Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests

Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters clashed with riot police in the city's upmarket business district and on university campuses Tuesday, extending one of the most violent stretches of unrest seen in more than five months of political chaos.

The confrontations followed a particularly brutal day on Monday, when police shot a protester and a man was set on fire, prompting calls from western powers for compromise but further fury in China against the challenge to its rule.

"Hong Kong's rule of law has been pushed to the brink of total collapse," police spokesman Kong Wing-cheung told a press conference on Tuesday afternoon as he denounced the latest rounds of violence. -- Agence France-Presse

Hong Kong democracy activist injured in knife attack

HONG KONG, China — 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.

Local media images showed the man had been severely injured, with his inner organs visible where his abdomen had been cut in the afternoon incident in northeastern Tai Po district.

Footage posted on social media showed another man holding a knife shortly after the attack and shouting: "Hong Kong is part of China... (You) messed up Hong Kong".

Police confirmed a 22-year-old man had been arrested as well as giving the age of the victim, who was conscious when he was rushed to hospital for surgery.


"The man suddenly rushed to my friend and slashed (him) in the neck. Then my friend ran away towards this direction. After that he fell down and was stabbed in the abdomen with a knife," an associate of the injured man told media at the scene.

Plastered in colourful sticky-notes, posters and slogans, "Lennon Walls" have appeared in more than a hundred locations around Hong Kong, often in pedestrian tunnels or near subway stations.

Though the walls are seen as a peaceful protest method, they have also become flashpoints for violence.

In recent months, fights have broken out when groups of men who support the Hong Kong government have tried to tear the posters down, or between people with different political views.

On Wednesday Jimmy Sham -- a leading face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement -- was taken to hospital covered in blood after being attacked with hammers by unidentified thugs.

The Civil Human Rights Front, which Sham leads, had applied for permission to hold a peaceful rally on Sunday calling for an independent inquiry into police brutality and universal suffrage, but their request was rejected by the police.

However the march is still expected to take place despite the ban.

Hong Kong's more than four months of huge and increasingly violent protests were initially sparked by a now-scrapped bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.

They have since snowballed into a wider movement calling for greater democracy and police accountability after Beijing and local leaders took a hard line.

Multiple pro-democracy activists have been attacked by pro-Beijing supporters in recent months, and Sham was also assaulted in August.

As the violence has escalated, hardcore pro-democracy protesters have also begun meting out their own street justice, beating people who vocally disagree with their goals or are viewed to be government loyalists.

source: philstar.com

Clashes after peaceful crowd takes Hong Kong message to US consulate

HONG KONG, China — Pro-democracy activists jammed Hong Kong streets in a march to the United States consulate on Sunday in a bid to ramp up international pressure on Beijing, but hardcore protesters later clashed with riot police across the city's core.

Millions have demonstrated over the last 14 weeks in the biggest challenge to China's rule since the city's handover from Britain in 1997.

The protests were lit by a now-scrapped plan to allow extraditions to the authoritarian mainland, seen by opponents as the latest move by China to chip away at the international finance hub's unique freedoms.

But after Beijing and city leaders took a hard line the movement snowballed into a broader campaign calling for greater democracy, police accountability and an amnesty for those arrested.

Sunday's protest featured another massive turnout for a movement that has gripped the semi-autonomous territory and plunged it into a political crisis.

Dense crowds of protesters spent hours slowly filing past Washington's consulate in the thick tropical heat. Many waved US flags, some sang the Star Spangled Banner, and others held signs calling on President Donald Trump to "liberate" Hong Kong.

In chants and speeches they called on the US to pressure Beijing to meet their demands and for Congress to pass a recently proposed bill that expresses support for the protest.

"More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested. We can't do anything but come out onto the streets. I feel hopeless," 30-year-old protester Jenny Chan, told AFP.

"I think aside from foreign countries, no one can really help us," she added.

In what has become a now familiar pattern, the main daytime rally passed off peacefully.

But as evening set in, riot police chased groups of hardcore protesters who blocked roads, vandalised nearby subway stations and set makeshift barricades on fire.

One fire burned at an entrance to the subway in the corporate district of Central, where a protester also smashed the station's exterior glass.

In the shopping area of Causeway Bay, officers fired tear gas outside another subway station.

Paramedics took away on a stretcher a man who collapsed after inhaling the gas, and police detained suspected protesters inside that station.

Beijing riled by criticism

Hong Kong is a major international business hub thanks to freedoms unheard of on the mainland under a 50-year deal signed between China and Britain.

But Beijing balks at any criticism from foreign governments over its handling of the city, which it insists is a purely internal issue.

Authorities and state media have portrayed the protests as a separatist movement backed by foreign "black hands", primarily aiming their ire at the US and Britain.

While some American politicians on both sides of the aisle have expressed support for the democratic goals of the protesters, the Trump administration has maintained a more hands-off approach while it fights a trade war with China.

Trump has called for a peaceful resolution to the political crisis and urged China against escalating with a violent crackdown.

But he has also said it is up to Beijing to handle the protests.

Washington has rejected China's allegations that it is backing the demonstrators and Beijing has shown little evidence to back its claims beyond supportive statements from some politicians.

The protests show no signs of abating, and the city's unelected pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam has struck an uncompromising tone for much of the last three months.

On Wednesday, she made a surprise concession, announcing the full withdrawal of the proposed extradition bill which sparked the demonstrations.

Protesters across the spectrum dismissed the gesture as too little, too late, saying their movement would only end once the remainder of their core demands were met.

"Our government continuously takes away our freedoms and that's why people are coming out," a 30-year-old protester in a wheelchair who gave his surname as Ho told AFP on Sunday.

Analysts say it is difficult to predict what Beijing's next move might be.

Under president Xi Jinping, China has become increasingly authoritarian and dissent is being stamped out with renewed ferocity.

source: philstar.com

Young, educated and furious: A survey of Hong Kong's protesters

HONG KONG, China — The vast majority of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters are university-educated, almost half are in their twenties and nearly everyone loathes the police, according to an academic survey that sheds new light on the movement.

Ten weeks of demonstrations in the financial hub have seen millions of people take to the streets, increasingly violent clashes breakout between hardcore protesters and police and, more recently, flights grounded at the airport.

The rallies that began in opposition to a bill allowing extraditions to mainland China have morphed into a broader bid to reverse a slide in democratic freedoms.

Researchers from four of the city's universities surveyed participants across 12 protests—including mass rallies and "fluid" and "static" demonstrations—between June 9 and August 4 and found 54 percent were male and 46 percent were female.

Overall, 77 percent of the 6,688 respondents said they had a tertiary (higher) education, with 21 percent saying they had a secondary (high school) education.


The 20-29 age bracket was the most represented with 49 percent, compared to 11 percent under 20 and 19 percent aged between 30 and 39. Sixteen percent were 40 and above.

Exactly half (50 percent) considered themselves to be middle class, while 41 percent said they were "grassroots".

When asked why they were demonstrating, 87 percent said they wanted the extradition bill to be withdrawn, 95 percent expressed dissatisfaction with police's handling of the protests and 92 percent called for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry.

The survey, called 'Onsite Survey Findings in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Bill Protests' was published on August 12 and led by researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lingnan University, the Hang Seng University of HongKong and Hong Kong Baptist University.

source: philstar.com

Protesters control key roads after historic Hong Kong rally

HONG KONG, China — Holdout anti-government protesters remained in control of a major arterial road in Hong Kong on Monday a day after organizers said two million people flooded the streets in a historic rebuke of the city's pro-Beijing leader.

Vast crowds marched for hours in tropical heat on Sunday calling for the resignation of chief executive Carrie Lam, who has been forced to suspend a widely loathed bill that would have allowed extraditions to the Chinese mainland.

Critics fear the Beijing-backed law will entangle people in China's notoriously opaque and politicized courts and damage the city's reputation as a safe business hub.

Throngs of largely black-clad protesters snaked their way for miles through the streets to the city's parliament—with the organizers' estimate for the crowd size doubling an already record-breaking demonstration the previous Sunday in the city of 7.3 million.

The estimate has not been independently verified but if confirmed it would be the largest demonstration in Hong Kong's history.

Police, who historically give far lower estimates for political protests, said 338,000 people turned out at the demonstration's "peak" Sunday.

By Monday morning the crowds had dramatically dropped to just a few hundred largely young protesters occupying a major highway outside the city's parliament and some nearby streets.

Small lines of police, who had virtually disappeared the night before, were pleading with the protesters to go home but made no attempt to force them on.

Public rage

Opposition to the extradition bill has united an unusually wide cross-section of Hong Kong in recent weeks, from influential legal and business bodies to religious leaders.

And while the spark for the last week of protests has been the extradition bill, the movement has since morphed into the latest expression of public rage against both the city's leaders and Beijing.

Many Hong Kongers believe China's leaders are stamping down on the financial hub's unique freedoms and culture.

They point to the huge 2014 pro-democracy "Umbrella Movement" that failed to win any concessions, the imprisonment of protest leaders, the disqualification of popular lawmakers and the disappearance of Beijing-critical booksellers, as recent examples.

In recent years, the city's pro-Beijing leaders have successfully resisted bowing to pressure from large street protests led by the city's pro-democracy activists.

But the sheer size of the last week's crowds, and unprecedented violent clashes on Wednesday, has forced Lam into a major climbdown.

On Saturday she indefinitely suspended the unpopular extradition bill and apologised a day later for the attempt causing "conflict and disputes".

But the U-turn has done little to mollify protesters.

The Civil Human Rights Front, which is organizing the rallies, has called on Lam to resign, shelve the bill permanently and apologise for police using tear gas and rubber bullets on Wednesday. They have also demanded all charges be dropped against anyone arrested.

The violent crowd control measures on Wednesday, used by police as protesters tried to storm the city's parliament to stop the bill being debated, have proved enormously costly for Lam's government.

Political allies—and even Beijing—distanced themselves from her as public anger mounted.

"I think she has lost any remaining credibility or legitimacy to rule in Hong Kong because of her own mishandling of this whole affair," Charles Mok, a lawmaker, told RTHK Radio.

Joshua Wong to walk free

The massive rallies—which come 30 years after the Tiananmen crackdown—also create a huge headache for president Xi Jinping, the most authoritarian Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.

Under the 1997 handover deal signed with Britain, China agreed to allow Hong Kong to keep unique liberties such as freedom of speech and its hugely successful independent common law courts for 50 years.

But the huge crowds this week illustrate how many Hong Kong's 7.3 million inhabitants believe China is already reneging on that deal and fear further sliding freedoms as the city hurtles towards that 2047 deadline.

Protest leaders have called for a strike on Monday and renewed demonstrations.

One of the city's most prominent protest leaders is due to be released from prison later on Monday morning.

Joshua Wong, who became the poster child of the 2014 "Umbrella Movement" protests, will walk free at 10:30 am (0230 GMT), his political party said.

Wong, 22, was jailed in May for two months on a contempt charge after pleading guilty to obstructing the clearance of a major protest camp back in 2014.

It was not clear whether his early release was a gesture from the authorities or procedure.

A release on Monday would mean he will have served exactly half his sentence, a common policy in Hong Kong for prisoners who exhibit good behaviour.

Chinese state media remained largely silent about Sunday's historic rally, with social platforms scrubbed clean of any pictures or mentions of the rally.

source: philstar.com

1 dead in 'civilian-on-civilian' shooting as unrest flares anew in US city over police violence

CHARLOTTE -- A protester in Charlotte, North Carolina was fatally shot by a civilian Wednesday during a second night of unrest after the police killed a black man, officials said.

"Fatal shot uptown was civilian on civilian," the southern US city said in a statement on Twitter. "@CMPD did not fire shot," it added, referring to the police.

Several hundred people taunted riot police in front of a hotel in the city center, during which a man fell to the ground. Witnesses said police brought him into the hotel after he fell, leaving blood on the sidewalk.

Some protesters banged on glass windows, others threw objects at police and stood on cars as police appeared to fire tear gas, prompting demonstrators to run.

"We are calling for peace, we are calling for calm, we are calling for dialogue," Mayor Jennifer Roberts said earlier in the day. "We all see this as a tragedy."

Keith Lamont Scott, 43, was shot dead in an apartment complex parking lot on Tuesday after an encounter with officers searching for a suspect wanted for arrest.

The authorities said 16 officers and several demonstrators were injured in clashes overnight Tuesday following Scott's death, the latest in a string of police-involved killings of black men that have fueled outrage across the United States.

Earlier on Wednesday, presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton weighed in on the violence in Charlotte, which came on the heels of another fatal police shooting of a black man, Terence Crutcher, on Friday in Tulsa.

"Keith Lamont Scott. Terence Crutcher. Too many others. This has got to end. -H," tweeted Democrat Clinton, signing the post herself.

After calling to "make America safe again" in a tweet, Trump suggested later Wednesday that the Tulsa officer who shot Crutcher had "choked."

"I don't know what she was thinking," the Republican said, speaking at an African-American church in Cleveland, Ohio.

Divergent accounts

The Charlotte shooting took place at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT) Tuesday as officers searching for a suspect arrived in the parking lot of an apartment complex.

They spotted a man with a handgun -- later identified as Scott -- exit and then reenter a vehicle, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Kerr Putney told journalists.

Officers approached the man and loudly commanded him to get out and drop the weapon, at which point Scott exited the vehicle armed, according to police.

"He stepped out, posing a threat to the officers, and officer Brentley Vinson subsequently fired his weapon, striking the subject," the police chief said.

However, Putney added that he did not know whether Scott "definitively pointed the weapon specifically toward an officer."

Carrying a firearm is legal under local "open carry" gun laws.

Scott's relatives told local media that he was waiting for his young son at school bus stop when police arrived. He was not carrying a gun but a book when he was shot dead, they said -- an account police disputed.

"I can tell you a weapon was seized. A handgun," Putney said. "I can also tell you we did not find a book that has been made reference to."

Protests turn violent

Anger was simmering in Charlotte, especially over the police chief's assertion that Scott had been armed.

"It's a lie," said Taheshia Williams, whose daughter attends school with the victim's son. "They took the book and replaced it with a gun."

On Wednesday afternoon, 100 students, mostly African-American, participated in a "lay-in" protesting police brutality, singing gospel songs.

"I do this for hope," one protester called out. "I do this because I'm tired of being silent," another said.

One man held a sign reading "Legalize being black."

Protests had swelled Tuesday evening as news of the shooting spread, with demonstrators carrying signs that read "Black Lives Matter" and chanting "No justice, no peace!"

Putney said the situation turned violent, with "agitators" damaging police vehicles and throwing rocks at officers.

Riot control police were deployed and used tear gas to disperse the crowd, Putney said.

A group of protesters nevertheless marched to a major highway early Wednesday, shutting down traffic in both directions. They broke into the back of truck and set goods on fire, according to police.

Series of shootings

A string of fatal police shootings -- from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to St. Paul, Minnesota -- has left many Americans demanding law enforcement reforms and greater accountability.

In the southern state of Oklahoma, Tulsa police chief Chuck Jordan called video footage of Crutcher's deadly shooting on Friday disturbing and "very difficult to watch."

The 40-year-old is seen with his hands up, appearing to comply with police officers before he is shot once by officer Betty Shelby and falls to the ground. Another officer fires his stun gun.

The US Department of Justice said Monday it would conduct a federal civil rights probe into the Tulsa shooting, parallel to an investigation being carried out by local authorities.

source: interaksyon.com

Hong Kong votes in first election since democracy protests

Hong Kong, China - Hong Kong went to the polls Sunday for the first time since huge pro-democracy protests gripped the city, in a key test of public sentiment.

The spotlight is on the district elections to gauge whether support for the democracy movement can translate into votes and bring change to the political landscape.

Hong Kong is semi-autonomous after being handed back by Britain to China in 1997, but there are fears that Beijing's influence is growing.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets for more than two months at the end of last year demanding fully free elections for the city's next leader, in what became known as the "Umbrella Movement".

The rallies were sparked after Beijing insisted candidates for the first public vote for Hong Kong's leader in 2017 would first have to be vetted by a loyalist committee.

Motivated by democracy movement
Some voters said the democracy movement had motivated them to cast their ballot.

"It's the little power we have," said 28-year-old administrator Kris Fong, voting in the northern district of Yuen Long.

Fong said she had chosen a pro-democracy candidate because she felt the city was being "manipulated" by Beijing. She had missed previous elections but said voting this year was more important.

"After last year's umbrella revolution I feel that, however insignificant our vote might be, it's our only legitimate way to tell the people... up north what we are thinking," said Fong, referring to powers in Beijing.

Student leader Joshua Wong, 19, the teenage face of the democracy movement, was eligible to vote for the first time.

"I finally cast the first vote of my life," he said in a Tweet.

"Feeling exhilarated."

Just over 3.1 million residents are registered, with a 21 percent turnout by early afternoon.

The figure was slightly higher than at the same stage four years ago. Turnout at the end of the 2011 vote totaled 41 percent.

Polls close at 10:30 p.m. (1430 GMT) and results are expected in the early hours of the morning.

Umbrella activists
Despite galvanizing widespread support at the beginning of the mass street protests, democracy activists were unable to win concessions on political reform from the authorities in China or Hong Kong.

The movement has since splintered and Sunday's vote sees the new generation of democrats stand against the old guard in some seats.

The younger candidates, many of whom cut their teeth during last year's mass rallies, have been dubbed "Umbrella Soldiers" by local media.

The umbrella became symbol of the movement as protesters used them to shield against the elements, and to protect against pepper spray and tear gas fired by police.

"The younger democrats are testing their strength," Sonny Lo, professor of social sciences at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, told AFP.

"All eyes are on whether the umbrella activists can win at least a few seats... their performance will point to a real generational change," Lo said.

There are 431 representatives for the 18 district councils -- currently pro-establishment parties hold a majority in every council.

Force for stability
Pro-government candidates are casting themselves as a force for stability.

Meanwhile, democrats are trying to overcome a sense of hopelessness since the failure of the movement to force reform.

Analysts say it is unlikely the democrats will significantly increase their seats, outgunned by the well-funded and better organized pro-government camp.

But young activists say making a stand is an important first step, even if they lose.

For some voters, however, local daily-life issues outweigh politics.

"I have no political affiliation as long as the person serves the public well in the district," said Matthew Mok, 76, a retired teacher voting in Tuen Mun district.

"I would vote for anyone, whether pro-Beijing or pro-democracy. Having competition is key."

source: interaksyon.com