Mid-week musings on what has been a really bad week in Hong Kong

Lennon Wall at Quarry Bay's Via Fiori

 

Protest graffiti in Taikoo Shing

 

Not installation art but brick road blocks!

  

This week is far from over but already it's felt plenty long due to so much having already happened -- so much of it, sadly, so bad.  Monday saw a cop shooting three live rounds at protesters (but, apparently, only hitting one) and a man set ablaze.  Tuesday saw the police mount a major bid to enter the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) that involved their firing over 1,000 cannisters of tear gas in that area alone (and 1,567 in total that day along with 1,312 rubber bullets, 380 bean bag rounds and 126 sponge grenades) and turning it into a veritable war zone.  

 

While things could be said to be quieter on Wednesday than the two preceding days, we're still talking about a day with ample violent clashes around the territory and major traffic disruptions to prompt various universities to suspend classes, some for the remainder of the semester.  Also, there is a distinct sense of fear spreading -- at least among store owners as well as individuals -- with a number of shops, eateries and bank branches closing early for the day in my neighborhood despite it actually turning out to be one of the parts of Hong Kong that didn't see any violence yesterday.  In addition, last night was the second time this week that a Hong Kong Asian Film Festival screening I had a ticket for was cancelled, with the cinemas closing early: something they don't do even when Typhoon Signal No. 8 is hoisted! 

 

Soon after I woke up this morning, I got to realizing that today would be another bad day for Hong Kong.  Among the news that greeted me was of a young, black-clad man having died in a fall in Tsuen Wan and tear gas having been fired into the Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus.  And of the two people caught up in violent clashes who I read were in critical condition this morning, one (the 70-year-old cleaner who was hit in the head by a brick thrown during a clash between pro-democracy protesters and Beijing loyalists) has not managed to make it through the day.    

 

Amidst the death and destruction though, many Hong Kongers still are spiritedly resisting and showing support for one another as well as the anti-government protests that now have been going on for more than five months now (even if you "just" count from June 9th rather than the dates of the two earlier anti-extradition bill protests which took place in March and April).  You might say it's inevitable, given how the government has lost all credibility (not least because it's shown itself to be controlled by Beijing), but the fact of the matter is that protesters are taking risks and making sacrifices to exercise what rightfully should be their freedoms of speech, movement, assembly and such. 

 

Amidst the horrors of this week, I'm going to take heart from the fourth consecutive day of lunchtime protests in Central not having elicited tear gas being shot in that part of town today (unlike on Monday and Tuesday) -- and the lunchtime protests having spread to Quarry Bay and Taikoo Shing this afternoon.  So too that a rally to show support for firefighters and first aiders took place at Edinburgh Place this evening.  And that, despite there having been so many attempts to destroy them, Lennon Walls old and new are still blooming in various parts of the territory. 

Another terrible tear gas-filled weekday in Hong Kong

A quiet corner of the Chinese University of Hong Kong

on a day that feels like an eternity ago

A sight I loathe and never want to get used to seeing

A week or so ago, I was talking with a friend about the sad situation that Hong Kong currently is in. At one point, she said: "We must never get used to this."  These words resonated with me and I found myself quoting them to a couple visiting from England earlier today when discussing the turmoil and unrest that has beset this part of the world that I still very much love.

More than incidentally, on my way to meet that couple in Central this morning, I found myself in an MTR station crawling with riot police (the sight of whom I'm honestly getting pretty sick and tired of, and tends to fill me with foreboding -- I think with good reason).  And while I thankfully managed to escape inhaling more tear gas today, that by no means is because the local constabulary have reined in their use of it in recent days in Central and elsewhere.       

The main battleground today has been the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, with the police having attempted to storm it since this afternoon and the battle still ongoing as I write this blog post.  After raining tear gas and rubber bullets on students for hours, the police have now also deployed one of their water cannons.  

I know of at least two friends have headed over to try to help the students there.  My unfamiliarity with the campus, among other things, have made me not join them.  Following what has been happening online, I feel so helpless as well as so very upset.  At one point this evening, I found myself shedding tears: probably the first time this has happened not as a result of tear gas since June 12th, the first time -- but sadly by no means the last time -- this year that the actions of the Hong Kong police got me shocked and filled with horror.    

When will it end?  How will it end?  This I know: the more the police fire tear gas at students, business executives and other office workers, area residents of various neighbourhoods, passersby (including children), etc., the more people they get angry at them.  And these include short term visitors to this fair city like the English couple I was with earlier today -- who arrived into town on Sunday, got tear gassed yesterday while strolling around near their hotel in Central but, hopefully, did not inhale more tear gas again today (what with the police having fired more of this chemical weapon in Central another two times over the past 12 hours)!   

A Remembrance Day to remember with horror

One can't help but wonder if the District Council elections will go on 

as scheduled after what happened in Sai Wan Ho this morning 

No one cares about Midway -- the battle and movie -- 

with skirmishes going on in Sai Wan Ho and elsewhere today!

Did the riot police check out what was on Sai Wan Ho's 

Lennon Wall while in the area this afternoon?

After Saturday was unexpectedly peaceful, I expected some action to unfold on Sunday since I know that plenty of Hong Kongers still feel that they have a lot to protest about as well as seek revenge for.  It had been suggested that protesters go "shopping" from 2pm but while I did catch sight of riot police standing guard outside Times Square yesterday afternoon, I didn't witness any protest action taking place in that shopping mall -- or for that matter, any other part of Causeway Bay -- when I was there.  

Upon returning home that evening though, I saw reports of there not only having been protests in a number of shopping malls in other parts of Hong Kong but also their descending into skirmishes that had the police firing more tear gas and making more arrests.  I proceeded to spend a number of hours glued to my computer following the news -- and was particularly disinclined to go to sleep until late last night as a result of watching a live stream and reading reports of journalists seeking in vain to locate a man beaten up by police at Festival Walk into unconsciousness; with many strongly suspecting that that he had been killed and that the authorities were going to hide his death, like is believed to have been the case at Prince Edward MTR station (on August 31st). 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that I had dark forebodings last night of what would ensue in the next 24 hours or so.  And things were not helped by my knowing that protesters had called for another general strike to take place today, Remembrance Day.  Nonetheless, I still wasn't prepared for the news that greeted me after I woke up this morning and began checking to see what had already happened: not only of widespread transport disruptions having already occurred but also protesters having been shot with live rounds by a police officer at Sai Wan Ho, with one left critically injured though you'd not know by the way he was being treated by the members of the local constabulary in the immediate aftermath.  

Soon afterwards, I came across a video of a traffic cop using his motorcycle to ram into protesters.  Especially with the police appearing to feel like they have a license to kill, I really did get a sense that there would be carnage on the streets today; and this since, unwilling to let up even after the shock actions of the morning, the police soon returned to Sai Wan Ho and gave the residents there even more cause to get angry by unleashing tear gas onto the area.  

Amazingly, even though one increasingly gets the sense that the police can't kill us all but wish they could, there still was protesters determined to resist out on the streets of Hong Kong beyond Sai Wan Ho today -- and, frankly, so much of it that it's well nigh impossible to mention them all in a single post.  As an example though, the Central Business District once again saw lunchtime protests by area office workers this afternoon.

This time around, however, the police decided to tear gas even those protesters.  Even more of a shock was riot police invading several university campuses and clashing with students there; with still more tear gas being fired and arrests made on the campuses and/or vicinity of the University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. 

Late into the night, the protests are continuing and so too the clashes.  To put it mildly, Hong Kongers remain very angry and defiant as well as distraught.  For Hong Kong has fallen further along the deepening cycle of violence than many of us could ever have imagined just a few short weeks or months ago; with the likes of the evening of the peaceful Hong Kong Way feeling like an eternity ago, never mind those days before Carrie Lam decided to go about proposing an extradition bill that has brought millions of people out on the streets and, sadly, way more violence than we ever wanted to see too.   

An eventful Friday night followed by an unexpectedly peaceful Saturday

One of the many Lennon Walls still up in Hong Kong

on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

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!    

Hong Kong mourns again

 

"Rest on the other shore and wait for our good news.”

Back on June 15th, Hong Kong's most unpopular Chief Executive in its short history as a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China announced the suspension, but not withdrawal, of the hated extradition bill whose very proposal sparked off the months and months of unrest that Hong Kong has been beset by.  That same day (which happened to be the day before the largest ever protest march Hong Kong has ever seen), a 35-year-old protester plunged to his death at Admiralty -- and while it is not certain to this day if his death was accidental or a suicide, it is commonly accepted that he gave his life to the anti-extradition bill cause.

Amidst the reports of "the first anti-government protester death in Hong Kong", there were those who tried to suggest ways to write about it in ways that didn't make it sound like more anti-government protester deaths would be inevitable.  The longer the protests have gone on though, the sad fact of the matter is that other protester losses of life have become reality; with a number of (other) suicides coming amidst a noticeable growing mental health crisis in the territory.

At some point during the summer though, the fear of more protester suicides was supplanted by the fear as well as suspicion that the Hong Kong police had killed people and were disguising some of these deaths in the form of suicides.  This was tied to the events that took place at Prince Edward MTR station on the night of August 31st (where it has come to be believed by many that deaths occured but have been covered up), and also the goings-on at San Uk Ling Holding Centre (from which have filtered out reports of detainees having been sexually abused and physically tortured in other ways). 

Then, after people started getting shot by police officers -- initially by bean bag rounds and rubber bullets, then by actual live rounds on Communist China's 70th birthday -- came fears that protesters (the vast majority of whom are unarmed) would be killed by the police.  Considering the amount of protesting that has been done in the past five months or so, it is a miracle of sorts that it has not happened until now.  Sadly, however, that "lucky" streak ended today: with the death this morning of Alex Chow Tsz-lok, a 22-year-old university student who died from injuries sustained on Monday night after he fell from height during a police clearance operation in Tseung Kwan O.

The continued uncertainty over what caused him to fall -- with an early suggestion being that he was running away from tear gas fired by riot police being joined later by a suggestion that he had been trying to escape from pursuing riot police -- as well as accounts of the police having delayed the ambulance for him for up to 30 minutes absolutely do not help the situation.  But the probability is low indeed that any proper investigation will be conducted into the circumstances of Alex Chow's fall even though many observers are agreed that it should be carried out. 

Already this afternoon, protests have erupted in various parts of the territory in mourning of his death.  I fully expect this weekend to be similarly, if not more, protest-filled; with the spontaneity and emotional intensity of today's protests reminiscent of those that took place in the aftermath of the announcement of the Face Covering Regulation which caused a further escalation of protests and violence, the reverberations of which have continued into this month and week.  

Continued resistance on Guy Fawkes Night partly fueled by dramatic events that took place two nights ago

Passing by a Lennon Wall at Tai Koo this past September

Remember, remember the Fifth of November, and resist!

In my previous blog post, written on Sunday night, I wrote of protests and riot police invasions in a number of shopping malls around Hong Kong having taken place that evening and expressed my hope that the local constabulary wouldn't fire tear gas into those enclosed spaces.  While that mercifully did not happen, that doesn't mean that there was no tear gas shot at all that evening -- with the police having filled the air of Tai Koo (as a departing "present" to the area whose resident had  made it patently clear that they were not welcome) and Tseung Kwan O that evening with what appears to be their favorite "non-lethal" weapon of choice.   

And that's not the worst thing that happened on a drama-filled night that, come daybreak, saw 17 people admitted to hospital, two of whom were in critical condition.  Of the two people whose conditions were adjudged to be critical, one was among the five people attacked by a knife-wielding Putonghua speaker in Tai Koo's City Plaza -- one of whom, District Councilor Andrew Chiu, had part of his ear bitten off by the attacker. The other is a Hong Kong University of Science and Technology student who was seriously injured after falling from the third to the second floor of a car park in Tseung Kwan O, reportedly while trying to escape tear gas fired by riot police.

I've seen photos of the attack in Tai Koo and its aftermath, and they are seriously terrible.  Sadly, they are not the most horrifying visuals I've seen from that night -- with that "prize" going to those showing a young man under police arrest in Tseung Kwan O who was hit with batons until his whole head was covered in blood and who, it has emerged, had been attacked by police officers after he had sought to aid the critically injured student who the police appear to have delayed ambulance access to for 30 minutes.

According to at least one report, the prognosis for the critically injured student is really not good.  There is speculation that he is currently being kept alive only by way of machines, and for fear that his death will inflame protesters still further.  On the one month anniversary of the implementaition of the Face Covering Regulation, which also happens to be Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night, it's not like anti-government/police Hong Kongers need a further reason to protest -- but what happened to him on Sunday night has indeed been cited as to why at least some of the people have gone out onto the streets once more tonight.

With the Hong Kong police intent on denying people their freedom of assembly, one just knew that there would be a police reaction to tonight's protest actions.  In Tsim Sha Tsui, a water cannon was deployed and further arrests made.  (The number of protest-related arrests have increased exponentially by the month; with October having seen almost double the number of September's, and more on the first three days of November than in the entire month of July.)  And, all too predictably, still more tear gas has been fired in Tseung Kwan O, the part of Hong Kong where a young man reportedly seeking to flee from tear gas sustained injuries so serious that there is genuine fear that he is not going to last the night.  

On the 22nd consecutive weekend of protests and unrests in Hong Kong

Riot police by a playground and in front of a public toilet

by Victoria Park yesterday afternoon

More riot police in Causeway Bay yesterday -- 

these ones blocking off a main road

 Still more riot police -- these ones prowling 

the side streets and alleys of Wan Chai

As I write this blog, reports are appearing on Twitter of riot police having invaded and threatened people in shopping malls in various parts of Hong Kong with pepper spray, arrests and more.  Among the shopping centers that have seen riot police invasions to quell protests taking place within them this evening has been New Town Plaza, the upscale Sha Tin mall that was the first to experience what has sadly becoming common Hong Kong riot police practice in recent months. 

Let's hope that no tear gas ends up getting fired by the police in any of the malls tonight.  In view of tear gas having been shot off near the Peninsula and then entering its lobby last Sunday, fired into a residential block of a public housing estate in Tuen Mun on Wednesday, fired outside the Landmark and Lan Kwai Fong on Halloween night, and tear gas buffets having been served up in front of Fook Lum Moon (aka "The tycoons' canteen") and other parts of Wan Chai and also inside Victoria Park, the venue of a legal election assembly, yesterday though, I really wouldn't be surprised if the local constabulary decided to also shoot tear gas in these spaces.  

The distinct impression one gets is that the police are running riot seeking to suppress even peaceful protests, and regardless of whether they are legal or not.  A case in point: the assembly at Victoria Park yesterday afternoon was a legal event held by over 100 District Council Election candidates.  But the police treated the people going to it and leaving it like they were criminals -- or, at the very least, criminal suspects -- and actively hindered for those of us seeking to make our way on foot from Victoria Park to Central, where two protest rallies -- both of them granted Letters of No Objection earlier in the week by the authorities -- were scheduled to take place later that afternoon. 

As people sought to "be water" and flow in a variety of directions westwards towards Central, a helicopter hovered overhead to presumably track the flows and direct riot police in their hunts for people to arrest.  After smelling tear gas more strongly in Wan Chai than we had in Causeway Bay and additionally detecting quite a bit of panic in the air, my friends and I decided to take temporary refuge in the apartment of a friend who lives in the area.  

Watching the developing news -- quite a bit of which was actually taking place a stone's throw from the apartment -- on TV where we were holed up, we learnt that the two previously approved events in Central that we had been trying to get to had been cancelled within minutes of their commencing.  We also saw one of their three water cannons (which sprayed water with chemicals designed to irritate mixed into it) getting employed by the police and multiple arrests -- with many of the arrestees being young females -- being made, more often than not in a far more brutal manner than really should have been necessary. 

More than incidentally, the police look to have returned to employing pepper sprays in recent weeks too along with pepper rounds.  All in all, the general impression is that the local constabulary have once again decided to escalate the violence -- contrary to a idiotic South China Morning Post headline that I saw today (but won't link to), violence tends to descend on Hong Kong streets because, not despite, stronger police tactics -- and not only increase their aggression and disproportionate use of force but also restrict Hong Kongers' exercising of the freedoms that supposedly are guaranteed in the Basic Law (see Article 27 in particular).        

On my way home after darkness fell, I passed by the damaged building of Xinhua (China's official news agency) -- which surely would not have been damaged if radical protesters had not found their way to Central blocked and ended up diverting to that part of Causeway Bay which protest marches usually don't go through.  I also passed through sections of town where tear gas still lingered in the air and clashes were still taking place; a state of affairs that I really don't want to get used to even while no longer becoming that unexpected. 

And while Victoria Park was quiet when I returned there around midnight, the fact of the matter is that Hong Kong remains a place where few people truly feel at peace and calm these days as well as nights; this on the 22nd weekend of protests which began in earnest with a peaceful 1 million person anti-extradition bill protest march back on June 9th that Carrie Lam so very foolishly as well as sadly chose to discount, and whose end doesn't look likely without Beijing as well as the Hong Kong administration recognizing that the demands being made by the protesters most certainly have validity.