At the protest march in Shatin yesterday afternoon
In the town center, residents on the overhead bridges above
were cheering the protesters as they passed below
On the other hand, the police -- many without warrant cards displayed,
as should have been the case -- were in a less cheery mood
On yet another weekend of protests in Hong Kong, I elected to sit out the one in Sheung Shui on Saturday but went marching with a few friends and thousands of other extradition bill opponents in Sha Tin yesterday afternoon. The first protest march that New Territories "new town"
had seen in decades attracted far more participants that the organizers
-- and probably pretty much everyone else -- had anticipated, and
included first time protest marchers (like one of the friends who
marched with me yesterday) and people who had not been out protesting in
the streets for years (like another of the friends I was with yesterday
who, until yesterday, had last participated in a protest march back in July 2003).
Having also not gone to the anti-extradition bill protest march in Kowloon last Sunday
or other protests held outside of Hong Kong Island, much of yesterday's
march felt rather novel to me. In addition to the route taking me
through streets and past places I'm not that familiar with, there also
was the interesting experience of marching past area residents: some of
whom had turned up to watch the parade out of curiosity; others of whom
had turned up to cheer the march participants on (as could be seen by
their smiles, thumbs up gestures, applause and initiations of
interactive chants of "Hong Kong yan ga yau" (Hong Kong people, add oil)!).
Something
else pretty noticeable was how the pace of the march was refreshingly
quick for the most part compared to such as the million (plus) people
marches that took place this past June 9th and 16th.
About the only two times, in fact, where the procession came close to a
standstill was, early on, when people were exiting the football pitch
that was the site of the official march start and at one road junction
where the police wanted to ensure that a road that we were walking past
would still be accessible to vehicular traffic.
While
waiting to be allowed to cross to the other side of the road, march
participants came up close to a bunch of police officers, some in
uniform but quite a few of whom were not. With time to spare to look
around and look closely at one another, many of the march participants
could not help but notice that a good proportion of the cops wearing
vests atop their t-shirts did not have their warrant cards or any other
form of identification displayed in the clear pockets of their vests -- which actually was a clear violation of police regulations.
Almost
needless to say, this did not endear the police to the protesters. It
also didn't help matters that the police did not offer any explanation
of why sections of the march had been made to stop. In all honesty, I
think some attempt at that rather than just menacing glares and robotic
repetitions of "Thank you for your cooperation" would have helped keep
things calm and got more understanding.
In
lieu of being supplied information by the police, people turned to
online Tweets and such to figure out what was going on. And it was
through that medium that I learnt via a friend that one reason for our
delay was that there had been a far larger turnout than expected and
that the narrower streets that the march passed through could easily
handle -- and, also, as my section of marchers neared Sha Tin town
center, that there already had been incidents involving the police firing pepper spray at protesters nearer the front of the march.
Despite
the latter reports though, we protesters kept walking along the
designated protest route and the mood actually was quite cheerful even
then. After we got to the area by New Town Plaza (from where the Sha
Tin MTR station is directly accessible) though, a good number of
protesters decided to call it a day and make for the exit. Most of the
party I was with went for that option; with the one friend who lives in
Sha Tin deciding to go all the way to the end of the march.
As
we walked through the mall to go and catch our train out of Sha Tin,
little did we know that just a few hours later, New Town Plaza itself
would be where utterly surreal scenes involving the riot police, protesters, shoppers and other people who had the misfortune to be in the mall when "Hong Kong's finest" (so not!) decided in their infinite wisdom to chase people into and through it. In the ensuing melee, more than 20 people -- protesters and police officers -- were injured, two of them critically. And while Carrie Lam and Co have once again made use of the word "rioters" to describe the protesters, still more videos and photographic evidence have emerged showing the Hong Kong police behaving badly.
777 may not know -- or be willing to admit -- who really were/are in the wrong here. But it's not for nothing that the police hunting for protesters yesterday were told
in no uncertain terms by area residents to "Leave, just leave,
everything will be fine if you leave. [The protesters] will just go
away if you leave". Also, like in Mongkok the previous Sunday, there are stories of people who were there to just shop or eat ending up getting traumatized by the police.
Put another way: I have a feeling the police made more enemies with
their behavior yesterday; enemies who may well decide to join future
protests that now are calling for the police to be held to account for the brutality that now chillingly has become standard operating procedure as well as for the withdrawal of the hated extradition bill.
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