A boycott sparked by comments on Hong Kong’s protests has highlighted how China is exporting its controls on speech by economic means

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.

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‘Protecting rioters’: China warns Apple over app that tracks Hong Kong police

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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.

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Hong Kong: Clashes as first charges brought under face mask ban law

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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.

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Hong Kong protesters defy the mask ban – in pictures

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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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Hong Kong protesters defy face mask ban – video

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Demonstrators in Hong Kong wore face masks on Sunday in defiance of a new law imposed after the government invoked colonial-era emergency powers. Protesters, who could face a year in prison for hiding their faces, threw teargas canisters back at police as tens of thousands marched through central Hong Kong

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Peaceful protesters form human chains after mask ban in Hong Kong – video

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Protesters in Hong Kong took part in a peaceful demonstration on Saturday after the government’s emergency measures and ban on wearing face masks during public rallies caused clashes on Friday

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Hong Kong emergency law ‘marks start of authoritarian rule’

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Analysts say Carrie Lam move could fuel protests and put city’s financial status at risk

The invocation of a draconian law to quell a four-month unrest in Hong Kong has signalled the start of an authoritarian era that will plunge the city in a worse crisis, analysts and Hong Kongers have said.

The Hong Kong leader, Carrie Lam, announced on Friday that the government had invoked the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to pass a regulation forbidding the use of face masks. The decision bypassed the legislature, which resumes sessions in mid-October.

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Hong Kong protesters attack metro stations after face mask ban – video

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Thousands of people swept into the streets of Hong Kong for a night of violent protests after the government activated sweeping colonial-era powers for the first time in over half a century, using them to ban face masks. After darkness fell, crowds set fire to two metro stations and vandalised shops and businesses considered pro-China, leading riot police to respond with teargas

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Violence grips Hong Kong as Lam activates emergency powers

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Thousands hit the streets, crowds set fire to stations and police fire live ammunition

Thousands of people swept into the streets of Hong Kong for a night of violent protests after the government activated sweeping colonial-era powers for the first time in over half a century, using them to ban face masks.

The chief executive, Carrie Lam, also said harsher measures could be on the table if the protest movement continued, amid calls from police groups and pro-Beijing politicians for a citywide curfew, and discussion of delays to local elections set for November.

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Face mask ban provokes fresh protests in Hong Kong – video

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The Hong Kong leader, Carrie Lam, has banned people from wearing face masks during protests and in all public assemblies by invoking rarely used emergency powers, prompting thousands of people to take to the streets against the measure. Pro-democracy demonstrators have used masks to hide their identities in the past four months of escalating tensions with the Chinese government, and officials are hoping a ban may dissuade many from participating


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Hong Kong protests: journalist blinded in one eye amid mounting violence

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Journalists’ association files judicial review over treatment of media and ‘excessive force’

An Indonesian journalist hit in the face by a rubber bullet during protests in Hong Kong has been permanently blinded in one eye, her lawyer has said, in what is the most serious injury among members of the media since the movement began in June.

There are growing concerns about the threat to journalists from the escalating violence, and an increasingly hostile climate that saw one reporter arrested on Tuesday, after several others were injured by police and one by protesters in a day of chaotic violence. All were wearing high-visibility jackets and “press” markings.

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