One of the many Lennon Walls still up in Hong Kong
Seen at Victoria Park late last Saturday: Yes, Hong Kongers
still are asking for the fulfillment of "Five demands, not one less"
I wrote up yesterday's blog post ahead of my going over to the Broadway Cinematheque in Yau Ma Tei to attend an evening screening of dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof's Manuscripts Don't Burn (which has no crew or cast credits besides his own to protect the others who worked on this daring film from retaliation by the state). Upon exiting the cinema, the friend I was with -- who's visiting from Germany and was rather shaken up by the movie, like she was by what weekends in Hong Kong now are regularly like -- commented that at least conditions in Hong Kong still are nowhere as bad as in that Middle Eastern country.
Seeing the text message that popped up on my phone, I told her to not be so sure. At the very least, we were going to have to brace ourselves to deal with some amount of danger right there and then, as another friend had alerted me to black flag (tear gas) warnings having been hoisted and a police officer had fired a live round at around 10pm in the area where the cinema was located. And when we got to our bus stop over on Nathan Road, it became clear that stuff was indeed going on further up the Kowloon Peninsula that made it so that we would have to find alternative transportation back to my home and her hotel.
This being Hong Kong (where the infrastructure is pretty good, etc.), a red minibus soon appeared and whisked us to the places we wanted to within minutes -- and, in fact, faster than on the usual bus route because its driver opted for a route that bypassed the central part of Causeway Bay. Upon returning home and going online, I discovered why: for crowds had gathered and protests had broken out in Causeway Bay along with Mongkok, Tseung Kwan O, Sha Tin, Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, Tsim Sha Tsui, Central, Aberdeen, Tsuen Wan and elsewhere that evening.
Predictably, the local constabulary had reacted by firing more tear gas that evening, including into Tsuen Wan MTR station. Asia's finest (not!) had also inflamed the situation by doing such as arresting and beating up -- the latter when in the process of arresting -- more people, and were heard shouting "Go back to spawn, cockroaches. Come and revenge [the student protester whose death has plunged much of Hong Kong into mourning]. We celebrate with champagne today!"
In addition, on a day when nerves were already fraying, they decided it would be a good time to go about announcing the arrests of at least seven pro-democracy lawmakers -- including "king of votes" Eddie Chu Hoi-dick -- who had attempted to stop the progress of the now withdrawn extradition bill in the Legislative Council back in May; a move many see as a further attempt to provoke pro-democracy protesters into giving the government enough justification to cancel the District Council elections scheduled for later this month.
If truth be told, I expected today to be another day when protests would turn violent -- and am happy to have been proved wrong. Considering that riot police showed up to a memorial event that paid tribute to Alex Chow Tsz-lok at Admiralty this evening, I credit the restraint of both sides -- but more so the mourners present -- for their restraint. For the record: there also was a memorial event held at Tseung Kwan O this evening. It too also appears to have been free of incident and violence. So, yes, mass gatherings and protests still can be peaceful; this especially when the police presence is minimal or the police present are able to control themselves from firing pepper spray, tear gas or live rounds, including when there is no clear and present danger to themselves!
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