HONG KONG—Police made dozens of arrests late Sunday as clashes with protesters fanned across the city, cracking down hard on antigovernment demonstrators who defied warnings from Beijing and took to the streets for a 10th consecutive weekend.
In a shift of tactics, police in riot gear charged groups in several districts: In one subway station, they used batons to beat protesters who were running away and pinned several to the ground; in another, snatch squads grabbed protesters from the streets; barrages of tear gas and rubber bullets were fired in another clash outside a police station.
Thousands of angry citizens, many dressed in shorts and flip flops, poured onto the streets of two districts where police made arrests, chanting “mafia” at police officers. Some were inflamed after video footage circulating on social media showed police officers had ambushed some demonstrators after posing undercover as protesters.
The few hours of violence came after Beijing officials last week said they strongly supported the actions of Hong Kong police in trying to end the chaos, and asked patriotic citizens in the city to stand up against protesters as well. On Friday, the city’s police force brought back a retired senior officer who handled earlier protests in 2014 and 2016 to oversee operations.
The fluid nature of the increasingly violent protests has presented a challenge for authorities and residents, with demonstrators stretching police resources by using the subway to hop between districts. Late Sunday afternoon, thousands of protesters descended on tourist destinations and residential neighborhoods alike, building metal barricades and some throwing bricks and what police identified as smoke bombs.
Police said an officer was hospitalized with burns to his legs after being hit by a Molotov cocktail hurled by a protester.
The scenes contrasted with several other protests over the weekend, including a three-day peaceful sit-in at the airport, and marches on Saturday attended by elderly people and families who chanted against the government.
The protests this summer reflect an outpouring of public anger at Hong Kong’s government, sparked by an extradition bill that would allow those in the city to be tried under mainland China’s opaque legal system. The Hong Kong government eventually shelved the bill, declaring it “dead,” but hasn’t formally withdrawn it.
The protest movement has maintained its momentum—fueled by frustrations with the government’s handling of the situation, allegations that police have used excessive force while dispersing protesters and demands for democratic overhauls—even as Beijing has signaled its growing intolerance for the dissent and local authorities have said the protracted tensions could plunge the city in a recession.
On Sunday, officers appeared to change their tactics somewhat, in some cases shooting tear gas from police stations at demonstrators gathered nearby, then charging out to make arrests.
“Before, the police would try to disperse us, now they are rounding us up,” said one protester, a teacher who would only give his name as Desmond. He said the police now wait for a while before suddenly firing multiple tear-gas rounds, with elite officers known as raptors immediately charging toward protesters.
In the Wan Chai area of Hong Kong island, lined with open-front bars and near the main police headquarters, there was little out of the ordinary at 5 p.m. Sunday, with patrons enjoying drinks. An hour later, protesters arrived and began building barricades and waving lasers at police. Soon, riot police fired multiple volleys of tear gas. Bars closed and hotels lowered their shutters, keeping guests inside for their safety. By 8:30 p.m., things were back to normal.
Across the harbor, a group of protesters hurled bricks at a police station in the tourist hub of Tsim Sha Tsui. Live footage showed at least one fiery projectile that appeared to be a Molotov cocktail bursting into flames. Police later drove demonstrators back and made at least 10 arrests of mostly young protesters dressed in black. It was during that confrontation that the woman sustained the head wound.
Clashes had been expected in North Point, an area populated with immigrants from Fujian province in southeast China and the site of a clash between protesters and stick-waving men a week before. On Saturday, representatives of the Fujian group held a rally and vowed to protect their adopted home. Chanting slogans in both Mandarin and Cantonese supporting the chief executive and the police, they said the violence needed to be stopped and chaos should end.
On Sunday, police officers and reporters gathered around a group of men in red T-shirts who said they were from Fujian. Around 8 p.m. in North Point, video footage from local news outlets showed a group of men, some of them wearing red T-shirts, kicking and punching a young man in black who was sitting on the ground.
But by 9 p.m. the masses of protesters still hadn’t shown up to North Point. On the messaging app Telegram, protesters asked each other to avoid the area, calling it a trap.
As they had done Saturday, protesters Sunday spontaneously crowded around the entrance of a cross-harbor tunnel, letting vehicles go without paying toll fees. They appeared to have adopted suggestions from the chat groups frequented by protesters, after the blocking of a tunnel last on Monday annoyed other citizens.
The huge crowds of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators at the start of the summer have given way to smaller groups of mobile protests using more aggressive tactics, such as lighting fires on roads and hurling objects toward police.
Police said Sunday that they arrested 16 people the day before, on charges including unlawful assembly. Hong Kong’s police said they have made nearly 600 arrests and fired more than 1,800 rounds of tear gas and at least 160 rubber bullets since the protests began two months before.
Kitty Chan, who has run a flower business in the Wan Chai market for the past four decades, prepared to close for the day slightly earlier than usual. She said the usually busy street was almost empty because of the confrontation between protesters and the police, which was only one block away from her stall.
“It has affected my business to some extent without a doubt,” said Ms. Chan, adding that while she had empathy for both sides she’s had enough of the expanding demonstrations. “I just hope everybody could use less violence.”
—John Lyons and Jon Emont contributed to this article.
Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com, Wenxin Fan at Wenxin.Fan@wsj.com and Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com
Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-protesters-battle-police-despite-beijings-warnings-11565525679
2019-08-11 15:51:00Z
52780348336869
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar