The month of July has started off with (more) tragedy in Hong Kong

  

What now passes as "normal" now on anniversary days in Hong Kong

 

The police were out in force near that spot one year ago too...

 

Ditto at Victoria Park on July 1st, 2019

 

In recent days, Chinese flags and red banners proclaiming that "Hong Kong residents joyously celebrate the centenary of Chinese Communist Party and the 24th anniversary of Hong Kong’s reunification" have appeared in a number of parts of the territory.  Ditto re garish red trams and buses that look aesthetically super out of place in Hong Kong.

 

Out in force too on the streets on the first of this month were some 10,000 police officers who did such as close off Victoria Park for much of the day and a number of streets in nearby Causeway Bay too.  For the most part, they appeared to be concentrated in Causeway Bay harrassing innocent folks (including a young boy out shopping) and arresting people (including Grandma Wong once more) but I also spotted a number of uniformed cops at more than one MTR station entrance along with the Hung Hom side of the Cross Harbour Tunnel and what appeared to be plain clothes officers at certain bus stops.  And it was in Causeway Bay late on July 1st that a man stabbed a police officer and then stabbed himself.  

 

Before the end of the day, the man who has been identified as 50-year-old Leung Kin-fai was declared dead.  Disturbingly, there are accounts floating around (with photos as evidence) that after Leung stabbed himself in the chest, nobody at the scene attempted to give him first aid -- and, in fact, the police officers who were nearest to him were more intent on "subduing" him despite his bleeding heavily and even after he lost consciousness.  In short: it's being implied that the victim died because he was not attended to in time rather than because he killed himself.  (Meanwhile, the officer he stabbed is in stable condition two days after the incident.)

In the aftermath, it's been discovered that Leung Kin-fai had left notes, including one critical of the police and stating that the national security law had undermined people's freedoms.  Even before this came to light (or was made public), security secretary Chris Tang described Leung's actions as a "lone wolf terrorist attack".  Meanwhile, many Hong Kongers decided that the former Vitasoy staffer was a martyr, hero and/or "victim of the inhumane government" who was pushed to act in this violent manner out of desperation, not least because the authorities are outlawing even peaceful protest.  

 

For context: recall that June 4th vigil leader Chow Hang-tung was re-arrested on June 30th and had her bail revoked yesterday -- meaning that she now is behind bars while awaiting trial like the majority of the 47 pro-democracy politicians and activists on security law charges for having taken part in democratic primaries for the Legislative Council election (originally scheduled for September but then postponed) and a number of other of Hong Kong's political prisoners.  A reminder from AFP's Jerome Taylor: "Chow is not charged with a NatSec [National Security offence] or sedition (which these days is near guaranteed remand). She was charged with inciting an unlawful assembly" (an offence that, up until recently, was punished, at most, with a fine rather than any jail time). 

Until the past couple of years or so, I had associated knife attacks more with Mainland China than Hong Kong on account of the various stories I've read of the stabbings of such as schoolchildren by angry and/or mentally ill Mainlanders (see here, here and here).  And, actually, it was a (pro-Beijing) Mainland Chinese man who attacked (pro-democracy) local Hong Kongers in the first major stabbing incident that I took notice of: one at a “Lennon Wall” message board in Tseung Kwan O back in August 2019.  

 

Sadly, knife attacks appear to be one Mainland Chinese import that now has caught on in Hong Kong.  Witness "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung getting stabbed with a sharp object by a man outside the China Liason Office over in Sai Ying Pun in April of last year.  And it of course did not help that both the Tseung Kwan O and China Liason Office attackers were treated lightly by the judges at their trials: with the presiding judge offering sympathy to the Tseung Kwan O attacker and stating that he had made an "involuntarily sacrifice"; and "Long Hair"s attacker being adjudged to have a "passionate love for Hong Kong society" and sentenced to just three months and six days of jail time.  

 

As Diplo Muggle made explicit on Twitter: "You ask, how did Hong Kong radicalize? When a pro-government man stabbed protesters to near-death in Tseung Kwan O's Lennon Wall, the district court judge praised his "noble principles", refused to denounce his use of violence, and called him a "victim"."  It's also worth recalling the following pronouncement by John F. Kennedy: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable".